The Indiana Pacers will have star guard Victor Oladipo in their ranks when they start their journey in the NBA’s bubble. The Athletic’s Chams Charania reported on Saturday that Oladipo will, indeed, play for the Pacers after some considerable back-and-forth about his status while the NBA planned and made its return to play when the Pacers start their bubble run against the Sixers on Saturday night.
Pacers star Victor Oladipo will play in NBA restart beginning Indiana’s opener against the 76ers tonight.
It’s huge news for a Pacers team that tried its best to make a postseason run without him last year, falling to Boston in the opening round of the playoffs. With quite literally everything up in the air about the NBA’s postseason during an unprecedented season, any little bit helps and if Oladipo is healthy he will be a considerable advantage in the East for the Pacers as they battle for seeding in the coming days.
Charania reported “growing belief” that Oladipo would try to give it a go despite his initial decision in early July to opt out of the Bubble season. In the days since, he had practiced in five-on-five scrimmages and was growing optimistic he could play despite his surgically-repaired quad, which has kept his status up in the air since last season. Health is the biggest concern with everyone in the age of COVID-19, but it seems Oladipo’s physical health is officially good enough here to play.
A whole lot of people liked the Philadelphia 76ers to win the Eastern Conference this year. The thought was that their size and physicality — which received a boost last offseason due to the addition of Al Horford — would overwhelm teams. Mix that with Ben Simmons taking a step forward, Tobias Harris settling in after receiving a max deal, and Joel Embiid getting to occasionally rest due to the addition of Horford, and beating the Sixers four times in seven games would be quite tough.
The results haven’t always been there. While good and occasionally dominant, Philly has been inconsistent, mired by injuries and a general sense that players haven’t quite been able to put it all together. The hope for them is that the team that went 29-2 at home shows up in Orlando, because if it’s closer to the squad that went 10-24 in away games, Philly isn’t making it out of the first round.
ROSTER
Ryan Broekhoff
Alec Burks
Joel Embiid
Tobias Harris
Al Horford
Furkan Korkmaz
Shake Milton
Raul Neto
Kyle O’Quinn
Norvel Pelle
Josh Richardson
Glenn Robinson III
Mike Scott
Marial Shayok
Ben Simmons
Zhaire Smith
Matisse Thybulle
Saturday, August 1 — 7 p.m. ET — Indiana Pacers
Monday, August 3 — 8 p.m. ET — San Antonio Spurs
Wednesday, August 5 — 4 p.m. ET — Washington Wizards
Friday, August 7 — 6:30 p.m. ET — Orlando Magic
Sunday, August 9 — 6:30 p.m. ET — Portland Trail Blazers
Tuesday, August 11 — 4:30 p.m. ET — Phoenix Suns
Wednesday, August 12 — 6:30 p.m. ET — Toronto Raptors
Friday, August 14 — TBD — Houston Rockets
WHAT DOES SUCCESS LOOK LIKE?
Well this is a tough question, ain’t it? Based on what we’ve seen this year, success for this Sixers team is earning a top-4 finish in the Eastern Conference, then battling with the Bucks, Raptors, or Celtics in the conference semifinals but falling a little short. Based on the expectations for this franchise, though, success is playing for a conference title and, if they lose, going down swinging.
As such, the answer to “what does success look like” is probably closer to the latter than the former. Philadelphia will get eight games to iron out various wrinkles. Once the postseason starts up, all of those wrinkles will need to be figured out, and the team has to win. The future of head coach Brett Brown might depend on it, and who knows what the front office will determine about the Embiid-Simmons pairing if they crash and burn.
X-FACTOR
Shake Milton: The Sixers are extremely weird. They’re always extremely weird! But even by that standard, it is weird that they are handing the keys to the offense over to a second-year point guard who was the 54th pick of the 2018 NBA Draft as has 16 starts to his name in his career.
Then again, it’s hard not to get optimistic about what Milton — an outstanding collegiate player at SMU who has looked quite good when he’s taken the floor for the team — can do. The 23-year-old gives the team some much-needed floor spacing, averaging 9.5 points in 19.1 minutes per game while connecting on 45.3 percent of his triples. With him at the one, Simmons slides to the four, and the early returns have seemed promising, both in terms of what Milton can do and how Simmons is still able to impact games from that spot. He’s able to play-make, too, and had seven-consecutive games with double-digit scoring before the shutdown, including a 39-point explosion against the Clippers.
There’s a very plausible path where this implodes and Philly needs to put the ball back in Simmons’ hands. If it goes well, though, Milton gives the team exactly what it needs alongside the rest of its starting five.
BIGGEST ON-COURT QUESTION
Will they be able to space the floor? The answer: Maybe! Milton has been quite good from deep, while Furkan Korkmaz (39.7 percent) and Raul Neto (39.4 percent) can hit triples, too. Still, when two of Embiid, Horford, and Simmons on the floor, the other three guys have to be able to consistently shoot. Harris (36.2 percent) and Mike Scott (35.8 percent) have been up-and-down. Josh Richardson and Alec Burks are both at 32.7 percent, while Glenn Robinson is at 28.6 percent, which is especially tough considering he hit 40 percent of his threes with the Warriors. Embiid and Horford can hit threes, even if they are better elsewhere, and while Simmons hit a triple during the tune-up games, he’s not exactly Ray Allen.
Any combination of those aforementioned dudes — and we’ll toss in rookie defensive maestro Matisse Thybulle (35.2 percent), too — getting hot from deep would be gigantic. When Embiid and Simmons have space to work, and when Horford has room to do all the stuff that makes him such a fun player, all three are quite dangerous. When they’re not afforded that, the offense gets gummed up far too easily.
Regis Philbin’s death last week at age 88 is still being felt in the entertainment industry, and those closest to him are still sharing memories from his life and legacy. One of those people is Michael Schur, who has been involved in The Office, Parks and Rec and The Good Place and certainly knows about TV himself.
His wife, J.J. Philbin, is also the late Regis Philbin’s daughter so he had some specific insights about his career and what he meant to both his family and millions of people who watched him on TV for decades. On Friday, nearly a week after Philbin’s death, Schur shared a thread on Twitter that included some notes from his belongings and memorialized the vast breadth of his time on TV.
I’ve never really been able to articulate what his life and career meant. It’s too huge. You can’t wrap your arms around it. He literally holds the Guinness Book Record for most hours on TV. (Like 17,000, or something equally absurd.)
Still, I’ve been trying for 20+ years to find a way to explain, in a pithy way, how monumental his career was in the medium that his daughter and I both work in. Over the past few days, I think I found it.
And though he called Philbin’s career “too huge” to properly commemorate, the former writer for Fire Joe Morgan made sure to include some context for the sports broadcasting section of his career, which is largely forgotten by those who know him from Live With Regis And Kelly and, of course, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. He described it as a career impossible to duplicate, and rightfully so.
You want to see a career no one will ever duplicate? Here it is. A guy who was on TV when Harvey Haddix struck out Duke Snider, and also handed million-dollar checks on a futuristic game show set. A guy who reported on both Lou Groza and Eli Manning, Yogi Berra and Gary Sanchez.
“No one will ever be what he was, in the medium he dedicated his life to,” Schur concluded. “What a run.” Schur also shared a link to a pair of charitably foundations in Philbin’s honor as a way to pay tribute to the late entertainer.
If you’d like to honor Regis, please donate to https://t.co/KOXYylvKkL, to help his beloved Bronx, or the Center for the Homeless in South Bend, a charity near and dear to his heart, at https://t.co/PCcSDwFBJb.
It’s a touching bit of nostalgia for a man who apparently didn’t like trips down memory lane, but one that certainly gave people extra insight into his remarkable career.
The Miami Heat beat the Denver Nuggets, 125-105, in the bubble on Saturday, but the biggest news item of the session in Orlando happened before the game. Heat star Jimmy Butler attempted to wear a jersey without a name on the back, and the officials in charge of the game didn’t allow the contest to start until Butler changed jerseys to one with “Butler” on the back.
Butler was asked by officials to swap his name-less No. 22 jersey with one that had his name on it, which he did. But after the game he spoke about what happened, saying he didn’t understand why the league won’t allow him to honor victims of police brutality and other Black causes by removing his own name from his jersey — it had previously been reported that Butler planned on doing this. Speaking to reporters, Butler expressed disappointment about the moment, saying “I don’t care” about the explanation the league gives for its rules.
Jimmy Butler says he doesn’t know exactly why he was asked to change his jersey before tipoff and adds “I don’t care” about the league’s explanation. Butler said he relented “for my teammates” and described it as “to be determined” if he tries to play in a blank jersey again
Butler isn’t the only NBA player who wanted to go nameless in the bubble in lieu of a social justice slogan. At least one member of the Boston Celtics wanted to follow that same route according to ESPN’s broadcast on Friday night, and Jaylen Brown has expressed disappointment that the slogans were limited back in July. But the NBA has been adamant that players either use their given name or choose from a list of pre-selected phrases like “Education Reform” or “Equality.”
NBA spokesman on Jimmy Butler: “Displaying no name or message on the back of a player’s jersey was not an option among the social justice messages agreed upon by the Players Association and the NBA as modifications to the rules regarding uniforms.” (1/2)
NBA spokesman (continued) on Miami’s Jimmy Butler being asked to take off a jersey with no name and replace it with a jersey bearing BUTLER: ”Per league rules, the uniform may not be otherwise altered and anyone wearing an altered jersey will not be permitted to enter the game.”
The league’s efforts to raise awareness of Black issues — including the use of the phrase “Black Lives Matter” on the bubble courts — make it one of the most progressive among the major sports when it comes to siding with and encouraging activism among its players. But this jersey issue doesn’t appear likely to go Butler’s way, and the league seems to have made it clear to officials that its rules must be followed regardless of the noble intent of Butler or anyone else in the Bubble.
An Oklahoma state representative isn’t too fond of the NBA players kneeling for the national anthem during the league’s restart in Orlando. In a statement on Friday, Rep. Sean Roberts (R-Hominy) proposed reexamining tax benefits that the Oklahoma City Thunder receives from the state, claiming that “by kneeling during the playing of the national anthem, the NBA and its players are showing disrespect to the American flag and all it stands for.” Roberts claims that it’s anti-patriotic to show support of Black Lives Matter, which he incorrectly believes strives to destroy nuclear families.
Standing or not standing during the national anthem in protest of police brutality and systemic inequality is an expression of free speech, which is a right given to us by the U.S. Constitution. This is the very freedom that is supposed to define the country. However, individuals resistant to confronting our nation’s history determined it only applies to some, but not others.
As NBA players, coaches, and referees almost all kneel during the anthem, unified in a form of peaceful protest, people like Roberts either don’t want to understand, don’t try, or get what’s going on and make it a point to vilify, instead. Players are not kneeling to protest the national anthem — this has been explained over and over again. This is to raise awareness against social injustices that plague Black Americans on a daily basis. The lack of quality education, poverty, job growth, and treatment by the criminal justice system are destroying families, not the Black Lives Matter movement.
Black Lives Matter is not just an organization, it is a way of life. No one is saying only Black lives should matter, people are saying Black lives should matter just as much as others. We want the country to live up to its ideals: freedom, liberty, and justice for all. That has not been happening, and Black and brown people are living it every day of our lives. LeBron James is right: “Black Lives Matter is not a movement, it’s a lifestyle.”
“A lot of people kind of use the analogy Black Lives Matter is a movement. … When you Black, it’s not a movement, it’s a lifestyle.”
As for the act of kneeling, Los Angeles Clippers head coach Doc Rivers recently made powerful comments about taking a knee, mentioning the death of George Floyd.
Clippers’ Doc Rivers closed his media session with this:
“The hardest part of the game for me was the kneeling for 2 minutes. In 2 minutes my knee is hurting, yet there was a guy who had his knee on someone’s neck for 8 minutes… That’s nuts when you think about it.” pic.twitter.com/3g7OVwRkZU
Truly, the true essence of disrespect and dishonor is a politician threatening to end funding to citizens who are practicing their constitutional rights to peacefully protest. It is a first amendment violation and the government is prohibited from penalizing private citizens for protected actions. And as for Roberts’ hopes that his threat would land, Thunder players and coaches knelt prior to their game on Saturday afternoon.
Perhaps Mr. Roberts needs to put his attention to more important things that are going on in the state of Oklahoma to protect his constituents, because as this shows, the Oklahoma City Thunder are not intimidated by what he has to say and are choosing to use their platforms to peacefully demand change.
Over the past week, Snoop Dogg has been looking back on his career. It began with his Verzuz battle with DMX, which found both artists playing some of their classic records. A few days later he stopped by The Breakfast Club to discuss it, prompting him to reminisce about his “Still D.R.E.” collaboration with Dr. Dre. Snoop revealed that Jay-Z wrote the entire song, his and Dre’s verses included. Now he’s looking at hip-hop’s past once again, sharing his top ten rappers of all time in an Instagram post.
In his post, he cited Slick Rick, Ice Cube, LL Cool J, KRS One, Rakim, Run from Run D.M.C., D from Run D.M.C., Big Daddy Kane, Ice T, and Too Short. Along with the list, Snoop sent out a message to his fans in the caption.
“A lot n****z been cryin about me leaving people off my top 10 without. Even seeing my shit so here it is,” he wrote. “F. Y. I. Notice how none of my peers or m. Cs after me are on the list respect ya. Gz is what I was taught if u offended you’ll get over it I get left off a lot of top10s I’m not even on this one.”
The message comes after fans were critical of Snoop Dogg saying Eminem was not in his top ten rappers of all time. When asked why Eminem was left out of his list, he said, “There’s just some n****s in the ’80s that he can’t f*ck with.” He would later show love to the Detroit legend in another Instagram post.
New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu is expected to miss approximately one month of action with a grade three ankle sprain, Shams Charania of The Athletic reports. The 2020 No. 1 pick rolled her left ankle after colliding with Atlanta Dream guard Betnijah Laney in the second quarter of Friday’s game and went down injured. The Liberty went on to lose the game, 84-78, for their third loss of the season.
WNBA No. 1 pick Sabrina Ionescu is expected to miss approximately one month with a Grade 3 left ankle sprain and will continue to be re-evaluated, source tells @TheAthleticNBA@Stadium. https://t.co/bnuHGN7uIs
Ionescu had a relatively quiet debut during the team’s first game against the Seattle Storm, scoring 12 points, four assists, and six rebounds. In her second game against the young Dallas Wings, she really was unleashed though, dropping a career-high 33 points, seven assists, and seven rebounds despite the 80-93 loss. Before her injury on Friday, she had managed to put up 10 points and one steal, rebound, and assist.
Fellow Liberty guard Kia Nurse suffered an ankle sprain during the team’s opening game against the Storm, and was able to start against the Dallas Wings on Wednesday, but did not look like herself. She only managed two points in 22 minutes of action and struggled on the defensive end as well, seeming uncomfortable in her footwork. Nurse missed Friday night’s game against Atlanta after being placed on the injury list.
The Liberty entered the 2020 season with a very young roster that includes seven rookies, and have yet to win a game this year. Losing two star guards in Ionescu and Nurse will certainly hurt the team, and place even more responsibility upon Layshia Clarendon’s shoulders. Clarendon joined the team in the off season, and has been one of the bright spots for New York, averaging 15.7 points, four assists, and 3.3 rebounds a night so far.
Mike Muscala is, notably, the only graduate of Bucknell in the NBA. A small liberal arts college in central Pennsylvania with less than 4,000 students, Bucknell isn’t exactly a Duke or Kentucky-level pro factory, even though the Bison are consistently among the best mid-major programs in all of college basketball. Muscala, back in 2013, became the third player drafted in school history and the first to take the floor in an NBA game.
As someone who graduated from a high school about 15 minutes away from Bucknell and would occasionally go watch their games — especially when they had this 6’10 big man who you could just tell was a cut above most of the competition in the Patriot League — it was only natural for me to ask Muscala his favorite thing about the university. It turns out that his answer was something that inadvertently prepared him to be posted up at the NBA’s bubble league, where he’s situated right now as a member of the Oklahoma City Thunder.
“They used to call it the Bucknell Bubble when I was there,” Muscala says over the phone. “I feel like just having everything there on campus, I felt like it was just a good overall experience. So we had everything we needed, there was a good place to focus on basketball and learn it from other people. So it was a great four years.”
While his college years are in the rear view, Muscala has his eyes on the coming days and weeks, as the Thunder are looking to continue their run as perhaps the most surprising team in the league and make some noise on the postseason. The first of the team’s eight seeding games takes place on Saturday afternoon — a 3:30 pm ET tilt against the Utah Jazz on ESPN. For Muscala, it’s a chance to play ball after several months off, but it’s also an opportunity to raise money for charity, as the seven-year veteran will donate money to PeacePlayers International for every three the Thunder make during his stint at Disney.
Before the game tips off, Dime caught up with Muscala to talk charity work, basketball, and the possibility that “Mike Jaws” could use his down time to make some music.
I’d love it if you could start by just explaining PeacePlayers a little bit.
Yeah, for sure. They were founded in 2000 by Brendan [Tuohey] and Sean [Tuohey]. I’ve gotten to know Brendan pretty well. And they started in Northern Ireland, playing and doing some camps out there, and it’s since expanded to other countries throughout the world and in some cities in the United States. And their whole mission is to bring people together through the sport of basketball.
I heard about them a few years ago from a friend who also went to Bucknell, actually, and was involved with them. I just thought it was a really cool mission and got to know Brendan, and I kind of stayed in touch with them, heard about what they’re doing, and just kind of had the idea of matching with the team three-pointers we make the rest of the season, to match with the donation to them just because I feel like there’s so much going into everything in this bubble here in Orlando to make this possible. And there’s a lot of kids that aren’t able to play right now, because of COVID, and PeacePlayers is actively working on ways to try to keep them involved. So I thought it’d be kind of a cool way to give back.
What’s your personal history with this charity and why was it important for you to get on board with it when you got filled in about what it strives to do?
I think it just stemmed from personal experience. I think when I had heard of what their whole mission and goals are and what they’re actually doing to make that happen — holding camps and holding leagues in countries where there were a lot of conflicts, religiously or politically or what have you, and also cities in the United States where there are neighborhoods of people that maybe have some tension there for whatever reason — for me personally, I’ve learned a lot about other people through basketball and PeacePlayers, that’s what they’re all about. I felt like I could relate to that. So I just felt like, especially now in a time of uncertainty, a difficult time in our country, there’s still so much that basketball can [do to] bring us together and help us learn about each other as we try to make changes going forward.
What do you think it is about basketball in particular that makes it such a good way to bring people together and bridge divides that might exist politically, religiously, and however else?
That’s a good question. I think just like any other good team sport, it requires individual focus and sacrifice for the better of the team. It’s a team sport, and you got five people on the court at a time, and you got other players on the bench, and you got coaches, you have staff members. All kinds of working pieces in place, and you have a gym that you’re able to play in and all those things. It’s a human game and I think I’ve heard coach Popovich mention something along those lines, too. So I think that that’s what PeacePlayers is all about. And in a time now where we’re playing for … it’s our jobs and there’s fans who are paying to watch the games. To be able to help out the people who are a little less fortunate, not able to play right now, just seemed kind of like a good thing to do.
Are you generally a big charity guy outside of PeacePlayers or is this one of those things where you feel like you can do your best work by dedicating your time and energy to working with them?
I think it helps when you feel like you know what the charity, what the nonprofit, what they’re really about, and when you’re able to get to meet some people with them as opposed to just making donations without having that personal connection. So there’s some other nonprofits that I work with and I’ve gotten to know some people with, but I just feel like I know basketball quite well, I’ve played it for quite a long time and it’s dear to me. So when I heard about their work with other basketball players and coaches and stuff, it just felt like something that I could relate to and get to know well, and it’s been fun getting to know them.
You’re a veteran, you’re one of the older dudes on a team that has a bunch of young guys on it. Do you ever talk to them about the importance of getting involved in community, getting involved in charity, those sorts of things?
Not necessarily in terms of getting involved with charities. I try to just nurture the idea of learning about causes and learning about people and learning about why certain ideas are being formed or what they really mean. Because I feel like that’s really what basketball, and what team sports, and what sports can do is just create a platform for acceptance and discussion of others, and what they want and what makes them happy or what they’re needing. As a teammate or as a competitor having that platform, I’m just trying to look at the bigger picture. Obviously we love to compete and we love to try to win as competitors and basketball players, but there’s a bigger picture there, too.
I need you to be honest with me: Are you going to be a little more willing to let it fly from deep knowing that it’s going to charity if it goes in?
I was talking with somebody with the Thunder earlier today and they said that they usually say “cha-ching” after the team makes a three-pointer. And so I was like, “I might steal that from you.” That’s a good one.
It’s literally what’s going to be happening, so you might as well. I do want to ask about the bubble a bit, about this season. How was it getting down to Disney and how’s life been now? It’s been, what about three, three and a half weeks for you guys?
Yeah, you’re right. It’s been good. They’ve made a great experience down here. I tip my hat to the NBA and the Players Association for working together to make this happen, because I feel grateful for the opportunity. Obviously there’s a lot of people putting in a lot of time, a lot of resources, a lot of money into this, and things are great. You know it’s pretty much waking up and going off to practice, and on a off day, we can play some golf or go fishing and what not. So things are good. It’s a fun environment to be in.
What’s the general vibe been? I imagine that it just takes a little getting used to, but it’s probably become more and more normal as you’ve been there, no?
Yeah, it is. And I think as NBA players, we’re used being on the road and living out of hotel rooms during the season. The accommodations here are nice and the Disney staff here in the hotels are all really, really nice and have been just awesome. Been very helpful with making great food and everything, all that type of stuff, so things are good. It makes it easy to go out and compete hard on the court.
You’re a guy, you’ve been in the league for a few years now. How do you set an example for those younger dudes — the Darius Bazleys, the Hami Diallos, the Terrance Fergusons — when it’s a situation that’s new for you too?
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I think it kind of puts things into perspective. As a young player, I’m sure especially just having something like this happen where it’s … I mean, for me too, being in my seventh year, it seems surreal sometimes that this is happening. But I think it will put things into perspective and show that things are fragile in this world and just how resourceful the NBA is to be able to make this happen. I mean, I think it’s quite impressive.
I have to imagine that having Chris Paul, he was just so central to all of this coming together. That’s had to have helped, no?
For sure. And he’s done a phenomenal job as the president of the PA and I feel like I’ve learned a lot from him just seeing how he leads. And it’s definitely been great having him on the team and being able to learn from him and see the issues that he deals with, as the president, on a daily basis and hearing his take on things. It’s been cool.
I think there was a belief that you guys were going to be a very solid team, but it would be in a bit of a transition year after this past offseason — I know you came in during this offseason. Did you guys hear all this stuff and get motivated by, “Oh, the Thunder should be a nice team, but not a really good team,” or has it been just head down, go to work the entire time?
It’s probably been a little bit of both. I think obviously each NBA season comes with expectations for each team, and coach met with us before the season and pretty much just addressed it head-on and was pretty frank with us that he kind of felt like we had felt that a little bit. As a player, as years go on, you feel how expectations are formed around a team. He challenged us to just, to not have any expectations when it comes to how the season is going to go and just work at things every day and do it together. And I think we’re still in that mindset now, as we head into the regular season here now with eight to go. Saturday should be fun.
It’s a cliche, but it seems like taking a one-game-at-a-time approach has really been good for you guys.
Yeah, for sure. And I think you hit it on the head. It does sound cliche, but I do feel like it has some benefits. It’s kind of how you really form habits and how you can hopefully rid yourself or your team of bad habits as you are able to look yourself in the mirror after game and address what went well and what didn’t. So that’s what you want, going into the playoffs, is you want to have good habits, because then it will not seem like you have to change much going to playoffs. And you’ll make adjustments and what not, but you’ll have those core principles and habits already in place.
There are so many reasons for why this team has been as good as it is, but I want to ask you about is Shai, who, I think everyone knew he was going to be good, but how good he is, how quickly he is, that’s caught a lot of us off guard who aren’t there every day. As someone who sees him every day and works with him every day, what is it about him that makes him such a special young player?
It’s a lot of things. I think he’s a great person, first and foremost. And he’s humble, and he works hard, and he’s driven — you can tell — and he’s competitive and he has a great mentor in Chris as well. I know that they’ve become quite close this season. That’s been really cool to see, so I’m happy for him and he deserves it all.
Two final questions before you go: Just what’s the mindset around the team? I think people are going to be really surprised when they catch up, they look at the standings, they see, “Oh man, if the Thunder get hot, they can get the two-seed in the Western Conference.”
Yeah, I mean, I think I’m going to go with a cliche answer. It’s one game at a time and it’s having fun. I think fans are excited for basketball to be back, I’m sure, I hope. I know we’re excited, so just giving the fans fun games to watch and going out and competing hard, because that’s just what it’s about at the end of the day.
And then my last question. I know Damian Lillard has a little setup in his room to record some music, is Mike Jaws going to be putting some stuff together or are you focused on basketball down there?
It’s funny, actually, we played them two days ago for the last preseason game, and I actually asked if he wanted to collab. He told me to send him some stuff, so the young fellow Darius Bazley, on the team too, he sent me some songs, he can really spit. So, we’ll see. I mean, it’d kind of be fun. We’re going to try to be locked in here and obviously be ready for the games, but I think music is a good outlet for basketball. It goes hand in hand, so maybe something will happen. It’d be fun.
In May, acclaimed film and television director Lynn Shelton suddenly died of a previously unidentified blood disorder, shocking fans and loved ones. Among those was Marc Maron, who had been dating her for a little over a year. Maron has frequently spoken about his heartbreak, and he did so again, two-and-a-half months after her passing, in a recent interview with The New York Times.
“We saw ourselves through each other’s eyes. I was really the best version of me, the way she saw me,” Maron said of the director of the movies Humpday, Your Sister’s Sister, and Laggies, as well as a lot of television. Last week Shelton was posthumously nominated for an Emmy for directing four episodes of Little Fires Everywhere.
The two met, he said, when she came on his beloved podcast, WTF, though they didn’t start seeing each other till later, as the two were in other relationships at the time. So for a while their relationship was professional. She directed some of his stand-up specials and she directed him in episodes of GLOW as well as in her 2019 film Sword of Trust.
“She was my best audience,” Maron said, choking up. “There was some sort of connection that we had — I lost all my self-consciousness, which is no easy trick.”
He also said he fought tooth and nail to get Netflix to hire her to helm the first special she directed, Too Real. “They were concerned that she had never directed a comedy special. I’m like: ‘She’s done seven movies! You think this is rocket science? She’d already made Outside In, and that’s a little masterpiece,” Maron recalled. He then stepped thing up:
I told my manager I won’t do the special if she can’t direct it. And they came back with, they’re also going to put another director who’s directed specials with her, to guide her through the process. And I said to my manager, that’s not a great look. Especially if they pull out some dude. You’re going to have some guy teach her? That’s ridiculous. Just let her direct it herself. And that’s all.
Maron went on to describe in detail about finding out she was sick, taking her to see a doctor and, when her condition worsened, calling the ambulance. She was dead within 18 hours. “I went [to the hospital] that night and spent a few minutes with her body,” he said. “It was the heaviest thing I’ve ever done. It was just devastating. I was blown out, totally traumatized. Totally heartbroken.”
Maron never took a break from his podcast, even after his producer floated that as a possibility. “I said, I have no control over these feelings. They’re monstrous. But they’re real,” he said. They posted his 2015 interview with Shelton, and then he spoke bluntly about what he was going through. He thought it would be good for him and for his audience, some of whom may have been going through pandemic-related grief of their own:
That’s one of the reasons I thought it was good to do it. There’s nothing but grief around. It’s a tough emotion for people to sit in and accept. The one thing the pandemic has given me is time to process and sit with the feelings. I cry every day. The shock and the trauma have dissipated a little bit, so now I deal with the loss. I have her jacket that she always wore, and her hat and boots. I have the shirt that I met her in. I touch these things when I can and try to keep her with me.
At the time of her death, Maron and Shelton were working on a screenplay, which just happened to be about someone who dies of cancer. He said he’s not sure what he will do with it. He said he’s considered finishing it and giving it to another female director, but he’s not sure if that’s the right thing to do.
“I don’t know that it would honor her,” Maron said. “Because this was always the thing that she was going to direct me in. That was the whole idea of it. It would be upsetting.”
But Maron’s been taking it one day at a time. “It’s a terrible experience but it is a fundamental human experience,” he said. “It’s as common as love. It’s devastating, but we are built to carry it, for ourselves and for others.”
Ahead of the release of his first signature sneaker, the Puma RS-Dreamer, an ad dropped showing J. Cole working out in a gym with a voice over from Master P that hinted something big is in the cards, even beyond the new kicks. Now, thanks to an interview Master P gave to TMZ, it appears that “something” might be an attempt at a professional basketball career.
Master P, who famously had a cup of coffee in the league as a preseason player for the Charlotte Hornets and the Toronto Raptors in the 1990s and played professional basketball in other leagues, told TMZ that J. Cole asked him what he’d need to do if he wanted to make it in the NBA. He explained that while it’s not going to be easy to make it to that point and Cole would draw the attention of everyone who has worked their whole lives to get to that point, “I believe in him and I believe that he’s a youngster that has a lot of desire.”
“I said to get one of these NBA jerseys, it’s not gonna be easy. It’s gonna be a lot of hate, it’s gonna be a lot of people not believing in you but you know J. Cole — he got the right size, he in the gym!”
“But, what I told him … this a different time we’re in. They’re going to pick you apart! You’re gonna have to be able to hit every shot and if you don’t hit every shot, they — you know in the NBA, they don’t hit every shot but they believe in them. So, you’re gonna have to go somewhere where the team really believe in you and the players believe in you.”
Cole is a well-documented basketball fan and has frequently shown that he’s one of the best hoopers in the rap game — he notably tried to walk-on to the basketball program at St. John’s when he was in school. Of course, being a walk-on college basketball player as a teenager or 20-something and making the NBA as a 35-year-old are two very, very different things, but if he does indeed try to pursue this seriously, Cole has the support of Master P.
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