Who needs more clothes when you’re not going anywhere?

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“Hold my branch.” —Nature

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And they may have caught a break, after the same model of Russian ventilators burst into flames, killing six people in Moscow and St Petersburg this week.

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Over the past year or so it has become increasingly popular for NBA related Twitter accounts to post some sort of “pick ’em” grid that offers you the choice of players valued from $1-$5 and a prompt of “you have $15, who you got?”

These typically come from media or brand accounts craving that sweet, sweet engagement boost, and are often put together without too terribly much thought. However, on Tuesday, Twitter’s @LucasHoopsPoems produced arguably the best one of these pick ’em prompts I have ever seen, as there was clearly significant thought and effort put into it — as evidenced by the fact that he had friends look over it and work out some kinks before throwing it up online.

The addition of $6 players makes things much more difficult and also allows for more appropriate tiers. Because they didn’t make it fit in a neat 5 x 5 box, there are more players and, as such, the decisions you have to make are more difficult and the tiers are better divided. For instance, the $1 range features some specialists and players whose impact was clearly felt more on one end than the other, rather than being stacked with Hall of Famers.

There are also a ton of ways to go about putting together a team on this list, and all of them require some very tough decisions. Let’s go through a few of my favorite teams I’ve come up with.

The All-Never Won A Ring Team: Chris Paul, Reggie Miller, Dominique Wilkins, Charles Barkley, Joel Embiid

I feel like Reggie Miller in the $2 slot is one of the best values on the board, a testament to the guard depth in league history, and putting him next to Chris Paul would be a lot of fun. The issue with this team is, without a doubt, wing defense with Reggie and Nique, but offensively this team would rule and having Chris Paul pestering opposing point guards and Embiid lording over the middle of the paint I think we might be able to get away with it. The toughest decisions for me were Chris Paul v. Gary Payton and Barkley v. Anthony Davis, but I also love the idea of having all five of these incredible shit talkers all on one team and Davis would be the odd man out there.

First Team All-Defense: Gary Payton, Tony Allen, Kawhi Leonard, Dennis Rodman, Dikembe Mutombo

An absolute fever dream for those that wish we’d go back to those halcyon days of the playoffs when games finished in the 70s. The Glove and Tony Allen absolutely ruining opposing backcourts both physically and mentally, while Kawhi and Rodman fly around on the wings and Dikembe is ready to block anyone that makes their way to the rim.

First Team All-Offense: Allen Iverson, James Harden, Dominique Wilkins, Dirk Nowitzki, DeMarcus Cousins, (6th Man Kyle Korver)

The antithesis of the previous team, I want scorers with questionable at best defensive backgrounds (hence the selection of Harden over Kobe even though we had a dollar left over for Korver). We’re trying to average 150 points per game and I don’t care if we give up that many too. One basketball may not be enough for this team, but everyone in the starting lineup can average 25 without breaking much of a sweat.

The Best Team: Chris Paul, Reggie Miller, Kevin Durant, Kevin Love, Dwight Howard

I think this is the best team I can come up with. I can’t get over thinking CP3-Reggie is the best value backcourt combo you can make and they’re a really good fit. The forward spot is filled almost totally with fours, but I think Durant-Love works with prime Dwight anchoring things. It’s basically the concept of those late 2000s Magic — surround Dwight with shooters — but taken to a different level by adding the best pick-and-roll point guard partner possible for him, one of the best shooters in history in Reggie, one of the best scorers ever (and a tremendous wing defender) in KD, and a great shooter in Love who can rebound and knows how to play that role.

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Back when we started this crazy Sopranos rewatch podcast all those year ago, “Knights In White Satin” was exactly the kind of episode we had in mind. Episode 12 of season two, this one really is one of the greatest Sopranos episodes ever, easily a top fiver. It introduces all sorts of new and interesting characters, from Jackie Aprile’s son Jackie Jr. to Irina’s cousin, the one-legged chain-smoking Svetlana (one of my favorite characters in all the Sopranos canon) whose boyfriend romantically picked her up off the floor at the Gap store. But for the most part, episode 212 is an entirely self-contained miniature movie, with fully developed plotlines, complete character arcs, big twists, and satisfying resolutions. I bet you didn’t think Richie and Janice’s wedding was going to turn out like that, did you! If you’re a Sopranos virgin looking for one episode to get you hooked, check out this one, I’m friggin’ tellin’ you over heah.

As always we have your hosts, comedian Matt Lieb from Newsbroke and me, Vince Mancini, and this week we also welcome sportswriter Dave Schilling (ESPN, Bleacher Report, The Ringer, The Guardian), currently of the Full Court Chat podcast. We go through every plotline in Bada B Stories, countdown our favorite scenes, and explain those bits you may have missed. We hope you enjoy it, but in case you don’t, va fongool.

Don’t forget to give us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, and please, say hi to your mothers for me.

At least one professional sports organization in North America seems poised to make a “bubble league” happen to finish its schedule amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The Athletic reported on Tuesday that Major League Soccer is finalizing a proposal to move its entire operation to Florida and play out its schedule in a single location: Orlando.

According to reports from both The Athletic and Washington Post, the league will attempt to make a “bubble league” happen at Disney’s Wide World of Sports, sending all players to Orlando to stay and play while the schedule is played out. According to the proposal, the timeline is actually pretty tight to make this happen. According to The Athletic’s Sam Stejskal, sources indicated the league wants players in Florida by June 1 and hopes to resume the 2020 campaign by June 22 and has submitted the plan to players and clubs.

The sources said that the league is proposing that all teams travel to and begin training in Orlando by June 1st, which is just under three weeks away at time of this publication. Players, coaches and staff would essentially be quarantined for the first week in Florida, during which players would only be able to train individually. Small group training would begin in the second week and run for seven days. Only in the third week would teams be allowed to hold full training sessions. Games would begin on June 22nd and likely run for four or five weeks, putting players, coaches and staff in Orlando for around two months in total. Family members would not be allowed to travel with teams to Orlando.

The games played in Orlando would not be part of a regular season, but would instead be a tournament format, according to Steven Goff of The Washington Post, who emphasizes that these are tentative plans.

Other neutral sites were considered throughout the process, but it seems that Disney’s hotel space and sports facilities won out in the end. Whether a bubble league can safely isolate the entire league and its 26 clubs is unclear — as is whether MLS’s plans impact or prohibit other leagues like the NBA to set up shop at Disney as well — but it certainly seems like at least one league is going to try facilitating one of the oddest seasons in league history in a few short weeks, pending the approval of the teams and players, of course.

Future has been teasing the release of his new album all year and with everyone tucked away indoors avoiding social gatherings, it seems he’s decided now is as good a time as any to finally put the thing out. It’s called High Off Life, a clever reference to his recent admission that he cut back on his drug use, and it’s due this Friday, May 15. According to the press release announcing its release, it’ll be executive produced by DJ Esco, with features from DaBaby, Drake, Lil Uzi Vert, Travis Scott, Young Thug, and more — in other words, the usual suspects.

Future kicked off the High Off Life buzz in January, when he and Drake released the tongue-in-cheek video for “Life Is Good,” sparking speculation that the duo was working on another collaborative mixtape a la What A Time To Be Alive. A remix of the song put paid to that idea while also adding DaBaby and Lil Baby verses to the mix and getting fans excited for a new Future album, just about a year removed from The Wizrd, his last full-length studio album. He followed up by dropping his three fan favorite mixtapes, Beast Mode, Monster, and 56 Nights to DSPs, then announced that the title of his new album would be Life Is Good, like the single spawned from it.

Apparently, he’s had a bit of a change of heart, but so long as the music lives up to his usual standards, I’m sure most fans will be satisfied, no matter what the project is called. It seems we’ll have the chance to find out soon enough.

High Off Life is due Friday, May 15 via Epic Records.

Pandemics are confusing by nature. We’re dealing with a new virus that scientists have to scramble to study, an unknown contagion and death rate, constantly shifting data, and new information being thrown at us on the daily. And as human beings like certainty, that’s hard.

Throw in the social and economic impact of trying to control the outbreak (and buy time for scientists to develop treatments and/or vaccines), along with the totally-on-brand politicizing of the pandemic in the U.S., and it kind of feels like a gigantic, out-of-control sh*tshow.

It’s a many-fold problem, but one outcome is that all of this uncertainty creates a prime breeding-ground for misinformation to spread. And whoa Nelly, is it spreading.

I’ve heard that the CDC admitted their death numbers are inflated (they didn’t and they’re not), that the virus is no worse than the flu (it is), that the whole global pandemic was planned by BIll Gates (blink, blank stare), and that masks either don’t help anything or actually make you sicker (somebody tell most of Asia).

We know that misinformation spreads faster than truth. And we know that a frightening number of Americans have been brainwashed into believing that anything considered “mainstream” is totally untrustworthy, while fringe outlets with no accountability or credibility are legitimate sources of truth. (Hint: If anyone tells you that they’re the only ones telling you the real truth, run away. No credible outlet would ever say that.)

And that combo has created a vortex where people get spun topsy turvy, up becomes down, and anything that hits them in the face as it flies past feels true. That’s how we end up with signs like these in the middle of a freaking pandemic:

The photo, shared by David Parsons on Twitter, shows signs sitting in front of Ramsay One Flooring, a construction company in Simi Valley, California.

“We’re open to the truth,” the first sign reads, followed by “NO Masks allowed,” “Handshakes OK,” and “Hugs very OK.”

Umm, yeah. Contagious novel virus, people. 80,000 Americans dead in two months, and we aren’t even sure if we’re starting to drop off yet. The entire world scrambling to mitigate the spread and racing to come up with a way to treat or prevent it. But somehow, being “open to the truth” means defying very basic, universal hygiene that even kindergarten kids know is important when there’s a bad bug going around? How does that make sense?

The only explanation is that this store owner has fallen for one of several “plandemic” narratives that paints the pandemic as some kind of evil plot orchestrated by dastardly villains who are out to steal Americans’ freeeeedoommm. So, not a real thing. A big conspiracy because a bunch of YouTube videos told them so.

If this were a 9/11 “inside job” conspiracy theory, a JFK assassination conspiracy theory, or faked moon landing conspiracy theory, it wouldn’t be a huge deal. People believe all kinds of far-fetched things, and when those beliefs are confined to the fringe and deal with past events that aren’t of much direct consequence now, I take a “live and let live” approach.

But conspiracy theories filled with misinformation about the coronvavirus pandemic are dangerous. They lead people to outright reject and defy public health guidelines that are in place to literally save lives. Successful containing or mitigating a pandemic requires a population to be on the same page and work as a team. It requires us to be truly the United States of America as if our lives depend on it—because they do.

Don’t we pride ourselves on having the best and the brightest scientists, doctors, and researchers in the world? Experts have known something like this would happen sooner or later, and decades of research and planning have gone into preparing for just this moment. Now we’re just going to ditch all of that work, all of that learning, all of that preparation? Why? Because a baffling number of people trust discredited scientists on YouTube over the world’s most respected and accomplished epidemiologists and virologists? Seriously?

No. Enough. There are legitimate discussions to be had about government overreach and whatnot, but using misinformation to justify defying public health measures is foolishness. And it’s the kind of foolishness that can kill people. In fact, we’ve already seen it happen. An Ohio man who called the coronavirus “bullsh*t” and a “political ploy” died of COVID-19 in April. (Here’s the same story from Fox News as well, so no one can complain about media bias.)

Information leads to beliefs, and beliefs lead to actions. If you believe this pandemic to be fake/rigged/planned/a hoax, you’re going to act accordingly. And that’s dangerous for everyone, including you. Stop it, for everyone’s sake.

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The week before Money In The Bank, the smallest-ever number of people tuned in to watch Raw live on cable. The night after the pay-per-view, Raw drew more eyes, experiencing both higher viewership and a boost in the ratings.

Last night’s show, which featured Becky Lynch announcing her pregnancy, Asuka becoming Raw Women’s Champion, and the returns of both Edge and The Iiconics, was viewed by 1.92 million people on average over its three-hour run time. That’s a significant increase from last week’s record-low audience of 1.69 million and a step up from the previous week’s 1.82 million. However, it’s still fewer people than were watching Raw’s earlier no-fans shows; more than two million people were still tuning in to watch Raw at the Performance Center back in March.

Despite smaller live audiences, Raw has had consistently high ratings during this period, and those were a little higher this week. The first hour of Raw was the highest-rated show on cable, the second hour was the second-highest, and the third hour was the fourth. These hours drew a 0.59, 0.58, and 0.53 with the 18-49 demographic, respectively.

With the lack of a live crowd removing a key element of the pro wrestling experience and top stars like Kevin Owens, Roman Reigns, and now Becky Lynch out of action, WWE is looking for ways to get more people to tune into their programming. The first order of business: allowing talent crossovers between Raw and Smackdown again, starting with Baron Corbin taking on Drew McIntyre next week on the red brand and Charlotte Flair showing up on Friday’s Smackdown.