Maggie Rogers’ debut major label album, Heard It In A Past Life, dropped in early 2019, but she was making music for years before that. Now Rogers is looking back on that early period with her newly announced release, Notes From The Archive: Recordings 2011 — 2016. To make the announcement, Rogers shared a three-minute video in which she introduces the project.
Rogers says of the collection:
“So much of this record is about the process. It’s about honoring the time it takes to come to a full form… I wanted to give you the chance to hear me grow and hear me make mistakes, hear me change — because all of those pieces are really beautiful parts of my present, and I don’t feel complete without them in the world.”
She also said in a recent Atmos story, “I’ve known for a long time that this is something I had to do before I put out another record, because there’s a part of me that’s so deeply missing from the story right now: the 10 years of work that have led up to this moment. I have a whole body of work that I don’t want to leave behind. This record feels like honoring that work, putting the pieces of the story back together, finding my way from bisected to whole. Now, I’ve finally been given the space to let ideas develop and let myself develop. And as I’ve been working on a new record, I see the pieces all coming together and coming full circle.”
Find the Notes From The Archive: Recordings 2011 — 2016 art and tracklist below.
I have something I would like to say to you, Senator Susan Collins.
My name is Tim Mercer. Yes, the same Mercer who’s mother appeared in an ad on television opposing you this past election. And yes, the same Mercer who’s brother put out multiple full page ads in the Portland Press Herald and got national attention when you refused to answer his questions in an airport a year ago. But before you tune me out, I would like you to hear me out. Some things might be hard to hear, but I assure you there is a light at the end of this tunnel.
First off, I would like to congratulate you on your decisive win over Sarah Gideon to retain your seat as senator for the great state of Maine: a state my family calls home—a place I have lived for over 10 years of my life. Even though I have disagreed with you on most issues, you have potential to be the best person for the job. Not for the senator you are right now, but for who you could be.
Over the past few days, I’ve discussed your voting record, position on issues and your commitment to Maine and the United States with numerous people who work with you and held positions within the walls of the state capitol in Augusta, ME. In recent years, I had become disenchanted with your ways, and full disclosure, I was going to write you an angry letter. But as I heard these people talk about you, I realized that you have their respect. The people who disagree with you had some good things to say, as did those who are more alined with you. They were all very candid, so there were no perfect scores, but that is okay. I don’t trust perfect.
With every conversation I had, there was one consistent tone: hope.
You clearly have something special with the people of Maine based on your tenure as their representative spanning over two decades. Not only that, but you won convincingly as a Republican in a state that favored Democrat, Joe Biden, as their choice for the next president of the United States. You are clearly doing something right. But you have done some things wrong, too. The first thing that comes to mind is Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
This was your opportunity for that career-defining moment. But instead you voted for Kavanaugh in 2018. Eight months later, you told the New York Times you didn’t regret that decision. Why? I know you received harsh criticism, and I understand where it came from. In supporting Kavanaugh, you’ve threatened the safety of women and their right to choose. With your pro-choice views, which we agree on, you were the Republican that should have voted against Kavanaugh. I am not sure if you were pressured or made some sort of deal with Trump, but either way it wasn’t a good look.
Although you claim to be a champion for women’s rights, when the national spotlight was on you, you disappointed a large amount of people. It was your chance at the big solo and we were expecting to hear this glorious note, but instead, we got Selena Gomez without the auto tune. You could have knocked it out of the park by making a decision that would forever put you down in the books for standing against alleged sexual assault. I wonder if you regret that decision now?
Then there’s your bipartisan voting. It seems that you are able to boast a bipartisan voting record because you side with Democrats when your vote has no impact on the final result. That is like purposely putting your credit card down at a restaurant after someone else just footed the bill. It is a hollow gesture that has no effect on the situation, costs you nothing and makes it seem like you genuinely meant to do the right thing. When you are called out for voting the party line, you can just point to your record to show how often you have gone against the Republican narrative. Similarly, the person with the second fastest credit card reflex at an eating establishment, when accused of never picking up the tab, can always point out how many times they have tried to pay. Technically, neither of you are wrong, but I am sure you can see how it isn’t right.
Another aspect of your voting that’s troublesome to many is your voting record for taxing the wealthy. I was talking to a friend of mine a few weeks ago, and while he is a multi-millionaire, he says he only pays 4% in taxes. I pay over 20% (and let’s just say I am not expecting an American Express Black card to show up in the mail anytime soon). According to Politicsthatwork.com, you vote to tax the wealthy only 18.2% of the time. I understand there might be a margin of error on those statistics, but I am pretty sure it isn’t 81.8%. There are so many hard working people in the state of Maine and across the country who desperately need your help.
Also, I do find it strange that you haven’t held a town hall meeting in 20 years. As a woman of the people, which you claim to be, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t be eager to hear our voices much less avoid them. Then I heard something interesting that every single person I talked to who worked with you confirmed. You have a reputation for having thin-skin. Face-to-face adversity appears to be difficult for you. There was even someone who organized an event that you spoke at, recalling your extremely unusual request to see the RSVP list so you could seemingly vet them. Speakers look at those list all the time out of curiosity, but this was different. My guess is that you probably know what I am referring to. My point is that I think I understand you a little better now. You seem to want to control your environment. Perhaps you should let go of that and start holding town halls more often. You might take a few lumps, but you will also get plenty of praise from your supporters—especially if you take more steps to look Mainers in the eye and connect on a human level.
Finally, I need to ask this because I would be remiss if I didn’t: Is the support you have shown for President Trump over the past four years genuine?
I know the Overton Window moves left and right, but Trump has found a way to make it move down. In other words, statements and actions so juvenile, rude and completely baseless used to mean the end of a political career. For President Trump, it is known as “every day of the week.” I challenge you to find a 30 second clip from any of Trump’s rallies where he doesn’t insult someone or make it about himself. The man has successfully divided the United States of America to a level I never thought possible, and that is not an easy thing to do.
I find it hard to believe that you, a public servant for 23 years, doesn’t cringe on an hourly basis about the fact that you have to report to a misogynistic narcissist with no political experience, who doesn’t pay his taxes and has the bed side manner of Triumph The Insult Comic Dog. You will soon be free of him, and you will have a chance to work with the Biden administration, a president who possess dignity and values. You might not always agree, but at least it will be an adult conversation.
The gridlock in Washington is the most dysfunctional it has ever been by far. You know this, Susan. You have a front row seat. You could be the spark that leads to a different way of thinking. This country was so desperate for anything other than business-as-usual in our federal government that they elected Donald Trump, and continued to convince themselves that his behavior wasn’t that of a spoiled five-year old who needs attention. All the time.
People need to remember that you were a maverick in years past. I believe you can get back the ear of the Democratic constituents you lost and keep the Republican ones so loyal to you. Someone has to break this seemingly endless and profoundly dangerous cycle of behavior on Capitol Hill. There needs to be a first, and I really think you could be her. Forget about who is Democrat and who is Republican, and lead by example. Someone needs to step up and it may as well be you. We as Americans know the difference between disingenuous actions and those that are pure of heart. If you lead the way, people like my mother, my brother and I will all be right behind you.
By the way, I also think I understand why you didn’t (or couldn’t) answer my brother’s questions when he approached you in that airport last year. Maybe it is because you couldn’t in good conscience give an answer when he asked questions like, “What do I say to my daughter when president uses language on a daily basis that would get her kicked out of school?” Maybe it is because you couldn’t justify it either, but you had to be loyal to your party. Those days are behind you and you made it through. You have the next six years to get your “maverick” on and make a difference. And I can’t wait to see what you do.
This country has too much potential to keep gong down a path where the best case scenario is everyone being consistently angry and growing even more divided. The worst case scenario is all-out civil war, which doesn’t seem far fetched enough at this point. President Trump’s version of unity is telling militia groups like The Proud Boys to “stand by,” and it is scary to think about what that might lead to. Those guys seem like the kind of fellas that could cause a great deal of chaos. I do believe we all want the same thing: freedom, unity and the pursuit of happiness. We have dug ourselves quite a hole, but Susan, if you can be the catalyst that pulls us out of it, you will be one of the most important trailblazers in political history.
Make America great again, because the last guy who preached those words kind of went the other way on that one. If you can pull this off, even if you put your credit card out first, I will be the first one to buy you dinner.
In some not too distant future, two-time NBA champion Chris Bosh, having been named Dean of the Drone Racing Academy, will stand by as the Drone Racing League’s first live, primetime race is televised nationally. After the race, over in what feels like a blink, Bosh might congratulate the winning pilot and work alongside them to bring the best lessons of the race — aerodynamics, batteries and propellers, crashing and starting over — into the league’s STEM-focused learning component for kids.
The race in question is this Sunday, and the rest of it has already happened. Not too distant future, remember?
Founded in 2015 and launched publicly a year later, the Drone Racing League is a first of its kind amalgamation of tech, professional sports, and entertainment. As of 2020, the DRL has held 38 events in 22 cities around the world, racing in venues as varied as Alexandra Palace in London and as large as Chase Field in Phoenix. While the league has seen rapid growth since its outset, much of it has been to an organic and insular audience already well-acquainted with its tech roots. Moves like appointing Bosh as Dean of the League’s educational arm, the Drone Racing Academy, will no doubt draw interest from a larger audience, but it’s in the unanticipated turn inward we’ve all felt this year that could bring the DRL, quite literally, into hundreds of thousands more homes across the world.
“I think this is definitely going to be a case study one day. We’re going to look back and say, man, when did these things start? When did things happen, when did things shift?” Bosh enthusiastically told Dime on a call in early November. “And we’re going to look back to this time and it’s going to be one of those things that really catches fire because people are ready for it.”
Bosh was named Dean in mid-October, and while the fit feels extremely natural — he’s always ardently engaged with tech and his alma mater, Georgia Tech, was involved in developing the 1:1 code to develop the league’s racing simulator — it was the DRL that approached the 11-time All-Star.
“I wish I could say I was cool enough to discover it, be the first person to see that it was a cool thing,” Bosh says. “I’ve always been a huge advocate of teaching children the whole STEM philosophy and where it’s coming from, especially where you see the world going and the technological advances that have been happening.”
STEM is educational curriculum based in the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, typically introduced to children in an application based approach. The benefits of STEM in a world as tech-forward as today’s are apparent, but its underlying skills are even more far-reaching. Things like problem solving, analytical thinking, and encouraging the ability to work independently all spring from STEM, tenets that fit naturally within the competitive world of the DRL.
“I would like to have thought I would be in that workforce if I wasn’t playing basketball, because that was pretty much my other interest.” Bosh chuckled. “To be an advocate for it, and to speak out and encourage kids to not only get an eduction but, yo man, pay a little more attention to STEM!”
In his new role, Bosh will help kids break down the science of the sport, focusing on things like speed and how drones fly. The DRL had previously held activities geared toward kids at its larger live racing events, inviting local schools where races were held as well as having panel sessions with pilots. With the necessary shift toward remote learning this September, the league readily adapted, working with schools and national organizations to fold the science of drone racing into ongoing curriculum. The end goal isn’t necessarily to make competitive pilots out of every kid, but to spark an interest and expose children to opportunities adjacent to the areas that the DRL touches, everything from aviation to electrical engineering.
“It’s interesting how many kids say that they don’t like math, or technology, and they haven’t even tried it,” Bosh laments. “I think this league is, one, it’s super fascinating, and two, it envelops so many different aspects of education to even be able to compete and be good.”
Being good at drone racing requires not only an inclination toward the technical aspects of the sport, but a practiced and hands-on understanding of the how to troubleshoot through the mechanical requirements of flying one. Simply put: Crashing happens, and you oftentimes need to put the pieces back together again.
Two-time DRL world champion Jordan “Jet” Temkin, who began flying drones in 2013, can’t even count the number of times he’s crashed.
“I wouldn’t have enough fingers, especially when I started,” Temkin says with a smile.
After coming across drones online and seeing a few videos of them in action, he thought building one looked “like a fun project, just a weekend project.” A self-proclaimed “ski bum photographer,” Temkin also saw in drones the opportunity to be able to chase his skiing and mountain biking friends out in the wilderness around his hometown of Fort Collins, Colo.
“It was one of those weekend passions or hobbies that I got more and more obsessed with, is the word I would use. I met some local friends and it turned into, ‘I bet my drone is faster than your drone,’” Temkin recalls. “And this was before drone racing existed. Drone racing didn’t start until around 2015.”
The way Temkin describes the underground days of drone racing,—people meeting in clandestine locations like a field behind a middle school to spontaneously race and crash their homemade drones — provokes a likeness out Fast & Furious lore. Even DRL Nicholas Horbaczewski came across his first glimpse of the sport by stumbling across a race in the parking lot of a Home Hardware.
When getting into the world of drone racing, you will quickly realize that passion, along with all the actual parts needed to make a drone fly, is a huge component of the sport. There was a charged and wide-eyed excitement that came through loud and clear on every call with its champions as much as it’s apparent in what it takes to go from a small, unofficial world of casual meet-ups to 50,000 person stadiums and a growing array of corporate and broadcast deals.
“When you think about this being a new playing field, which was our marketing campaign this fall, and DRL setting the stage for this new playing field for sports, it’s not just about the traditional,” DRL president Rachel Jacobson says. “Kids and adults are consuming sports in such a different way.”
Drone Racing League
Jacobson joined the DRL in April after a leap to the professional development tech startup aimed at women, Landit, and 21 years as an executive with the NBA. Sitting in a leadership role of company where entertainment, tech, and pro sports intersect, she is intuitively aware of each industry’s landscape and unique progression, as much as their collective drawbacks, primarily their shared dire need of diversification.
“I’ve been in these male-dominated industries and I’ve made it my mission to mentor and really accelerate the pipeline of women to ensure that they have those seats at the table,” Jacobson says. “I want to make sure that I’m not just doing great work on the business side, but that this becomes a win-win relative to the pipeline of talent that we’re really surrounded by a diverse workforce, because that’s where we get the best outcomes.”
While the DRL will soon be on a search for its first female pilot and wants to empower young women and girls in math and technology, two spaces women often avoid or are actively discouraged from, there is still a question of accessibility. To be able to grasp tech is one thing, but to have the resources to physically build it, repeatedly, could be a drawback. The DRL custom builds all of its racing drones and radio systems by hand at its New York City headquarters. Each one is a streamlined and highly-efficient model of cutting edge technology, truly not something you could cobble together at home even with the wherewithal to do so. But it was this hitch that happened to helpfully dovetail into the shrinking environment COVID-19 implemented worldwide.
With so many people stuck at home looking for things to do and new hobbies to try, the DRL saw an opportunity. It had already developed an immersive drone racing simulator with VR capabilities for pilots, releasing a version on the digital distribution service Steam. But, as Jacobson puts it, “We wanted to make sure that that was more mainstream.”
“This was all about accessibility,” she says. “Of making sure that if one household isn’t on Steam and they’re on an Xbox, and soon to be another console, that we have the right infrastructure in place for people to be able to log in to really learn to be able to fly and build drones. We’re a sport that’s powered by technology. So inherent in that there might be gaps or bridges that we need to build in terms of making sure that everyone has the accessibility to engage with our sport.”
Another obstacle to engagement could be the perception of the very vehicle that’s doing the racing. Drones, while ubiquitous by now, are also contentious. We are slowly beginning to understand the less glorified but potentially more important jobs drones can fulfill in things like agriculture, medical transport, or remote delivery to places in need of more than just Amazon next-day shipping.
The DRL, as a competitive sports franchise, understands its place in the entertainment world and is embracing it wholly, with sports betting soon being added to the growing list of its offerings. It’s the work its people are doing to bring the parts they love best about it outside the insular (but expanding) space that will begin to make drones resonate differently.
“There’s this lost art in figuring out what’s wrong and fixing it, and making things last longer. To me, a big part of that is confidence. It’s confidence in your own ability to both problem solve as well as just tinkering with electronics.” Temkin says of what the hands-on experience of drones has the potential to spark in people. “To a lot of people, electronics are like this black magic. Like, it works and I don’t know how it works. But once you really start to understand the basics, it’s not that scary.
“I think that’s one of the more important and easily overlooked aspects of, I guess, working through life,” he continues. “Being able to have a problem that you’re like, this thing in front of me isn’t working and how do I troubleshoot it? That troubleshooting is part of that confidence. It’s just slowly working piece by piece to eliminate variables until you can solve your problem that you’re having, whatever it may be.”
Drone Racing League
It isn’t hokey to want to assign human values to working with machines and technology. If anything, it’s an intensely human mechanism of its own when trying to make sense of something new and uniquely challenging.
Bosh, too, talked about the ultimate connectivity that something like drone racing, or building, or the process of that technology, can provide.
“I’ve had many kids come up to me [and say], I started coding, or I became an engineer cause of you, to be honest with you,” Bosh says. “And that really made me wake up and say this needs to be shouted from the mountaintops. And not that everybody is going to really understand what it is right away. But those who understand can start building those worlds, and making those friends, it could just be something else for them that didn’t exist before. And I think that’s really exciting. We’ve never had anything like this. Where we’re learning and going at the same time.”
In a year that has hit us with a barrage of limitations, there is another thing that drones seem to spark in the people working to ease and familiarize our understanding of them: A removal of barriers, whether physical or cognitive.
“It’s kind of like this transplantation of your consciousness,” Temkin says somewhat wistfully of his experience piloting drones. “You forget about your human body, you’re sitting on the ground or on a bench or whatever, but your mind is really this flying object and you just get to fly. You forget about everything else in the world.”
“I’m always optimistic of the future, and I think just right now we’re in a place where we can really build the next thing,” Bosh says excitedly. “But just this state that everyone’s in, I think everyone always needs a creative outlet. I think you need something to look forward to. Human beings are social animals, so we need to continue to stay social and continue to just really figure those things out through friendship, whether that’s online or offline, and see what we can create through all these platforms.”
Whether clocking in at 120 mph during a race or triggering a curiosity in a homebound kid, the basic premise of drones, and probably why they captivate as much as have the capacity to be written off as a gimmick, is so simple: just to fly. In helping people figure out how to do that, competitively or as technology that moves us forward, the DRL is putting progress through the paces as much as working to accelerate human connection.
America is entering another tenuous period of 2020, with Election anxiety giving way to fears over a rise of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths as the pandemic enters a dangerous new phase after nine months. While health officials are warning people to avoid travel during the holidays and avoid large gatherings, one major figure is apparently not on the list of those who should be fearful of both the virus and an unusual Christmas.
According to USA Today, Dr. Anthony Fauci believes Santa is immune to coronavirus, which presumably will mean that even if your Christmas gathering will likely be smaller than usual this holiday season, the big man is on the clock for the night delivering gifts to boys and girls across the world.
“Santa is exempt from this because Santa, of all the good qualities, has a lot of good innate immunity,” Fauci told USA TODAY this week.
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Fauci is telling kids not to worry, though. “Santa is not going to be spreading any infections to anybody,” he said.
It’s good news for, well, Santa. And perhaps millions of children who would love to get some gifts in what’s been a tough year for everyone regardless of beliefs or age. But it’s yet another indication of the rift between the top infectious disease specialist in America and the nation’s president, who once told a 7-year-old boy that believing in Santa at that age is “marginal.”
Despite being an instantly-recognizable star with collaborations with Kanye West to his name, Chicago drill firestarter Chief Keef has remained remarkably low-key over the past several years. At the height of his internet stardom, Keef’s name was all over the place — but maybe that’s why he’s adopted a strict anti-publicity campaign in the time since, only releasing under-the-radar albums marketed directly to his fans with little to no mainstream promotion and foregoing big-name collaborations almost entirely.
However, that soon changes with the impending release of his joint project with superstar producer Mike Will Made-It. The two have been teasing its existence for some time beginning in September with the video for “Bang Bang.” Today, they released the second single from the upcoming album, titled “Status,” accompanied by a twitchy, ominous video full of guns, girls, and Glo Gang shenanigans. Mike’s menacing beat makes a perfect complement for Keef’s violent lyrics sounding as much like a horror movie soundtrack as the drill soundscapes Keef first made his bones over.
The duo has yet to share the release date (or even a title) for the upcoming project but it’ll be Mike’s first since losing a hard drive with 10 years on it and Keef’s first full-length release that isn’t part of one of his mixtape series, The GloFiles or The Leek. Stay tuned.
In a move that has fans remembering the classic coffee cup goof in the final season of Game of Thrones, the latest episode of The Mandalorian contains a major blooper for the popular Disney+ series. When Mando re-teams with Carl Weathers‘ Greef Karga and Gina Carano‘s Kara Dune to storm an Imperial base in “Chapter 12: The Siege,” there’s more than just secrets about the Empire’s plans for Baby Yoda lurking in the shadows. Namely, a random dude in jeans and a T-shirt who’s probably not supposed to be in this shot.
You can catch him on the left below:
Lucasfilm
As Entertainment Weekly notes, there’s a good reason why the director of this week’s episode didn’t catch the random Earthling who also slipped by Disney’s marketing department:
Perhaps the director didn’t see him because his back was literally turned at this exact moment (the episode was directed by Carl Weathers, who plays Greef Karga in this scene). Interestingly enough, the guy also made it into one of the official promotional photos for the episode.
This isn’t the first time that eagle-eyed fans have spotted a goof in the bounty-hunting series. Granted, it’s not as embarrassing as a full-on person standing in the background, but “Chapter 4: Sanctuary” had its own gaffe. While is Mando hiding out with villagers on what he thinks is a safe planet, during what’s supposed to be a tender scene where Mando is convinced to let Baby Yoda play with the local children, a boom mic literally dips down into the shot. Once you see it, you can’t miss it.
After dropping Assume Form in early 2019, James Blake returned with a new EP, Before, last month. It turns out Blake has another project that could be on the way soon, depending on when he feels like releasing it: He revealed he made a full ambient album, which got a stamp of approval from Brian Eno, who is the ambient artist.
Speaking to Bryce Segall on Radio.com’s New Arrivals show, Blake said, “I’ve basically made an ambient album, but I just don’t really know when to put it out, so we’ll see. It’s at that point where you go, ‘Oh this is an album!’” He also noted that he showed the album to Brian Eno and he had good things to say about it: “I wanted to see what he thought and when his feedback was positive, that’s when I decided I would put it out one day.”
He also addressed a rumored collaborative project between him and Ty Dolla Sign, saying, “What I will say is that Ty Dolla Sign is a f*cking pleasure to work with and be around… I don’t know what it is yet. We made music… who knows… I feel like we’re really at the start of a burgeoning thing and it’s exciting to see where that goes, again it’s a privilege to work with him.”
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow hasn’t appeared much on air the last few weeks, and now we know why: her partner, Susan, contracted COVID-19, and there was significant concern she would die from the disease that’s killed more than a quarter million Americans in 2020. The news came on Thursday night, as Maddow appeared on MSNBC and issued an impassioned plea for people to cancel plans and try to stay safe this holiday season.
Maddow appeared in a nearly 7-minute video on Thursday, explaining her absence and how two weeks ago, her partner, Susan Mikula, tested positive and was separated from the network host to fight COVID-19.
“My relationship with Susan at the end of the day is the only thing I would kill or die for without hesitation. And Susan has been sick with COVID these past couple of weeks,” she said. “And at one point we really thought that there was a possibility that it might kill her. And that’s why I’ve been away.”
Maddow said she’s getting better, and the host has managed not to test positive for herself. But it’s been a scary few weeks, a period of time that’s made her reflect on the way people in America need to “recalibrate” their understanding of the risks they take with contracting the virus as they head into the holiday season.
“I don’t know you at home, but just believe me: whatever you have calculated into your life as acceptable risk. As inevitable risk. Something that you’re willing to go through in terms of this virus because statistically, hey probably will be fine for you and your loved ones,” Maddow said. “I’m just here to tell you to recalibrate that. Frankly, the country needs you to recalibrate that because, broadly speaking, there’s no room for you in the hospital anymore.”
Maddow referenced the fact that hospitalizations have increased in America by 50 percent in the two weeks since Susan’s illness, and there “isn’t room” for anyone new to add to that list as deaths, cases and hospitalizations keep rising.
“The only way to ensure that is to ensure that you do not get infected. But please also know that whatever you think of your own life and however much his you’re willing to take on for yourself, that’s not how this works. What you need to know is that whoever is the most important person in your life, whoever you most love and most care for and most cherish in the world, that’s the person who you may lose,” she said. “Or who you may spend weeks up all night freaking out about and calling doctors over and over again trying to figure out how to keep that person breathing and out of the hospital.”
It’s an emotional plea from someone who has seen the impact COVID-19 can have on someone close to them, and it ended with a dire warning to do whatever you can to stay away from other people and stay safe.
“Don’t get this thing. Do whatever you can to keep from getting it,” Maddow said. “For Thanksgiving next week, you really are going to have to have it at home. Without people coming over. And yeah, that’s going to suck. But that is going to suck so much less than you or somebody in your family getting this and getting sick. Trust me.”
As the Toronto Blue Jays showed during the 2020 Major League Baseball season, the Canadian government has some pretty understandable reservations about professional sports teams bouncing back and forth between the United States and their country. The Blue Jays played in Buffalo in response to this issue, and as we learned on Friday afternoon, the Raptors will head a little farther south when the 2020-21 NBA season tips off.
The Raptors announced that their search for a new temporary home will lead them to Tampa. It’s unclear if this will be the arrangement for the entire campaign, but as team president Masai Ujiri mentioned in a statement, this decision was made after consultation with public health officials about the feasibility of playing in Toronto.
Ujiri had previously mentioned that the team was going to try and exhaust all of its options before looking elsewhere next season, writing an open letter to Raptors fans that said Toronto is “where we want to be.” It’s unclear if any other places, like Seattle or Louisville, were viewed as potential homes for the team for the time being, but Tampa does have a basketball-ready facility in the Yuengling Center, where the University of South Florida plays its basketball games.
The entire idea behind The Process was for the Philadelphia 76ers to acquire stars in any number of ways. They got a pair in the NBA Draft that worked out in Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons, and while they were unable to go three-for-three in this endeavor, this was the logic behind trading up to select Markelle Fultz.
Even when that third move didn’t pan out for a myriad of reasons, Philly still had a pair of tentpoles in their two young All-Stars. Despite the fact that they’re getting closer and closer to their primes — Embiid turns 27 next season, Simmons just turned 24 — the Sixers still have a window to win a ton of basketball games and compete for a title solely because the two of them are around, which makes the last few years of relatively weird roster management so strange.
As I’ve written in the past, Philly has never been wrong to prioritize having stars on its roster. The weird thing they’ve done in recent years that has been a flaw in this plan is to get stars who do not necessarily fit next to their two youngsters. Jimmy Butler was quite good for the Sixers, but he ended up being a year-long rental. Tobias Harris theoretically fits well next to the two, but he is not a star, even if he is compensated like one. Al Horford’s signing was curious (at best) at the time and quickly evolved into baffling.
Their attempts to acquire stars has, basically, been “let’s get big names and hope they figure things out.” Maybe they would have won a championship in 2019 if not for an historically great shot by Kawhi Leonard, but last season showed that this plan has limits. It’s part of why the team replaced Brett Brown with Doc Rivers, brought in Daryl Morey, and did some tweaking to the front office in the aftermath. Regardless, the Sixers roster has not always had the sort of cohesiveness that you need to win, oftentimes lacking something — consistent shooting, a playmaker, a big man who could take minutes when Embiid sat, etc. — that ended up being crippling.
It took Morey, Elton Brand, and the rest of the front office about six hours to take positive steps towards fixing this. The big move was getting out from under Horford’s contract, a potential millstone around the franchise’s neck that cost a 2025 first-round pick and a second-round selection on Wednesday night, but managed to net them a useful player in Danny Green, who should provide floor spacing and perimeter defending if he’s healthy (a big if, especially with the Sixers, which seem preordained to always be Extremely Injured to one extent or another), and a bouncy young wing in Terrance Ferguson whose shooting has run hot and cold.
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The Draft rolled around and Philly managed to nab three players — Tyrese Maxey, Isaiah Joe, Paul Reed — who have skills that help. Maxey gives them a guard who fits snug onto their roster in a number of ways, Joe brings potentially elite shooting, and Reed is a funky but sound defender in the frontcourt. They also flipped Josh Richardson, a good player who struggled during his one year in Philadelphia with a constantly-changing role, for Seth Curry, another backcourt player who provides elite shooting.
None of these players are the kind of superstars that could bring a team to new heights, nor do are any of them a silver bullet that will resolve every single issue on this team. But as Morey said in his press conference on Thursday afternoon, all of them complement Embiid and Simmons in such a way that you have to wonder why this hasn’t been the objective in Philadelphia prior to this offseason.
“We have two young superstars in their prime and you want to put around them guys they can build with.” –@dmoreypic.twitter.com/xfIk20uIk8
There were eight teams in the NBA last season — Boston, Houston, Miami, Milwaukee, Philly, Utah, and the Los Angeles squads — that had two players participate in the 2020 All-Star Game. Inarguably, none of them did a worse job building a team that brings out the best in those two players than Philadelphia did. Embiid and Simmons need shooting, playmaking, and perimeter defending around them, and while there were players who were able to provide this from time to time on the Sixers last season, few could consistently. Add in that the general thesis of that team was “we are going to be so good defensively that we’ll survive some hiccups on offense,” and that they ended up being eighth in defensive rating, and the entire thing fell apart, especially once Simmons got injured in the NBA’s Orlando Bubble.
Now, Philly is starting to realize that having two of those sorts of players is something you should lean all the way into. The amount of space that both Embiid and Simmons will have to work should be increased by having shooters around them (although it must be said that the two of them plus Harris is a frontcourt that doesn’t fit perfectly, especially if the latter’s shot isn’t falling), while guards like Maxey and Curry should be much better at getting them the ball than the various guys they tried at that position last year. Defensive drop offs probably won’t be too terribly stark, because Embiid and Simmons can still be the lynchpins of any NBA defense.
It has been maddening watching the Sixers in recent years, as their priority have seemed to be things other than “we have Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons, which needs to inform all of our other decisions.” The last day or so is one heck of a start to doing this for the first time since Embiid and Simmons ascended to stardom.
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