#went to look up if quad or eric are performing soon

[the-yellow-wall]

Tbh the musical guests on Hivemind should do a tour together for the terminally online music fans (me)

[daehee]

Chapter 11

Back Again

Three months had gone by and school was starting up again. Keita was a trainee, he didn't make it through YG treasure box. He took it surprisingly well. He's still chasing his dream. Ricky went back to China right after graduation. Jiwoo became and idol, debuting in a group called Nmixx. Yunjin also debuted in a popular girl group known as Le sserafim. 

Ever since Keita and Jiwoo left, my life is been pretty boring. Yunjin is barely ever here because of her group schedule. The youngest member of her group, Eunchae, also recently started attending SOPA. She's really funny, and we're the same age, so that's cool. My days kind of go by in a blur. It's not that they're super busy, just that there is nothing to fill them. I no longer have my best friend by my side, I really only have Yunjin as my best friend these days. Its pretty lonely and quiet in the dorm because Yunjin moved out. Wow... how did I just now realize that I literally have the whole dorm to myself... jeez, I need something to get me living again.

"DUDE?!? Hana, are you here?" The door slammed and Yunjin yelled at me loudly.

"Yeah I'm here, what's up?"

"It's time for class."

"You came all the way to the dorm just to tell me that?"

"Yeah, I wanna walk with you. It's our last first day of school. WE'RE SENIORS, we gotta make it special."

"Ok, ok, fine." 

I finished my breakfast, grabbing my phone and backpack, heading out the door behind Yunjin. We silently walked to our next class. Everyone was rowdy because it was the first day of school, especially the senior. Eric, Seungho, and Aaron came to meet us. We were the only seniors left in the 'it' group. Eunchae was also welcomed into the 'it' group, after all she was a debuted artist. 

We all walked into our advanced dance class, which was first period. Standing there was one of the last people I ever expected to see in this school again. Next to our dance teacher was... Keita?

"Hello class! Today you have a special assignment. You will be pairing up with each other to make a dance for a grade and the K-pop music festival. Since the top dancer of the summer has yet to be revealed, we will do so now. The top dancer will be pairing with Keita for the festival, and will be graded on your performance and choreography. Each group will get a theme from this bowl."

Everyone murmurs, already thinking about their partners. We were all excited for special assignments, especially getting to perform at the K-pop music festival. Some of the biggest names will be there. 

"Alright, our top dancer is.... Akahana Adams." I wasn't really surprised to hear my name, I had been top dancer since I started coming here. Now I just had to think about dancing with Keita. 

"Come get your theme." My teacher directed. I walked up to the front, digging my hand in the bowl for a slip of paper.

"S-sexy?"

My teacher laughed at the look on my face. Keita also did. It was kind of weird because we haven't seen each other since right before he went on ygtb a few months ago. I had watched it live as soon as it came out, but we had yet to talk. We communicated threw very few texts. 

"You two get practice room one, go have fun!" My teacher instructed us.

We silently walked to the first practice room. I didn't know what to say to him, and I assume it was the same for him. When we got to the practice room, I still didn't speak. I only stretched silently. 

"You're not going to talk to me?" Keita asked, moving my hand to his shoulder for stability as I stretched my quad muscle.

"I-... no. I just don't know what to say to you."

"Oh come on Hana, we're best friend! You always know what to say to me."

"Yeah well, we also haven't really talked all that much, let alone seen each other in a few months."

"Exactly, you should've jumped into my arms the moment you saw me, or at least have done it by now."

I rolled my eyes at Keita playfully. I knew he was half expecting me to, so I jumped into his arms, hugging him tightly.

"I missed you baby." He spoke softly into my shoulder. I let my legs slide down from around his waist, laying my head against his shoulder when my feet were safely on the ground.

"I missed you too Kei." 

We stood there hugging for a few minutes. The warmth radiating off of him was something I hadn't felt in so long. I remember being addicted to his hugs when we were younger, I would use any excuse I had to cuddle close to him, or wrap my arms around his neck so he'd wrap his around my waist.

"Kei... I think I'm gonna go home when I graduate."

"WHAT?! But Hana, why would you leave? Isn't it your dream to be a dancer in Korea?"

"Well yeah, but nothing's happening for me Keita. I don't have friends anymore, I live alone in my dorm. I haven't seen my mom and dad in 3 years. My days blur by because they're empty. I'm just... I'm lost Keita. I'm losing myself. I got caught up in this dream that I thought I could achieve, but it's taking me nowhere and... I-... I'm lost."

"Well... write songs with those lyrics... damn. And wait... you live alone in the dorm?"

"Yeah Hayoon and Jiwoo graduated remember?"

"Yeah but what about Yunjin?"

"She debuted Keita. She's in Le sserafim. She moved out."

"Damn... she's at BigHit?"

"Yeah."

"You're actually alone in that huge ass dorm?"

"Yes Keita... I don't even really have friends anymore. There are 4 seniors left in the 'it' group. Yunjin is never here because of schedule and that leaves Eric, Seungho, and Aaron. I'm friends with Eunchae, the macknae of Yunjin's group, but like Yunjin, she's barely here. I kinda fell apart after you left."

"I'm so sorry Hana. I promise I'll talk to you every day from now on. And please don't go home... then I'll get to see you less."

"I'm sorry if these let's you down Keita... but I don't know if I can stay. Nothings going right for me right now and I just-... I don't wanna cry anymore Keita."

"No babe, I get it, but look at me. I kinda hate to use myself as an example but... I wasn't even really all that close to debuting with Treasure. I'm young and inexperienced compared to the others... so I didn't make it. But the point it, I'm not giving up. I'm a trainee at a different agency now, and I'm gonna keep going until I make my debut. Your slaying at this school. Your top of your class at academics, and top of your ADVANCED dance class... AT A FREAKING FINE ARTS SCHOOL. You're not always gonna be the most experienced, you're not always gonna be the best, so if you cant handle it while you are the best... then you gotta toughen up Hana."

"I-... okay. What if nothing happens for me though? What if I stay stuck?"

"You're literally a dancing prodigy. Something will happen for you. How about we just focus on the dance for now, kay?"

"Okay." I agreed.

We began the long process of choreographing a dance... hopefully we'll do good.

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The intro post for this story has all the chapters listed.

[viraljournalist]

Jayson Tatum and Nike are making 'lacing up' a thing of the past with the HyperAdapt BB

New Post has been published on https://viraljournalist.com/jayson-tatum-and-nike-are-making-lacing-up-a-thing-of-the-past-with-the-hyperadapt-bb/

Jayson Tatum and Nike are making 'lacing up' a thing of the past with the HyperAdapt BB

6:51 PM ET

Nick DePaulaESPN

Since his father first helped teach him the game, Jayson Tatum has been lacing up his sneakers to play basketball every day. That will change soon, thanks to Nike.

Wednesday night, when the Boston Celtics host the Toronto Raptors (8 p.m. ET on ESPN), Tatum will be the first NBA player to play a game in the new HyperAdapt BB, Nike’s first auto-lacing performance basketball sneaker, a concept more than 30 years in the making.

“Being the first person to wear it is a great opportunity,” Tatum said.

A decade before Tatum was born, Nike designer Tinker Hatfield received a unique request from Universal Studios. Director Bob Zemeckis was working away on the 1989 sequel to “Back to the Future,” and he asked Nike to help design a futuristic shoe for the movie’s 2015 setting.

The Nike Mag provided the inspiration for the self-lacing HyperAdapt BB. Courtesy Nike

Hatfield, now Nike’s VP of design and special projects, dreamt up the iconic Nike Mag, a futuristic, power-lacing sneaker unveiled in the movie by character Marty McFly. After recently recreating the shoe in 2015 — when the reality of the calendar caught up to the fictional world of the movie — Nike expanded the auto-lacing concept, first with the multipurpose HyperAdapt 1.0 sneaker in late 2016, and now with the performance-geared HyperAdapt BB, to solve problems for athletes of today.

“The idea was adaptability from the very beginning,” Hatfield said. “The [original] notion of a shoe that recognizes you and turns on, then adapts itself to you, is not very different than what we’re looking at right now.”

The HyperAdapt BB replaces traditional laces with an intricate series of cables, controlled by slide-touch bars on a syncing phone app or two toggle buttons on the side of the shoe. With power coming from a small motor in the shoe, the cables engulf the foot, providing varying degrees of support and giving players such as Tatum an exact, on-demand fit every time. The settings can be stored, much like an automatic car seat, returning to the same locked-in preference in an instant.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” Tatum said. “Hearing about a shoe with all this technology and no laces, I didn’t know what it was going to look like. It really surprised me. It looked a lot better than I thought it would, and it felt great — that was most important.”

Though Tatum will begin wearing the sneakers now, the HyperAdapt BB officially will launch Feb. 17, just before the league’s 68th annual All-Star Game. Eric Avar, Nike’s VP of design innovation, said the company is hoping the $350 sneaker can serve as a foundational performance product that’ll eventually expand into other sports and uses.

“Good design is always taking and making the complex as simple as possible,” Avar said.

Can’t get enough kicks coverage? SneakerCenter is ESPN’s Facebook group where fans can celebrate all things sneaker culture, find the latest sneaker news and check out the freshest sneaker photos and videos. Join on Facebook »

The initial auto-lacing HyperAdapt 1.0 was priced at a lofty $720, and Nike admits it wasn’t necessarily geared for high performance. At less than half the price, the new HyperAdapt BB offers the next step in an ongoing process of making the concept more accessible.

“It’s like phones and other technical innovations that are more expensive when they first come out,” Hatfield said. “The more we keep engineering and rebuilding these motors, they shrink down, and we can put them into more sizes and fit women better, and maybe kids, too. Also, we could retrofit other shoes with this technology.”

As Avar explained, the basketball shoe went through hundreds of iterations and development samples — minor tweaks to the cabling would require a new design for the support panels. Deciding on the actual material for the cabling and the motor componentry was its own extensive ordeal. Senior innovation designer Ross Klein and a team of engineers ultimately decided to use what’s been dubbed a high-performance quad-axial, quad-fit system.

The look of the shoe had to fit with the technology, with Nike eventually settling on a simple upper, allowing the shoe’s light-up elements to draw the eye.

“It’s always a balance between art and science,” Avar said. “Maybe there was a little more science that went into this product, compared to your normal basketball product.”

After nearly two years of testing early prototypes at Nike’s campus on the feet of its elite-level product testers ��� former Division I players who now work at the company — the brand put the shoe through a critical workout.

Based on concepts from “Back to the Future II,” the HyperAdapt BB is a shoe 30 years in the making. Adam Levey for ESPN

During the last week of August, Tatum was joined in Beaverton, Oregon, by rookies Luka Doncic and Collin Sexton, fellow sophomores De’Aaron Fox, Kyle Kuzma and Jordan Bell, and WNBA stars Kelsey Mitchell, Kelsey Plum and Breanna Stewart. The group tested all aspects of the HyperAdapt BB. Longtime Nike innovation expert Kobe Bryant was there to push everyone along.

“As a kid, Kobe coulda wore anything and I woulda liked it. For me, it was just being associated with Kobe,” Tatum said. “Having his shoes on, it was like building that bridge, and that’s how I felt connected with him. That’s how a lot of kids think nowadays.”

Even in retirement, Bryant still meets and speaks regularly with Avar. Avar’s history of designing Bryant’s industry-shifting’s low-top signature series played a role in the HyperAdapt’s low-cut silhouette. As they work toward the next edition of the Kobe AD series, they’re also busy brainstorming insights that could help to propel concepts like the HyperAdapt.

“This project has influenced and sparked so many different ways of thinking about fit,” Avar said. “There are so many different projects, including the [Air Jordan] 33, and Kobe’s next shoe is heavily influenced by that.”

When Tatum syncs up the new HyperAdapt for the first time on the Garden’s parquet, that bridge and connection to Bryant will have been realized — a new generation of young players will be following in Tatum’s footsteps. Meanwhile, Avar, Hatfield and the rest of Nike’s innovation team will be back in Beaverton, working on the next evolution.

“It won’t be anything short of incredible, I’m pretty certain,” Tatum said. “When my son gets to be 20, the type of shoes they’ll be wearing might make you fly.”

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[usatrendingsports]

Fantasy Basketball: Jabari Parker, Nikola Mirotic headline gamers primed for large second halves

It is a frequent false impression that the NBA All-Star recreation marks the season’s midway level. In actuality, you are solely about 25 video games earlier than the highest eight in every convention lock for good.

Within the Fantasy panorama, there’s additionally a deep sense of urgency. Seasonal leagues will start their playoffs in a number of quick weeks, and DFS gamers will see their window of alternative closing of their quest for an enormous rating.

Regardless that time is brief, doing a little bit of homework can assist you goal a number of gamers who can flip your season right into a successful one as soon as play commences after the All-Star break:

Jabari Parker, Bucks

Parker is getting back from damage on the best time, because the Bucks have well being issues everywhere in the roster. Eric Bledsoe is coping with an ankle damage – though he was capable of play Friday – whereas Malcolm Brogdon (quad) is about to overlook as much as two months.

Giannis Antetokounmpo (ankle) has additionally had his share of accidents. Because the Bucks wrestle to maintain a foothold on seventh place within the East, Parker ought to give the crew a much-needed shot within the arm. Earlier than happening with a torn ACL final season, he was averaging 20.1 factors, 6.2 rebounds and a couple of.Eight assists per recreation. He additionally developed into a superb three-point risk in his third NBA season. Whereas Khris Middleton appears entrenched on the small ahead place, it is possible to see the undersized Bucks using a three-forward frontcourt, with the 6-Eight Parker performing as a hybrid ahead resulting from his development as a fringe risk – much like how the crew has used Tony Snell, at occasions, this season.

No matter occurs, Parker will likely be a serious a part of the Bucks’ offense as soon as he is again as much as full pace. And whereas that would take a number of weeks, Parker is price proudly owning in leagues of nearly any measurement.

Nikola Mirotic, Pelicans

The ink is now dry on Mirotic’s settlement with New Orleans, and with Greg Monroe not accessible, you need to assume Mirotic would be the crew’s best choice at energy ahead for the foreseeable future. Whereas he is no DeMarcus Cousins, the potential for output on the 4 in New Orleans is well-documented, as that is the place Anthony Davis put up many an enormous stat line.

As Davis transitions to the 5 fulltime, Mirotic may have each alternative to succeed. His scenario in Chicago went from dangerous to worse after a combat with Bobby Portis largely put him within the doghouse, and it was only a matter of time earlier than the 6-10 huge man landed elsewhere. Whereas he by no means actually lit it up in Chicago till this season’s 25-game pattern, he lacked the required room to thrive. In earlier years, TaJ Gibson and Jimmy Butler restricted his alternatives, whereas extra not too long ago Bobby Portis and Lauri Markkanen made constant, starting-caliber enjoying time arduous to return by. Mirotic will not be capable to use that excuse any longer, and if he makes probably the most of what ought to be an expanded function, he’ll be primed for big-time Fantasy success.

Dejounte Murray, Spurs

Gregg Popovich made it clear to Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili that it is time for the subsequent era to imagine a bigger function in San Antonio, and nobody advantages extra from that than Murray. His elevated utilization is clear together with his uptick in minutes to 21.Eight per recreation within the month of January, and that quantity may steadily rise shifting ahead. Whereas Patty Mills remains to be sitting on a newly minted Four-year, $50M contract, Murray has clearly outplayed him, and he is executed it in probably the most fascinating of the way.

Murray put up 10 or extra rebounds 5 occasions in January, and because of this he is turn out to be among the finest backcourt rebounders within the league, averaging 13.Three boards per 48 minutes. If Kawhi Leonard can lastly discover his means again to the ground, Murray’s help common ought to rise, and the Spurs all the time discover a strategy to make noise because the playoffs method – all excellent news for Murray.

Tobias Harris, Clippers

It is tough and unusual to think about the Clippers with out Blake Griffin, and whereas the commerce was a little bit of a head-scratcher, the arrival of Tobias Harris provides the Clippers just a little extra versatility and a whole lot of upside. Harris is a full inch shorter than Griffin, so a whole lot of the inside grinding will likely be left to DeAndre Jordan – no less than for now – however Harris has a load of expertise shifting seamlessly between each ahead spots , which suggests Harris will spend a whole lot of time on the ground because the Clippers experiment with completely different seems to be.

Harris has additionally developed his perimeter presence considerably this season, which supplies the Clippers an added dimension from past the arc. Harris is changing 40.9 % of his long-range pictures and is making an attempt a career-high 5.Eight three-pointers per recreation. Though he is usually taken knocks for being a methodical, slow-paced participant, he is improved in that space, and the Clippers may reveal one other facet to Harris with their faster tempo. He’ll by no means exchange Griffin, however Harris will carry a brand new dimension to what’s been only a barely above common offense this season.

Zach LaVine, Bulls

If you happen to’re in search of a real game-changer who can flip a crew’s fortunes on a dime, look no additional than LaVine. He will likely be again to 100 % shortly, however he is already displaying indicators of life on a minutes restriction, averaging 13.Eight factors, Four.Eight rebounds and a couple of.6 assists over his first 9 video games again, in a median of simply 22.1 minutes performed throughout that span.

It is solely a matter of time earlier than he is logging 30 or extra minutes per recreation, reworking the Bulls offense within the course of. It is somewhat unlikely the Bulls can overcome their present deficit within the East – and I am unsure they essentially need to – however their lineup is significantly extra formidable with LaVine because the anchor. What initially appeared like a lopsided commerce has come collectively somewhat properly for Chicago.

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