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Lord Jamar Shares Why He Still Believes The Earth Is Flat & Who Is Hiding The Truth!

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Whoa: Dude Gets Beat Down After Disrespecting A Man!

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Whoa

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Welcome to Andscape at NBA Finals, where senior NBA writer Marc J. Spears, columnist William C. Rhoden and on-air contributor Sheila Matthews will get into what’s happening on and off the court in Oklahoma City and Indianapolis.

In Episode 6, Spears, Rhoden and Matthews discuss a thrilling Game 4 in Indianapolis where the Oklahoma City Thunder evened the series 2-2 with the Indiana Pacers. They discuss the differences between Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Tyrese Haliburton and why SGA is MVP (1:10), the calm persona of the Thunder amid chaos (1:50) and some new predictions and reflections for the series (4:10).

Archive

Episode 5: Biggest SURPRISES in Indy + GAME 3 superlatives + way-too-early MVP picks

Episode 4: Who’s SHOWING UP in Game 3? Superstar/celebrity check!

Episode 3: VIBE CHECK in OKC after Pacers’ Game 1 win

Episode 2: Best Finals Game 1 EVER? Thunder under PRESSURE!

Episode 1: Welcome to OKC … PREDICTIONS, SGA vs. Hali

Intro: Welcome to the NBA Finals with Andscape

Welcome to Andscape at NBA Finals, where senior NBA writer Marc J. Spears, columnist William C. Rhoden and on-air contributor Sheila Matthews will get into what’s happening on and off the court in Oklahoma City and Indianapolis.

In this special Father’s Day episode, Rhoden and Spears went to legendary Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis for a conversation with Vaughan Alexander, the father of Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and uncle of Minnesota Timberwolves guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker. They discussed what Father’s Day means to Vaughan (0:46), how a kid with a dream makes it to the NBA level (1:38), how much of making it to the NBA is talent versus drive (3:30), the perception and reality of NBA players and their fathers (4:39), how Vaughan continues to be a father to Shai despite his son’s wealth and stardom (7:18), if there are still moments Vaughan is awestruck and excited by his son’s play (8:43), what advice Vaughan has for parents of athletes (9:59), being a grandfather (11:11), Vaughan’s growing celebrity (11:40) and a huge announcement about Vaughan’s upcoming podcast “Basketball Dads: Creators of Greatness,” about how to get young athletes to be great human beings (12:52).

Archive

Episode 5: Biggest SURPRISES in Indy + GAME 3 superlatives + way-too-early MVP picks

Episode 4: Who’s SHOWING UP in Game 3? Superstar/celebrity check!

Episode 3: VIBE CHECK in OKC after Pacers’ Game 1 win

Episode 2: Best Finals Game 1 EVER? Thunder under PRESSURE!

Episode 1: Welcome to OKC … PREDICTIONS, SGA vs. Hali

Intro: Welcome to the NBA Finals with Andscape

Bonnaroo Music Festival Was Canceled Just A Few Hours In Due To Severe Weather Concerns
Aaron Williams
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The 2025 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival was canceled and evacuated on Friday (June 13) — just hours after it opened its gates — due to concerns of severe weather over the weekend. According to Billboard, the evacuation order was issued at around 7:30 pm local time, as the Manchester, Tennessee area was threatened by thunderstorms, necessitating the cancellation of the festival. Headliners included Olivia Rodrigo, Tyler The Creator, Luke Combs, and Hozier, and a livestream was planned.

In a statement on social media, the festival’s organizers wrote:

Today, the National Weather Service provided us with an updated forecast with significant and steady precipitation that will produce deteriorating camping and egress conditions in the coming days. We are beyond gutted, but we must make the safest decision and cancel the remainder of Bonnaroo. We are going to make things right with you, and you will find refund information at the end of this message, but let’s start with the next steps.

The number one thing we need from the Bonnaroo community is patience. Some of your fellow campers’ sites are in rough shape. The rain has settled in areas and made certain parts of Outeroo difficult to manage. We’d like to prioritize getting those folks as well as those with accessibility needs off The Farm as soon as possible this evening. To do this, we ask that if your campsite is in good shape or if you’re in an RV or pre-pitched accommodation, please consider spending the night with us and we’ll start working to get you out of here safely tomorrow.

We have put our hearts and souls into making this weekend the most special one of the year, and cannot express how crushed we are to have to make this decision. Thank you in advance for your patience, your positivity and your unfailing Bonnaroovian spirit.

Refunds are being issued; you can find more info in the post here.

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OMAHA, Neb. — Not all double plays are turned equally.

When the Louisville Cardinals’ battery adroitly pulled off a successful 1-2-3 double play in the top of the sixth inning at Jim Patterson Stadium last week, complete with a fantastic stretch at first base to snuff out a bases-loaded situation and end the frame while keeping the score tied — whew — you felt it.

From there, they could smell Omaha and the Men’s College World Series.

If things like team yearbook reels were still a thing, there’s an argument that play could open the entire table of contents. It was bang, bang – it mattered and the crowd went nuts. Even the first umpire delivered a punchie for the ages. That’s the kind of special moment you almost have to have on a team to believe you’ve got a chance to win the whole thing.

But the man who put the Cards ahead, on a useful looper over the shortstop’s head that got just under the center fielder’s glove, was none other than Eddie King Jr. — a name that you might not know you remember.

“It was the first time I ever really signed autographs. And, you know, people kept coming up to me asking for pictures. I felt like a celebrity,” King said this week, describing his first brush with the spotlight in baseball, long before he became a household name in Atlantic Coast Conference baseball circles. “That was a really cool experience. Not too many people will ever get to do something like that. Then we met the president, too. So, yeah, that was also really cool for us.”

What many people look back on as an awful injustice that highlighted the fundamentally unfair nature of youth sports as it relates to participation, sportsmanship and the American Way, the senior sports administration major reflects on his younger diamond days with reverence.

King was the youngest player on the Jackie Robinson West team that was stripped of all its accomplishments as U.S. Champions at the 2014 Little League World Series after a rival coach started investigating the boundary limits of the league and its players, who were ultimately found to be ineligible. It was one of those cruel reminders that not only will some people do everything to make sure that some kids don’t succeed, but also that matters as trite as what addresses we hold can determine success.

King still wears No. 42 to this day. He was named Super Regional MVP, going 6-for-10 with two home runs, four RBIs, two doubles and a walk, while playing two outfield positions and designated hitter. The trophies haven’t taken the memories from him.

“We shared the dorm with the Australians [in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, home of the Little League World Series]. That was fun, just being around them and seeing how they are,” King said. “That was also a really fun time. So now it’s like, I have a bunch of brothers that I know now from that [Jackie Robinson West] team.”

At the collegiate level, it’s easy to look at most talent as existing in the binary of either “raw” or “pro-ready,” but many around the program have seen firsthand how King has gone from the former to the latter right before their eyes.

“He is the most humble and at-ease superstar. He will sign your autographs. He’ll smile occasionally. He’s never too high, he’s never too low. But he’s also a guy at the plate that I think is our most astute hitter,” Sean Moth, play-by-play voice of the Cardinals for more than two decades, said Thursday at their workout day.

“He will see a change-up, maybe have a bad swing and miss, and it may not be that at-bat that he’ll turn it around and put it down the left-field line for a base hit. But later in the game, if he faces that same pitcher, he files it away. And he’s got a very cerebral approach to the game.”

There was a time when King’s future at Louisville was genuinely uncertain. Time, injury and circumstance nearly cost him his chance, but after a freshman year in which he literally did not play, he’s going from the Little League World Series to the College World Series with 6,000 people in the home crowd chanting his name all along the way.

“I sat him down in my office, just being real. Like, I don’t want to pat kids on the back and act like everything’s gonna be OK,” Louisville head coach Dan McDonnell said of that encounter with King years back. “I said, ‘Eddie, I honestly don’t know if you can play here, like I didn’t get to see anything your freshman year. I’m losing two senior outfielders. I need a centerfielder, and we projected you as a centerfielder. But man, [you’re] a guy that hasn’t played all year.’

“So I said, ‘Here’s what we need to do. You need to go out this summer and you need to show us. If you go out this summer, and you can’t play, how can you come back to Louisville, right?’ And what I love about it was, he didn’t act like a baby, no entitlement. It was like right out of the chute, ‘I gotta earn it.’ And I give Eddie a lot of credit, because he went out, he was the MVP of the Prospect League.”

While King is a standout talent, he didn’t just come out of nowhere. It wasn’t happenstance that a Chicago kid ended up at Louisville. Coach Mac, as he’s known, has had a pipeline from Chicago for more than a decade. Coincidentally, it all started for the most part right there with a family member of Eddie’s: his older cousin, former Louisville outfielder Corey Ray.

“I didn’t know that I was related to Eddie until he committed to Louisville. My grandmother, who knows everyone, told me. She says, ‘Hey, you have a cousin that just committed to play baseball at Louisville,’ ” Ray said, with the quizzical tone you get when a relative drops some lore on you that you could have never imagined. “So naturally, he became one of my favorites.”

Ray, who was drafted twice in his amateur career, was one of the first players who made folks sit up and notice what was happening with this link between Chicago and Louisville. He started 19 games as a freshman and every game as a sophomore. That first year, the Cardinals went to Omaha. An incredible blur on the field, Ray was a must-see player in college baseball.

“We had had this pipeline going in Chicago, but Corey was a big name. And I think he knew what type of program we were, very aggressive on the bases, very aggressive, offensively fun. Fun type of system to be in,” McDonnell said. “I tell this story a lot to kids in our program. I said, ‘Players, what you got to understand is we’re not changing for you. You have to change and make the adjustment, and not for us, per se, but for the game of baseball. We’ve been doing this a long time, so you got to be able to adapt.’ Corey was one of those. He just didn’t look like he was making the adjustment, not being stubborn, but just mechanically. He was so athletic and so talented.

“He was low maintenance. Wasn’t any drama. Punched the clock every day. His first start, [we] were, like, 40 games in, and I finally said, ‘I gotta give Corey Ray a chance here,’ ” McDonnell said. “And he gets two hits. Oh, another chance. Gets two hits, and Corey starts, I think, like every game. I think we lose in the conference tournament finals, and then we host a regional. We win a regional. We host a super regional; we win a super regional.

“Now he’s a starting freshman, hitting in the six hole, but just very quietly didn’t exaggerate his struggles, didn’t make a big deal about it. Just started to make the adjustments little by little, and one day, man, it clicked, and he didn’t come out of the lineup for two and a half years.”

Why does that matter? Because now, it seems like at least one organization understood that Ray’s understanding of the game is just as important as his ability to round the bags. He only play one career game in the big leagues (in 2021 for Milwaukee), and in that game he did score a run.

The year after his pro ball dreams ended, the Chicago Cubs hired him as their Single-A bench coach with the Myrtle Beach Pelicans. Now, he’s a coordinator and field manager with the franchise and does quite a bit on the player development side.

Trust me, it is not easy to find your way into the coaching ranks in baseball even if you had a robust pro career, so for a guy who’s still relatively young (30), Ray is well on his way to being a skipper somewhere. Reminder: If you think the number of Black players on the field is small, try looking into a dugout when the team is on the field. You’ll find even less of us as coaches and managers.

At the risk of getting into a lengthy sidebar about how diversity in the game is as much of a trickle-up process as anything, seeing a college program that regularly attracts Black talent as a Power 4 school is refreshing. To know that it’s coming from an actual place of connectivity and not just availability makes it feel more genuine. To think that one of its more well-known alums is breaking the plaster coaching ceiling, albeit one step at a time, feels like real progress.

McDonnell vividly remembers the moment he realized Ray would make a good educator of the game and leader of men. When Ray would return for offseason workouts at Louisville during his pro career, the college guys would listen to him when he gave them pointers.

“It gets to the point where you’re like, you’re wanting these guys – the pro guys – to be around, you know, because when they speak it’s like the Holy Grail. I speak, I’m like the old dad,” McDonnell said, laughing. “But when the pro guy or the big leaguer speaks, it’s like, ‘Corey Ray said I need to.’ We’re like, ‘Yeah, we’ve been saying that for three months.’ ”

In all seriousness, McDonnell’s got another guy in Chris Dominguez who turned into a coach as well and actually faced off against Louisville in the super regionals (Dominguez, 38, is an assistant coach for Miami who played for Louisville from 2007-09).

“While Corey was moving up the ranks and pro ball, I thought, ‘Man, this guy’s gonna be a good coach one day.’ And that’s cool. He’s phenomenal,” McDonnell said of Ray. “The Cubs are blessed to have him. Every time he comes back, he’s just thirsty to share. I’m very confident he will be a great college coach. I’m not saying he wants to or he will cross [over to the NCAA], but, yeah, I definitely see it because he’s got great personality, a great smile. I know he’ll connect with college kids. I know parents will trust him.”

The ACC, where Louisville has landed after stints in the Big East and American Athletic Conference, has never had a Black head baseball coach.

As for Ray, he’s someone who likes what he’s seeing from his alma mater.

“Zion [Rose] and I have talked a lot in the past year or two about what to get out of the experience at Louisville, why it’d be beneficial for him to stay. He’s a really good player,” Ray said. “He gets pulled in a bunch of different directions, and it’s a testament to Coach Mac and coach [Eric] Snider. They’ve been able to keep him there, and he loves being there. He’s glad that he stayed there.

“Zion is one of my favorites. Eddie’s one of my favorites. The center fielder who broke my stolen base record [Lucas Moore] is one of my favorites. I like the team as a whole. I think that the offense is very versatile, and I think the team spending time there on campus this summer and this spring is kind of a mirror of how we were when we were there in the early stages, right? We don’t care who we’re playing. We don’t care how much money you’re making.”

McDonnell isn’t exactly a funny guy, per se, but he knows how to make people laugh. He also knows how to make them think. He also knows when to keep his mouth shut. As a man of Christian faith, he holds nothing back when discussing his identity.

“​​You don’t have to be a Christian in our program. If anything, our whole motto is to love and to serve. So you can be any religious faith. You can be any nationality. It doesn’t matter. We’re just going to love on you. We’re going to serve you. That’s what we’re called to do,” McDonnell said Thursday following his team’s practice.

“But I’m sure we attract a lot of spiritual kids from spiritual families. But like I said you don’t have to. So that presence, maybe even in the transfer portal, bringing some older kids, 22-, 23-year-olds, that not only have a strong faith but you’re much more mature than you were probably at 18 and 19. And so it’s just who we are. It’s impressive. I think about that age. I wish I had more wisdom, a stronger faith and made better decisions. They know from me at least, when we talk about being a Christian, they know I’m not perfect. They see my best and they see my worst.”

One of those kids is Kamau Neighbors, who transferred from Cal State Northridge and was named a team captain. For McDonnell, it’s something that’s gained him trust in a lot of spaces. You don’t just walk into living rooms and start telling families, particularly Black ones, that they need to turn down real money to trust him with their son. And it doesn’t always work out for everyone, but when it does, it’s as much an outcrop of McDonnell just being himself, a guy with world experience.

We’re talking about a guy from upstate New York, who played at The Citadel, a military school in South Carolina. Now he’s been a longstanding head coach in a baseball-loving state, the only one of which at this MCWS actually has two teams, if you include Murray State.

The concepts of faith and family that extend to his team are a large part of why certain players get chances. That’s how the Chicago pipeline got started to begin with, to an extent. For Kenny Fullman, who helped start the Chicago White Sox Aces program, the process of creating a relationship wasn’t dumb luck.

Coaches know coaches, coaches know players, players have families and those families put faith in people. After a while, taking their kids to camps all over the country, eventually the Aces and Louisville had a clear connection that was helped by a little, well, spirited cajoling, shall we say.

“You make Louisville seem like it’s great, when where we grow up and we play in the snow and it’s cold and we’ve got to play a game in 30 degree weather in March. You go to Louisville and it’s 50, it feels like it’s spring. And so [McDonnell] is taking advantage of making Louisville seem like it’s South,” Ray said, with enough of a wink to remind you that the distance between those places is less than 300 miles.

Another thing that doesn’t come without some level of intention: For lack of a better term, you ain’t gonna get far trying to separate Black families. We know that experience generationally and even in good faith efforts such as baseball, that’s one you’ve got to get right to make sure that people feel safe.

“He likes the parents to be able to be within a day’s drive at the ballpark. So you know, Friday afternoon, if they take off work, they can make it down to [Louisville], catch a game, maybe stay overnight, catch another game Saturday and be able to get back. And so luckily for us, depending on traffic, you’re about a five-hour skim right up to get in the Chicago area,” Moth said.

Why every Major League team doesn’t have a travel program like Ace is beyond me. That’s perhaps another story for another day, but they don’t turn out losers.

As for family, both Ray and King have had two influences that are impossible not to acknowledge, and McDonnell hasn’t gotten in their way and wouldn’t think of it. When Ray was considering his options in baseball, there was a lot of thought in his family that going pro was a better option.

Except for one person: his older sister.

“I always give Corey sister a lot of credit. As a guy, I’m all about the dads and how much they pour into their sons. But like Eddie’s sister, she’s sharp,” McDonnell said regarding the recruitment of Ray. “She was in grad school, and here’s her younger brother, about to start college. We’re sitting at the table, and she is very engaged, very involved. And I’m like, ‘you know, I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I’ll walk out of somebody’s house and I’ll call our assistants, and I’ll be like, man, I don’t know if that dude’s showing up, right? … I walked out of Corey’s house. Bop into my car. I called our assistants. I said, ‘Hey, man, Corey Ray’s coming to school, how about that? I feel as good about him as I’ve ever felt.’ And they’re like, ‘Why you say that? ‘And I said, ‘the sister is all about education. She’s all about him getting his degree. She sat at the table. She was engaged, she made it sound like there’s no way we’re letting Corey sign [pro].’ ”

Back in Omaha, however, King — Louisville’s current star — has fans everywhere. The ones in his own home – -the people back at Ace who’ve seen him grow since he was 10 — are most happy to see show up. Fun fact: Eddie has a twin sister, who also goes to Louisville.

“I’ve been knowing the family, like I said, since Eddie was 10, and they’re just great people, man. The dad is a lot of fun to be around, and the mom is just extra-supportive,” Fullman said. “Always have been. And I looked on the TV today, the mom and daughter were in the front row.”

Like many Chicago folks who’ve come through Louisville, they had faith and found a family.

“I’m not worried about the color of their skin, man, I’m just not,” McDonnell concluded. “And I’m not going to act like, you know, I’m trying to break racial barriers and I sought to do that, okay? Just, you know, I just, I see people, and I love on people.”

In 2025, that seems like an effective method for success.

When it came to the mundane formalities of everyday life, multi-hyphenated music giant Sly Stone made the pedestrian defiantly joyful. Even his answering machine greeting opened with his trademark irrepressible, eye-winking wit: “You called. Or did you? We’ll call back.”

Yet Stone, who died Tuesday June 9 in Los Angeles at 82, was more than just a quirky genius whose work influenced generations of artists, eschewing rigid genre categorizations with glee. As the leader of the groundbreaking seven-piece band, Sly and the Family Stone, the enigmatic singer, songwriter, producer, instrumentalist, and composer was the ultimate futurist.

Stone and his explosive Bay Area unit took R&B and mixed it with San Francisco’s psychedelic scene in their bombastic 1968 single “Dance to the Music.” The Temptations’ Otis Wilson was among the millions turned on by Stone’s new sound. He told the group’s producer, Norman Whitfield, to inject some of Stone’s unbridled get-down into the mix. The Temptations’ answer, the gritty “Cloud Nine,” would sell more than 500,000 copies, winning Motown’s first Grammy.

Born Sylvester Stewart, the former Oakland radio DJ and in-house producer at Autumn Records, along with his powerful band, was the rare crossover act that could command an audience with The Dick Cavett Show and Soul Train. The group’s show-stealing set at the landmark 1969 Woodstock performance remains one of that era’s most storied you-had-to-be-there moments.

Sly and the Family Stone’s makeup mirrored their idealistic songs. Their striking multi-racial, multi-gender lineup — which featured Stone’s brother Freddie Stewart (vocals/guitar); sister Rose Stewart (vocals/keyboards); Larry Graham (vocals/bass); Greg Errico (drums); Cynthia Robinson (vocals/trumpet); and Jerry Martini (saxophone) — was a brazen declaration of cultural unity during a time when America was being torn apart by the Vietnam War and the fight for civil rights.

Stone’s hopeful lyricism (“Stand/You’ve been sitting much too long/There’s a permanent crease in your right and wrong…”) was more than just empowering words. It was a utopian philosophy.  

“The concept behind Sly and the Family Stone… I wanted to be able for everyone to get a chance to sweat,” Stone explained in a 1970 Rolling Stone interview. “By that I mean… if there was anything to be happy about, then everybody’d be happy about it. If there was a lot of money to be made, for anyone to make a lot of money. If there were a lot of songs to sing, then everybody got to sing. That’s the way it is now. Then, if we have something to suffer or a cross to bear — we bear it together.”

From 1967 to 1973, the group’s run of gold and platinum classics not only dominated AM radio, it changed the course of popular music. “Stand!,” “Everyday People,” “Hot Fun in the Summertime,”  “Everybody Is A Star,” “I Want to Take You Higher,” “Whatever Will Be, Will Be (“Que Sera, Sera),” “If You Want Me To Stay” it was as if Stone was as intrinsically tapped in his church roots as he was to rock, avant-garde electronic music and pop standards.

Indeed, Sly Stone’s impact hit like an asteroid. George Clinton and his Parliaments vocal group had dreams of becoming the next Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. But once Sly came on the scene, the future Parliament-Funkadelic ringleader and his mates left Berry Gordy’s Hitsville USA, took off the suits, got freaky and followed Sly’s anything-goes ethos. 

“He’s my idol; forget all that peer stuff,” Clinton said in a Washington Post piece following the reclusive artist’s surprise appearance at the 2006 Grammy Awards. “I heard ‘Stand!,’ and it was like: Man, forget it! That band was perfect. And Sly was like all the Beatles and all of Motown in one. He was the baddest thing around. What he don’t realize is that him making music now would still be the baddest. Just get that band back together and do whatever it is that he do.”

Of course the usual write-up on Sly Stone has long painted him as a gifted yet troubled, tragic figure who reached his peak in the late ’60s as an unifying bridge between uncompromising Black soul brothers and sisters and white hippy, free love children. For a long stretch his absurd penchant for missing shows, struggles with drug addiction, various arrests and a rehab stint in the ’80s overshadowed his immense legacy.

But there was a lot more to the man. 

Stone created the template for the bedroom artist. His adventurous home recordings laid the groundwork for other one-man-band prodigies like Stevie Wonder, Prince, D’Angelo and H.E.R. to flex their artistic freedom. When Stone dropped “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),” he remade James Brown’s regimented, hard funk in his own freewheeling image. Propelled by Graham’s revolutionary slap bass technique, the Billboard 100 chart topper found the effortlessly cool Stone once again ahead of the pack.

Yet by 1971, the optimistic rebel had grown increasingly disillusioned. Sly and the Family Stone’s landmark million-selling album There’s a Riot Goin’ On encapsulated the rage, introversion, and dark mood of a country still healing from the trauma of war and the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.

Stone recorded much of the low-fi concept album alone in his Bel-Air mansion, alienating band members who he now relegated to using as session players. Cocaine and PCP only added fuel to the front man’s paranoia as Stone’s entourage now included gun-toting gangsters and drug dealers.        

Stone, however, still knew how to deliver an infectious hit. “Family Affair,” the group’s third No. 1 single, was prophetic. His usage of the early drum machine, the Ace Tone Rhythm Ace, was a precursor to the work of hip-hop beat masters like Marley Marl, DJ Premier, RZA, Mannie Fresh, and J Dilla.

Jazz legends Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock publicly thanked Stone for inspiring them on their respective funky turns On The Corner (1972) and Head Hunters (1973). Even as Stone’s erratic behavior dragged down record sales, his DNA was all over the new funk wave he ignited back in ’69. The Jackson 5, the aforementioned Parliament, LaBelle, Tower of Power, Earth Wind & Fire, the Ohio Players, Rufus/Chaka Khan, and Rick James were just some of the artists who were inspired by Stone.

There were several Sly Stone comeback miscues as well as a surprising return to the R&B charts on the 1986 Jesse Johnson single “Crazay.” The Grammy-winning guitar virtuoso, who first rose to prominence as an original member of the Prince-conceived funk outfit the Time, said Stone was one of the most influential artists of his time.

“When we finished shooting the video for ‘Crazay’ we were at A&M just jamming, coming up with stuff,” Johnson told Andscape. “Sly was in the studio and I was in the control room playing bass and he was playing keys. All of a sudden, he just stopped playing and said, ‘That’s my s–t. What do you know about that?’ And I said, ‘Are you kidding me? Who do you think we were trying to be?’ Prince, myself, everybody… we were trying to be Sly Stone from the clothes that we wore to how we approached music.”

It’s apropos that Sly Stone’s untethered catalogue has been sampled and covered by a disparate range of artists from Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Queen Latifah, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Janet Jackson and LL Cool J to Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, OutKast, Brandy, Madonna, Missy Elliott, and Duran Duran.

In one of his last interviews in 2023, Stone, who was still a prolific songwriter even during the period when he was homeless and living in a van, lamented to The Guardian of his various health struggles.

“Haven’t stopped me from hearing music,” he opened up, “but they have stopped me from making it. … I can hear music in my mind.”

But leave it to Stone to have a happy ending. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer spent his final years clean, watching western movies and surrounded by his three children. He lived long enough to see the world once again celebrate his brilliance, thanks largely to The Roots’ Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson.

Sly and the Family Stone was the centerpiece of Thompson’s Oscar winning 2021 documentary Summer of Soul. In 2023, He published the singer’s memoir bestseller Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin). And just this year he helmed the critically acclaimed Hulu doc Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius).

“[Sly Stone] dared to be simple in the most complex ways — using childlike joy, wordless cries, and nursery rhyme cadences to express adult truths,” Thompson wrote in tribute to his hero. “His work looked straight at the brightest and darkest parts of life and demanded we do the same.”

Johnson has more to say about the man he glowingly calls the best mentor.

“Sly is the only person I’ve ever known in my life that would walk into a place and go, ‘Baby boy, baby boy, listen to this,’” he said. “And he’d put in a cassette and make you never want to f–king play again. Sly never lost it.”

The Rhoden Fellows dive into the pivotal role father figures play in shaping the next generations of athletes. This podcast unpacks how Black fatherhood is redefining not only athletic success, but also identity. Join us as we honor the men who coach from the sidelines of life, and the athlete-children who carry their lessons forward on and off the playing field. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

INDIANAPOLIS – Pascal Siakam brought the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy to the Giants of Africa basketball camp in Yaoundé, Cameroon, after winning an NBA championship with the Toronto Raptors in 2019.

The Cameroon native’s hope was to inspire the next generation of African basketball players. One camper who was inspired was a then-15-year-old named Yves Missi, who dreamed that day of being in the NBA after seeing it was possible.

Six years later, Siakam is still inspiring aspiring basketball players from Cameroon and Africa as he returns to the 2025 NBA Finals as a member of the Indiana Pacers. The three-time NBA All-Star’s grassroots efforts are paying dividends as his old camper Missi starred as a rookie with the New Orleans Pelicans last season.

“Just him bringing the trophy and then showing it to us and obviously having the opportunity to touch the trophy for the first time as a kid, that feeling was a different feeling that I’ve never felt before knowing that he’s the first from here to ever do it,” Missi told Andscape. “I didn’t really meet him. I just said, ‘Hi,’ and took a picture. He came, so that was key.

“And then taking the picture and seeing the trophy was the main thing for me. I felt it helped people understand that if someone from where you come from makes it to a certain level, there is a possibility for us to even play on that type of stage or even dream about winning a championship one day.”

The African basketball world suffered a major loss in 2024 with the passing of Naismith Hall of Famer Dikembe Mutombo. The four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year was not only one of the greatest African basketball players but also an ambassador, philanthropist and mentor.

Fellow Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon, 62, is a 12-time NBA All-Star who is widely regarded as the greatest African player ever, but he keeps a low profile.

The most decorated current NBA player born in Africa is Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid, the 2023 NBA Most Valuable Player and an Olympic gold medalist.

Africa, however, has its eyes on Siakam during the 2025 NBA Finals. Siakam has an opportunity to be the first African to win two NBA titles since Olajuwon (1994 and 1995). Siakam also garnered notice by winning the 2025 Eastern Conference finals Most Valuable Player award. He and his Pacers own a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven NBA Finals with Game 4 tonight (ABC, 8:30 p.m. ET) here against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

“I’m just a young kid from Cameroon that moved to the U.S. when I was 18 years old and gave everything to the game of basketball,” Siakam said.

Far from here in Pretoria, South Africa, African basketball players taking part in the Basketball Africa League playoffs that began on June 6 were inspired by Siakam. The BAL championship will take place on Saturday.

“Pascal’s return to the NBA Finals is incredibly inspiring for all of us,” BAL president Amadou Fall told Andscape. “When we tipped off our BAL playoffs, the whole basketball community across Africa was also following Pascal’s journey with pride and admiration. Winning the NBA title in 2019 and being named the NBA’s Most Improved Player was super special.

“Now getting back to the NBA Finals with a different team as the MVP of the Eastern Conference finals confirms his elite status. Pascal is a special young man, deeply committed to his roots as a shining role model for a youthful continent and an example for our BAL players and all young aspiring talent in the African basketball ecosystem.”

Siakam’s journey from Cameroon to the NBA has the makings of a Hollywood movie. The NBA’s hope is to continue developing basketball talent in Africa through the BAL, the NBA Academy Africa and Basketball Without Borders, offering a smoother road than Siakam was afforded.

Siakam was actually supposed to be a Catholic priest, not an NBA star. Tchamo Siakam enrolled his son in St. Andrew’s Seminary school in the village of Bafia, Cameroon. However, Pascal misbehaved to get expelled since he didn’t share his father’s dreams.

While Siakam had three older brothers who played Division I college basketball, he hooped just for fun from time to time on a damaged rim during his youth. His feelings toward the game changed when he played in then-NBA player Luc Mbah a Moute’s basketball camp in Cameroon in 2011 and 2012.

That led to an invitation to a Basketball Without Borders Camp in Johannesburg in 2012. He only accepted it to visit his sister, who lived there. Siakam had not seen her in years, he said.

“If he didn’t make that decision to go to Basketball Without Borders, he would have never been in this position,” NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum, who is leading the NBA’s development in Africa, told Andscape. “And now he is giving back to his community, giving back to the continent.”

Siakam received coaching at Basketball Without Borders from the likes of Mutombo and then-NBA players Luol Deng, Serge Ibaka and Thabo Sefolosha. Camp counselors, including then-first-year Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri, took notice of Siakam’s athleticism, motor, length and fight.

That performance opened the door for Siakam to move to the United States at 16. He eventually landed a scholarship to play for God’s Academy in Lewisville, Texas. In 2014, he was awarded a full college basketball scholarship from New Mexico State. Siakam was drafted by Ujiri and the Raptors with the 16th overall pick in the 2016 NBA draft.

After succeeding on a less-traveled road to the NBA, Siakam believes there are lessons to be learned from his journey.

“I really don’t look at myself, like, I’m a role model or anything,” Siakam said. “I just feel like you can look at my journey and be like, ‘Man, he did it. He did it the hard way. There were no shortcuts. Someone that gave everything, just worked hard, put his head down. No matter the obstacles, he just kept working.’

“That’s something I want to tell young players. It’s not going to be easy. Nobody’s going to give you anything. You’re probably going to have less opportunity because you come from where you come from.”

After spending time in the G League, the 6-foot-8 forward blossomed into a starter and a champion with the Raptors during the 2018-19 season, and he was a first-time NBA All-Star in 2020. The 2022 All-NBA third-team selection made his third career All-Star appearance this season.

Now, Siakam and fellow Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton are trying to lead the Pacers to their first NBA championship. The franchise joined the league from the American Basketball Association in 1976.

“What’s motivating about his story is that it is the living proof that when talent, high character and hard work meet opportunity, the sky is the limit irrespective of background and origin,” Fall said. “It’s an affirmation of limitless possibilities for aspiring basketball players all over Africa. More motivation for us to keep strengthening the pathways from grassroots to elite that is now established.”

Said Missi: “A lot of people are proud. A lot of people were texting me about him the other day. … He’s actually the only one from Cameroon who proceeded to win a championship. So, it is great seeing him succeed. And he is not only Cameroon, he is from Africa in general.”

The instrumental Basketball Without Borders program, which includes Embiid and Siakam as alumni, has existed in Africa since 2003 with more than 4,500 participants. Giants of Africa, Ujri’s basketball initiative in Africa to empower African youth on and off the court, was founded in 2000. Fall’s Sports for Education and Economic Development (SEED) project began in 2002 in Senegal. It was Africa’s first basketball student-athlete academy and produced former NBA center Gorgui Dieng.

In recent years, the NBA Academy Africa in Saly, Senegal, has been the most instrumental in producing elite basketball talent from the continent. The NBA Academy Africa could be moved in the coming years, possibly to South Africa, and revamped, a source said.

Its alumni include Duke center Khaman Maluach (a projected top-10 NBA draft pick), Raptors center Ulrich Chomche, former Portland Trail Blazers center Ibou Badji, G League forward Babacar Sane and University of Florida center and NCAA champion Rueben Chinyelu. Maluach, Chomche, Sane and Chinyelu also played in the BAL.

The BAL is also promoting basketball across the continent with an NBA style of play and games in Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal and South Africa this season. There are also newer organizations like Play 2 Lead, an organization hoping to inspire the next generation of African basketball players through sports, education and leadership development.

National teams in Africa are also getting stronger as evidence of South Sudan defeating Puerto Rico during the 2024 Paris Olympics for its first-ever win.

“Today, what we are doing on the continent is creating a clearer pathway for players like Pascal,” Tatum said. “And you see that with Ulrich Chomche, who came to our academy, played in the BAL and gets drafted in the second round last year and played in the G League. You see it in Ruben Chinyelu winning a national championship at Florida and playing in BAL and in our academy. Khaman Maluach played in our academy and three seasons in the BAL.

“The path is becoming clearer now for these African players much more than when Pascal was there. That is a direct result of the investments we are making on the continent.”

So why is the NBA so committed and attracted to growth of basketball in Africa?

NBA commissioner Adam Silver said the league expects “enormous growth” with basketball in Africa over the next 10 years. Silver noted that Africa has roughly 55 countries, is larger than China, has a fast-growing population and six of the world’s top 10 growing economies.

“There is so much talent.” Silver said. “One of the things we have to decide as a league working with FIBA, our federation, is how much we should be investing in helping develop that talent, especially at an elite level. We have academies in Africa. Also, to put it in terms of the magnitude, I recently read this statistic: that in five years from now — not 25 years from now, but five years from now — it’s projected that over 40 percent of the youth of the world will live in Africa.

“So, to the extent that we are a growing sport — and we’re not the No. 1 sport in Africa, it’s likely soccer — but we’re pretty much the No. 2, maybe rugby in some markets, certainly the fastest-growing sport as we look out to the future, not just in terms of where our players are going to come from, but also Africa as a market.”

Siakam has been impressed with the growth of the game and the opportunities in Africa. Missi said he watched Siakam in the 2019 NBA Finals at 2 a.m., though he was rooting for the Golden State Warriors.

Countless African kids are staying up watching Siakam again in these Finals.

“For me, coming in as a young player, not really having played any basketball, having to learn on the fly, at that time it was mostly like when you were a big guy from Cameroon, you came in, you was a big, you ran, you dunked,” Siakam said. “That’s pretty much what it was. For me, I can see that evolving now with guys my size being able to do different things.

“Now with the NBA going in Africa, there’s just so much more development and guys are getting a lot better. The skills are being learned early on, something that I had to do really late in my career.

“So, it’s evolving. I hope I can be one of those guys that some young guys can look at [and] understand, ‘Look at his journey and the things he’s able to accomplish and how he did it.’ They can take it as an example.”

INDIANAPOLIS — A few hours before the Indiana Pacers faced the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 3 of the NBA Finals, I had the opportunity to speak with the great Oscar Robertson and his daughter, Mari, in their downtown hotel suite.

Robertson, one of the most significant players in Indiana’s rich basketball history, was invited by the NBA and the Pacers to help celebrate the team’s first Finals appearance in 25 years. Robertson received a warm reception when he was introduced, as the Pacers defeated the Thunder 116-107 to take a 2-1 lead in their best-of-seven series.

Robertson is a demanding critic, but he’s been impressed with Tyrese Haliburton, the Pacers’ star guard. On Wednesday, Haliburton scored 22 points, handed out 11 assists and grabbed nine rebounds, though it was his teammate, Bennedict Mathurin, who rose to the occasion, scoring a game-high 27 points.

“Stars have to come to play,” Robertson said. “Stars have to play well in big games. They can’t go off somewhere and not play well.”

Robertson, 86, represents a significant part of Indiana’s rich basketball history and an important part of the state’s racial heritage.

As a junior at all-Black Crispus Attucks High School, Robertson was the engine of a team that went 31-1 and won the 1955 Indiana state championship. Attucks became the nation’s first all-Black high school to win a state championship. Equally as significant, Attucks became the first Indianapolis high school team to win a state title.

That championship was also the beginning of a racial awakening for young Robertson that opened his eyes to racial realities in Indiana and throughout the United States. In segregated Indianapolis, Robertson lived in a bubble.

“I mean, not a lot happened when I was in high school, because I really didn’t go around any white people,” he said. “I mean, I was in an all-Black neighborhood. I didn’t go downtown. The only time I went downtown was to get the bus and go back to Tennessee to see my grandparents.”

After Attucks’ first state championship, the team was given a parade that ran through the city. But instead of the parade taking the traditional route and winding up downtown in the circle, the team was taken to a park in the Black part of town to continue the celebration. The apparent concern was that African Americans would damage property and the presence of so many would offend the sensibilities of white residents.

The Attucks coach, Ray Crowe, didn’t tell the team what was planned.

“I didn’t know anything at the time. I’m 17 years old. I didn’t know what they were doing,” Robertson said. “No one explained to the team.”

A year later, as a senior, Robertson averaged 24.0 points and was named Indiana Mr. Basketball as Attucks finished 31-0, the first Indiana high school to go undefeated, en route to winning a second consecutive state championship.

After Attucks won the second championship, Roberston refused to accompany the team on the parade route because he knew what was coming.

“In 1956, they did the same thing, but I didn’t go,” he said. “I didn’t even get on the fire truck to go downtown. I just went home.”

While progress, to an extent, depends on anesthetizing the past, you never forget. That slight — rather Robertson’s reaction to it — set the tone for how he would respond to slights throughout his adult life. Forgive, not forget.

Robertson enjoyed a legendary college and NBA career. He won an Olympic gold medal in 1960, became a two-time Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame inductee, and was the first player to average a triple-double for an NBA season. Despite the accolades, Robertson has never forgotten some of slights he suffered along the way.

A little more than 30 years after the truncated 1955 parade, Indianapolis, in a gesture of atonement, held a proper parade around the circle for that 1955 Crispus Attucks team. 

Robertson, who was 50 at the time, was not planning to attend. His teammates convinced him that he should. “I eventually did it for the guys,” he said.

“People keep saying ‘Can’t you forget that?’ I said yeah, but that 17-year-old kid will never forget that.”

Robertson’s and his team’s history is memorialized at Crispus Attucks High School in a portion of the school that has been turned into a museum.

Unlike today’s young players who look to play pro basketball as early as 10 years old, Robertson didn’t grow up yearning to play professionally, though there was professional basketball in Indiana.

The Indianapolis Olympians were an NBA team founded in 1949, but it folded in 1953. The Fort Wayne Pistons were members of the NBA until they left for Detroit in 1957.

“Despite all the basketball that I played in high school, no teacher ever mentioned playing basketball. They didn’t really talk about a scholarship, per se — some of the coaches did, and so I got an opportunity,” Robertson said. “I wanted to get a degree in business. I always wanted to go into business, so that’s what I wanted to do.”

Robertson left the state of Indiana to attend college. I wondered why the state’s most decorated player left the state rather than attend Indiana University.

He recalled a meeting he and coach Crowe had with Branch McCracken, the legendary Indiana University basketball coach.

“He kept us waiting for a little while, then he came out and sat down, you know, like he was busy. Then he said, ‘I know you’re not the type of kid who wants money to go to school.’ ”

“I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ He said, ‘I know you’re not the type of kid who wants money to go to school.’ I didn’t know kids got money to go to school. So, after he said that I looked at my coach and said, ‘Mr. Crowe, I want to leave.’ He never asked me to come to Indiana. That’s why I didn’t go.”

Instead, Robertson played for the University of Cincinnati from 1957 to 1960 and enjoyed a stellar All-America career. He didn’t begin thinking about pro basketball until he attended Cincinnati and met Jack Twyman, who played at Cincinnati from 1951-55.
When they met, Twyman was playing for the Rochester Royals.

“I used to work out with him a lot, and just talked with him about ball,” Robertson recalled.

Robertson was drafted by the Cincinnati Royals and spent a decade there without winning a title. He was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks in 1970. A year later, he won his first and only NBA title with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as his teammate.

For all the accolades and accomplishments, the most significant signature moment of his career came the year he joined the Bucks. Robertson was president of the players association at the time and took on the NBA.

Robertson v. National Basketball Association was a class-action lawsuit filed in 1970. The intent of the suit was simple: Players wanted better playing conditions, and they wanted assurance that when they no longer wanted to play for a team that they were free to shop their services to the highest bidder.

The Robertson Rule sought to end the so-called “option clause,” under which a player was bound to a team for life — or until the team wanted to end the relationship.

In 1976, two seasons after Robertson’s retirement, the NBA settled. One of the most important provisions of the settlement was the Oscar Robertson Rule that effectively pit owners against owners in a bid to sign the best players.

Free agency became the law of the land and steadily escalating salaries became the norm.

Perhaps because of his suit against the league, Roberston’s final chapter with the Bucks did not have a happy ending. Though the Bucks reached the NBA Finals in 1974, the organization made it clear that it did not want to bring him back for another year.

“So, I just said, give me $250,000 and I won’t come back anymore,” he said.

The Bucks held an Oscar Robertson Day, which the Big O graciously attended, though much like the aborted parade when he was at Attucks, Robertson took the Bucks’ action as a slight he would not forget.

He was only 36 at the time. I wondered why he didn’t continue to play?

“I was finished,” he said.

Was he ready to retire?

“I was just tired of Milwaukee,” he said.

Before I left, our conversation returned to the topic of the day and the reason Roberstson was back in town: The Pacers.

The Pacers were an original American Basketball Association team founded in 1967 when Robertson was with the Royals. They became part of the NBA in 1976 after Robertson had retired.

He said he liked the Pacers and appreciates the team’s significance to the community.

“It means a lot. It means a lot for the city, it means a lot to the players,” he said.

While the Pacers were pronounced underdogs entering the series against the Thunder, Robertson said he felt the team had what it takes to pull off the series upset, provided they continue to play with a sense of desperation.

“When I see a situation now with Oklahoma City and Indianapolis, they talk about Oklahoma City’s got this, they got that,” Robertson said. “I tell all the Pacers: ‘Listen, man, you don’t get here but once, once in a lifetime. You might never get back here again. So, when they toss the ball up, that’s when you got to go.’ ”

The Pacers heeded the Big O’s call on Wednesday by beating the Thunder and coming two games closer to winning the city’s first NBA title. That title would add to Indiana’s rich basketball legacy.

It will be the second-most significant basketball title in state history, because nearly 70 years ago a high school from the Black side of town, led by a generational player named Oscar Robertson, pulled a state together and proved that all things are possible.

Robertson’s Crispus Attucks team taught the city an enduring lesson in perseverance and forgiveness.