Category: News

After 24 games, the Philadelphia 76ers were seemingly in the mud. Philadelphia approached the 2022-23 season with considerable promise after moves to strengthen the team’s depth alongside Joel Embiid and James Harden, but the 76ers were just 12-12 in mid-December. Philadelphia’s underlying fundamentals were stronger than the .500 record would suggest but, with Embiid, Harden, and Tyrese Maxey all sidelined for at least a handful of early games, the 76ers were generally disappointing.

Since then, Philadelphia has been the best team in the league. Embiid, Harden, and Maxey have been healthier alongside valuable and important contributions from the likes of De’Anthony Melton and Tobias Harris. The 76ers are 33-10 over the last 43 games, headlined by an active five-game winning streak, and no team can best Philadelphia’s +5.8 net rating over that sample. Granted, a +5.8 net rating doesn’t usually mean “best team in the league” but, in a wide-open NBA landscape, Philadelphia is staking its claim.

The 76ers are heavily keyed by a dominant offense, with Philadelphia posting top-five metrics virtually across the board this season. With the exception of offensive rebounding, which the 76ers willfully eschew, Philadelphia maintains incredibly strong efficiency, with a transcendent force in the middle (Embiid), a suddenly underrated lead creator (Harden), and pieces that fit well on the margins.

Not everything has to be an MVP referendum, and it is acceptable to simply state that Embiid is enjoying an incredible season. He leads the NBA with 33.4 points per game and, during the 33-10 run, Embiid is averaging 34.1 points on 55/39/86 shooting and anchoring a top-10 defense. Harden is leading the NBA with 10.8 assists per game to go along with real potency as a scorer, and the supporting pieces are filling it up when called upon by Doc Rivers and company.

Needless to say, there is a faction that simply will not stake belief in the 76ers until playoff success arrives and, honestly, that is defensible. After all, Harden’s playoff failures are well-documented, Embiid always seems to be banged up at the wrong time, and Philadelphia isn’t that far removed from maddening postseason exits at the hands of the Heat (2022) and Hawks (2021) in consecutive seasons. At the moment, though, the 76ers really are playing tremendous basketball and, if that continues, Philadelphia is within reasonable striking distance of the No. 2 seed in the East.

Where do the 76ers land in this week’s DIME power rankings? Let’s explore the space.

1. Milwaukee Bucks (50-19, Last week — 1st)

With apologies to the red-hot Sixers, Milwaukee still has the best profile in the league. The Bucks are 5-1 in the last six games, and the only loss came without Giannis, in overtime, against the Warriors in San Francisco. With Denver and Boston hitting rough patches, Milwaukee’s lead for home-court advantage throughout the playoffs is three full games.

2. Philadelphia 76ers (45-22, Last week — 3rd)

The 76ers have a nationally televised road test in Cleveland on Wednesday. After that, Philly has four relatively friendly matchups in a row before a road gauntlet in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Denver. It will be quite interesting to see how this stretch goes.

3. Cleveland Cavaliers (44-27, Last week — 6th)

The Cavs aren’t garnering overwhelming attention, but they’re playing well at a time when some of the other top squads are not. Cleveland has won five of six, and the only blemish was a tight road loss in Miami that is more than understandable. Cleveland is very likely to stick in the No. 4 spot in the East, but the season-long profile is quite strong.

4. Boston Celtics (47-22, Last week — 7th)

Two nights after doing anything they wanted to do on offense against the Hawks, the Celtics shot 12-for-42 from three-point range, had only 19 assists, and lost to the Rockets. Boston is now 2-4 in the last six games with the next four games coming away from TD Garden.

5. New York Knicks (41-30, Last week — 5th)

The Knicks followed nine straight wins with three straight losses. That isn’t fantastic, but New York did bounce back with road wins over the Lakers and Blazers to end the week. New York realistically isn’t a top-five team in the league, but as noted above with Cleveland, the Knicks benefit from the carnage around them.

6. Memphis Grizzlies (41-26, Last week — 9th)

It appears Ja Morant may not be playing for a while and, first and foremost, the hope is that he gets the help he’s seeking off the court. On the court, Memphis is on an unexpected three-game winning streak, just as panic was potentially setting in without Morant, Brandon Clarke, and Steven Adams. Sweeping a home-and-home with Dallas was nice work.

7. Sacramento Kings (40-27, Last week — 8th)

The Kings are so much fun. Yes, Sacramento lost to Milwaukee on Monday, but that was a highly entertaining basketball game. Sacramento is also 8-2 in the last ten games with a real chance to grab the No. 2 seed in the West. It’s a remarkable story.

8. Denver Nuggets (46-23, Last week — 2nd)

Alarm bells are sounding in Denver. The Nuggets are on their longest losing streak (four) of the season, and this wasn’t exactly a gauntlet of a schedule. Losing to Chicago, Brooklyn, and Toronto at home is bad enough, but the Nuggets also lost to the Spurs and gave up 1.25 points per possession in the four-game swoon.

9. Phoenix Suns (37-32, Last week — 4th)

Unlike Denver, Phoenix’s losses came against quality competition. Still, the Suns have lost three in a row and Kevin Durant is still dealing with an ankle injury.

10. Golden State Warriors (36-33, Last week — 12th)

Well, the Warriors will probably need to win on the road at some point. Golden State picked up very nice wins over Milwaukee and Phoenix this week, but the Warriors begin a five-game road trip against the Clippers on Wednesday. As a reminder, Golden State is a mindblowing 7-26 away from San Francisco this season.

11. L.A. Clippers (36-33, Last week — 15t)

The Clippers are taking advantage of a home-friendly stretch. L.A. opened it with three straight wins, earning the No. 6 spot in the West as of this post. A Wednesday showdown against Golden State should command attention, but the Clippers are in the middle of a run with nine out of ten at home. That’s just helpful for any team.

12. Miami Heat (37-33, Last week — 11th)

Miami is now as close to the No. 6 seed (2.5 games) as the No. 8 seed, which isn’t a bad predicament after the way this season has gone. The Heat are 4-2 in the last six games and, while it isn’t always aesthetically pleasing, Jimmy Butler is dragging the Heat to success.

13. Brooklyn Nets (39-30, Last week — 10th)

Even with the Knicks continuing to rack up wins, Brooklyn is just one game behind New York for the No. 5 seed. That is a coveted spot given the situation at the top of the East, and the Nets have weathered the storm behind Mikal Bridges since the rough start in the post-KD era.

14. Minnesota Timberwolves (35-34, Last week — 14th)

With a hat-tip to John Schuhmann of NBA.com, Minnesota’s weird season can partially be explained by one stat. The Wolves are 4-7 against the Hornets, Pistons, Rockets, and Spurs this season. Frankly, that should be impossible with the current state of those four teams. The Wolves did play quite well in a blowout win over the Hawks on Monday, but if you’re wondering why Minnesota is hovering around .500, the failure to beat the (very) bad teams in the league is a starting point.

15. Los Angeles Lakers (34-35, Last week — 17th)

With LeBron still out, the Lakers are playing about as well as anyone could’ve expected. Los Angeles is 5-3 in the first eight games since James’ extended absence began, and the Lakers get the Rockets (albeit on a road back-to-back) on Wednesday.

16. Oklahoma City Thunder (34-35, Last week — 18th)

The Thunder are tied for the No. 8 seed and playing as well as anyone in the middle of the West. OKC is 6-1 in the last seven games, throttling opposing offenses with a 107.6 defensive rating and taking care of the ball with an 11.8% turnover rate.

17. Toronto Raptors (33-36, Last week — 16th)

Toronto started March with a five-game road trip that didn’t go particularly well at 1-4. That nearly precipitated a big drop in this space, but the Raptors turned around and blasted Denver on Monday.

18. Dallas Mavericks (34-35, Last week — 13th)

Dallas is below .500 and just one game ahead of the No. 11 spot in the West. Granted, the Mavs just operated without both Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving while being swept in a mini-series by the Grizzlies, but the losses are stacking up.

19. Atlanta Hawks (34-35, Last week — 20th)

Atlanta’s loss to Boston on Saturday was easily explainable, as it came in the sixth game in nine days against a red-hot shooting team. Then, the Hawks laid an egg against the Wolves at home on Monday, and that one inspired more alarm. Atlanta is more in information-gathering mode than anything else due to its coaching change, but the results are middling and perplexing.

20. Chicago Bulls (31-36, Last week — 23rd)

Every time the Bulls seem to be falling out of the mix, they jump back in. This time, it was a road win over Denver that jarred Chicago back to life, and the Bulls avoided a backslide by winning in Houston. The next five games are very tough, however, as the Bulls face the Kings, Wolves, Heat, and 76ers (twice).

21. Washington Wizards (32-37, Last week — 19th)

None of the performances were particularly gross, but the Wizards have lost five of the last seven. That isn’t that bad on the surface, but the only wins came against Detroit (twice) and you can scroll down to find the Pistons.

22. Utah Jazz (33-36, Last week — 25th)

The Jazz are currently out of the play-in but, if Utah wants to crash the party, it seems like this is a big week. Utah has the next four games at home, but three of the four opponents are high-end playoff teams (Boston, Sacramento, Milwaukee) and tough opponents at home can often differentiate between the haves and the have-nots.

23. Indiana Pacers (31-38, Last week — 27th)

The Pacers are 28-26 when Tyrese Haliburton plays. That encouraging play is enough to keep the Pacers within just one game of the play-in, even if it has sometimes felt as if Indiana was playing out the string.

24. New Orleans Pelicans (33-36, Last week — 22nd)

It’s almost unbelievable how bad the Pelicans have been for two months. Since MLK Day, New Orleans has the fourth-worst record (7-19) in the NBA with a -5.6 net rating to boot. Zion Williamson’s absence explains some of that, but not all of it, and New Orleans is in real danger of missing the play-in after once being considered at least a fringe contender to make the NBA Finals.

25. Portland Trail Blazers (31-38, Last week — 21st)

It really might be over for Portland. The Blazers have flirted with that in the past, but four straight losses push Portland into the No. 13 spot in the West and two games behind the No. 12 team. If there is a turnaround coming, it needs to come now with seven of the next eight at home.

26. Orlando Magic (28-41, Last week — 26th)

Paolo Banchero is probably going to win Rookie of the Year, but efficiency has been a challenge. With that in mind, it is nice to see Banchero average 24.5 points on 47 percent shooting and 42 percent from three-point range in the last six games. A loss to San Antonio isn’t fantastic, but the growth of young players is more important.

27. Charlotte Hornets (22-49, Last week — 24th)

Following a nice mini-surge, Charlotte is on a three-game losing streak. All three losses came at home with gross metrics on both offense and defense. It’s a light upcoming week for the Hornets with only two games, so perhaps they can reset.

28. Houston Rockets (16-52, Last week — 28th)

29. San Antonio Spurs (18-50, Last week — 30th)

Break up the Spurs! San Antonio just had perhaps its best stretch of the season at 5-2 over a seven-game period. You would think that the Spurs would be higher as a result, but two of the three losses came to Houston.

30. Detroit Pistons (16-54, Last week — 29th)

Detroit’s injury report is overflowing on a nightly basis. The Pistons are also 1-12 in the last 13 games, including home losses to Indiana and Charlotte. With the league’s record at this moment, the Pistons are the fairly easy choice for the basement.

Women’s History Month is officially underway but to truly understand the import of the moment, we’ve got to look back at the pioneers that got us here.

That’s why the latest episode of Wom/n Worldwide — hosted by the incomparable Drew Dorsey, of course — is paying homage to the femme legends of the past before passing the torch to the icons of the now. Get ready to learn about Janet Guthrie, the first woman to compete in both the Indy and Daytona 500, who once worked with an all-female pit crew. Her success is part of the reason why today’s athletes like Alex Morgan, Sue Bird, Chloe Kim, and Simone Manuel have banded together to create a platform to increase media coverage of women’s sports.

But women continue to make progress off the field as well. Rear Admiral Grace M. Hopper is practically the mother of modern coding, creating a computing language that made it easier for the rest of us to log on. Her work helped inspire Reshma Saujani to create the Girls Who Code nonprofit aimed at getting school-aged girls into STEM.

And in the early 1900s, French filmmaker Alice Guy-Blaché wrote, directed, and produced over 1,000 films during a time when women’s contributions to art were severely undervalued. Now, a century and some change later, current Hollywood heavyweights like Regina King are spearheading entire production companies and scoring big partnerships with massively popular streaming platforms like Netflix.

For even more stories of women getting things done (then and now) check out the video above.

Bethany Mandel could literally feel herself stepping on a rake during a recent interview. The conservative author, who rose to infamy during the early days of the pandemic by dubbing herself the “Grandma Killer” for her anti-lockdown views, struggled to define what the term “woke” means despite frequently mentioning it as a societal scourge in her writings.

The now-viral moment happened during an interview with Briahna Joy Gray on the latest episode of The Hill’s Rising. While discussing Mandel’s new book, which blames wokeness for indoctrinating today’s youth with “victimhood culture” and “gender madness,” Gray asked Mandel to define what “woke” even means so they’re both “on the same page.”

It did not go well.

Via The Daily Beast:

“So, I mean, woke is sort of the idea that, um,” the conservative writer stammered before presciently adding: “This is going to be one of those moments that goes viral.”

A struggling Mandel continued: “I mean, woke is something that’s very hard to define, and we’ve spent an entire chapter defining it. It is sort of the understanding that we need to totally reimagine and reduce society in order to create hierarchies of oppression. Um, sorry, I—it’s hard to explain in a 15-second sound bite.”

Mandel was correct about one thing, the moment did go viral. Twitter had a field day with the conservative author not being able to describe what she considers to be the greatest threat to society. There was also a lot of love for Gray telling Mandel to “take her time” as she was clearly drowning on camera.

You can see some of the reactions below:

(Via The Daily Beast)

R&B legend Bobby Caldwell, sometimes fondly known as the Cat in the Hat after his 1980 sophomore album of that name, has died at the age of 71, according to his wife Mary Caldwell via his Twitter account. “Bobby passed away here at home,” she wrote. “I held him tight in my arms as he left us. I am forever heartbroken. Thanks to all of you for your many prayers over the years. He had been “FLOXED,” it took his health over the last 6 years and 2 months. Rest with God, my Love.”

https://twitter.com/bobbycaldwell/status/163601080877674905

“Floxing” is a nickname for an adverse reaction to quinolone antibiotics, which are used to treat some bacterial infections, particularly for urinary tract infections or for immunocompromised patients. Children and the elderly are at greater risk of having an adverse reaction.

Caldwell is perhaps best known for his 1978 hit, “What You Won’t Do for Love,” which became a staple of R&B — and later, adult contemporary — radio. Such is the popularity of the hit that the singer was known for good-naturedly responding to fans on Twitter who noted their astonishment at learning that he was white and not Black. His label, TK Records, actually took pains to hide that fact on his first album cover, photographing him in silhouette in the hopes of making him more marketable to a Black audience.

“What You Won’t Do for Love” reached No. 9 on the Hot 100 and ended up being sampled by the likes of Tupac, so it must have worked. Other notable hip-hop samples from Caldwell’s catalog include “My Flame” from The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Sky’s the Limit” and “Open Your Eyes” from Common’s “The Light.” Caldwell continued recording through 2015, when he released Cool Uncle. His impact can never be overstated, and he will be missed.

Last night (March 14), Seth Rogen stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live!, where the two talked all things Oscars. During their chat, Rogen revealed he went to the Vanity Fair afterparty, where he smoked weed with one of the buzziest rappers and her (alleged) brother.

“It was fun,” he said. “I smoked some weed with Megan Thee Stallion and her brother. That was a good time.”

“Her brother, Sylvester Thee Stallion?” Kimmel joked.

“Yeah, exactly,” said Rogen.

Rogen then explained that he had never met Megan, or her alleged brother, before that night.

“She approached me, and she was adamant that I would get along with her brother, and someone backstage told me that she doesn’t have a brother,” Rogen said. “So, now I’m confused about this whole thing. I don’t know what I did that night, if I’m being honest.”

He continued, saying, “We really did hit it off, which is unfortunate, because he might not exist, from what I am hearing.”

Rogen then revealed he did get this mystery person’s number, so perhaps he’ll learn the truth soon.

It’s likely Rogen is confused about who he was with that night, because Megan doesn’t actually have any siblings; she noted in a 2019 Vulture interview, “Everybody asks me, ‘How did you get so confident? Or how are you this? How did you grow into this?’ And I’m like, ‘Look, I was the only child, so I had a lot of time spent by myself,’ and I feel like when you spend a lot of time by yourself, you get to know yourself.”

Check out the clip from Rogen’s interview above.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Seth Rogen stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! to promote his book’s new paperback version, Yearbook. In a typical comedic fashion, he also dished on everything from going to the porn awards to the Oscars. However, it was Kimmel who kicked off a truly hilarious conversation about a certain late musician.

“One time, I was at The Ivy eating dinner, and I came out, and this car pulls up, and the door opens,” Kimmel explained. “The special that night was meatloaf. The door opens, and this man gets out, and it is indeed the singer Meat Loaf. He approaches me and embraces me, and I had not met him before. He was very nice, very friendly. All I could say to him was, ‘Wait until you hear what the special is.’”

And, as it turns out, Rogen also had an encounter with the eccentric singer.

“I got a funny Meat Loaf story,” Rogen replied. “I made this movie Sausage Party years ago. In it, there’s a scene where ‘I Would Do Anything For Love’ is playing, and we realized Meat Loaf sings [it]. It’s a movie about food that talks. We should have there be a meatloaf you cut to singing. In order to do that, we had to get the legal sign-off of Meat Loaf.”

He continued, “I call him and the phone’s ringing, ringing. I call him ten times. Finally, Meat Loaf answers like, ‘Huh? What? Huh?’” he adds, explaining that he accidentally woke the musician up from his nap. “He goes, ‘Call me Meat,’ which is a weird thing to be commanding.”

After Rogen explained the movie scene’s pitch, he recalled that there was “30 seconds of silence” before Meat Loaf just said, ‘Yeah, I get it,’ and hung up.

Check out the moment, which starts around 12:55, above.

John Mulaney‘s last stand-up special, Kid Gorgeous, came out in 2018. A lot has happened to the comedian since then. He’s gone to rehab, had a baby with Olivia Munn, and voiced a half-pig, half-spider in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Mulaney will presumably cover all of those topics (well, maybe not the Spider-Ham thing) in his next special, which is coming to Netflix soon.

John Mulaney: Baby J will premiere on the streaming service on April 25. It was filmed at Boston’s Symphony Hall in Feb. 2023 and features music from Talking Heads singer (and honorary Sack Lunch Bunch member) David Byrne.

Mulaney began touring with the show titled John Mulaney: From Scratch in the middle of 2021 after his widely publicized rehab stay. Much of the material for that special focused on his drug relapse and subsequent intervention, which was held by Seth Meyers, Nick Kroll, and other fellow comedians and Saturday Night Live alumni. Mulaney, who divorced from his wife in 2022, also spoke candidly about becoming a father for the first time as he had a child with actor Olivia Munn.

This is Mulaney’s third special for Netflix, following 2015’s The Comeback Kid and 2018’s Kid Gorgeous, although 2012’s New in Town is also available on the streamer. So is Oh, Hello. I haven’t heard much from Gil Faizon, charmed I’m sure, and George St. Geegland lately. I hope they’re doing OK and didn’t commit any PPP loan fraud during the pandemic.

(Via Variety)

(WARNING: Spoilers for The Mandalorian episode “The Convert” below.)

When The Mandalorian fans booted up Chapter 19, “The Convert,” they were excited to see that the episode boasted one of the longest runtimes for the series yet: 58 minutes. It also didn’t hurt that the episode hit the ground running as Mando, Bo-Katan, and an (almost) talking Baby Yoda flew right into an Imperial trap and the show delivered one of the best action sequences of the season so far. It was pretty kickass and upped the dramatic stakes significantly because, clearly, there’s a formidable opponent out there who’s hunting down Mando.

Unfortunately, the episode takes a serious detour after Mando and Bo-Katan narrowly escape and make the jump to hyperspace. For nearly the rest of the episode’s massive runtime, the focus is on Dr. Pershing (Omid Abtahi) who’s joined the New Republic under its Amnesty Program after previously working with Moff Gideon on whatever cloning shenanigans he was up to with Baby Yoda. Throughout the episode he’s encouraged by former Imperial officer Elia Kane (Katy O’Brian) to restart his cloning research under the guise of helping the New Republic. However, Pershing learns way too late that he’s being set up so Kane can erase his memory thanks to her trusted position in the Amnesty Program. She’s clearly working to cover up traces of the Empire’s cloning program, but for who?

While Chapter 19 eventually catches up with Mando and Bo-Katan for a pretty pivotal scene, The Mandalorian were not stoked to have spent so much time with another character who ultimately got taken off the board on the end. The fans, however, did have some hilarious reactions to being “bamboozled” below:

New episodes of The Mandalorian stream Wednesday on Disney+.

Vladimir Putin has, by all accounts, grown ever more eccentric (to put it mildly) after invading Ukraine in February 2022. He doesn’t seem too phased to be losing thousands upon thousands of soldiers by the week, although he may soon run out of recruitment strategies as the conflict keeps going. We also heard that he’s become even more reclusive and secretive, having reportedly built a web of secret train tunnels before the war, and now, a Russian amateur photographer says he is in fear for his life after snapping some photos of Putin’s so-called “ghost train.”

Those images of Putin’s apparent armored train surfaced on Mikhail Korotkov’s blog in 2021, as he told the Washington Post (via The Daily Beast). Korotkov admits that he lost sight of potential consequences, which was probably not the greatest move, considering how swiftly Putin’s critics and even friends have been known to drop out of high-story windows if they’re perceived as enemies or even detractors.

Korotkov says that he realized that he was in trouble after someone started posting transcripts of his phone conversations in his blog comments. The postings included details of upcoming hiking trips that Korotkov had planned to take with friends, and it’s unsettling stuff. From the Washington Post, here’s a major yikes:

“When I saw those conversations in my comments, that was creepy,” he said. The only explanation, he said, was that he was being watched by the Federal Security Service, or FSB. He interpreted the messages as a warning to stop. “I thought about my personal safety, and from that moment I realized that everything I had published on the internet could be used against me,” he said. The childlike joy he derived from his trainspotting blog of 11 years turned to ashes.

“I told my parents that my life was in danger,” he said.

Very quickly, Korotkov started to realize that he needed to get the heck out of Russia. He claims that he grew worried and shuttered his blog, lest the FSB attempt to press charges on him for the photos (“on sabotage or terrorism charges”). Korotkov eventually did leave Russia after an incident where the apartment below his mysteriously caught on fire (on the day of Russia’s initial Ukraine invasion), and he moved to Sri Lanka by way of Kazakhstan. Korotkov admits that he misses his family, but he’s obviously happy to be alive. Whew.

(Via Washington Post & The Daily Beast)

Lil Nas X has found himself in hot water. Although the rapper has practically made a career off of sparking controversy online (just look at the backlash he received from his Satan shoes and the devil imagery in his music video for single “Montero“), this time, he’s causing harm to the queer community, to which he himself belongs.

Yesterday (March 14), the rapper uploaded a picture of what appeared to be a Black woman to his Twitter page with the caption, “the surgery was a success,” joking that he had undergone gendering affirming surgery. It is unclear if the image posted was of an AI-generated image of himself as a woman or if it was of an actual random woman on the internet who looks like him; either way, fans did not find any humor in the joke calling him out for being insensitive.

Users weren’t afraid to call him out for it, given that several pieces of anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation across the country have been introduced and, in many cases, passed to criminalize gender-affirming medical care for trans people.

Initially feeling wrongfully attacked by users, Lil Nas X brushed their comments off. But now, the musician has taken back to Twitter to apologize.

He wrote, “Apologies to the trans community. I def handled that situation with anger instead of considering why it was not cool. Much love to you guys. Sorry.”

Then, the apology train ended there because after one user called him out for being insincere, he quickly clapped back, writing, “girl eat my ass.”

As an entertainer that has been constantly attacked and made the butt of several jokes due to his sexual orientation, trans fans are extremely disappointed in Lil Nas X’s behavior.