An insert that’ll turn your grill into a pizza oven? Yeah, I’m gonna ~knead~ that.
Former SNL cast member Jay Pharoah shared a chilling video on Instagram where an Los Angeles police officer kneeled on his neck in an apparent case of mistaken identity strikingly similar to the police actions that killed George Floyd and sparked an international movement against police brutality against Black people.
The video started with images of kneeling police officers and shots of protesters and policemen walking together, which have been widely shared as signs of unity in the last few weeks of widespread protests against police brutality. While the images play, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech can be heard. The video then shows Pharoah, who explains that a week before George Floyd was killed by police in Minnesota, an extremely similar incident happened to him in Los Angeles.
Pharoah explained as security camera footage showed an officer run up to him, weapon drawn, in daylight in Los Angeles while he was on a run.
“I could have easily been an Ahmaud Arbery or a George Floyd,” he said.
Apparently, officers were looking for a suspect and he fit the description: “a black man with gray sweatpants and a gray shirt.” Four officers approached him with their weapons drawn, and once he was on the ground one officer put his knee on his neck. The video, with Pharoah narrating, is a harrowing look at just how easily someone can be put at gunpoint just for being a Black man on the streets of an American city.
“I’m Jay Pharoah and I’m a Black man in America,” he said. “My life matters. Black lives always matter. They always matter.”
Our Longest Summer series will look at the eight teams whose seasons are now officially over, and will have to wait until mid-October to make decisions on what’s next and how to proceed after falling short of the cut-off for a continued 2019-20 campaign.
The Charlotte Hornets entered the 2019-20 season with exceptionally low expectations. Many, including a handful of Las Vegas oddsmakers, projected the Hornets to finish dead-last in the NBA after the loss of Kemba Walker and, at the very least, a playoff push wasn’t expected to be in the cards. Along the way, however, Charlotte overachieved significantly, posting a 23-42 record that nearly saw the team eclipse its 82-game over/under win total in only 65 games.
It would be fair to note that the Hornets’ point differential was substantially worse than the team’s record but, even when accounting for that, Charlotte was simply better than they were “supposed” to be this season. Much of that can be attributed to the rise of Devonte’ Graham, but, with James Borrego drawing encouraging reviews on the bench and a respectable overall defense, the Hornets might have a little bit of momentum with a 10th-place finish in the Eastern Conference. With that as the backdrop, the offseason arrives early for Charlotte and a number of intriguing outcomes are in play.
2020 Free Agents
Nic Batum (player option), Bismack Biyombo (UFA), Dwayne Bacon (RFA), Willy Hernangomez (UFA)
2020 Projected salary cap space (assuming $115 million salary cap)
$25.1 million, per Early Bird Rights
Areas of Strength
Even with the relatively positive overall performance this season, the Hornets aren’t overflowing with talent. The team’s backcourt was highly productive this season, though, and the duo of Graham and Terry Rozier did a lot to carry Charlotte’s offense. Though Graham cooled off during the campaign, he produced 18.2 points per game and knocked down 37 percent from three-point range on substantial volume. As for Rozier, the jokes about his (highly) lucrative contract were quieted to some degree, as he put together the best offensive season of his career by a comfortable margin. In addition to the backcourt, the Hornets may have a gem in 2019 lottery pick P.J. Washington, and 2018 lottery pick Miles Bridges put together a few flashes along the way.
Areas of Need
With apologies to Graham (or even Rozier), the Hornets still don’t have a No. 1 option on the offensive end of the floor. Every rebuilding team is in search of “the guy” and Charlotte simply doesn’t have that player right now. As a result, the team ranked near the bottom of the league in virtually every offensive category (sans three-point shooting) and the lack of offensive talent is stark when examining the roster. From there, it wasn’t as if the team was incredible defensively, failing to overcome its small backcourt without anything approaching a dominant rim-protecting force on the roster. To put it bluntly, this is a roster that needs a lot.
Biggest Decisions
With the widespread assumption that Batum will opt in to his $27.1 million player option, the Hornets still project to have more than $25 million in salary cap room, at least under the pre-pandemic projections. On one hand, it is a bad year to have substantial cap space, simply because there is a lack of top-end talent hitting the market. On the other, Charlotte isn’t usually mentioned on the list of teams ready to land max-level players in free agency, so they could use the space to acquire draft picks in exchange for toxic assets on other rosters. It will be crucial that the Hornets use their salary cap flexibility wisely and, from a draft perspective, Charlotte is in position to use a lottery pick to bolster its stockpile.
Overall Offseason Focus
The Hornets are still in asset collection mode, or at least they should be. There isn’t a single “untouchable” piece on the roster, and while everyone knew a rebuild had to arrive when Walker exited, Charlotte isn’t in the kind of advanced position of teams like Atlanta or Minnesota that already have some star power on the roster. Prudence is the order of the day, and the Hornets can improve their long-term standing while keeping their eye on the ball when it comes to not pushing too hard for the short term.
Netflix is notoriously guarded as far as its streaming figures go, and even when the service does release streaming numbers, they are based on strange, self-reported metrics. There are no reliable, objective measures of viewership on Netflix. However, back in March, days before the shutdowns around the country began to take shape, Netflix began to release daily charts showing which movies and television shows were most watched during that particular days. Those charts do not give exact viewership numbers, but they at least gives us a rough idea of what is popular (and I use them in our weekly box-office report for movies).
However, over on Reddit (via Forbes), user Lamboo has devised a point system that tracks the most popular TV shows based on those Netflix daily rankings. The point system is fairly rudimentary — it assigns a value from first through tenth place, which is added for every day the TV show is in the top ten — but it offers an interesting glimpse of what is most popular over the course of the last 100 days.
Unsurprisingly, Ozark season 3 has been the most popular TV show of the pandemic, although the series that comes close behind it, Outer Banks, may be a bigger surprise. It is followed by Dead to Me‘s second season, Sweet Magnolias, and Mindy Kaling’s series, Never Have I Never (I have never heard of Sweet Magnolias before, but now I know where Jamie Lynn Spears and Chris Klein are).
Six through ten on the list are Money Heist, the popular Spanish series in its fourth season; the second season of Altered Carbon; the third season of the teen comedy-drama On My Block; the The Last Kingdom; and at number ten, the coming-of-age comedy-drama I Am Not OK With This.
Some of the more recent entries like Space Force and Fuller House have also been very popular with the streaming service, but they haven’t been able to accumulate a lot of days on the point system yet (although both shows have ranked very well in the few days since they were released).
Elsewhere, in licensed shows, The CW seems to be dominating with All American and Riverdale taking the top two spots followed by Avatar the Last Airbender (from Nickelodeon), Netflix mainstay The Office, and Paramount TV’s Waco starring Taylor Kitsch. Don’t sleep on Community, either, which holds the number ten slot, after it returned to the streaming network back in April.
IDK began the last quarter of 2019 with his major-label debut album, Is He Real? The album was released to positive reviews as it impressively tackled the realities and fantasies of life. Weeks after releasing the album, IDK revealed in a tweet that a companion album, one that answered the question presented in his major-label debut album’s title, would arrive in 2020. Before that companion album arrives, however, IDK revealed that he has something else in the works for fans.
Before I give you my second album “USEE4YOURSELF” I’d like to drop off something me and my brother made 4 y’all. 9 Tracks, details soon
— ? (@IDK) June 14, 2020
Ahead of the album, which IDK confirmed to be titled U See 4 Yourself, he took to Twitter to announce a new project would precede the upcoming album. “Before I give you my second album “USEE4YOURSELF” I’d like to drop off something me and my brother made 4 y’all. 9 Tracks, details soon,” he said in the tweet.
This would not be the first time IDK released a project shortly before a full album. Less than a year before releasing Is He Real?, IDK shared his IDK & Friends 🙂 project. The 7-song effort saw features from Denzel Curry, Rico Nasty, Wale, and more.
.Madlib pack.
pic.twitter.com/dTa9pqOYe9
— ? (@IDK) June 14, 2020
As we await the details on the upcoming project, IDK teased a possible collaborator for it. Sharing a picture from his Macbook, IDK showed fans a folder titled “MADLIB 4 IDK” shedding light on the possibility that one or more Madlib-produced beats could land on either of IDK’s upcoming projects.
IDK’s announcement also arrives after he released his “Mazel Tov” track alongside ASAP Ferg.
IDK is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
