To say that Caitlin Clark might be the biggest star in women’s basketball at the moment feels like an understatement of the order of saying something like “the sun is very large and very hot.” Besides being inadequate to describe the phenomenon in question, it’s also horrendously obvious.
Case in point, Clark Fever (Mania?) is at such all-time highs, even men’s sports leagues want in on the action. Ice Cube, proprietor of the innovative BIG3 league, even offered Clark $5 million to play in the BIG3 this summer. According to TMZ, the deal would be for eight regular-season games and two possible playoff games, while still allowing her to play in the WNBA.
Cube explained providing the offer, saying, “Caitlin is a generational athlete who can achieve tremendous success in the BIG3. With our offer, Caitlin Clark can make history and break down even more barriers for women athletes.” He even got polictical, rightly pointing out that women “should have more than just one professional option in the US at a time when American pro sports leagues are being infiltrated by autocratic, anti-women regimes such as Qatar.” The specter of Brittney Griner’s recent ordeal looms large.
We intended the offer to remain private while Caitlin Clark plays for the championship. But I won’t deny what’s now already out there: BIG3 made a historic offer to Caitlin Clark. Why wouldn’t we? Caitlin is a generational athlete who can achieve tremendous success in the BIG3. https://t.co/cwzHh7EVau
While we’re sure that he’s making this offer in good faith (despite bypassing no small number of Clark’s fellow stars), it seems … unlikely that Clark would be able to play in BIG3 and WNBA at the same time, as their seasons greatly overlap. Intriguingly, though, only two BIG3 games overlap with games for the Indiana Fever, the team that seems most likely to land Clark in this season’s upcoming draft. The additional travel and game wear doesn’t eem like it’d be quite worth it, but hey, stranger things have happened in Indiana (ba-dum, tsss).
However, one place Cube’s statement is thankfully inaccurate is that there is more than one women’s basketball option for players opting out of overseas play. The Athletes Unlimited Pro Hoops league just concluded its third season this past weekend. So, if Clark wants to stay sharp, she certainly has at least one other option in 2025.
This past weekend saw the beginnings of most NCAA conference basketball postseasons, which means March Madness has begun. Drake, the walking meme and ardent Kentucky Wildcats fan whose love for the team apparently knows very few bounds, commemorated one of his most memorable team-related moments ten years on.
Back in October 2014, Drake launched a thousand memes, one truly horrendous airball, and even a cease-and-desist from the University itself when he attended UK’s Midnight Madness event to kick off the team’s 2014-15 campaign. In addition to starting the lint roller meme and prompting the near-universal ridicule that inspired him to get his jump shot form together, Drake joined the team in their film room, suited up like he was just another player hoping to get some playing time in John Calipari’s system.
Ten years later, though, all the players from that photo have moved on, with Devin Booker, Karl-Anthony Towns, Trey Lyles, and Tyler Ulis all joining the NBA in the years since. Coach Cal is still around, but when Drake headed to the film room to get pic, he did so all by his lonesome. “Oh hell nah all my brothers left me,” he captioned the photo. Of course, his “brothers” were happy to roast him a bit in the comments. Booker wrote, “Mann we left when u did.”
It’s all in good fun, of course, and you can bet that should they make it to the Big Dance, Drake’s bet on the team will be sizable, as always.
The Detroit Pistons‘ 2023-2024 NBA campaign has admittedly not been going well so far. The Motor City basketball club currently has a 9-52 record — good for one of the worst in the NBA’s 78-year history.
They do have one bright spot to look forward to, however. On March 13 — aka 313 Day, a nod to the city’s phone area code — the team will unveil a new merch collection honoring one of Detroit’s favorite sons, the late, great J Dilla. Curated by Dilla’s fellow Motown hip-hop powerhouse Royce Da 5’9, the collection will be available exclusively through the team store at Little Caesars Arena and on Pistons313Shop.com.
The collection will consist of six pieces (with an additional four online), featuring the Pistons’ logo, remixed as a donut in a nod to Dilla’s game-changing 2006 instrumental album Donuts and bearing J Dilla in place of the Pistons’ name. There will also be pieces featuring a patch reading “Welcome To Detroit,” the title of Dilla’s debut solo album, with the donut shop from the Donuts alternative cover.
The whole concept is very cool and very well executed. Y’all know your boy is a Clippers fan and I’m still probably going to log in the day of release to secure that hat (also, please take notes, Mr. Ballmer. Nipsey Day could easily be a thing at Intuit Dome).
In the press release, Royce said of the collab, “When designing the capsule for the J. Dilla Pistons partnership, our aim was to honor Dilla’s essence. Our interpretation of the iconic “Donuts” album cover was pivotal to the collection, as the album holds significant historical importance within hip-hop circles.”
The Los Angeles Lakers needed overtime on Thursday night, but by the time the dust settled, the team picked up a 134-131 win over the Washington Wizards at Crypto.com Arena. Like most Lakers home games, there were celebrities in attendance, with one of them taking to Twitter after the game to voice his frustrations about how he was treated.
Lil Wayne tweeted that he “got treated like sh*t at the Laker game just now,” although as he tells it, he isn’t surprised this happened. In his eyes, some remarks about Anthony Davis from earlier in the 2023-24 season are likely behind all of this.
Wow! Got treated like shit at the Laker game just now but I figured they’d do me that sooner or later either bc of what i said abt AD or simply bc they don’t fwm which I been got that vibe from em as well so all good I get it. Fuck em. It isn’t what it isn’t. I’m used to it.
For context, back in November, Lil Wayne appeared on the FS1 show Undisputed and expressed his belief that Los Angeles couldn’t win a championship with Davis on the team. As he explained, this is “because he’s AD … he shows us them spurts every other other night — it used to be every night, then every other.”
.@LilTunechi tells the Lakers to trade Anthony Davis
At the time of these comments, the Lakers were 3-5 on the year and Davis had just missed his first game of the season, a 34-point road loss to the Houston Rockets. The good news for L.A. is that Davis has mixed durability with production as well as ever this year, as he’s played in 57 of a potential 61 games while averaging 25.1 points, 12.3 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 2.4 blocks, and 1.1 steals in 35.8 minutes per game.
A visit to any of the various stats websites that use the official headshots from each season will provide a reminder of Butler’s emo look from before the season, as it really is a great bit from him. However, it appears there was more to this season’s look than just having some fun with what he’ll look like in lineup cards and on stats websites.
On Wednesday, Fall Out Boy released a new music video for their song “So Much (For) Stardust” that features Jimmy Butler (in his emo cut) wearing a bedazzled purple suit and cowboy hat, dancing in snakeskin boots alongside Pete Wentz (dressed in the same thing, but silver). That’s literally the entire 4-minute video, just a couple guys being dudes in jazzy cowboy outfits singing and dancing along to the song. It’s good timing to put out a music video featuring Butler, as he and the Heat are riding a hot streak currently, winning five straight and seven of their last eight to climb into a tie for the 5-seed in the East with Philadelphia.
NBA All-Star Weekend doesn’t just bring out the world’s best basketball players, as celebrities usually turn up to check out the finest collection of the game’s talent in person. GloRilla was among the recognizable figures to flock to Indiana this weekend, where she met Damian Lillard… and made it clear she’d like to get to know him even better.
The rapper posed for a photo with the Milwaukee Bucks star, shortly after he won the All-Star Game MVP award. Glo used the photo to shoot her shot, sharing it and writing on X (formerly Twitter), “Who n**** dis is ? Cause I want him #GetEmGlo.” She added in a follow-up tweet, “Whoever she is can’t whoop me so I really dgaf.”
Lillard hasn’t publicly responded to GloRilla’s post, but he’d presumably at least be up for talking about hip-hop with her: As Dame D.O.L.L.A., Lillard has four rap albums to his name and has worked with collaborators like Lil Wayne, Snoop Dogg, and Lil Durk.
As for Lillard’s relationship status, he married his wife, Kay’La Lillard, in 2021. The two met while in college and they have three children together. However, towards the end of 2023, Lillard filed for divorce. In a February interview, he spoke about the challenges that has presented, saying, “As much as I love basketball, and I love my job, I don’t care about it more than I care about my kids. Of course you carry it with you. People say, ‘When I hoop I ain’t thinking about nothing,’ but I’m not 21. I got three kids. I’m tight with my family and I’m going through a divorce.”
Georgia v. Jefferey Williams — also known as the “Young Thug RICO Trial” to rap fans and observers online — has been full of eyebrow-raising moments so far, from Thug’s defense lawyer’s questionable explanations for the rapper’s name and some of YSL’s slang to snippets of his music being played in court. Today’s proceedings continued that trend as even NBA star LeBron James was mentioned during witness testimony.
LeBron came up via a TikTok video introduced as evidence, which featured LeBron James going through his signature round of handshakes with his Lakers teammates in the tunnel before a game. A defense attorney showed the clip to alleged YSL gang leader Trontavious Stephens, then asked him if he recognized James and whether he could identify some of the hand gestures in it. Stephens, of course, answered in the affirmative — after all, James is one of the most famous people alive — then identified James’ nose-wiping gesture.
“Did you hear what Mr. James said as he wiped his nose?” the defense asked. The answer, “slime,” became the point of contention, as the defense attorney sought to make clear to the jury that if someone as prominent as LeBron James — who is not mobbed up or associated with a gang of any kind, unless the Lakers count — could use the term and wipe his nose as part of an elaborate handshake routine, then there’s little chance they could be solely associated with their use as gang signals, as the prosecution has suggested.
“Did you hear what Mr. James said as he wiped his nose?”@KingJames gets a prominent mention in the Young Thug / YSL RICO trial this morning in Atlanta. pic.twitter.com/kJ3BuK43qF
Stephens certainly cooperates, noting that the wiping of the nose gesture and the use of the term “slime” is not unique to the gang he and Thug are accused of leading. Of course, we won’t know how effective the arguments were on the jury until much, much later in the trial, which will continue for up to six months.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Jimmy Butler‘s taste in music is all over the place. Everyone knows that the Texas native loves country music, he’s a big Taylor Swift fan, and as we learned during his appearance at media day before this season, he’s just like me. (i.e.: A guy in his 30s who still really likes the song “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” by Panic! at the Disco.)
All of this is to say that Butler, perhaps unsurprisingly, wants to pursue his love of music a little more seriously. And in a new piece by Claire de Lune in The Guardian, we learned that Butler is working on a country album, and that he’s already recorded 60 or so songs for the project. Now, this is Jimmy Butler we’re talking about here, so there are equal odds on “this never sees the light of day” and “he will drop it sometime in the next 20 minutes.” But one thing is for sure: If this album does ever get released for public consumption, we will probably not hear Butler sing on it, as he liked his role to something similar to DJ Khaled, who he loves.
“He’s a crazy talented individual,” Butler told de Lune. “To bring all these artists together and to have them be able to maintain the egos and be like, ‘Yo, look, this is what we’re trying to get done here,’ he’s mastered it. I freaking love DJ Khaled. ‘We are the best,’ as he would say.”
Hopefully all of this is trending towards a world where Butler opens a chain of coffee shops that only plays music he created, which sure seems like something he would do.
It’s a cliche, but it’s true: Rappers want to be hoopers and hoopers want to be rappers. Just look at Drake, J. Cole, Lil Durk, and Quavo — all guys known for melodic gifts who put a lot of free time into showing off on the hardwood. Drake even hosts his own pro-am league at his mansion in Toronto. Meanwhile, we all know about Shaq, Kobe, and Dame DOLLA, professional basketball players who trade Wilson for Shure in their off-hours.
It might be time to add the Los Angeles Clippers’ Bones Hyland to the latter list. The third-year guard is known for his swagger on court, but less known is his affinity for hooks and harmonies. He’s got a couple of excellent clips on YouTube and just dropped a new single, “Skarred,” in September. He’s also self-released three full-length projects since 2020 under the name Bizzy.
Where fellow NBA rap aficionados like Dame reflect the workmanlike focus on punchlines and wordplay of a day-job rapper like J. Cole, Bizzy tends to wear more melodic influences, like those of his favorite rapper Rod Wave, on his sleeve. This approach serves him well, though; in the same way the 6’2 player uses his lanky frame to shift defensive players and slither his way to the rim, something about his vibe suits his singsong delivery.
Uproxx stopped by the Clippers’ practice facility in Playa Vista to chat with Bones about his musical ambitions, what basketball and rap have in common, and his rap-baller starting five.
Tell me how you got started making music.
I experienced a house fire, and it had set me back by eight months. So I was on house rest, chilling, trying to recover from my knee surgery. And I always had a voice to melodize hooks to songs. I would just sing hooks over and over again and I’m like, “Damn, let me try this music thing out.” So a couple of my other friends made music, and I’m just like, “Yeah, I’m just going to do the hooks and y’all got the verses,” and that’s how we would put the songs together.
From there, we were like, “We could do something with this.” We started doing shows around the city, getting paid, and then I dropped a single. Once I dropped my single, that’s when it just blew up like crazy. I’m like, “Yeah, this is something I can do besides basketball.”
You know what they say, that’s what helps you with basketball. If you have something else.
Yep. Facts.
So who are your favorite rappers?
So I would say Rod Wave, NBA YoungBoy, I’d say Lil Baby too, Hurricane Wisdom. But Hurricane Wisdom and Rod Wave, those two are my favorites though. Just the way they make music, the melodies they put into music, how their soul was into the music, how they harmonize with the beats, that’s amazing music that they’re making. So that’s something that those two guys are, for sure.
Because of the overlap between basketball and rap, have you gotten a chance to really hang around in the music world with some of the big-name musicians that you have been a fan of?
Yeah, recently before the season started, I had hung out with Rod Wave and just got to pick his brain and just talk to him. He’s a great, down-to-earth guy and I found out he was a Virgo. I’m like, damn, we’re just alike. It’s just crazy.
Did he give you any advice that you are using now that is helping you?
For sure. Just be yourself. Stay down, because he’s working, but the big thing he said is, “Don’t let the outside world affect you.”
You have to approach it the right way. And that’s something that I had to do with league basketball too. Everything you have to deal with, it’s the same thing. So it’s really dope how me and him connected on that. I’m like, “Damn, that’s really crazy. You connected with me on the fact that you’re going through this for rapping and I got to go through this for basketball.” It’s crazy.
Obviously, a lot of people when they hear a basketball player wants to rap or a rapper wants to play basketball, they’re like, “How do you balance that?” They don’t understand it’s a job. You clock out at the end of the day. You go home every time. So how do you balance that in terms of that expectation from people?
So people just be thinking basketball is something we do all day. We literally clock in the morning till a certain time in the evening and the rest of the day is ours unless we have a game or something. So we have free time where we can literally do what we want to do, enjoy time with family, go make some music, shop, whatever you want to do.
But I usually make my music during the off-season because I like to really focus on just music and enjoying time with my friends and stuff. I feel like that’s when my best music comes out, during off-season. I feel like if I make music during the season, I’m rushed because maybe I go to the studio at 9:00 and I make a song till 11:30, 12:00, I got to get some rest because I got a game tomorrow or something, so I got to get back to the hotel. But if it’s something like in summertime, I don’t have to leave the studio early. I could be in there how long ever I want.
Going back to rappers who ball and ballers who rap, if you had to pick a starting five of rappers who hoop, would be your starting five?
So I haven’t really heard that many rappers who hoop, but I’d say me. I’d say, this is a player that I just heard that raps, Jaren Jackson Jr., Miles Bridges, and Dame. That’s the only four. And Lonzo, yeah. I like Iman Shumpert too.
Have you hooped with any actual rappers like Drake, Lil Durk, J. Cole, or any of those?
I hooped with Rod Wave.
Is he any good?
Nah. Hell, no.
Listen…. Hanging around with you guys makes me so mad because I’ll be like, “Oh, yeah, I’m trash. I’m never going to be good at this ever. You guys set the bar too high.” There are a lot of aspects, I think… We were talking about the overlap. It’s crazy because, like J. Cole, he took the practice aspect of basketball and applied it to rap for The Off Season. Do you ever feel like that’s something that you could do or are you already doing that and how are you doing it?
No, not really. I just think every year I just make better music. It’s kind of crazy. I just recently dropped the tape. It got taken down, but that was my best piece of work so far. But I feel like every year, I really get better at making music. Maybe it’s the music that I’m listening to other than myself that’s helping me make better music. Obviously, my recent past life, what I’ve been through — that helps me make music too, make heart-touching music — but also just stuff that I’ve accomplished during my life now that I overcame… Because maybe some people can’t relate to the stuff that I’ve talked about in the past, but they can relate to the good life that I talk about.
In basketball, of course, you have concrete goals. You have, “Oh, this is the season we’re going to make at the playoffs. This season we’re going to get to the third round. This season we’re going to win the championship. I want to be able to add this to my game.” What in your wildest dreams are the things you want this music thing to be able to do for you?
Really just take off. I feel like my message and my songs are really touching. I feel like a lot of people, once the world really hear my music they’ll be like, “Damn, like how the f*ck did he make music like this and he played basketball?”
I recently dropped a little snippet on my Instagram page and it blew up crazy, but I see a lot of people that’s coming from just everywhere that I’d never seen on my page before. And they like, “Damn, he makes music too?” And then I’m like, yeah, it’s getting to new fans. People are hearing my music, so I know once it touches way more, they’ll be like, “Damn, nah, this dude cold, cold at making music. He really knows how to make music. He really sounds like a rapper.”
In terms of the differences between basketball and rapping, what is the biggest difference between how you approach it and how it feels? What’s the payoff? What’s the difference in the payoff for you emotionally?
I feel like there’s no difference in making music and basketball. It’s literally all the same thing. How the beat is, is how your footwork is. How the song is, is how sweet your jump shot is.
I don’t know. You got teammates out there, the engineer and the producer. So it all goes hand in hand. It’s literally all the same thing, for real.
Draymond Green’s indefinite suspension by the NBA has shaken up the sports discourse but the prevailing sentiment seems to be that he earned it and it was well-deserved. However, there’s one voice in the discussion that is seemingly always going to side with the “bad guy” (unless he has a personal beef that prevents him from doing so) — 50 Cent’s. In a recent Instagram post, he called Draymond his favorite player and defended the play that prompted Dray’s eventual suspension, calling it a “mistake” and offering to “apologize for him.”
As you can probably tell from the video above, Dray’s latest transgression involved some unnecessarily wild movements resulting in flagrant contact with yet another contesting big man, Jusuf Nurkic. The heavy punishment from the league stems from Dray’s repeated offenses and apparent disregard for prior disciplinary actions; his last suspension was for a putting Rudy Gobert in a chokehold literally a month before walloping Nurkic. In a hilariously self-unaware interview, Dray even argued that the NBA “can’t keep suspending” him for past actions… again… just weeks before DOING IT AGAIN.
But if there’s anyone who’d approve of his bully behavior, it’s 50, who previously stopped just short of praising Green for stepping on Domantas Sabonis last season (earlier this year! It hasn’t been a full calendar year! He keeps doing this stuff!). 50’s been one of rap’s biggest heels since day one, so it’s no surprise he loves Draymond’s cartoonish villainy. Maybe he can sponsor Dray’s MMA career and they can both find a way to profit from all this.
(@GloTheofficial) 
