Though fans have been incredibly eager for SZA to follow up her masterful 2017 debut album CTRL, the first lady of TDE has only released one-offs here and there or features (check out “Freaky Girls” on Megan Thee Stallion’s Good News for a taste) for the most part during 2020. This summer she did release “Hit Different,” a collaborative track with both Ty Dolla Sign, The Neptunes and Pharrell Williams — but the song was dominated by Ty.
Tonight, she’s changed all that by releasing “Good Days,” a sad but optimistic track that yearns after just what the title names, and manages to hit much more of a melodic, narrative-driven tone that puts it more in line with her CTRL output. Still, the track is connected to “Hit Different” because a snippet of it plays at the end of that first song, linking the two and indicating that they might come after each other on a potential new album. If we’re kicking off 2021 with a new record from SZA, well then the year is already looking up. The adorable cover art for the song features what can only be a photo of young SZA, with the title written across her forehead.
Ever since Playboi Carti announced that his long-awaited project Whole Lotta Red would be coming out on Christmas Day, fans have been up in arms over whether or not the album would drop, and who else would be involved. Well, it’s officially here – all 24 tracks — and one of the biggest guests here is Kid Cudi, who is off a big surprise release of his own. Man On The Moon III: The Chosen dropped earlier this month, and now Cudi is here to back up Carit on their collaboration “M3tamorphosis.”
Though the darkly-lit, red-tinged video is still high energy, COVID-19 precautions have pretty clearly impacted production. The primary focus of the clip is just centered on Playboi and Kid Cudi hanging out in a massive truck, and rapping in and around the vehicle. Cudi is decidedly rapping here, not just singing, as he recently mentioned that Travis Scott helped him get back in touch with bars in his own work. As for as the song itself, it fits in line with the sound Carti was pursuing on his 2018 release Die Lit, but who knows if the rest of the 24-track project veers into new territory or not. Fans are just starting to dig in to the lengthy new project.
Carti has been teasing this album so long that he dropped artwork back in April that fans thought might indicate was for the project, but turned out to be just a red (heh) herring. Earlier in the day, Carti was reflecting on the fact that it’s been two years since his last release, Die Lit, and letting fans know tonight would be a night for celebration:
On top of that, James Harden was ruled ineligible to play after he had violated COVID-19 protocols by going to an event at a club earlier in the week. Harden is being required to return four consecutive negative tests, backdated to Tuesday, meaning he could possibly play on Saturday. The rest of the Rockets, however, are in a much more precarious situation, and as such their Saturday game with the Blazers and their Monday game with the Nuggets also could be in doubt.
According to The Athletic’s Shams Charania, a Rockets staffer has tested positive, putting Eric Gordon and others are involved in contact tracing protocols in relation to that staffer. On top of that, the league’s contact tracing guidelines mandate a 7-day quarantine for those determined to be close contacts, meaning Wall, Cousins, and the rest are currently dealing with that.
Due to a separate positive test for a Houston Rockets staff member, there is additional contact tracing being performed that involves guard Eric Gordon and others, sources tell @TheAthleticNBA@Stadium.
The Rockets have several players — including John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins and possibly more — currently facing seven-day quarantine per NBA contact tracing protocol, sources tell @TheAthleticNBA@Stadium.
Depending on the date that gathering took place, it’s possible those players would all be out through the Nuggets game due to quarantine protocols. It is a rather disastrous start to the season for a Houston team that had plenty of turmoil without an apparent COVID-19 outbreak to deal with. We’ll learn more in the coming days about the status of of the Rockets upcoming games, but it seems that, at the least, there has to be serious concern about whether they’ll have players for Saturday and the potential for that game to also be postponed.
Christmas is here and along with the holiday comes the stretch run of the 2020 NFL season. In fact, Week 16 begins on Christmas Day with a matinee matchup and the slate includes four consecutive days of professional football action. Though Week 15 was not particularly fantastic in this space with a 2-3 record, the excitement is building and perhaps there is value to be found as the hourglass runs out of sand.
A quintet of Week 16 picks awaits but, before we unveil the selections, let’s glance at the 15-week effort.
Week 15: 2-3
2020 Season: 35-38-2
Come get these winners.
Minnesota Vikings (+7) over New Orleans Saints
Let’s get a little bit weird on Christmas. The Saints are the better team, and it isn’t as if anyone is scared off them after a close loss to the Chiefs. With that said, New Orleans is without Michael Thomas and, aside from Alvin Kamara, the skill position options are not terribly impressive. That, in conjunction with Drew Brees and a Vikings team that should be able to move the ball even against a strong Saints defense, makes me think the full touchdown is valuable. I think this line should be 5.5 or 6.
Las Vegas Raiders (+3) over Miami Dolphins
The Dolphins just cover every week, so this is scary because of that. At the same time, the line is preposterous. The Raiders were favored on the look-ahead and now the Dolphins are…. favored by a full field goal on the road? Las Vegas still has some incentive to try and Miami isn’t scaring anyone on offense. The Raiders should be able to run the ball effectively, too, and this is an auto-play if you get the full three.
Pittsburgh Steelers (+1.5) over Indianapolis Colts
No one in the world is buying the Steelers right now, and they went from overrated to underrated in three weeks. It isn’t exactly “fun’ to back this team after the way they looked against the Bengals but, if you put on your analyst hat, it is pretty insane that Pittsburgh is now a home underdog in this game. Play the number and the situation.
Carolina Panthers (+1.5) over Washington Football Team
Washington has been reasonably impressive in recent weeks, and that opens the door for us in this spot. Carolina should be favored in my view, and Teddy Bridgewater is a ridiculous 24-6 against the spread as an underdog and 19-2 as a dog on the road. Throw in the uncertainty that is Washington’s week-to-week offense, and we’re going back to the well with the team from Charlotte.
Dallas Cowboys (+2.5) over Philadelphia Eagles
Before the Jalen Hurts renaissance, this number would’ve been a pick’em, or maybe even Dallas favored. Obviously, Philly has been a lot better with Hurts and that matters, but Dallas has also been feisty the last two weeks. Do you really want to lay points with this Eagles team in a road game against a division foe? I certainly do not.
The Charlotte Hornets opened their season on Wednesday with a 121-114 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers. It was a mixed bag for the Hornets, as Terry Rozier had a career-high 42 points in the loss, while LaMelo Ball struggled in his NBA debut, but most concerning was the early exit from center Cody Zeller with a fractured left hand.
On Thursday, Zeller had surgery in New York to repair the fracture and, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, will miss 4-6 weeks with the injury.
After surgery on his fractured left hand in New York today, Charlotte Hornets center Cody Zeller is expected to miss four-to-six weeks, source tells ESPN.
In a shortened 72-game season, missing extended time is even more impactful in terms of the percentage of a team’s games a player will miss, and Zeller will likely not return until February. This will mean extended minutes for Bismack Biyombo as well as some more opportunity for Miles Bridges in small-ball lineups with PJ Washington playing some center.
It’s yet another unfortunate injury for Zeller, a player who has struggled to stay on the floor throughout his career through various ailments and injuries. Last year was one of the first that he was healthy all season before the stoppage in March and the Hornets had high hopes for this season with Zeller being flanked by a veteran like Gordon Hayward. Hopefully he’ll be able to make a full and swift recovery on the shorter end of that window, but expect Charlotte to play it safe with his health.
The 2020-21 NBA season is underway, and this season is fascinating if only because there are a whole bunch of teams that have a legitimate case for being championship contenders. For a number of reasons, teams’ floors and ceilings seem to be more all over the place than ever before. In recognition of this, we decided to look at the best and worst-case scenarios for every team in the league, starting with the Eastern Conference.
Atlanta Hawks
Atlanta Hawks
Best Case: Pushes for a top-4 seed with the league’s most fun offense Worst Case: Lose in play-in tournament and have some sort of major overhaul
Atlanta’s offseason made clear that there are decision makers who really, really want to make the playoffs. The team had been in the midst of a youth movement, and a pretty fun one at that — Kevin Huerter, De’Andre Hunter, Onyeka Okongwu, Cam Reddish, and Trae Young were all drafted in the last three years, while John Collins just turned 23 and big trade deadline acquisition Clint Capela is 26. That is a really fun core, albeit one with question marks, and while adding Danilo Gallinari and Bogdan Bogdanovic should absolutely make Atlanta more fun, it does beg the question whether they make them better, because neither fix the team’s very real issues on the defensive end of the floor.
The nights where the Hawks are cooking are going to be insane — just take a look at the opener against Chicago. Young is quite possibly the league’s most 2K player, built in a lab to hit threes from two states over and pick passes few other players can match. Gallinari and Bogdanovic give them wonderful secondary playmakers and scorers who will thrive next to him, Collins is a pogo stick, and there are things to like about Huerter (shooting), Hunter (potential three-and-D menace), Reddish (when his shot is falling, he’s a tremendous two-way player), and especially Okongwu (he’s not Bam Adebayo, but he gets compared to him!). But the bad nights are going to involve a lot of matador defense and Capela fouling out early in a desperate attempt to keep them safe. And if there are too many of those, it feels like Atlanta is ripe for some sort of major overhaul on its bench and in its front office.
Boston Celtics Best Case: Title contender Worst Case: Make the playoffs and don’t do anything
The thing with Boston is they’ll always be good to some extent. Brad Stevens gets them ready to play every night, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum (a duo that could use a nickname!) are quite good, and the players around them always figure stuff out. The swing guy here is Kemba Walker, whose knee seems like a potentially big problem if it’s more “thing that impacts his ability to play basketball to the level he’s accustomed” than “just rest it and he’ll be ok,” especially now that Gordon Hayward is gone and the team has one less initiator on offense.
With how many good NBA players the Celtics have around those three — Marcus Smart, Daniel Theis, Tristan Thompson, some potentially fun youngsters led by Grant Williams — it’s really hard to see them falling below fifth or sixth in the East. They’re also a team that will play hard during the regular season, an underrated thing that every consistently good team shares. The big question is whether they’ll have the juice to make it back into the conference finals. The good news is the internal development that seems to be implied with the Celtics on a yearly basis isn’t going away, and their non-Kemba/Thompson/Theis players are all young enough that there are ways they can improve.
Charlotte Hornets Best Case: League Pass darlings who make the play-in tournament Worst Case: High lottery team
I have no idea how good the Hornets will be — well, they won’t be a championship contender or anything — but goodness gracious, this team might be a blessing. The ideal version of this Charlotte Hornets squad is one that plays at the speed of sound and lets LaMelo Ball make a million mistakes, because interspersed in between those will be moments of total brilliance.
The good news is that Ball is not Charlotte’s best player right away, because if he was, that would be a catastrophe. Terry Rozier and Devonte’ Graham are two solid guards, while Hayward is now here to hopefully be healthy enough to play at a near-All-Star level and the PJ Washington-Miles Bridges duo can continue to develop and give the team two more really promising youngsters. Like Atlanta, the nights where it all clicks — Ball is in the open court, Rozier and Graham keep the ball moving, Bridges and Washington are getting easy buckets, Hayward looks like the Gordon Hayward of old — are games we’ll all want to watch, and perhaps there will be enough that they can make a little noise at the bottom of the East. I do suspect those won’t be nearly frequent enough for a playoff push, though.
Chicago Bulls Best Case: Makes playoff, even if it requires play-in tournament Worst Case: Bad enough to miss play-in tournament, good enough to not get a high Draft pick
The Bulls seem like a team that is ripe to make some kind of move, particularly if they can stay healthy. There is a lot to like about their young core, especially if Wendell Carter Jr. can stay healthy and Patrick Williams can live up to the buzz that made him skyrocket up Draft boards earlier this year. They also made a big change when they swapped out Jim Boylen for Billy Donovan, giving them a coach with a little more of a track record of success and less of a track record of being the reason why his plays stage mutinies days into their tenure.
The good news is that Chicago is a team with a floor, but the issue is that’s not “clear-cut playoff team,” but rather, “continue to be stuck in that weird purgatory where they miss out on elite talent in the Draft.” There is enough here to make a run for their first postseason berth since 2016-17. It’s up to them to try and turn that into a reality, especially with there being room for someone to emerge out of the bottom of the conference.
Cleveland Cavaliers Best Case: Internal development all over the place Worst Case: Stuck in the mud
The Cavaliers are one of those teams for whom their win-loss record probably isn’t all that important. The team is in the midst of a youth movement, with guys like Darius Garland, Isaac Okoro, Cedi Osman, Kevin Porter Jr., Collin Sexton, and Dylan Windler needing to take steps forward (or, in Okoro and Windler’s cases, show a reliable enough floor that he can be a piece they build around). As long as they show promise and the veterans on this team — Andre Drummond, Kevin Love, JaVale McGee, Larry Nance Jr., etc. — shepherd those youngsters more than they get in the way, Cleveland’s in a good spot. The issues, however, would stem from those various older players taking it upon themselves to get numbers at the expense of those youngsters, and the good news is that none of those older players really are the type of guys to put themselves that far ahead of their teammates.
Detroit Pistons Best Case: Playoff berth via the play-in tournament Worst Case: Sacrifices developing young guys to push for a play-in tournament spot and falls flat
Detroit feels like a team that should embark on a race to the bottom of the league, but they’re one of the franchises that seems to really value playoff berths over everything else. As such, their best case scenario is that Blake Griffin looks like BLAKE GRIFFIN again, their offseason additions — Delon Wright, Jerami Grant, Mason Plumlee — all work out, Derrick Rose plays well again, and their rookies (namely Killian Hayes) are all able to contribute.
The worst-case scenario is much easier to see: All of those older guys eat into the minutes younger guys could play, particularly Rose with Hayes and anyone who would take time away from Sekou Doumbouya, in an attempt to make the play-in tournament that ends up being for naught. Detroit is used to being stuck in purgatory, which has been arguably the main reason why they’ve made the postseason twice in the last decade. Are they willing to go all-in on a rebuild, or is this going to be the latest Pistons team that tries to be ok, ends up being bad, and misses out on the kind of young player you can only get when you’re terrible?
Indiana Pacers
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Best Case: They do the Pacers thing where they outperform expectations and earn a top-4 seed Worst Case: They don’t do that and Victor Oladipo ends up leaving
Indiana is really, really good at seeing expectations and finding a way to outperform them. Unless they suffer a rash of major injuries, the Pacers will play hard every night, win a few more games than they need to, and the next thing you know, they’re hosting a Game 1 in the first round of the playoffs. Despite a new head coach, the pieces that usually get Indiana to that point are still here, and if Victor Oladipo is able to get back to his All-Star level, that makes life a whole lot easier for everyone in Nap Town.
The issue: What if this is finally the year they can’t do that? For all the gripes people could have about Nate McMillan, he did get his team ready to play every single night and they responded. Now, a first-time head coach is tasked with getting them to that level, all while trying to figure out if Oladipo (whose future in Indiana is in serious question) can be himself once again and trying to manage a tricky situation with Domantas Sabonis and Myles Turner in the frontcourt. Keep an eye on TJ Warren, because if he can be the offensive juggernaut he was in the Bubble then the team has insurance on the offensive end of the floor in the event Oladipo isn’t 100 percent.
Miami Heat Best Case: Title contenders again Worst Case: A playoff team, but last year looks like a fluke
Here’s a fun one! The floor for this team basically confirms what every detractor about their run to the NBA Finals said. This is a team that is good, of course, but they just found a way to mentally out-tough everyone else in a unique environment and they’re not that good. The irony, of course, is that is the exact kind of mindset that the Heat seem to relish. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, obviously, and I fully expect that Miami will carry that crown with pride.
Now, whether or not they can get out of the East again is another story. This is still a good team, and banking on a ton of internal development probably is not the worst idea in the world, because the Heat are a franchise that is as good at doing this as anyone. There is always going to be a concern with running it back, although Maurice Harkless is a nice addition to replace Jae Crowder, and I am keeping an eye on whether they go all-out during the regular season or try to take it slow with an eye on the playoffs.
Milwaukee Bucks Best Case: Wins Finals Worst Case: [gestures at last two years]
Here’s the easiest one of the bunch. Milwaukee’s best-case scenario is one thing: win a title. Milwaukee’s worst-case scenario is another: don’t do that. The good news is that they have Giannis Antetokounmpo around long-term, so they should be able to be title contenders for however long he’s in town. Some question marks exist with their rotation beyond their top three or four guys, whether head coach Mike Budenholzer can get them over the hump, and what they do if they cannot keep Jrue Holiday around, but on the whole, those are questions for when this year ends. All of them, save for Holiday’s future, can be answered by winning a title.
Brooklyn Nets Best Case: Title contenders Worst Case: Murphy’s Law
Brooklyn’s offense should be outstanding. The number of guys who can create their own shots and hit them is breathtaking — this does, admittedly, assume Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving stay healthy all season, and there are no bumps in the road for first-time head coach Steve Nash, but the path to the Nets being a championship contender is pretty easy to see. There is nothing this team cannot do on offense, and they are going to score every single night. It is very possible they end up being the best team on that end of the floor in the league — and they got off to a tremendous start in the opener.
The defense is a concern, though. They’re putting a lot of emphasis on DeAndre Jordan and Jarrett Allen cleaning up messes on the perimeter and a bunch of reserves — Bruce Brown, Taurean Prince, etc. — being able to give them enough on the perimeter. But man, it’s not hard to see how this all falls apart, especially if the injury issues are real and Nash struggles to get a grasp on being an NBA head coach. I’m less concerned about the locker room than most, because I expect Nash to be a very good manager of egos if nothing else, and having his “coordinators” in D’Antoni and Vaughn should lessen the potential for coaching mishaps in terms of X’s and O’s.
New York Knicks Best Case: Get Cade Cunningham and R.J. Barrett takes a gigantic step forward Worst Case: Bad enough to miss play-in tournament, good enough to not get a high Draft pick
Oh, the Knicks. There are some guys to like here, and optimism probably isn’t too unwarranted because Tom Thibodeau will get the whole “play defense” thing drilled into them, but they do still lack the kind of headline-grabbing star that they covet. Perhaps one will pop up in free agency or via a trade at some point, but the best move for now is to bank on what they have — particularly R.J. Barrett — being part of a really, really good core. What that means in terms of winning games is up in the air, but if they can position themselves so they’re optimistic about what they have and they can land someone like Cunningham, who is almost certainly going to be the No. 1 pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, then this year is a home run. But like other teams here, being just good enough to not make the playoffs while simultaneously hurting their odds of adding a home run talent in the Draft would be a tough pill for the New York faithful to swallow.
Orlando Magic Best Case: 6-seed Worst Case: Miss play-in tournament
The lack of Jonathan Isaac is going to hurt them. Orlando is one of those teams that always finds a way to just make something happen — another one of those franchises that consistently plays hard and commits to grinding during the doldrums of the NBA season — so them doing just enough to avoid the play-in tournament is on the table. It’s not like they’re totally devoid of talent, either. Nikola Vucevic is an All-Star, Aaron Gordon will do Aaron Gordon stuff until time ends, and I still have a bunch of Markelle Fultz stock filed away somewhere that I hope I will be able to cash in. They also have a pair of youngsters in Cole Anthony and Chuma Okeke who are extremely interesting.
Still, no Isaac has the potential to be a major issue. Orlando is not a team filled with offensive creators, and while Isaac isn’t that, his defending is so much fun that losing him makes them a little worse on that end of the floor. For a team that can’t afford a major slip on defense, not having Isaac could cause a chain reaction that, compounded with their lack of really dangerous shot creators outside of Terrence Ross, would lead to them missing the playoffs. An under the radar issue: D.J. Augustin is no longer here, and his steady hand running the offense was huge at times over the years.
Philadelphia 76ers
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Best Case: Title contenders Worst Case: Oh god, not again
Trying to suss out what the Philadelphia 76ers are will, once again, be the most difficult thing in all of the NBA this season. They finally realized that putting shooting around Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons is smart, and it is not hard to foresee them unlocking the skills that make the two of them so good — basically that both are gigantic and smart and can do a ton of good stuff on both ends of the floor — and becoming a juggernaut. Maybe Tobias Harris also benefits from this and can be a really solid secondary/tertiary option! Maybe Tyrese Maxey is the rare good rookie guard! Maybe guys like Shake Milton and Seth Curry and Danny Green let it fly from deep and need to make teams choose between stoping them or stopping Embiid/Simmons! Again, Philly competing for a title is not an outrageous scenario by any stretch.
Of course, I did this last year, too. So did a whole lot of folks, and the Sixers could not get out of their own way. It’s possible the Embiid and Simmons pairing just does not work, and that gets hammered home this season. They’re a bit light on the perimeter on defense, and that’s putting a ton of pressure on those two to be All-Defense players. The whole “James Harden is going to be linked with them until someone, regardless of whether it’s the Sixers, trades for him” thing is going to loom large. Philly should be as weird as ever. I can’t wait.
Toronto Raptors Best Case: Pascal takes another leap and they’re title contenders again Worst Case: 5/6-seed and an early playoff exit
The elephant in the room with the Raptors is the fact that they are not in Toronto and got put in Tampa for an unknown period of time. This is a group of veterans and people who carry themselves with the upmost sense of professionals, so if any team can handle that, it’s Toronto. But man, that is such a tough hand to be dealt, and hopefully it doesn’t impact their day-to-day abilities to play basketball at a high level too much.
There are some roster questions here, namely losing Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka. Replacing them with Aron Baynes is nice, but he alone cannot shoulder the load both of those dudes carried. If there is any team that can reliably bank on internal development, it is Toronto, and guys like Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby have room where they can grow. Siakam, in particular, is intriguing, because he has gotten better every year of his career and has room to grow as a shooter and a one-on-one player. Another leap for him and he’s a potential MVP candidate, while Toronto would compete for an Eastern Conference crown again.
Washington Wizards Best Case: They make the playoffs and do enough to convince Bradley Beal to never want to leave Worst Case: Not that
Beal is the franchise in Washington, and despite acquiring Russell Westbrook this offseason, the goal is to make sure the stuff around Beal specifically works. Making the playoffs, having their various young dudes contribute positively, and showing that the Wizards are on the right track after being stuck in the mud for a few years is going to be huge. The Beal-Westbrook pairing could potentially by quite fun, too: Westbrook will attack and attack and attack, freeing up room for Beal to operate as an on or off-ball threat, both of which he can do quite well.
The same question from last year also exists. Washington is going to score and could be among the league’s best on that end of the floor, but the defense has the potential to be quite leaky. If they figure things out on that end of the floor, they very well could make the postseason, even if it involves going through the play-in tournament. If not, this has the potential to be quite the offseason in the nation’s capital.
BTS turned out to be the gift that kept on giving this year. As the Korean boy band released not one but two full-length albums this year with Map Of The Soul: 7 back in February, and Be coming out just a few weeks ago in November. As is the case with most groups, the idea of solo projects from each member has been heavy on the minds of fans, and today at least, they got an update on those ventures from Jimin.
He released his own solo track, an original holiday song called “Christmas Love” in what might be a bid to test the waters as a solo star. Then again, it might just be a holiday song for fans to help celebrate the season. Jimin posted the song on the BTS blog, complete with lyrics and the personal info for the song, which was produced by Slow Rabbit.
He also wrote a note to fans in Korean, talking about how much childhood memories impact our ideas about holidays and more. Listen to the song above, and definitely keep an eye out for more new music from BTS in the near future — these beloved K-pop stars always have something up their sleeve.
It’s weird to look back at March 2020, isn’t it? We seemed so young then, so naïve, so totally and completely unprepared for what was to come — and cue the ominous music folks, because it was a doozy of a year.
The last night things were “normal” — March 13th — I had drinks scheduled at a friend’s house. I was recently looking back at that email chain, and I cringed. We seemed so glib, embarrassingly so. “I guess we’ll toast to the end of the world,” we joked. That night, my girlfriends and I sat around tallying whose work had told them to work from home on Monday. “How would we even do that?” we wondered.
“I heard we might be working from home for two to four weeks,” one of my friends said. We all laughed. There was no way we would all be working from home for an entire month…right?
Two days later, California effectively shut down, and it wasn’t for just a few weeks. Or even a few months. Basically, if you had come with a time machine to tell my friends and I that night that we’d be working from home for the entire rest of the calendar year (and beyond), we probably would have lost our minds (and finished several more bottles of wine).
Now, in December 2020, the fear around that particular part of the pandemic is gone. We’ve realized… it kind of works. I mean, sure, we miss our coworkers. But we’ve also seen that working remotely can be a positive thing — from freeing us up location-wise to streamlining production so that we have more leisure hours (assuming our employers don’t use it as a way to make us work more, a claim already being leveled at some businesses).
Here are a few of the benefits to working from home that we discovered in 2020. And while none of them are “and you don’t have to change out of pajamas!” — you can assume that’s #1 on the power ranking.
Cutting commutes to work gave us back our time.
Gustavo Spindula VIA Unsplash
Working at a CW show this spring, my commute to the writers’ office in the valley was over an hour. And I did it — without complaint — I loved my job and that’s just…what you have to do in LA. Spend hours a day in a car. But suddenly, with no commute, I had hours more in my day. Those extra two hours could be spent exercising, sleeping in, writing my own stuff — even cooking, because I wasn’t so exhausted from a drive that I just wanted to order pizza.
I missed my co-workers a ton, of course. But I began to dig how much more open my day felt. How little gas I had to buy. Working from home can cut your workday from 11-12 hours to a more reasonable 8-9 and that’s a pretty exciting prospect.
Not having to go in to a physical office meant we could live where we wanted.
Jordan Carroll VIA Unsplash
If you’ve been struggling to pay rent on a studio or one-bedroom in the city you “have to” live in for your job, you’re not alone. According to a 2019 report from the Harvard Center For Housing Studies, in the nation’s 25 highest-rent markets, 46 percent of renters with incomes of $45,000–74,999 were cost burdened — meaning they paid over 30 percent of their income on housing costs. But if you didn’t have to stay in New York or San Francisco or Seattle, imagine the possibilities that open up.
Ashley B. — a private practice lawyer at a firm in LA, who is wary of using her real name — the chance to work from home prompted a full reexamination of priorities.
“In LA, I live alone — except for my dog! — in a pretty small apartment in Santa Monica without any outdoor space,” she tells me. “When everything shut down, including my gym and a lot of cafes and other places where I’d connect with my friends, it was pretty solitary and a bit draining.”
Ashley had been to Tulum in Mexico a couple of times before. She had friends who lived there and her powerlifting coach had a gym there — so, with no restriction on the place she lived, her tiny apartment suddenly paled in comparison to days spent in the jungle and on the beach. The move was supposed to be temporary.
“I decided to try it out for a couple of months. A couple of months has now turned into 5 or 6 months,” she says. She’s still busy at work, and sometimes the time difference can be rough, but overall – she loves it. “It’s been great to meet new people, be in a town where just about everything is set outdoors, and have some semblance of normal life amid the chaos that is 2020.”
Ashley doesn’t know if it will be a permanent change, but she also thinks this time has shown us that, with technology, being present all the time in the same physical space isn’t as necessary as we used to think.
“It can be tough not to have an opportunity to speak to a judge or prosecutor in person,” she says. “But given that we’ve worked successfully for the last nine months, the earlier assumptions about productivity at home and inability to fully service our clients will be harder to hang onto.”
Fewer cars on the road helped the environment.
Harry Gillen VIA Unsplash
It’s pretty crazy how quickly our congested roads went empty in just a couple of weeks. Ron Cohen, a professor of Atmospheric Chemistry at Berkeley, was specifically working on a project to map and track cities’ air pollution and greenhouse gases when COVID hit — so with lockdowns starting he had the very interesting opportunity to study what would happen if we all drove less and worked at home more.
“At the beginning of shelter-in-place, we saw a 25% decrease in total CO2 emissions in the East bay,” he says. “That was almost entirely from a reduction in vehicle emissions on the region’s highways. It has given us insight into how the atmosphere responds to emissions from gasoline-fueled passenger cars.”
What they observed was a preview of what life could be like with less cars on the road (or what could happen if half of the cars on the road were electric), and what the data showed was that CO2 (the main greenhouse gas) emissions were dramatically lower. If we all worked from home more, we could continue to enjoy that positive effect on the environment.
Long-term though, Cohen warns, it’s hard to say whether this particular event will have a net positive or negative effect environmentally. Especially, if most workplaces start requiring workers to come in again. Some people may be nervous to use public transit and will opt for cars — adding more to the road, and those who have moved, may make things worse with longer commutes from the suburbs. That said, while Cohen personally can’t wait to travel again, he’s hopeful that this unexpected air data from his project, BEACO2N, will help cities plan for a greener future.
“We hope to support cities in their ambitions for clean air and reduced climate impact,” he says, “Providing them with crystal clear scientific summaries of their current emissions and options for the future only helps that goal.”
Less time at a desk allows us to incorporate more outdoor time.
Tyler Nix VIA Unsplash
Spending time in nature, even for short periods of time daily, has been shown to reduce stress, boost your mood, and make you more creative/better at problem-solving. Yet, for many of us, we were still spending long days indoors at work and having a hard time fitting in outdoor adventure on the weekend, let alone on workdays. But a hike at lunchtime, a quick surf (now that you can live near the beach!) in the morning before calls, even just bringing your computer outside — all became tantalizingly possible in 2020.
At my job, zoom fatigue had our showrunner set hours that involved larger breaks and more independent study. Everyone worked just as hard producing their best work — just… a little more on their own time. It worked. Quality over quantity, as the saying goes.
And, against all odds, we still managed to create a sense of community.
Compare Fibre VIA Unsplash
Zoom happy hours, work text chains, laughter at/ compassion for the coworker whose cat/baby/partner walked into frame during a meeting — all led to us finding ways to connect even without our physical workspaces. Working from home can be fatiguing, but, over the past year, we learned that we’re more adaptable than we could have imagined.
Who knows what the future will bring. If nothing else, this year has been a master class in letting go of the notion that we have all that much control over the future. But I have to think that there are going to be some permanent shifts in work culture. And if we continue to have some flexibility in where we work, there are certainly positives to be found.
Though it’s almost become a rite of passage for young rappers (or Mariah Carey) to pick a fight with Eminem anymore, Pump’s assessment of Em’s work is pretty harsh, even for detractors. “I woke up on bullsh*t today, I’m back on my f*ck sh*t,” Pump said in an Instagram video, captured and posted to the grid by DJ Akademiks. “You lame as hell. Ain’t nobody listening to your old ass. You lame as f*ck, b*tch.”
No real word on what prompted Pump’s dismissal of Em, but it seems unlikely the legendary Detroit rapper will even bother with responding to this one-off Instagram diss.
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