Jimmy Butler Says New York & Boston Would “Be At Home” If He Was Healthy For Playoffs

If all the speculation that Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat might finally be parting ways this offseason proves to be true, there's at least one team who he'll refuse to join. That'd be the New York Knicks. Tom Thibodeau coached Butler in Chicago to start his career and later in Minnesota. Despite Thibs' success in the Big Apple, and Butler's professed love for the man himself, the six-time All-Star is not at all interested in a reunion. Plus, Butler feels a type of way about not being healthy enough to compete against the Boston Celtics in the first round of this year's playoffs. Other than a hot-shooting Game 2 where they stole a win on the road, the Heat stood no match against Boston in a series that ended in five games. According to Jimmy Buckets, it'd be a far different story if he could've taken the court. https://twitter.com/WheelerJaylen/status/1786821989404930308 Sometimes, these sorts of videos out in the wild can be taken out of context or misconstrued. Not in this instance. Butler keeps it real, even giving whomever is filming the vid a countdown before he proceeds with his breakdown about how he would've bounced the top-seeded Celtics and the Knicks. Unfortunately, we'll never know for sure. In a one-point play-in loss to the 76ers — who went on to lose to New York in the first round — Butler suffered a knee injury that knocked him out for the entire series versus Boston. A really tough break, too, considering the Heat can't seem to get through a playoff run with both Butler and Tyler Herro on the court together. Not that Miami necessarily coasts through the regular season, but Erik Spoelstra's gritty squad might be getting a little too cute and experimental of late. The 82-game gauntlet before the postseason really can take a toll. Seeding clearly isn't everything, as the Heat overcame being the eighth seed last season to reach the NBA Finals. However, it's hard to count on digging that deep and flipping the so-called switch once the playoffs start all the time. Based on the pun-intended heated rant Butler went on in this recently released video, perhaps he wants to stick it out in South Beach and see what the Heat can do next season. The fact that the 34-year-old is extension-eligible may lead to him pricing himself out of Miami, though. https://twitter.com/TheDunkCentral/status/1786480211258699920 Butler embodies what #HEATCulture is all about, or so it seems from the outside looking in. His mentality of not backing down from anyone and relentlessly competing with smart basketball and hard-nosed defense has rubbed off on his teammates. For somebody whose personality didn't play well in multiple stops before Miami — he's not Patrick Beverley levels of obnoxious, but still — Butler and the Heat have felt like the perfect partnership and fit. All good things (well, how about most?) come to an end. Butler's offseason fate will have ripple effects across the entire NBA, especially if he changes teams. That'll be one of the most exciting storylines to watch once the playoffs are over. https://twitter.com/cbain100/status/1786854050463449326 Until then? Plenty of drama yet to unfold. We'll see if the (inferior in Jimmy's opinion) Celtics or Knicks can reach the NBA Finals and top whichever elite adversary emerges from the stacked Western Conference.

All The Extravagant Hats At The 150th Kentucky Derby Do Not Disappoint In The Slightest

The ostentatious opulence and downright decadence fueled by mint juleps and avarice at the Kentucky Derby are enough to make anyone's head spin without the aid of the Run for the Roses' booze of choice. However, if you can get past all that, there is something to be said for the impeccable fashion sense of the rich and the famous when it comes to the mind-melting headgear they rock annually at Churchill Downs for the big race. https://twitter.com/NBCPhiladelphia/status/1786496976218886359 Thanks to the round-up prowess of several other contributors on the social medias, we have ourselves a look at the best hats from this year. Once again, they are as baffling and silly as they are exceptional achievements of designing craftsmanship. https://twitter.com/CanterburyPark/status/1786815582777618665 https://twitter.com/pnwswiftie/status/1786797719132196944 https://twitter.com/happymimi13/status/1786813307384373424 https://twitter.com/KentuckyDerby/status/1786723350787596667 https://twitter.com/FallonTonight/status/1786777468566671834 https://twitter.com/Maggie_Kimmitt/status/1786739901557256533 https://twitter.com/KentuckyDerby/status/1786813881043632498 https://twitter.com/RapSheet/status/1786805659230405068 Already I'm quite impressed with the initial reveals from this year. It's only going to escalate as the 6:57 p.m. ET post time gets closer and TV/streaming coverage ramps up. Suffice it to say, if this is a mere appetizer to the main course, we're on track for a hell of a 2024 Kentucky Derby in terms of headdresses. Salute to the Kentucky State Police for taking on the near-impossible task of wrangling such a chaotic band of humans, too: https://twitter.com/kystatepolice/status/1786817394700079111 All those hats are pretty cool. I'm more partial to this piece of incredible memorabilia shared on Saturday: A signed Kentucky Derby hat from the owner and jockey of eventual Triple Crown winner Secretariat. https://twitter.com/rhcobb/status/1786813083752476682 I know that's technically not in the running for highest fashion honors at Churchill Downs. Nevertheless, what a job preserving the cap that well for all these years. Secretariat won five major races as a 2-year-old before a historic 1973 season in which he rattled off six huge victories in addition to triumphs at the Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes. The force of nature nicknamed Big Red set speed records at all three of those races, winning the Belmont by 31 lengths. His time at Churchill Downs still stands as the best. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV4drumXbA4 Back to the zanier brands of headgear, though. DraftKings collected some of the better ones from years past, which could easily be mistaken for being from this year in absence of any clarification to the contrary. But I digress. https://twitter.com/DraftKings/status/1786787580643516462 https://twitter.com/DraftKings/status/1786789340187627997   For further reading and celebration of the Kentucky Derby's famous hats, check out the piece below. Additionally, if you've never read Hunter S. Thompson's piece titled, The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved, it's one of the greatest works of narrative pseudo-nonfiction in the history of mankind. Can't recommend it enough. https://twitter.com/wwd/status/1786374397575499804

Zach Bryan Joined Onstage For “Revival” By…Sexxy Red?

Well that's one collab I didn't see coming... Of course you never really know who to expect on stage when Zach Bryan ends his shows with "Revival." So far on his Quittin' Time Tour we've seen appearances from Nebraska head football coach Matt Rhule, New York Giants QB Daniel Jones, comedian Shane Gillis, a woman who the crowd thought was Donna Kelce but definitely wasn't, and even the legendary Bruce Springsteen. It's always a party, and honestly if you've never experienced it in person, it's worth the price of admission just to be there for the closer. The atmosphere is pretty unmatched. Well Zach hit us with a curveball during his recent show at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis, Missouri when he was joined onstage by...rapper Sexyy Red. Now, if you're not familiar with Ms. Red (like I'm not), apparently she first rose to fame with her single "Pound Town," which I can't say I've had the pleasure of hearing. But she put on quite a show during "Revival."

@greatamericanbarscene Collab I never expected #zachbryan #sexyyred #stlouis #zachbryanconcert #fyp ♬ original sound - greatamericanbarscene

What a scene. It may have left people scratching their heads, but judging by the comments, it seems like folks were entertained by the surprise appearance: "This is the most random thing ever but I’m lovin’ it" "My playlist on shuffle" "This is my America."

@sexyyred314 Thank You For Bringing Me Out @Zach Bryan 🫶🏾🫶🏾 #sexyy #sexyyred #getitsexyy #fyp #bowbowbow #fypage #fakebody #zachbryan #zachbryanmusic ♬ Summertime's Close - Zach Bryan

@lindseeylou Sexy Red at Zach Bryans STL show #zachbryan #sexyyred ♬ original sound - Linds

@allyclen6i love you sexyy red and i love you zach bryan. ♬ original sound - ally 💌💐

What a time to be alive...

ACM Awards 2014: Rascal Flatts Admits To Lip Syncing After Getting Called Out: “We’re Obviously Not Very Good At It”

Remember when Rascal Flatts were still a thing? Well not only were they a thing back in 2014, they were one of the biggest things in country music. Of course that's not saying much, because country music really wasn't in a great place at the time. I mean, just look at the 2014 ACM Awards. Two of the nominees for Album of the Year were Here's To the Good Times by Florida Georgia Line and Crash My Party by Luke Bryan. Oh, and "Cruise" was also nominated for Single of the Year. Yeah, not country music's finest moment. And at that year's ACM Awards, Rascal Flatts also had another embarrassing moment for the genre when fans began to suspect that the group was lip-syncing during their performance of their then-current single "Rewind." https://twitter.com/mikaylaherfkens/status/453002443417067521?s=20 https://twitter.com/SethStillwell/status/453002560249401344?s=20 https://twitter.com/BackwoodsLife/status/453002863187623938?s=20 Even fellow country artist Granger Smith took a shot at the performance - without calling the band out by name: https://twitter.com/GrangerSmith/status/453003091583848448?s=20 Well the next day they decided to address the controversy, admitting that yes, they were lip-syncing, and blaming it on their lead singer Gary LeVox losing his voice prior to the performance: "After having performed several shows earlier in the week, Gary lost his voice. So, instead of canceling our commitment to do the show, we made a last minute decision to lip-sync. We've never done it before, and we're obviously not very good at it. We look forward to singing live again in the very near future!" There's not any great video of the performance online (I guess they didn't want that one out there for people to "rewind"), but in the video that's out there, you can see what they mean when they say they're not very good at the whole lip-syncing thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJQyG6w3-KA Yeah, it was pretty bad. But despite getting publicly skewered for the lip-syncing flap, that didn't stop fellow artist Garth Brooks from trying to get away with the same thing a few years later at the 2017 CMA Awards, when he admitted to lip-syncing during his performance of "Ask Me How I Know." Like Rascal Flatts, Garth blamed it on losing his voice ahead of the performance, but he was called out by fellow artist Eric Church who called lip-syncing a "red line" that artists should never cross: “We don’t use machines. We use instruments. So the winner of the biggest category of the night lip-synced in the biggest moment on the show? F*ck that! And I didn’t like his excuse at all. It is and always will be a red line. It’s fabricated. I don’t want young artists thinking it’s OK, because it’s not.” Apparently Rascal Flatts didn't feel the same back in 2014...

Star Wars Rings In May The 4th With New Trailer For ‘The Acolyte’, Revealing More About The Jedi Murder Mystery

Not to say The Acolyte will make or break Star Wars as a franchise, but with rather polarizing reception about the sequel film trilogy, and the hit-or-miss latest season of The Mandalorian, this upcoming Disney+ series is certainly a big moment. It's jumping many years in the past from Episode I: The Phantom Menace. The show is exploring at least one character with a red lightsaber, despite the Jedi Council saying in Episode I that the Sith have been extinct for over a millennium. The Acolyte's plot revolves around what is, in essence, a Jedi serial killer. Fans of a galaxy far, far away: Buckle up. This is about to get weird — hopefully in a great way. In honor of the unofficial May the 4th holiday — may the force be with you, etc. — Disney released a new trailer that gave us more action, a little more story, and our first proper look at the one who wields the red laser sword. https://twitter.com/starwars/status/1786770691934798256 You can see an image of the unidentified, masked in a cropped version of a poster for The Acolyte below. I agree with the notion that it looks a lot like a Knight of Ren, serving as some sort of distant predecessor for Adam Driver's Kylo Ren character. https://twitter.com/retneysholocron/status/1786625540234826147 Maybe the aesthetic is a mere touchstone to get sequel trilogy fans bought in for this show. I doubt it. Seems too intentional and closely associated to be a deliberate misdirect. The big wild card in this latest Star Wars tale to me is Jodie Turner-Smith's Mother Aniseya. Star Wars' official website describes her as the leader of a coven of witches. There's one point in this new trailer where she appears to exploit the darkness within a young Jedi, played by 1917 star Dean-Charles Chapman. Although he looks like he could pass off as a young Sheev Palpatine, I suspect The Acolyte will stray away from shoehorning in a potential Palpatine origin story. How cool is it that Carrie-Anne Moss, aka Trinity from The Matrix, gets to square off with a green lightsaber opposite the star of the show, Amandla Stenberg? That showdown gets a little extra play from its initial reveal in the teaser from a while back. This trailer is cut together to make it look like Moss' Jedi Master Indara is one of the High Republic's guardians of peace and justice who bites the dust. No way. You don't bring in an actor of Moss' caliber just to off her in the early going. Then again, that's one element of The Acolyte that makes it so much fun. Just by nature of the plot and the fact that this is set so much earlier than anything currently on the Star Wars timeline of TV and film, heads are gonna roll. Anyone is in peril at any given time. Showrunner Leslye Headland is a Star Wars fanatic, and crushed it on Netflix's Russian Doll. She brought over a super underrated actor, Charlie Barnett, from there to this project. That only amplifies my excitement for this whole thing. June 4 marks the release date of The Acolyte. Until then, fans can tide themselves over with Tales of the Empire, a six-episode helping of animated shorts that just dropped and features many familiar faces across Star Wars media. https://twitter.com/starwars/status/1786425525935775964