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Luka Doncic, just two years into his NBA career, has established himself as one of the top players in the league, emerging as one of the elite offensive forces with his abilities as a scorer and passer. Those qualities as a point-forward have earned him comparisons to some of the game’s all-time greats, particularly his passing, as people will at times compare him to the likes of Magic Johnson and, more recently, LeBron James.

He obviously has a long, long way to go to reach the heights those two have, both individually and in leading teams to titles, but even LeBron understands the comps and admits to seeing some of himself in Luka’s game. James, who appeared on a Road Trippin’ special on Spectrum Sportsnet this week with Richard Jefferson and Allie Clifton, explained why Doncic has become one of his favorite players in the league and offered a previously unknown nugget of information about how he wanted to sign Doncic to be the face of “Team LeBron” with Nike when the young star was negotiating a new sneaker deal, which he eventually signed with Jordan.

“Luka is one of my favorite players in the NBA today. From the simple fact of, the way I play the game is exactly how I love the way he plays the game,” James said. “Team first, gets his guys involved, if you challenge me to score, I’m going to score. At the same time I’m going to score, but I’m going to keep my guys involved. But I play for the team and I play with a sense of joy.

“When Luka was going through his contract negotiations with Nike, and you saw him at one point he was wearing Jordans, other brands during practices, I wanted to begin Team LeBron and have Luka as my first signing with Nike,” James continued. “This is what I wanted, and I don’t believe that my guys at Nike was ready for that, and obviously they were not because he went to Jordan. And I don’t know if Luka knows this, but he will know it now. I wanted Luka to be the first signee with Team LeBron when he was going through his situation, and it didn’t happen but he’s still under the same umbrella of Nike with Jordan but I wanted him to be — and that’s how much I believed in him. And I feel like it’s going to haunt me a little bit, but I wanted him to be my first guy because I love what he stands for. I love everything about him, on court and off court, he’s just a great guy.”

It’s incredibly high praise from LeBron and certainly an interesting bit of information about his hopes to launch Team LeBron the same way Team Jordan did two decades ago with a rising star like Doncic. Luka himself has said he idolized James as a kid, so this surely will mean a lot to him as he enters Year 3 in Dallas with hopes of continuing his rise and the Mavs rise as a Western Conference contender.

The Los Angeles Clippers will enter the 2020-21 season with a bad taste in their collective mouths. The team did not ever really gel last year, with continued reports coming out of L.A. about discontent within the Clippers locker room, and as a result, they blew a shocking 3-1 series lead in the Western Conference Semifinals to the Denver Nuggets. They’re considered a title contender entering this campaign, but that reputation is going to follow them until they get over the hump.

As one of the team’s two All-Star selections, a lot of the onus to get over said hump is going to be on the shoulders of Paul George. Whether he’ll be able to answer that call remains to be seen, but as he explained during a cameo on the All the Smoke podcast, George does think he’ll be put in a better role this season. George believed that now-former Clippers coach Doc Rivers had an idea of how he wanted to use him, and while he believes he has that in his skill set, it wasn’t a perfect match.

Now, George did have the highest mark of his career in terms of the percentage of threes he took, but as Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer noted, comparisons to guys like Allen and Redick aren’t totally accurate.

The good news for George is that the Clippers hired a pretty good offensive tactician in Ty Lue to replace Rivers as head coach, and he will probably figure out ways to get George in the offense that play to his strengths. At the very least, he almost certainly will not be used like Allen or Redick, which he’ll appreciate.

Former President Barack Obama kicked off a firestorm after voicing his criticism of the controversial “Defund the Police” slogan. Obama made the remarks on Peter Hambly’s Snapchat political show, “Good Luck America,” and they published in advance on Monday evening, which led to intense blowback on social media. While speaking to Hambly, Obama shared his support for necessary police reform, but he took issue with how the messaging alienated voters, which he says will hamper the chances of enacting said reforms. Via Mediaite:

“If you believe, as I do, that we should be able to reform the criminal justice system so that it’s not biased, and treats everybody fairly, I guess you can use a snappy slogan like ‘Defund the Police,’ but you know you’ve lost a big audience the minute you say it. Which makes it a lot less likely that you’re actually going to get the changes you want done.”

While Obama’s pragmatic approach to policy reform might sound reasonable, it didn’t sit well with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the members of “The Squad.” All four members fired off tweets that took Obama to task for his criticism, but AOC went particularly deep on the separation between “activists” and “politicians.”

While AOC waited until Tuesday to deliver her remarks, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib were quick to push back on Obama within hours of his “Defund the Police” criticism being published.

The argument over messaging is, of course, part of a much larger battle between “moderate” and “progressive” members of the Democratic Party, which has intensified after Joe Biden won the presidential election. While both groups strive for the same goals, there are fundamental differences over how to achieve them. There is also a generational divide to contend with as younger members of the party advocate for more aggressive reforms at an accelerated pace. In short, the Dems are in for some fun during the Biden administration.

Blackface has a long and shameful history in this country. We think—we hope—after numerous call-outs and emotional explanations, Americans get the message: blackface is not okay. But that isn’t the case, as many were re-made painfully aware, when Dr. Regina N. Bradley, a professor and critically acclaimed writer, shared the shocking auditory version of her new essay, “Da Art of Speculatin'”, on Twitter.

Due to outrageous oversight, Fireside—a progressively minded short-story magazine who claim, in their About page, to resist “the global rise of fascism and far-right populism”—hired a young, white male voice actor to read and record Bradley’s essay—an essay that identifies its writer, in its very first line, as a “southern Black woman who stands in the long shadow of the Civil Rights Movement.”

According to the Washington Post, Rineer spoke in an accent that listeners interpreted as something that would appear in minstrel show, an American form of entertainment developed in the early 19th century, in which white people lampooned Black people, often portraying them as dim-witted and buffoonish, with stock characters including the dandy, the slave, and the ‘mammy.’ It’s incredibly, incredibly offensive. So it’s no wonder that, upon hearing the clip, a horrified Bradley fired off an outraged tweet, asking Fireside and Rineer if they honestly thought this is what she sounded like.

How could something so offensive have been approved, one wonders, especially in a year defined by reckoning with racial injustice? For the answer, look to Pablo Defendini, the publisher and editor for Fireside, who claimed, “nothing insidious in his decision… he just didn’t listen to the recording before posting it.”

“The blame for this rests squarely with me, as the person who hires out and manages the audio production process at Fireside,” Defendini said in a statement. “In the interest of remaining a lean operation, I’ve been hiring one narrator to record the audio for a whole issue’s worth of Fireside Quarterly, and I don’t normally break out specific stories or essays for narrating by particular individuals.”

“My personal neglect allowed racist violence to be perpetrated on a Black author, which makes me not just complicit in anti-Black racism, but racist as well.”

As for Rineer, he regrets not breaking a contract rule and contacting Bradley directly about her work. His gut instinct told him not to proceed—that he was the wrong person for the job. Still, upon expressing his doubts to Fireside, he was ignored, and so proceeded with the recording—he’d already signed the contract.

“I made the mistake of reading Dr. Bradley’s work and assuming an accent that was not representative of her voice,” he said. “I had tried to find a different narrator who would be a suitable representative in my network and via public forums, to no avail, in the week-long time frame I had.”

As for Bradley, Defendini’s apology isn’t cutting it. “Not listening” isn’t an excuse—it’s deepening the wound. Black Women have been “not listened” to since the dawn of this nation’s founding.

“I am angry,” she wrote. “Seething from centuries of silenced Black women angry.”

The Walking Dead celebrated its 10th birthday last month, which means it’s been a decade of relentless bad vibes and TV-friendly zombie gore and favorite characters eating it out of leftfield. Fans could sure use something nice, especially after that cryptic season finale. And they’re going to get it: On December 13, the show will throw its first-ever holiday special, with cast and crew taking a well-deserved break from fighting for humankind’s survival, drink some egg nog and finally chill.

The Walking Dead Holiday Special will be hosted by Chris Hardwick, who will moderate a mass chat with cast members past and present. There will even be some caroling. Actress Emily Kinney will perform the Yuletide classic “Up on the Housetop,” while Khary Payton, Cooper Andrews, Eleanor Matsuura, and Cassady McClincy will do a parody of “Twelve Days of Christmas,” presumably with lyrics about flesh-eating and society crumbling.

If this all sounds all sounds incredibly un-Walking Dead-like, there will also be a table read from the forthcoming episode “Diverged,” which won’t air until late March of next year — hopefully around the time our own broken society is starting to return to normal. Other participating cast members include Melissa McBride, Josh McDermitt, Lauren Ridloff, Cailey Fleming, and IronE Singleton.

The Walking Dead Holiday Special airs on December 13 on AMC’s premium streaming bundle, which you hopefully already have.

Alien Worlds (Netflix documentary series) — This four-part series is Earth-based, sort-of, in the sense that astronomers will apply the laws of life as we know it to the rest of the universe. After watching what unfolds, you might get a look at what these alien species might look like, along with how they feed, evolve, and (of course) reproduce.

Baby God (HBO documentary film) — The late Dr. Quincy Fortier’s misdeeds get the spotlight, going back to the 1960s when he opened Women’s Hospital in Las Vegas in the 1960s and made fertility dreams come true. However, he frequently did so with his own sperm and without their consent. Yikes.

Devils (CW, 8:00pm EST) — The Patrick Dempsey-starring series of international financial intrigue picks up with Massimo and Sofia going to visit their dad in Cetara.

Coroner (CW, 9:00pm EST) — The Season 2 finale concludes with Jenny and Donavan working to confirm suspicions about a dangerous suspect.

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert — Kate Winslet, Michael Eric Dyson

Jimmy Kimmel Live — George Clooney, Amanda Seyfried, Tones And I

In case you missed these picks from last Wednesday:

The Flight Attendant (HBO Max series) — Kaley Cuoco busts away from the The Big Bang Theory with a fun flight of (darkly comedic) fancy. She plays portrays an airline stewardess whose international jet-setting lifestyle includes falling into bed in various countries with various handsome men. During the course of one particularly fateful encounter, Cassie wakes up next to the dead body of a one-night stand. She spends the rest of the series attempting to clean sh*t up. Surrender to this madcap ride.

Saved By The Bell (Peacock series) — Here comes the official reimagining of the original series with a lot of the O.G. crowd on board for more neon-tinged adventures. Zack Morris is now (a terrible) California governor, Kelly Kapowski’s his first lady, and Elizabeth Berkley and Mario Lopez are back as Jessie Spano and A.C. Slater, respectively. If you’re lucky, you’ll see the return of Zack Attack. Screech is sitting this one out, but prepare for some (still lighthearted) social commentary.

Mosul (Netflix film) — Anthony and Joe Russo produce this Matthew Michael Carnahan-directed project about men who fight to take back homes and territory seized by ISIS. Prepare for a dangerous guerrilla operation to go down onscreen, along with an extraordinary display of heroism.

After the live music industry shut down in March, it didn’t take long for artists to pivot to livestreams. Following their example, the film industry is similarly beginning to pivot to online premieres. To allow for proper safety measures, PJ Harvey’s upcoming documentary will now have an online streaming premiere.

Theatrical distributor Abramorama will host the North American streaming premiere for Harvey’s A Dog Called Money film on Maestro, a video streaming platform. A Dog Called Money follows Harvey as she goes on a journey across the Middle East to record her 2016 LP The Hope Six Demolition Project. Alongside her photographer Seamus Murphy, Harvey recorded each track in various public spaces across the globe and invited live audiences to watch.

Speaking about the innovative premiere, Maestro’s CEO Ari Evans said: “We have been bullish on live stream film premieres for years and are delighted to see this groundbreaking new use case on our platform. It is not surprising to see such an innovative group of creatives exploring this new direction with us starting with this powerful documentary. We look forward to unlocking new opportunities for the film industry extending well beyond the pandemic as the age of streaming and digital experiences continues to flourish.”

Watch the trailer to A Dog Called Money above.

The premiere takes place 12/7 at 5 p.m. PST. Get tickets here.

Drake has already made his love for Nike supremely evident (“Checks over stripes,” indeed), but his latest move takes his appreciation for the Portland sportswear giant to a new level — and makes him a partner in the process. Drake and Nike announced their new joint venture, a new sub-label called NOCTA, today with an explanatory Nike News blog post breaking down Drake’s “thoughts on the spirit of the project.”

NOCTA, which refers to Drake’s “nocturnal creative process” (i.e., recording at night most of the time), is inspired by the uniform look of Nike-loving hubs like London, Paris, and of course, Toronto. That look, which usually consists of head-to-toe Tech Fleece and can be seen in Drake’s music videos and all over shows like Top Boy, informs the previews that can be seen on the blog post, with big puffer jackets emblazoned with the NOCTA logo and the Nike swoosh.

Drake previously released a capsule collection of Certified Lover Boy merch in conjunction with the brand celebrating his forthcoming album and shot his “Laugh Now Cry Later” video on location at Nike HQ in Portland. Before teaming up with The Swoosh, Drake was rumored to be working on a similar project over at rival brand Adidas, but that collab was torpedoed in its infancy (rimshot) by Pusha T’s premature (have another) revelation of Drake’s son Adonis — for whom the sub-brand was supposedly named — on “The Story Of Adidon.”

Sign up for updates on NOCTA, which launches December 18, here.

For their new album I Won’t Care How You Remember Me, Scranton punk outfit Tigers Jaw took a more collaborative approach than they have in the past, taking input from all of the band’s four touring members instead of putting the bulk of writing responsibilities on vocalists Ben Walsh and Brianna Collins. On the Will Yip-produced effort, they looked back to their early days playing in basements for inspiration, and the result is a dense and impressive work from one of the most consistent (and underrated) bands in the indie punk scene.

To celebrate the new album, Walsh sat down to talk Home Alone, Paul McCartney, and wanting to kill Santa Claus in the first of this year’s Indie Mixtape 20 Q&A holiday edition.

What’s the best holiday gift you’ve ever received?

I got an acoustic guitar and Saves the Day’s In Reverie CD from my parents when I was 14. More recently, my partner got me Phillies opening day tickets, which although the pandemic cancelled baseball, it was still such a nice gift because I’ve always wanted to go to opening day.

What is your earliest holiday memory?

Hitting my younger brother in the face with a snowball while at a christmas tree farm and worrying Santa wasn’t coming.

What’s on your wish list for this year?

Just to hopefully safely spend some time with loved ones.

What holiday song can you not resist singing along to?

“Christmas All Over Again” by Tom Petty.

What’s the holiday song you wish you could zap out of existence?

I might get some hate for this, but “Wonderful Christmastime” by Paul McCartney can disappear from my brain forever.

What is your strangest holiday tradition?

The last few years, we’ve watched all the Christmas episodes of The Office on Christmas, in true Scranton tradition.

What album makes for the perfect gift?

Charlie Brown Christmas by Vince Guaraldi Trio.

Thoughts on snow?

Big fan. I grew up near a great sledding hill.

What holiday movie can you not resist watching when it’s on TV?

Home Alone 2 is my favorite.

Marry, F*ck, Kill: Santa, Thanksgiving Turkey, Hannukah Harry.

Based on The Santa Clause logic, I think if I kill Santa I can become the next one. So kill Santa, f*ck HH, and marry the turkey I guess.

What’s the one food you need on your Thanksgiving table?

Sweet potatoes

Where’s the most interesting place you’ve ever spent the holidays?

Took a short trip to Cabo last year with my partner around the holidays because my birthday is in late December.

You decide to blow off the holidays and travel instead. Where are you going?

A cabin in the woods in Maine, or maybe Australia to escape the cold. One extreme or the other.

If the holidays are a time for giving, what’s the charity you’d like to big up for the season?

Pathways to Housing does great work in Philadelphia to assist the houseless. This is important work year round, but especially in the harsh winter months.

What’s your favorite holiday drink?

Nothing beats a hot cup of coffee this time of year.

Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?

Yes.

How early is too early to decorate for the holiday season?

Life is a highway, live your truth, and decorate when you want to.

What’s your ideal way to spend New Years Eve?

There’s usually cool shows on NYE, so probably seeing a band I love.

As the year ends, how are you going to remember 2020?

A very challenging year, where the high points required a lot more work than usual.

The ball is dropping. What are you wishing for in the new year?

For a true acknowledgment of the changes that need to happen that 2020 highlighted with social injustice, the need for universal healthcare, and the insanity of the wealth gap. On a lighter note, I would LOVE to play some rock shows in 2021.

I Won’t Care How You Remember Me is out March 21. Pre-order the album here.

It all begins with a tweet from comedian Alison Leiby waxing rhapsodic about New York City’s bodegas.

“People who live outside of NYC and don’t have bodegas:” she wrote, “where do you go to buy two Diet Cokes, a roll of paper towels, and oh also lemme get some peanut butter m&ms since I’m here, why not.”

For those of us not from NYC, a bodega is a corner store. If I’m not mistaken, bodegas are a bit less like 7-11 chain stores and more like unique, locally owned and operated mom-and-pop shops, but basically a one-stop store for all your basic needs. Debate ensued about whether or not bodegas really are special, or just another name for a convenience or grocery store. Apparently, bodegas often have cats living in them, so that’s a thing.

But something else interesting came out of the discussion—a whole thread about stereotypes of various American states and regions, and it is at once entertaining and eye-opening.

It starts with a biting stereotype about Appalachia shared by writer Sean Thomason. “When I tell people I’m from Appalachia they ask me about incest and if we’ve got shoes yet.” Not a surprising jab, but still pretty awful.

Then people started sharing their own experiences with assumptions and jokes about their home states, and it’s pretty fascinating. Having lived in eight different states myself, I’ve seen firsthand how many stereotypes are totally exaggerated (most) and how many are actually based in reality (always fun to find).

Let’s just start with the elephant in the room—Florida.

Poor Florida gets a lot of flack for being Florida, but Floridians seem to take it in stride.

New Jersey, as it turns out, actually has greenery and not everyone is in the mafia. Who knew?

Oregon actually does live up to some of its stereotypes. I’ve often joked about how Portlandia is only a slight exaggeration of what Portland is like. (Don’t get me wrong, I love it there—but it’s definitely quirky.)

However, as this person points out, there’s also some surprising realities about Oregon that you don’t hear about as much. Like that it was founded as a utopia for racists who wanted an all-white place to live.

Mississippi has it rough, unfortunately, thanks to actual statistics.

Though some of those statistics are actually surprising, like its high vaccination rates.

Some states, like Minnesota and North Dakota, get a lot of comments about their accents. (Accents are one of those things that I always assumed were exaggerated until I lived in different places and was delighted to find out Whoa, people really do talk like that here!)

West Virginia has a socioeconomic reputation that isn’t accurate for everyone who lives there. (Though there is something to be said for the low cost of living.)

And as this person pointed out, some people might want to look in their own backyard before making jokes about another.

Kansas has had eight decades of “Wizard of Oz” references to contend with.

And the Lone Star State is certainly more than horses and guns. (Though several Texans joked about the gun stereotypes being true. Texas gonna Texas.)

I lived in Iowa for a while, so I know the pig farm references are rooted in the fact that there are a whole lot of farms in the state. And the mall with the ice rink? Yeah, everyone knows that mall.

The bigger issue is the confusion between Iowa, Idaho, and Ohio. I’ve been to each of those states and can attest that they bear little resemblance to one another and aren’t anywhere near one another, but that doesn’t stop people from mixing them up.

Ah, Utah. A stunningly gorgeous state with incredible National Parks and otherworldly landscapes that prompts people to immediately conjure up pictures of polygamy.

Does Oklahoma have tornadoes? Yes. Is that all Oklahoma has? Don’t think so.

Sarah Palin did a bang-up job of creating her own category of Alaska jokes, but being so far north, people are often surprised to find out that the climate of Alaska actually varies quite a bit and isn’t all snowy all the time.

Hawaii is definitely unique among states, but not as unique as some people might assume. They do use American money. Because, you know, it’s America.

California is interesting in that it’s almost like it’s own country in many ways. It’s incredibly huge and incredibly diverse. Some stereotypes about some areas do hold water, though as this person pointed out, those stereotypes aren’t generally seen as negative.

And yes, we do see California a lot in movies and TV so a lot of it feels familiar, but it’s worth noting that not all parts of California are like L.A.

On the flip side, we rarely see anything or anyone from Wyoming, to the point where the main jokes are about whether or not people even live there. (Having driven through it several times, Wyoming is full of pristine landscapes and not a lot of people. But the cities and towns that are there are just as developed as anywhere else.)

The whole thread was an interesting exercise in acknowledging stereotypes, celebrating different state identities, and recognizing that what we imagine different states and regions can’t capture the complexity of those places or the people who live there.

There are things to love and things to not love every place you live. And the United States really is like a big patchwork quilt of cultures and quirks that make each part of it unique. Amanda Vink wrote, “Reading these comments, I get the feeling most people just want to be proud of where they’re from.” It’s true, and a good thing to remember when we feel tempted to make jokes about different places.