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Everybody who was involved with the Lakers this season is getting a championship ring, regardless of whether they played a second of the Finals or whether they even made the trip to Orlando for the restart. Point guard Avery Bradley for instance, will be getting one, despite forgoing the trip to Florida out of concerns for the health of his son, who suffers from respiratory illness.

DeMarcus Cousins will be eligible to receive one as well, even though the team waived him February. Cousins tore his ACL in August of 2019 before he could ever suit up for the Lakers in the regular season but remained on the roster until the trade deadline while he rehabilitated.

With free agency now approaching, Cousins is looking toward his next opportunity in the league, and if his new workout video is any small indication, it appears he could be a contributor next season.

“ Patience is bitter, but it’s fruit is sweet. “ pic.twitter.com/pepq2IVGIg

— DeMarcus Cousins (@boogiecousins) October 13, 2020

The 30-year-old Cousins is coming off of two devastating injuries, and despite what the video might have us believe, it’s far too early to tell just what he might be capable of as far as a role on an NBA team is concerned. Still, it’s good to see Boogie back on the court and looking relatively smooth and agile. Hopefully, he can avoid any further injuries as he looks to make his comeback and draw interest from teams around the league.

The Billboard Music Award show returned Wednesday night with a very different set up as nominees and performers were left to accept their awards and perform their tracks in a practically empty theater. However, the night went on with some thrilling performances and great wins from names like Billie Eilish, Post Malone, and more. However, one of the show’s biggest moments came not from a performance, but rather through Lizzo’s award acceptance speech. The singer took the stage to accept her award for Top Song Sales Artist artist and during her speech, Lizzo used the spotlight moment to reinforce the importance of voting next month and address oppression in many different groups while commending those who are fighting against it.

I just wanted to say I’ve been thinking abut suppression and the voices that refused to be suppressed, and I wonder would I be standing here right now if it weren’t for the big Black women who refused to have their voices be suppressed. I just wanted to say right now if you are at home watching this and you are thinking about changing yourself to feel worthy, this is your sign to remain true to who you are.

Lizzo continued her speech with a reminder of the power the human voice holds. “When people try to suppress something, it’s normally because that thing holds power,” she said. “They’re afraid of your power. There’s power in who you are. There’s power in your voice. So whether it’s through music, protest, or your right to vote, use your power, use your voice, and refuse to be suppressed.”

You can watch her speech in the video above.

Lizzo is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Just two weeks after making history as the first K-pop group to reach No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100, BTS hit the stage at the 2020 Billboard Music Awards to perform their hit song “Dynamite.” Dressed in sharply-fitted maroon suits and backed by a funk band playing on a massive screen behind them they lit up their stage at the airport in South Korea, representing their international crossover appeal.

BTS has been on a live television performance tour of sorts for the past month or so, including a weeklong takeover of The Tonight Show in which they performed their hit songs “Dynamite,” “Home,” “Black Swan,” and “Mikrokosmos.” Before that, they appeared on NPR Tiny Desk for a record store-based performance after the debut performance of “Dynamite” at the 2020 MTV VMAs. As the premiere ambassadors of Korean pop music music, the boy band has been taking over and making sure that if you didn’t know who they were before 2020, you won’t be able to escape them now.

BTS also snatched the top two spots on the Hot 100 this past week thanks to “Dynamite” and a remix of Jawsh 685 and Jason Derulo’s “Savage Love.” BTS is nominated for the Billboard Music Awards for Social Artist and Duo/Group.

Watch BTS’s performance above.

Most blockbusters are waiting out the pandemic, moving further and further back on the theatrical release schedule, as if to avoid what happened to Christopher Nolan’s Tenet (at least in America). But Disney has been embracing streaming. Last week they announced Soul, the latest Pixar joint, would skip theaters entirely and wind up on Disney+ — and not even at an extra cost, as they did with their live-action remake of Mulan. On Christmas Day, subscribers will be able to watch the animated company’s latest tearjerker. And judging from the film’s latest trailer, there will be tears.

Honestly, it’s been a touch hard to grok what exactly Soul is about, but the latest trailer makes it much, much clearer. Jamie Foxx voices a middle school music teacher and jazz lover who dies in an accident. He’s reborn as a fuzzy blob in the after life, only to wind up in a kind of before-life, observing how souls develop personalities before they inhabit bodies.

It all looks pretty cosmic and clever, and very much in keeping with the other Pixar films helmed by Pete Docter, whose Monsters Inc., Up, and Inside Out are even more overtly existentially-minded than the others. The message, it seems, is to enjoy life while you’ve got it — and given what 2020 has been like, that’s bound to hit home extra hard as the year comes to an end.

You can watch the trailer for Soul, which hits Disney+ on December 25, in the video above.

Almost four months ago, Guapdad 4000 and Denzel Curry linked up to give fans their second collaboration with “Lil Scammer That Could.” The track landed on Guapdad’s Platinum Falcon Returns EP and followed his and Denzel’s first collaboration, “Izayah,” from Guapdad’s 2019 album, Dior Deposits. The video for “Lil Scammer That Could” was quite the surreal affair, one that depicted Guapdad and Denzel wreaking havoc in a suburban neighborhood. There was even a scene that found the two rappers running over a tied-up police officer with Guapdad portrayed as a train and Denzel as its conductor. Expanding on that scene from the video, the two rappers have debuted a new game that follows a similar concept.

Joining forces once again, Guapdad and Denzel shared their Lil Scammer That Could game on Monday through Instagram. The game presents a Looney Tunes-esque world to fans in which Guapdad and Denzel reprise their roles as train and conductor. Using the train and conductor combo, fans are prompted to eliminate police officers in quite the bloody fashion. Speaking on the new game, Guapdad said the game was a “very ‘Guapdad’ way to call back to both a great song and video but more importantly the state of this country.”

You can try your hand at the Lil Scammer That Could game here.

Guarded 4000 is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Before the NBA resumed its season in Orlando this summer, there was plenty of trepidation among players, who were simultaneously concerned about the implications of returning to play amid the nationwide protests and the specter of a dangerous virus that had put the country on lockdown.

Most players eventually opted to join the Bubble at the Disney World campus in July, but there were some who ultimately decided it wasn’t worth the risk their family’s safety. Avery Bradley was one such player who declined to travel to Florida with the Lakers, and as a result was forced to watch his team raise the championship trophy from the other side of the country.

Bradley made the decision to skip the restart because of concerns for his son, who suffers from asthma. COVID-19 is a respiratory illness that is particularly hard on groups with compromised lung functioning. But despite the bittersweet experience of celebrating the title away from his teammates, Bradley says he’s come to terms with how the situation played out.

Via Dave McMenamin and Malika Andrews of ESPN:

“I think it is something that is hard, obviously, not being there,” Bradley said. “But I think from the beginning I’ve been able to be at peace.”

***

“You play your whole career working for a championship,” Bradley said, “and knowing that I was this close and a part of something, even though I wasn’t there, is still an amazing feeling.”

Bradley started 44 games for the Lakers before the shutdown and was a key factor in their run to the No. 1 seed in the West, and he’ll receive a well-deserved championship ring because of it, despite not participating in the Bubble games.

Bradley spent his time during the restart home-schooling his three children but still managed to watch all of the Lakers games and texted with his teammates and head exec Rob Pelinka throughout their championship run in Orlando.

(ESPN)

After performing as a retro sci-fi queen in her last televised performance, Doja Cat borrowed more inspiration from the past for a Moulin Rouge-inspired burlesque medley of her hits “Juicy” and “Say So” at the 2020 Billboard Music Awards.

Doja Cat has had an eventful 2020. After her disco-scented “Say So” became a TikTok smash early this year, her and Nicki Minaj’s fans teamed up to take the glittery single to the top of the Hot 100 with some risque encouragement from Doja herself. Unfortunately for her, she may have overplayed her hand, leading some of her jilted-feeling fans to dig up a questionable old song and accuse her of participating in racist chat rooms.

She bounced back with a string of features that helped her find her footing, only to find herself sick with COVID-19 and being pit against Nas after he name-checked her on his new album. When she shrugged off the rumors and speculation, she again lived up to her name by landing on her feet with a big performance at the VMAs, where she also won Best New Artist, despite floating around the music industry since 2016. Time will tell whether she’ll use up all nine of her lives, but with her third album complete and covering all the bases, she’s certainly in position to keep giving her haters bad luck.

Watch Doja Cat’s performance above.

Bad Bunny has blessed fans in a number of ways in 2020. The popular Latin artist kicked off his 2020 campaign with his Yo Hago Lo Que Me Da La Gana album only to follow it up with a second full-length project, Las Que No Iban a Salir, a couple of months later. In a year where fans have been unable to see their favorite artists perform live, Bad Bunny gives them a close alternative by bringing his talents to the 2020 Billboard Music Award stage with a lively performance of “Yo Perreo Sola” alongside fellow Puerto Rican singer Ivy Queen and newcomer Nesi.

The YHLQMDLG singer aimed to make a big statement with his “Yo Perreo Sola” video earlier this year as he underwent a full drag transformation for the visual. Prior to the video, he revealed that different perspective her wrote the song from in an interview with Rolling Stone. “I wrote it from the perspective of a woman,” he said. “I wanted a woman’s voice to sing it — ‘Yo Perreo Sola’ — because it doesn’t mean the same thing when a man sings it. But I do feel like that woman sometimes.”

The performance arrives after took over the streets of New York last month in a live stream performance that found him performing from a moving flatbed track. Among the many tracks that he performed there, he made sure to give fans a live take of his “Una Vez” track with Puerto Rican singer Mora. Soon after the performance, he shared a new visual for the track, one that finds an astronaut, in full space gear, exploring the Earth and its varying landscapes. Bad Bunny, along with Selena Gomez, was also honored at The 2020 Hispanic Heritage Awards where he received the Vision Award for being a “powerful voice” in music.

You can watch the performance in the video above.

After years of staying under the radar, especially in terms of her music, Brandy came back stronger than ever in 2020 thanks to the release of her seventh album, B7. The album was her first full-length release since her 2012 album, Two Eleven, and saw her working with notable names including Chance The Rapper and Daniel Caesar. Bringing the album and a pair of tracks from it to the big stage, Brandy kicked off her set at the 2020 Billboard Music Awards with an ethereal performance of “Borderline” before inviting Ty Dolla Sign on-stage to perform their newly-released collab, “No Tomorrow, Pt. 2.” Reaching further back into her discography to close out her set, Brandy ended her performance with “Almost Doesn’t Count” from her 1998 album, Never Say Never.

Brandy and Ty Dolla Sign released their “No Tomorrow, Pt. 2” track earlier in the day prior to the Billboard Music Awards, a day that also proved to be newsworthy for Ty Dolla Sign as well. After putting fans through well over a year of promotion and singles for his upcoming album, the West Coast crooner finally confirmed that his upcoming third album would arrive on October 23 and be titled Featuring Ty Dolla Sign.

As for Brandy, the performance arrives less than two months after she took the Verzuz stage for a battle with fellow R&B singer Monica. The battle proved to be one of the more successful ones the Verzuz platform held as it reeled in over six million viewers across its Instagram and Apple Music setups.

Check out their performance in the video above.

Ty Dolla Sign is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

It’s been just over eight months since much of the country went into quarantine, and it’s safe to say that a lot of us taken binge-watching next level. Some, like Kevin Smith, have been incredibly productive, using the acres of free time to write and create and do things. But even those people have to have plowed through untold seasons when they weren’t being creative and smart. Perhaps you’ve reunited with some old favorites, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That’s what its star, Sarah Michelle Gellar, has been doing. The twist is she’s been watching it with her kids.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, the actress was on The Kelly Clarkson Show on Wednesday, when the conversation perhaps inevitably steered to her iconic show. She said she’d never even thought about showing it to her and Freddie Prinze Jr.’s two kids, both of them far younger than she was when she started the show in 1997. It all started when they were trying to find shows to binge, only for them to demand Buffy.

“I didn’t even know if they’d be into it, but they are like so into it,” Gellar said. That said, when they ask her questions about the show, she invariably fails them. “They’ll always ask questions and I’ll be like ‘I don’t remember. I’ll have to text someone and ask.’” Still, watching their mother fight vampires and demons and other assorted riff-raff while being an otherwise mostly regular youngster has left them impressed. “My son actually thinks that I’m cool now.”

Gellar played Buffy over seven seasons, ending in 2003. And, hey, since Amazon is remaking another Gellar property, the 1997 slasher I Know What You Did Last Summer, can a Buffy revival — be it a reunion or a reboot — be that far off?

(Via THR)