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There’s no doubt that Draymond Green can be a bit animated at times on the court. He’s a spirited and fiery competitor, and throughout his career, there have been plenty of times where’s allowed his emotions to get the better of him, sometimes at the detriment to his team.

But players like Green also develop something of a reputation, which can lead to being unfairly maligned on the part of the officials, some of whom can be more sensitive to his antics and quicker to pull the trigger on a technical foul. Case in point: his ejection this week for yelling at his own teammate, James Wiseman, this week during a game against the Knicks.

It was his second tech of the game, thus triggering an automatic ejection. Green has since asked for clarity on the matter, and it appears the NBA was listening, as they officially rescinded his second technical on Friday.

The NBA is rescinding the second technical foul on Warriors forward Draymond Green last night vs. New York, which forced him to be ejected late in the first half, the league tells me and @anthonyVslater.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) January 22, 2021

For a player like Green, who has been known to accumulate technical fouls, every little bit helps, as a smaller total number can help prevent potentially damaging suspensions later, as it did during the 2016 Finals. The Warriors might not currently appear destined for a deep playoff run this season, but regardless, credit to the league for getting this one right.

NBC Sports routinely garners the highest NFL ratings of the season on its tentpole channel, but the dedicated sports network that bears its name will reportedly end in 2021.

John Ourand of Sports Business Journal reported on Friday that NBC plans to shutter NBC Sports Network, a huge move in the sports world that would see several sports leagues broadcast elsewhere among the company’s network of channels. The network, which began its life as a sports channel billed as Outdoor Life Network when NBC started broadcasting NHL games on it, had grown to cover a variety of sports including the English Premiere League, college basketball and NASCAR.

But Friday word rocked the sports world that the network would soon be no more, leaving uncertainty about where those broadcasts would be shown instead and what would happen to the broadcast teams viewers grew to expect covering them.

Further reporting brought things more into focus: NBCSN would shutter, with broadcasts for the NHL, NASCAR and others moving to USA.

The fear from many about NBC shuffling things around is that they would shelter more sports content on Peacock, the streaming service that has already taken many English Premiere League soccer matches away from broadcast television since it launched. But putting sports on USA isn’t new, either: Olympics coverage would often wind up on the network as well as some EPL matches on big days, and overflow sports broadcasts would also end up there if games in progress did not end in time.

Still, it’s a troubling move for sports fans and those in the sports entertainment industry, and there’s now plenty of uncertainty about big contracts with leagues like the NHL and NASCAR moving forward. And as other companies make strategic decisions with the growth of their streaming services in mind, it’s hard not to frame the decision to shutter NBCSN as more of the same.

Phoebe Bridgers’ career has been on an upward trend since the very start. She has become more and more beloved with each project she releases, and this year, she earned her first Grammy nominations. Now she is set to do something else that very few artists get to put on their resume: Bridgers will be a musical guest on an upcoming episode of Saturday Night Live.

After being on break since mid-December, SNL returns with new episodes starting at the end of this month, and they’re bringing some firepower with them. The January 30 episode will be hosted by John Krasinsky with musical guest Machine Gun Kelly, while the February 6 episode will feature Dan Levy and Bridgers and the February 13 episode will see Regina King and Nathaniel Rateliff. None of the hosts have hosted the show before and none of the musical guests have previously appeared on the program in that capacity either.

Bridgers reacted to the news with a two-image post on Instagram: The first is of the cards SNL shared, and the second is a blurry, close-up photo of Bridgers smiling with eye make-up running down her cheeks.

Here’s hoping that Bridgers can find her way into a sketch as well. She often shows off her strong sense of humor and she has a bit of sketch experience, like with the one she and Conor Oberst did for Conan about a year ago.

The most impactful moment coming out of last weekend’s NFL Divisional Round was Patrick Mahomes crumpling to the ground after a dangerous running play as he scurried to get a first round for the Chiefs, and it led to a day-by-day tick tock of news from NFL reporters about Mahomes’ status for Sunday’s AFC Championship Game.

The wait is over, as Mahomes told reporters on a media call Friday that he has cleared the NFL concussion protocol and will be active against the Buffalo Bills on Sunday.

While the hit appeared quite hard and Mahomes certainly got up in a daze and had trouble standing afterward, he and the team have been diligent about clearing all the right steps throughout this process. Even after announcing he would be good to go this week, Mahomes denied credit for any “grit” related to playing this week, and focused on the fact that he had been medically cleared.

Of course, this is huge news for Kansas City as well. Their chances against Buffalo get a huge boost with Mahomes behind center rather than Chad Henne. The Chiefs are favored by somewhere in the neighborhood of three points on the betting markets. The AFC Championship game will kick off at 6:40 p.m. ET on Sunday in Kansas City.

The Nets really need a center to play defense around their new Big Three, and reportedly will sign former Sixers backup Norvel Pelle as one option to fill that hole, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.

This move is directly related to the trade that brought James Harden to town. As part of that deal, the Nets sent Jarrett Allen, who had started to get minutes in the starting lineup and looked to be a potential major contributor to this team’s success, to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

That forced veteran DeAndre Jordan into a huge role as effectively the only traditional center on the roster, and while he’s played fine over the first few games of this new era, it wasn’t tenable to move forward with only him in that spot. As just one illustration of the problem, nearly every rotation player for the Nets played 40-plus minutes in an overtime game against Cleveland earlier this week.

As Joel Embiid’s backup last year in Philadelphia, Pelle played nearly 10 minutes per game and averaged more than a block per game. He was with the Sixers as recently as the Bubble. Pelle brings legit NBA size and athleticism with decent defensive instincts. He won’t be the difference between Brooklyn’s defense being passable versus championship-caliber, but he will give the Nets depth, and as Wojnarowski also noted, Brooklyn still has three more roster spots open to add players.

Pelle must clear the NBA health and safety protocol rules before officially joining the Nets.

Eminem’s love for combat sports is no secret. Anytime he can mix his music with his passion for boxing or mixed martial arts, he really goes for it. Just check out the soundtrack for Southpaw, the 2015 boxing drama inspired by him that he was originally billed to star in. He also dabbles in boxing himself, although he told Mike Tyson he wouldn’t be stepping into the ring professionally anytime soon.

With that said, he has found a way to participate in the upcoming rematch between Justin Poirier and Conor McGregor at UFC 257. Rather than taking part with his fists, he’s using the fight as a cross-promotional activity for his Music To Be Murdered By single “Higher,” premiering the video for the song during a broadcast this Saturday on ABC. To help hype up both the premiere and the fight, ESPN released a teaser announcing the video, which also features cameos from Dana White and ESPN’s Michael Eaves, according to its press release. It’ll also likely feature some fan-produced content, judging by this tweet Eminem sent earlier this week:

Em’s 2020 was better than most, as Music To Be Murdered By broke a 50-year-old Billboard record with its “Side B” deluxe version.

Watch the teaser for the “Higher” video above. You can watch the full video on ABC Saturday, 1/23 at 2 pm ET.

Season 46 of Saturday Night Live will continue with new episodes starting at the end of January. NBC announced on Friday that the sketch comedy show will return to taping on January 30, with a trio of new episodes following into February with some big names attached, at least in the streaming world.

John Krasinski will host on January 30 with Machine Gun Kelly taking the performing duties as musical guest. On February 6, Dan Levy will host, and Phoebe Bridgers will perform. The final new episodes announced is scheduled for February 13 with Regina King hosting and Nathaniel Rateliff performing in Studio 8H.

The Office alum hosting may be a bit of promotion work for A Quiet Place Part II, which was scheduled for release in 2020 but was pushed to April 2021 because of the pandemic. Levy, meanwhile, will ride his tenure as showrunner and star of Schitt’s Creek to an SNL hosting gig and King’s work directing One Night In Miami has drawn strong reviews on Amazon Prime.

The show will have, uh, certainly missed a lot during its winter break so it will be interesting to see where they go with cold opens and Weekend Update in a post-Trump presidency. The show wasn’t making new episodes during the MAGA coup attempt or Biden’s inauguration, for example, but by the time Jim from the Office takes the stage in New York, I’m sure there will be another big crisis to highlight.

A couple days ago, Garth Brooks continued his tradition of performing at presidential inaugurations by singing “Amazing Grace” during Joe Biden’s ceremony. That’s the kind of moment you want to look your best for, and Brooks apparently got some assists from Lady Gaga’s makeup artist Sarah Tanno and hairstylist Frederic Aspiras.

After the ceremony, Brooks took to Twitter to compliment Gaga and thank Tanno and Aspiras for seemingly helping him in his hour of need. Brooks wrote, “. @ladygaga, You were fabulous today and everyday. A national treasure. Please tell Frederick and Miss Sarah thank you for me! They saved a cowboy today. Oh, and tell Miss Sarah to hug her momma for me! love, g.”

None of the folks Brooks thanked have responded publicly yet, nor do we know what Tanno and Aspiras did for Brooks, but the two of them did offer some insight about Gaga’s look on Inauguration Day. Tanno took to Instagram to write of Gaga’s make-up, “Our creative process at Haus of Gaga is something we take incredibly seriously… considering every detail, each of us contribute to the whole. It is a sacred process and one that we all honor and celebrate. Here, we are making sure that we choose the perfect shade of red lipstick to compliment @ladygaga’s dress. Lined just right to contrast the bright red hue of the lip. We also made sure that the eye was balanced so the lip could take center stage. This is prior to @frecericaspiras adding the ribbon to her braids. Every detail counts. This look is timeless, romantic and vibrant just like our muse #ladygaga.”

Aspiras also explained Gaga’s hair, writing, “This Halo Braided Updo was inspired by classic beauty that is timeless, heavenly & oh so GAGA. Creating a romantic feel with a sense of pride and hope for this very special Inauguration event. Thank you @ladygaga for this opportunity to give someone like me, a son of an immigrant, the chance to change the course of other children of immigrants. There is light at the end of the tunnel. It’s not always on but if you try hard enough to look for it you will find it! My mom would’ve been so proud! I know she’s looking down from heaven with so much pride.”

In the Black Mirror episode “Be Right Back,” Hayley Atwell’s character communicates with her dead boyfriend through an AI program that used his social media profiles, texts, and videos to essentially resurrect him virtually. Like all things Black Mirror, it’s a cautionary, dystopian tale, which is why people are freaking out over news that Microsoft is developing a chatbot that will basically do everything the episode warned society about. Namely using technology to talk to the freaking dead. Via The Independent:

The patent describes creating a bot based on the “images, voice data, social media posts, electronic messages”, and more personal information.

“The specific person [who the chat bot represents] may correspond to a past or present entity (or a version thereof), such as a friend, a relative, an acquaintance, a celebrity, a fictional character, a historical figure, a random entity etc”, it goes on to say.

Once news of Microsoft’s “I Talk To Dead People” chatbot reached Twitter, the reactions started pouring in as folks scrambled to drive home the point that Black Mirror is supposed to provide a warning about the dangers of technology infecting our lives, not hand-deliver an instruction manual for tech companies to point to and say, “Ah, yes, let’s do this. The bleak, creepy thing.”

According to The Independent, the chatbot will also let users create a digital replacement of themselves in preparation for their deaths, which also raises all kinds of ethical questions. Then again, can it field phone calls from your mom? You know what? Let’s see where this goes.

(Via The Independent)

Slayyyter caught the attention of pop fans with her promising self-titled 2019 debut album. She even recently found her way onto the radar of Lady Gaga, who included Slayyyter’s “Mine” on her “Women Of Choice” playlist last year. All of that has built up to this: Today, Slayyyter has announced her second album, Troubled Paradise, which is set to drop on June 11. Also today, she shared a video for the title track, an upbeat shot of kinetic synth-pop.

Upon the release of “Self Destruct” in October, Slayyyter said of her music:

“I like doing things myself, I always have in every aspect of life. These days, you can make big budget-sounding pop, but have it be totally DIY. These songs are just written by me and my friends. I want to keep the ideas raw. […] I don’t want my sound to be stuck in 2007. I’m not fully ditching my old self, but I want to be someone new. The new material I’m working on has a balance between good and evil. There’s an angrier side, and a softer, heavenly side.”

Watch the “Troubled Paradise” video above and check out the Troubled Paradise art and tracklist below.

1. “Self Destruct”
2. “Venom”
3. “Throatzillaaa”
4. “Dog House”
5. “Butterflies…”
6. “Troubled Paradise”
7. “Clouds”
8. “Cowboys”
9. “Serial Killer”
10. “Over This!”
11. “Villain”
12. “Letters”

Troubled Paradise is out 6/11 via Fader Label. Pre-order it here.