The Brooklyn Nets have a new head coach, and it’s hard to imagine the team making a more surprising hire. Marc Stein of the New York Times reported that the Nets would make Hall of Fame guard Steve Nash a head coach for the first time, which was soon confirmed by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.
The Nets have hired Hall of Fame point guard Steve Nash as their new head coach, @NYTSports has learned
Wojnarowski included the details that Jacque Vaughn, who coached the team admirably during the NBA’s Orlando Bubble, would stay on as an assistant at a hefty price tag, while the Nets’ brain trust did what it could to convince Nash to make the leap to coaching over the last few weeks.
Jacque Vaughn will stay as the lead assistant and become the league’s best compensated assistant coach, sources tell ESPN. https://t.co/t24W26mwwp
In recent weeks, Nets owner Joe Tsai and general manager Sean Marks have been aggressive in recruiting Nash to make the leap that he had so far resisted in his retirement: head coaching.
While Nash has some experience in basketball operations, having served as a consultant for the Golden State Warriors team when, as Tom Haberstroh of NBC Sports pointed out, Durant was in town, this is quite the leap. He’s going from that, along with a handful of off-court duties like serving as a basketball/soccer analyst for Turner, to the head coach of a team that has legitimate NBA title aspirations once Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving are 100 percent healthy. Keeping Vaughn around should help ease that transition, as he knows this team, but the former two-time MVP will be at the helm in what might be the most out of left field head coaching hire we’ve seen in some time.
Harley Quinn recently made its way from DC Universe, the streaming service used exclusively by Twitter users with #SnyderCut in their bios, to HBO Max, where it’s hopefully a huge hit. It’s a really good show! One of the best of 2020. It’s funny, it’s silly, it’s weird, it’s violent and lewd, there’s a talking shark, and in one episode, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy plot to escape Bane’s Peña Duro North Correctional and Rehabilitation Facility, a.k.a. “The Pit,” on George Lopez’s helicopter while the comedian is doing a stand-up set for Killer Croc and other ne’er-do-wells. It’s a whole thing. You should watch, because if you don’t, Harley Quinn might not return for a third season.
On Wednesday night, The Suicide Squad director James Gunn tweeted, “Our dog barks at any animal that comes on TV. Including this animated hyena on @dcharleyquinn. The hyena is a still image. (Show is great btw),” along with a video of his dog barking at said hyena. Harley Quinn showrunner Patrick Schumacker responded to Gunn, thanking him for the shoutout. “Thanks for amplifying the show!” he wrote. “Will the much sought after James Gunn Bump help get us a season 3? (Seriously, have you heard anything? I have no idea.).” Gunn has no idea, but he did throw his support behind a renewal.
“Let’s hope. Everyone watch Harley Quinn on @hbomax and help get them a well-deserved season three! @dcharleyquinn,” Gunn tweeted.
Most fan campaigns are bad, but this is a good one. You + watching Harley Quinn on HBO Max = another season of Bane yelling about “splosions” and Andy Daly as Two-Face and Harley and Poison Ivy’s blooming romance. It’s that simple.
Forbes, the preeminent rankers of famous people’s wealth, have come out with their annual Celebrity 100 list, which lists the highest-earning celebrities of 2020. Much has been made of Kanye West’s wealth in recent times, and it turns out he has done pretty well lately, as he is No. 2 on the list and the highest-ranking male, with $170 million. He’s second only to somebody he knows well: Kylie Jenner, whose $590 million is more than the next five people on the list combines.
Kanye was happy with the news, but not completely satisfied. He shared a screenshot of a headline about his achievement and wrote, “This a good start.”
A running joke in 2020 is that time has lost all meaning. Because many of us are still suck in Covid-related holding patterns, days tend to run into seemingly similar months, and months into seemingly similar seasons.
And yet, fall still feels different.
As the weather turns colder around this time of the year, our listening habits change. The party-hearty jams of summer give way to the more melancholy headphone music of autumn. That’s certainly where my head is at as I look ahead to the next few months. The albums I’m most excited about hearing — or writing about, since I’ve already heard many of these records — tend to draw me inward, either via insightful lyrics or exploratory soundscapes. Listening to this music just makes me want to huddle under a warm blanket and brace against the coming chill.
Bill Callahan – Gold Record (September 4)
One of the great living American singer-songwriters has been on a prolific streak lately. His affecting 2019 effort, his first in five years, Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest, clocked in at a robust 20 tracks spread out over 63 minutes, his longest album to date. And he had a lot left in the tank after that, judging by the forthcoming Gold Record. Callahan has been previewing the LP with a new single released each week, and every song has been a master class in Callahan’s unique artistic sensibility — laconic, hushed, sly, meditative, and uncommonly still and centered. Also, Bill seems really happy these days! As he sings on the impossibly lovely “Another Song,” “We will finish our songs another day / And watch the light as it fades away / Lonesome in a pleasant way / I guess the light that is gone belongs to yesterday.”
A.G. Cook – Apple (September 18)
If this English musician, songwriter, producer, and founder of PC Music had merely worked on other people’s records in 2020, he would have had a very momentous year. But Cook — who co-executive produced Charli XCX’s How I’m Feeling Now and Jonsi’s upcoming Shiver — has also put out a career’s worth of music under his own name with the staggering seven-disc 7G, a 49-track summation statement that touches on a variety of pop, rock, and electronic music tentpoles. As if that wasn’t enough to digest — I’m still working my way through it, in part because I keep discovering new favorite songs — this wunderkind is putting out yet another album in 2020, a relatively succinct collection called Apple. If you can get past how much more productive this person has been than you during the pandemic, you won’t find an artist working right now who either takes more shots or has a higher completion percentage.
Sufjan Stevens – The Ascension (September 25)
In one way, Stevens has been as prolific as ever in the past few years, whether he’s writing an Oscar-nominated song for Call Me By Your Name or putting together one-of-a-kind experiments like Aporia, a New Age curveball that came out earlier this year that was made in collaboration with his stepfather, Lowell Brams. However, in terms of “proper” Sufjan records, The Ascension feels like the first since 2015’s landmark gut punch, Carrie & Lowell. Though judging by the sprawling 12-minute single “America,” I wonder if this album’s true predecessor is 2010’s truly bonkers (and in my view very underrated) The Age Of Adz. While Stevens has been sure to show off other sides of his persona lately — the sensitive folkie, the orchestral pop mastermind — I’m hoping the time is ripe for him to display the “the mad scientist” side of his personality.
Bartees Strange – Live Forever (October 2)
In the punk/emo corner of the indie world, the full-length debut by this Washington D.C. based singer-songwriter is possibly the most anticipated album of the fall. Striking out earlier this year with the EP Say Goodbye To Pretty Boy, a five-track collection of reimagined covers of songs by The National, Bartees Strange achieves the full flower of his artistic personality with Live Forever, veering between rousing synth-rock anthems like “Mustang” and blurry indie-soul slow burners like “Kelly Rowland” (named after Beyonce’s sidekick in Destiny Child) that sounds like a cross between Frank Ocean and Death Cab For Cutie. The album’s fluid yet cohesive mix of influences — which reflects the Oklahoma native’s upbringing as a church-going At The Drive-In fan equally well versed in gospel, R&B and hardcore — add up to one of the year’s most promising indie-rock debuts.
Rilo Kiley – Rilo Kiley (October 2)
In 1999, the venerable and oft-brilliant L.A. indie band Rilo Kiley recorded a self-titled album that they sold at shows. While technically their first LP, this album soon fell into obscurity after the initial pressing. Then came the subsequent release of 2001’s Take Offs And Landings, Rilo Kiley’s first release on the indie label Barsuk and the band’s officially recognized debut. However, this self-titled record — which derives partly from a demo funded by none other than Dave Foley of Newsradio and The Kids In The Hall fame — is finally getting a reissue. While technically an old record, it hasn’t been heard by many people, which essentially makes it a “new” old record.
Mary Lattimore – Silver Ladders (October 9)
For years, the most famous California-based harpist in indie rock was Joanna Newsom. But, now, incredibly there is another harpist on the scene — Mary Lattimore, a classically trained musician who has lent her ear-bending, out-there sounds to records by Kurt Vile and Thurston Moore, among others. Lattimore’s own albums — which can mix stately, almost classical-sounding melodies with disquieting, avant-garde art-pop passages — have also achieved a higher profile in recent years. The forthcoming Silver Ladders is poised to make the biggest splash yet. The stunning early single “Sometimes He’s In My Dreams” unspools an eerie soundscape that perfectly evokes the uncertainly and loneliness of the 2020 quarantine lifestyle.
Garcia Peoples – Nightcap At Wits’ End (October 9)
This NYC band has been among my favorite practitioners of “indie jam,” that amorphous sorta-genre comprised of guitar-rock bands that draw equally from ’90s indie and improvisational music derived from jazz, prog. and jamband scenes. Their most recent studio album, One Step Behind, found them stretching out more than ever on the mammoth 32-minute title track. The forthcoming Nightcap At Wits’ End is a return to more succinct songs, though the band’s penchant for exploring unexpected song structures, luminous instrumental tones, and unpredictable jammy interludes continues to run rampant even in the confines of otherwise tight and tuneful rock songs.
Gunn-Truscinski Duo – Soundkeeper (October 9)
On his own, the excellent guitarist Steve Gunn has gradually moved in a more conventional singer-songwriter direction, developing into a fine vocalist on richly layered acoustic albums like 2019’s The Unseen In Between. However, as one half of Gunn-Truscinski Duo, his fruitful collaboration with drummer John Truscinski, he continues to push his music in noisier, more abstract and thoroughly mind-blowing directions. The group’s upcoming album, the 72-minute Soundkeeper, is among their most sprawling releases, with the title track alone clocking in at more than 16 minutes, moving through waves of feedback and drone toward explosions of beauty and transcendence.
Matt Berninger – Serpentine Prison (October 16)
While the lead singer of The National has branched out on his own before — shout-out to 2015’s underrated Return To The Moon, by his lecherous synth-pop duo El Vy — Serpentine Prison marks his official solo debut. Pairing him with soul great Booker T. Jones, the leader of the incredible Stax house band Booker T. And The MG’s, might seem on paper like a bit of a stretch. But any possible confusion instantly melts away once this slinky, late-night reverie of a record kicks in, as Berninger’s wizened purr slides perfectly into a series of low-key roadhouse soundscapes. Anyone who got into The National because an algorithm pointed them there from Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen will welcome Berninger’s full-on embrace of his middle-aged romantic crooner status.
Kevin Morby – Sundowner (October 16)
The previous albums by this prolific indie star have felt like a cock-eyed tour of classic-rock history, with Morby working within aesthetic frameworks reminiscent of Bob Dylan (Harlem River), Lou Reed (City Music), and (my personal favorite) messianic quasi-religious ’70s rock (Singing Saw). His latest record, Sundowner, is a culmination of those albums, marking a homecoming to his native Kansas City and a return to his DIY roots. Working in collaboration with producer Brad Cook — who also memorably oversaw one of the 2020’s best albums, Saint Cloud, by Morby’s partner, Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee — Morby played most of the instruments himself for Sundowner, recreating the intimacy of his demos. The result is one of Morby’s best and most intense records.
BONUS
Sky Ferreira – Masochism (TBD)
Call me an optimist, but I’m holding out hope that the long, looooong awaited followup to 2013’s Night Time, My Time will finally drop in the fall of 2020. After all, this has been a pretty extraordinary year for music already. Fiona Apple came back. Bright Eyes came back. Why not Sky Ferreira? A Pitchfork profile heralded her “return” way back in March of 2019. Later that year, she promised that the album would drop before the end of the ’10s. Presumably, Ferreira is giving this eternally gestating masterwork the perfectionist treatment. Hopefully, being stuck in quarantine like the rest of us has expedited this process. P.S. This also goes for The Wrens and their long, looooong, loooooooooong delayed followup to The Meadowlands.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
No Time to Die, which was originally scheduled to come out in April, will now be released on November 20, making it a Thanksgiving movie. And for that, we’re thankful.
We’re thankful that Daniel Craig is back for one more adventure as 007. We’re thankful for Rami Malek as Safin, who producer Barbara Broccoli describes as, “He is really the super-villain. He’s the one that really gets under Bond’s skin. He’s a nasty piece of work.” We’re thankful for ridiculous set pieces, like cars being flipped in a forest and people jumping off bridges, as seen in the trailer above. We’re thankful for Lashana Lynch as the rumored next 007. We’re thankful for Ben Whishaw as Q, because it reminds us of Paddington. And we’re thankful for seeing Ana de Armas in anything.
Here’s the official plot synopsis:
In No Time to Die, Bond has left active service and is enjoying a tranquil life in Jamaica. His peace is short-lived when his old friend Felix Leiter from the CIA turns up asking for help. The mission to rescue a kidnapped scientist turns out to be far more treacherous than expected, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology.
No Time to Die, which also stars Léa Seydoux, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Christoph Waltz, Rory Kinnear, Ralph Fiennes, and Billy Magnussen, opens on November 20.
The Oklahoma City Thunder’s incredible and surprising season came to an inauspicious end on Wednesday night when they fell to the Rockets in Game 7 by a 104-102 final.
They had two opportunities to tie or take the lead, but failed to even get a ball to the rim on either possession. For Chris Paul, it’s the latest in a career filled with close calls and near misses in the postseason, many of those have featured another figure in the proceedings. Referee Scott Foster and Chris Paul have, let’s just say, not the best working relationship and some contentiousness on the court at times. Foster was on the game Wednesday night and hit Paul with a delay of game penalty that befuddled the future Hall of Famer — there, of course, is some irony to Paul getting a delay of game when earlier this season he made headlines by effectively petitioning for a game-saving delay of game against the Wolves when Foster was calling that game too.
After the game, Paul wasn’t in the mood to defer on questions on the officiating, and accepted that a fine was coming his way as he got some things off of his chest about what went down on that delay of game call.
I asked Chris Paul about the officiating – specifically that delay of game call. He named Scott Foster as says he knows he’ll get fined.
A passionate response that includes “that shit don’t make no sense…we could have won the game” pic.twitter.com/w2MpKr3Uyr
“Delay of game? It’s crazy, what’s been going on in the Bubble. Like, the replays, they show the replays sometimes so that, obviously, it’s an advantage if you can see the replay and then challenge. So, I dropped down to tie my shoe up and hope we see a replay, and Scott Foster walked over to me and told me, ‘Chris you ain’t gotta do that, I got ’em sweeping up the floor.’ OK, cool. So I start tying my shoe back up and he still called a delay of game. That sh*t don’t make no sense. I don’t know. That’s crazy, he just…we could’ve won the game. In that situation, the league knows. Yeah, they gon’ fine me, I said his name, we already know the history. It’s all good.”
Paul’s history with Scott Foster is well documented — entering the game, Paul’s team had lost nine straight playoff games reffed by Foster (the Rockets, in fairness, had lost seven straight, many of those with Paul, so neither team had a good history with him calling the game). And apparently, prior to the game Foster made the curious choice to remind Paul of that history that dates back well over a decade.
Thunder guard Chris Paul says referee Scott Foster made a point to tell him before the Game 7 loss to the Thunder tonight that he also reffed his Game 7 loss to the Spurs in 2008 when CP was with the Hornets.
The Thunder had ample opportunity to win the game, no matter what happened with the officiating, and the crew even got together on the final inbound play and called a foul that gave the Thunder a free throw to cut the lead to one, that Danilo Gallinari missed, and the ball back. Oklahoma City’s first gripe should be with its offensive execution down the stretch, as they were dismal in the halfcourt late against the Rockets, most notably on those final two plays where Luguentz Dort got blocked and they failed to get a shot up before the buzzer.
Still, it’s extremely strange if Foster would go up to Paul prior to the game and note he refereed his Game 7 loss to the Spurs 12 years ago. Even if the intention wasn’t malicious and was just a, “Hey, can you believe we’re still doing this all these years later,” thing, it could easily be read as an almost brag or a forewarning of what was to come. It only adds to a bizarre end to a game that was wild enough on its own.
The Rockets-Thunder series promised to be one of the more entertaining matchups of the first round, and after a maddening, nail-biting conclusion to a grueling seven-game series on Wednesday night, it’s safe to say that it more than delivered on that promise.
Houston somehow emerged with a 104-102 win in Game 7, punching their ticket to round two and a date with the Los Angeles Lakers, but before that happens, here’s what we learned from the dramatic finale to the opening round’s best series.
Game 7s Are The Best (and the Worst)
The final five minutes of Game 7 was one of the more stressful and frustrating viewing experiences of the entire bubble. Play after play, it was one disaster after another, during which each team and won and lost the series countless times. It had everything: comically-broken plays, overly-involved officiating, ill-advised fouls, missed free throws, terrible overall execution, and enough unexpected twists and turns to make you queasy.
The Rockets didn’t win so much as they survived, and it was fitting that the final possession came down to, of all things, a defensive stop from James Harden, who came through with a game-saving block on his new arch-nemesis Luguentz Dort.
Game 7s are always an emotional roller-coaster, and this one had everything you could want from one and more.
All Hail Our New King Dort!
You could be forgiven for not knowing Luguentz Dort’s name prior to the Bubble. The undrafted rookie has had to scratch and claw to secure his place in this league, and that final play notwithstanding, it’s paid tremendous dividends for both him and the Thunder here in the postseason.
Dort’s viability was, understandably, called into question in the middle of this series, wherein the Rockets gave him the Tony Allen treatment and dared him to shoot as many threes as his heart desired. The results were not pretty. But Dort bounced back in a historic way in Game 7.
He finished with 30 points on the night, joining rarefied air as just the third rookie in NBA history to reach that mark in a Game 7 of the playoffs.
Luguentz Dort is just the third rookie in NBA history to record a 30-point game in a Game 7. He joins Tom Heinsohn (Apr. 13, 1957) and Tom Meschery (Apr. 5, 1962).
He played stifling defense on Harden throughout the series and proved that an off night in Game 6 couldn’t rattle his confidence from long-range, as he knocked down 6-of-12 threes in Game 7 en route to leading all scorers on the night.
We certainly haven’t heard the last of Lu Dort. See you on the other side…
James Harden Was Somehow Granted An 11th Hour Reprieve
James Harden has a reputation for folding in big playoff games. And despite the outcome on Wednesday night, Harden was en route to yet another epic postseason meltdown. By midway through the fourth quarter, Harden had made just three total field goals.
Dort was making life hell on him, just like he’d done all series, and had he not come up with that revenge block in the final seconds, his final box score would’ve haunted him all offseason: 17 points on 4-of-15 shooting, including 1-of-9 from behind the arc.
A Rockets loss would’ve been a damning referendum on Harden and his history of playoff shortfalls, on the wisdom that went into trading Westbrook for Paul, and on Mike D’Antoni, who was already in the hot seat. Fortunately, Westbrook, along with Eric Gordon and Robert Covington, stepped up big time in the second half.
Now, it’s on to the second round, where Harden and the Rockets will once again find themselves under the microscope as they face the No. 1 seeded Lakers and an even bigger obstacle on their journey through the West playoffs. The question is whether this series will have the galvanizing effect they need to push themselves to the next level or reveal the flaws that will ultimately be their downfall.
We’ll find out when Game 1 tips off on Friday at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN.
The Thunder fell just short of the second round, dropping their Game 7 matchup to the Rockets in a 104-102 thriller in which they had two separate chances at a game-tying or go-ahead basket.
Their first attempt was a nightmarish offensive possession that saw Luguentz Dort catch the ball on the wing and get blocked by a spectacular closeout from James Harden, with Houston up 103-102. The next came after Robert Covington split two free throws with 1.1 seconds to play, leaving OKC with the chance to tie or take the lead with a sideline play in the frontcourt after a timeout. The result was the Thunder never even getting a shot up, as the inbounds pass ended up being thrown, somewhat inexplicably, to Steven Adams at the three-point line after the Rockets denied the ball going into Chris Paul and Danilo Gallinari.
The question, for many, was why the play was designed as it was, given they were only down two, and didn’t even consider having Adams go to the paint while being guarded by P.J. Tucker who was much shorter than he was. On the first attempt at the inbounds play, Tucker was fronting Adams well away from the hoop when OKC called timeout, with no backside help for a possible lob to the rim. Channing Frye, watching the game from home like all of us, was melting down at the refusal to even consider the size mismatch inside.
On the play they actually ended up going with, Frye walked up to his TV to break it down and just kept getting madder and madder about the refusal to throw it to the paint.
It’s understandable if Adams isn’t the primary option on the play, because there is concern over him catching it and getting hacked before getting a shot up, sending a bad free throw shooter to the line, but given how they were guarding him before the timeout and then on the play where he was screening they abandoned him, having him roll to the rim for a lob after looking for the first two options would’ve been a vastly superior option than him running to the ball with 1.1 on the clock where he’s absolutely no threat shooting it.
The Thunder will certainly be thinking through how they could’ve executed better down the stretch, and that ATO play from Billy Donovan will get plenty of scrutiny for its design and lack of diversity of options against a smaller Rockets team that sent them home.
Continuing to bring attention to his third album Blame It On Baby, DaBaby returns with a new video for his Quavo collaboration, “Pick Up.” Standing as one of the wackier visuals in his catalog, DaBaby begins by picking up a phone he sees laying on the ground. With what looks like a 21st-century flip phone, DaBaby is absorbed into it and taken back in time where he is met by a cavemen couple. After wandering the area for a bit, the video shifts its attention to Quavo where the Migo presents himself as an exterminator who sets out to kill a number of rats with his high-precision laser gun. Fellow Migo, Offset, also makes a brief cameo in the Reel Goats-directed video.
The “Pick Up” visual arrives after DaBaby recently performed at the MTV VMAs this past weekend. Performing a medley of his recent songs that included ‘Blind,’ ‘Peephole,’ and ‘Rockstar,’ his performance also saw him reunite with The Jabbawockeez after he first connected with the group for his “Bop” video. Prior to his MTV VMA performance, DaBaby joined Jack Harlow and Post Malone for a remix Saweetie’s “Tap In” single.
On a celebratory note, DaBaby’s “Rockstar” single with Roddy Ricch was recently named the most-streamed song of the summer by Spotify.
Watch the “Pick Up” video above.
Roddy Ricch is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Game 7 of the Thunder-Rockets series was as thrilling at the end as Tuesday night’s Nuggets-Jazz game, as both teams scrambled to get across the finish line with a win.
There were flops, more missed layups than one could imagine possible, and even a clutch James Harden defensive play to save the Rockets in the final seconds. The Thunder had a great opportunity to take the lead on the final possession after the Rockets were unable to extend their lead on their last possession, but Houston played terrific defense on Chris Paul to force the ball out of his hands and it eventually landed in those of Luguentz Dort, who had a career shooting night with 30 points, but his final three was blocked by a tremendous closeout from Harden.
Robert Covington would split a pair of free throws with 1.1 seconds remaining, leaving a glimmer of hope for the Thunder, who after a bizarre series of events, ended up throwing an inbounds to Steven Adams at the three-point line for reasons passing understanding, failing to even get so much as a shot at a win or a tie. That gave Houston a 104-102 win to advance to the second round.
The execution offensively for both teams was dreadful down the stretch, as happens in Game 7s, and Harden was rather awful on that end with 17 points on 4-of-15 shooting, as Dort gave him issues all night on offense — in his own words after the game, he played “like sh*t.”
However, he was able to avoid The Discourse, at least for another week-plus about his performances in big games thanks to that heroic defensive effort, and as such, the Rockets are on to the second round for a showdown with the Lakers.
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in the first half.
