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The Houston Rockets dominated the first two games of their series with the Oklahoma City Thunder and for those of us that had talked up how OKC would be a tough out for anyone in the postseason, there was a bit of concern that they might be a bit over their head.

However, the Thunder have bounced back to win the last two games, and while it hasn’t been easy, it’s been very on-brand basketball for an OKC team that grinds teams down opponents. The Thunder weathered the Rockets storm in the third quarter and pulled their way back into the game behind strong backcourt play from Chris Paul and Dennis Schröder, who combined for 56 points in a 117-114 win.

As the series now moves on to a pivotal Game 5 with the teams deadlocked at 2-2, here are our takeaways for what will make the difference moving forward.

1. Keep the focus on justice

Monday’s game was thrilling, with Paul and Schröder out-dueling Harden and company late, hitting big shots and free throws to even things at 2-2, but after the game, Paul wanted to open his walk-off interview by keeping the focus on what’s important — and what the players stated mission was as they were restarting the season at an inflection point in history — after police shot Jacob Blake in the back in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Players from around the league have spoken out about the continued anger and frustration felt seeing yet another unarmed Black man shot by police. It’s the continued reminder of the systemic issues facing Black Americans and as Paul noted, a reminder of why players wanted to use their platforms in Orlando. They’re doing that and it’s up to all of us to speak up as well, shining light on injustice and racism and doing what we can in our communities and at the polls to try and see a change occur in this country.

2. The Thunder’s three-guard monster is waking up

As for the basketball, it took a couple games for the Thunder’s trio of guards to figure out how to probe and attack the Rockets ultra-switching defense, but lately it seems like Paul, Schröder, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander are cracking the code. They had a combined 74 points, 19 rebounds, and 11 assists on Monday afternoon, and maybe most importantly they limited the turnovers to just six combined — and OKC had just 14 as a team. The Houston defense thrives on chaos and make their small-ball system work by forcing turnovers to balance out made shots by opponents. That wasn’t the case Monday and it’s because the Thunder are finding a balance in moving the ball and also attacking mismatches in isolation.

Late in the game, they didn’t panic when the game got close and even when Houston took a late lead. Instead, the steady hands of Chris Paul and the suddenly stoic Schröder found themselves in matchups they like, got to their spot off the dribble, and knocked down clutch buckets.

It was an impressive performance by Oklahoma City in Game 4 to even things up and they have to be feeling confident going forward. The addition of Luguentz Dort has shifted their defensive success tremendously — evidenced best by his denial of Harden on a late inbounds that led to a woeful Jeff Green heave to help the Thunder ice the game — but on offense they will live and die with the performance of their backcourt trio. After two games of trying to find their footing, those three seem to be in rhythm and the Thunder have to feel pretty good about their chances.

3. It is, indeed, a make or miss league

The old adage is always relevant in the modern NBA, but never more applicable than in Houston games where they fire away from three no matter how things are going. At one point, that led them to hitting eight straight threes to open up a 15-point advantage in the third quarter.

But the law of averages caught up to them and they then had a stretch where they went 3-for-23 from three-point range. The biggest of those misses came from P.J. Tucker late, as he was off on a wide open corner three that could’ve tied the game at 114-114 with under 30 seconds to go.

It is always how it is with the Rockets, whose refusal to budge from their system even as things crash down around them is what makes the, arguably, the NBA’s most human team. Their complete and total dedication to what they do and full belief that, ultimately, it will take them where they need to go leads to unbelievable highs and historic lows. Sadly for Houston, Monday was the latter as they set a playoff record with 58 threes taken, making a strong 23 of the, but still coming out with a loss to a Thunder team that was just 11-of-32 from distance.

The only thing we know is that on Wednesday, they’ll try it all again, hoisting three after three and hope this time, enough go in.

Shan Boodram really wants you to buy yourself a sex toy, but mostly, she would really like to reframe the antiquated way you’ve been thinking about sex toys and maturation. “It’s not just this thing that you do because you don’t have a partner or not just a thing you do that you’re embarrassed by, it’s a thing that you do for yourself as a way to meet the challenges of the world dead on.”

Boodram knows sex, in fact, she’s an expert. A highly sought-after certified sexologist, intimacy expert, sex educator, author, and internet personality. Boodram describes herself as “Dr. Ruth meets Rihanna” thanks to her ability to present sex education in a way that is as titillating as it is informative.

As the host of her Quibi show, Sexology, Boodram drops daily doses of knowledge on all things sex, from information on the mythical G-spot — and why it should really be called the G-Region — to how to perform better oral sex, to discussions about the importance of foreplay.

But what makes Boodram such a refreshing voice in the sex education space is that she doesn’t lecture you in front of a whiteboard with a bunch of facts and figures. She sits down with real people who share their real intimate desires and frustrations and presents the whole thing in a fun and sexy way.

Which is why TENGA — a Japanese brand of sex toys that are trying to reframe the devices as a tool for wellness rather than a pornographic apparatus that you keep hidden under layers of clothes in a dresser drawer — partnered with Boodram as an ambassador for their 2020 Global Self Pleasure Study.

TENGA’s 2020 Global Self Pleasure Report surveyed 5,000 men and women aged 18-54 across 5 countries to take a deep dive into their habits related to sex, masturbation, and sex toy usage. They found that not only are Americans now more open to talking about masturbation and sexuality than ever before, they’re also more likely to use masturbation as a form of self-care, especially in relation to the added stress we’re feeling as a result of the pandemic. The New York Times also reported that during the pandemic online retailers saw sex toys explode in sales, and who could forget this famous moment when an understandably frustrated Amazon employee declared “Dildos are not essential items!” Boodram, TENGA, and the receivers of those toys would have to disagree.

80 percent of Americans in TENGA’s study admitted to using masturbation as a form of self-care, a 30 percent jump compared with the previous year. Interestingly, 68 percent of that 80 percent said that they’d continue to use sex toys once social isolation was over, which also really shouldn’t surprise anyone.

So we reached out to Shan Boodram for a phone chat about all things sex and talked about intimacy in the age of COVID-19, why you need to change your old feelings about sex toys and masturbation, and how we can continue to revolutionize the way we think about and depict sexuality.

You’re approaching sex education from a totally fresh perspective, why did you feel like the way we’ve learned about sex needed that refresh?

I was extremely sexually tenacious at a young age. I also went to a Catholic school and had parents who were very afraid of that tenacity. So as a result, I self-educated myself on sexuality through whatever backdoor method I could find in my teen years, which tended to be porn and fiction, and that’s how I learned about sex. So when I entered the world as a sexual person in my mid to late teens, all of my information was based on lies and myths and, as a result, I had a really negative teen sex life.

So I re-educated myself when I was around 19-20 years old just by reading books and every scholastic text I could possibly find in my local library. I noticed there was a massive gap happening — the books I was reading had awesome information that was life-changing, that set off all these light bulbs that helped me to understand why I had all these negative experiences and misgivings about my experiences, but I also noticed it was incredibly boring. I noticed that it was very dry information, sex education in many ways is bad sex: it’s dry, monotonous, faceless, emotionless. The media uses sex to sell their message, but sex ed doesn’t sell because they’re not using sex to sell the message. Why should learning about factual information be any less enticing than watching porn? Or your favorite TV show, or reading about your favorite characters in a novel? The conversations can still be exciting even though it’s factual.

How do you go about making sex education sexy?

You just lean into the same principles that already exist: use real people, real stories. We are inherently storytellers and story listeners. It can’t just be facts, figures, and numbers. You’ve got to see the people behind them, you have to feel connected to them, which is why I use so much of my personal story in my messaging because people have come to know me and feel a connection. It’s so much easier to learn when you feel like you can empathize or relate to somebody. I also make it a really big point to use other people’s stories. I’m constantly casting my work around diversity. It’s about being able to see yourself reflected back — even if there is a factual stat that’s grounded in why you’re sharing that information — the conduit for that information is someone who looks like you and sounds like you or has been through something that you’ve been through. Engage all the five senses. It has to be visual. I put a big effort into production for that reason, even in my partnership with Tenga. I think for so long both sex education and sex toys have been extreme. Sex education is really dry, and then sex toys are really pornographic and really almost shock value embarrassing.

Sex toys are rising in popularity, so what advice do you have for people who are still turned off by their crazy designs or just too embarrassed to take that leap?

I think that you’ve got to look again. Whatever you think about sex products, whatever impression you’ve formed because of the experience you had five years ago or because of the embarrassing thing you found in your parent’s drawer, or at your aunt’s or best friend’s house that made you think “I don’t ever want to have this embarrassment in my life so I’m not going to engage in toys,” it’s just wrong. When I think about sex toys for men, I think about the Jankles, which is an ankle that is a fleshlight that you masturbate into and you’re like “that’s not me at all, so I don’t associate with sex toys.”

Technology is changing so quickly, the millennials are entering into the market place and really changing the look and feel of things. It’s also a global market now too so you’re getting ingenious designs from all over the world. You’re not just subject to what somebody in Utah thinks is sexy or what a sex product should look like, so look again and explore.

Sex toys can literally just be art pieces. It’s not something that if it was left out in your nightstand and the cleaner came over and you totally forgot or your best friend was in town and you didn’t put it away, you wouldn’t be mortified if they found it. It’s not all 20-inch green dildos that glow in the dark. There are many ingenious and sleek designs that reflect how you feel about your own sexuality. I don’t feel embarrassed about my sexuality, so I shouldn’t feel embarrassed about my sex toys.

You’ve shared some figures collected by Tenga that show masturbation is on the rise. Why is it important for people to engage in that self-exploration now more than ever?

Right now with the increased cortisol that we’re all experiencing as a result of the stress and uncertainty of 2020, our body is overloaded with stress hormones and so wellness takes on a whole new priority because it’s not just about balancing yourself. It’s about combating the stress and negativity that the world is naturally feeding all of us, and it’s manifesting into different people in different ways. It’s almost a survival mechanism to find ways to balance your mood back out, to bring you back to a state of normalcy. You do have the energy to tackle the stresses of the world.

I love that Tenga Self Pleasure Report because it really grounds you. It’s really cool that it’s been happening for five years now. You can see how the attitudes towards masturbation as a form of self-care have been shifting and now people are being like “yeah, it has boosted my mood, I actually feel healthier, my brain function is better, I have more confidence, I feel sexier and more energized.” It’s not just this thing that you do because you don’t have a partner or not just a thing you do that you’re embarrassed by. It’s a thing that you do for yourself as a way to meet the challenges of the world dead on.

The attitude towards masturbation is changing because the world is changing and now we see sex care as a form of self-care. Self-care is an act of rebellion against all that 2020 is throwing at us.

Right now, since we’re all living locked down more or less, why is it vital to still find ways to experience intimacy and how do we go about that in this modern world?

I think we have to reframe intimacy. Intimacy is just a close vulnerable connection. It’s something that puts you in common connect. It’s something that distracts you from fight or flight. It’s something that makes you feel understood and valued. Traditionally we think of intimacy as human to human contact, to get intimate with somebody is to get vulnerable in person, to let your guard down where somebody can literally see and touch you, but I think that we can redefine intimacy and just say it’s any method or medium that allows you to feel like a more relaxed, connected and understood human version of yourself.

Intimacy is possible to experience via technology, with yourself, or even with a toy. One-in-ten people have purchased a sex toy specifically during quarantine because they wanted to increase intimacy with themselves. They wanted to enhance their sexual experiences because you don’t necessarily have partners who are going to bring you that variety. So you have to bring that variety to yourself and that in itself is an act of intimacy. I think as we redefine it to say that there are various different forms of intimacy just like there are various different forms of love. It doesn’t have to qualify under some 1990’s version to be seen as valuable, as healthy, and as necessary.

What lasting impacts on our sex lives do you think the pandemic will have?

I think that what we can do is look for seeds of hope that despite the fact that it’s been very challenging and there was a lot of fear in the beginning, people really did find alternate routes and ways to connect and we really readjusted very quickly.

I think intimacy is resilient. I think people’s drive for intimacy is resilient. Even though I spoke to a lot of people who went through droughts or really low sex drives, they noticed that that was an issue they wanted to make a priority to solve because they realized that when nothing else in the world makes sense, something you can always rely on is the feeling of vulnerability, closeness, or love, whatever that is, whether that’s self-love or love between two people.

Not only do you approach sex education in this new modern way, you really represent a new voice and face in the space. What are the unique challenges you face as not only a woman but a woman of color talking about sex education?

Absolutely, this is not an area a lot of people want to talk about. It’s difficult to bring up topics that are touchy for people, that are taboo for people, or that they feel they aren’t great at. That’s no fault of their own. That’s the fault of a society that still has ridiculous education programs and is still extremely repressive when it comes to sexual knowledge and exploited when it comes to sexual content that we’re overwhelmed. You see these high expectations that you’re supposed to meet, and you get the information on how to get there, and as a result most girls already feel inadequate. So you feel inadequate, then you have this brown woman trying to tell you what you need to do. So just by virtue of that, it pisses a lot of people off because it sparks off insecurities.

People are just comfortable learning from an older white gentleman. A friend of mine who is a psychologist said that his superpower is — he’s a 50-year-old white man — that no matter where he goes people always assume that he works there. People just naturally look at him as a voice of authority. That’s the opposite for me. I go to the grocery store and people ask me “Oh do you work for Instacart?” They just aren’t accustomed to seeing me in the environment I pop up in. When I pop up on a soapbox, I expect there is going to be a natural aversion but my superpower is that I’m not awkward. That’s why I can talk about these topics so freely, and I’m honest about the reality of the world we live in. That’s the world I’m trying to change and make a difference in. I empathize with people who initially have a hard time accepting me as a voice of authority or accepting my opinion. I’m a train that keeps on moving. If people don’t want to come on this stop, that’s fine. I’m going to keep going. I’ll catch you on the next one!

Where do you stand on porn and do you have suggestions for people who feel turned off by the controversy surrounding certain tube sites and the sometimes violent or incestual way in which it’s generally depicted in mainstream porn?

I think it’s great we are starting to have these issues come to light. The conversation of ethical porn is very important, if you ask somebody what they love most about having sex with their partner, they often say “I love seeing the other person.” We need to extend that into porn. What you should love most about consuming porn is that you feel the people you’re watching doing it are actually enjoying it and if that the platform that you’ve been spending your time and energy and possibly money into, you’re not getting that from them. Don’t just throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think that porn is very important during this time. It’s erotic stimulation. It’s a way to get you going. It pairs lovely with that new sex toy you just bought!

In March, 150,000 OnlyFans accounts were created daily. There is so much more user-generated porn and that’s where the money is going directly into the performer’s pocket. That’s people who are willingly there and are setting their own conditions. They’re entrepreneurs. It’s more likely they’re doing activities they actually enjoy because they aren’t being told by a production company or a director about how they should be experiencing pleasure or how they should play out pleasure in their own home.

Porn is created to arouse not educate. The purpose is to turn you on and get you off, it’s not to get you there. Porn can’t masturbate for you, it’s not designed to do that. I can’t literally do what I see in porn and expect for my partner to get off. That’s not the purpose of it. The purpose is to get that person horny or aroused. Look at it for inspiration on how to turn your partner on, what turns you on, and draw little pieces of things you may want to try. But research outside of porn sites if you want to do it in a way that is actually pleasurable for human beings.

What still surprises you about how little people know about sex?

It surprises me that people think that it’s embarrassing to look for knowledge. I’m not surprised that people don’t know a lot because it’s not accessible. There is this bizarre dichotomy that exists where you’re not told anything and then if you look for information that in some way makes you more of a loser because you should already know it. The fact that people haven’t caught on to how stupid that is, people with penis’ in particular… I think that a lot more female-identifying people are a lot more okay being like “I went to this class, I read this book, I checked out this tutorial.” I very rarely meet men who admit they have sought out there own sex education.

It surprises me that that system hasn’t been completely dismantled. People who have a stake in being great at sex should invest energy into learning how to get better at it. Their pride shouldn’t get in the way of that.

We touched on this earlier, we’re at a point where women are more freely talking about sex and orgasms. What things that are still taboo do you wish we would tackle or erode away?

Specifically for women, I would like to see more conversations around the nuance of fantasy. There is a lot more porn for people who identify as women or for people who enjoy watching women have sex. I was speaking with Jacky St. James who is a porn director and her entire production house is women performers, women writers, women directors, and all the people on set are women.

The consumption rate of porn is also changing too. Now women feel like they’re invited to the table to view. But I think what’s really cool about porn for people who identify as male, is that there are just so many categories. No matter what you’re into, you can search it up and that tells you that there are other people who find what you find sexy or hot as well too. That same nuance for women would be really cool, so it doesn’t all look the same. We need to see what that looks like because we haven’t even seen that before! I want to see the crazy fantasies that I know women often have that they feel a lot of shame and repression over. I want to see that depicted.

I would love to see sex toys featured in TVs and movies in a way that isn’t embarrassing. They need to start uplifting and supporting the culture to show that it is cool. It is chic. It is very hot to know somebody who knows their body and feels good about it. To feature toys where the gag isn’t always “how embarrassing.” I guess I would like art to mimic reality more. People’s attitudes towards self-pleasure are changing. People are feeling more confident and in control and cool. People are starting to open up more about the nuances of their desire and their pleasure. I just want to see more media that celebrates and highlights that.

Beloved K-Pop group Blackpink recently teamed up with Lady Gaga for a single on the pop star’s recent album Chromatica. Now, the four-piece is gearing up for an other big-name collaboration. Their song “Ice Cream” with Selena Gomez drops Friday, and Gomez found the perfect way to promote the single. Gomez partnered with Serendipity ice cream to create a brand-new flavor inspired by her Blackpink track.

The new pint, named Cookies & Cream Remix, reimagines a popular flavor. It combines pink-colored vanilla ice cream with fudge swirls and Oreo-style cookies. “Basically, it’s heaven and every bite is delicious,” Gomez said in a video announcing the flavor.

In a statement about the endeavor, Gomez said she wanted to put her “own spin” on a classic flavor: “Growing up and loving the iconic Serendipity restaurant, I couldn’t be more excited to become a partner in their expanding brand. For the Cookies & Cream remix, I wanted to put my own personal spin on this classic flavor by making it with pink vanilla ice cream as a nod to my girls Blackpink and celebrate our new song ‘Ice Cream.’”

President and COO of Serendipity Brands Sal Pesce echoed Gomez’s excitement about the new flavor: “Selena Gomez is the perfect partner and flavor engineer for Serendipity Brands. As a forever fan of our brand, Selena brings a fresh perspective and a whole new set of fans to help us take over the decadent ice cream category with our innovative, indulgent mixes.”

Cookies & Cream Remix hits shelves 8/28 alongside the single’s release. Order it here.

In 2004, basketball was still all about the midrange and big men dominating in the paint. The Shaq-Kobe Lakers were still the league’s most dominant team, with the rugged Detroit Pistons emerging in the East behind a bruising style. Then, on February 18, 2004, the tide began turning, unwittingly, leading to the emergence 16 years later of the greatest small-ball experiment in NBA history.

On that day, Chappelle’s Show aired the legendary Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories Prince sketch, in which Prince and The Revolution took down Charlie Murphy and friends in a game of basketball at Prince’s house.

There are a number of legendary lines from that episode, but none have had more influence on folks playing ball at every level than Prince yelling, “Shoot the J. Shoot it!” after flinging a no-look pass to the corner where a worse teammate hesitated to put up the shot.

It was in this moment that the NBA’s analytics movement was born. Daryl Morey, two years away from becoming the Houston Rockets assistant GM, was a year into working for the Celtics as their SVP of Operations at the time and had an awakening. He clearly saw Chappelle’s Prince, a dominant, isolation player capable of hitting stepbacks and attacking the rim with size and skill, destroying the opposition with a five-out look around him. He saw lesser players being encouraged to fire away three-pointers, knowing the math advantage was there. There was no traditional center, but they all switched and screened in perfect, positionless, Prince-y bliss.

Fourteen years later, he finally was able to put together a team in this image. Harden as Prince. P.J. Tucker as Micki Free. Russ as the guy in the tiger print shirt. All willing to play whatever role was needed for the good of the team.

On top of all of the clearly defined historical basketball influence of the sketch, I’m also like 90% sure P.J. Tucker, James Harden, and Russell Westbrook have worn these exact outfits to a game this season.

Game, blouses.

Five years ago, Dan Price upended the status quo of the corporate world—one in which executives reap many times what employees sow—by taking a radical stance on salaries at his credit card processing company, Gravity Payments. First, he cut his own salary from more than $1 million to $70,000. Then he created a minimum salary of $70,000 for every employee at his company.

These moves made waves. People debated whether it was brilliance or silly idealism on Price’s part.

As they say, the proof is in the pudding. And after five years, Price has receipts.

He recently wrote on Twitter:

“When I started a $70k minimum wage for my company in 2015, Rush Limbaugh said: ‘I hope this company is a case study in MBA programs on how socialism does not work, because it’s gonna fail.’

Since then our company tripled & we’re a successful case study at Harvard Business School.”

He added in another tweet:

“Since my company started a $70k min wage in 2015:

*Our business tripled

*Staff who own homes grew 10x

*401(k) contributions doubled

*70% of employees paid off debt

*Staff having kids soared 10x *

Turnover dropped in half

*76% of staff are engaged at work, 2x the national average”

Price seems to have hit on a truth that somehow eludes many in our cutthroat capitalist system—happy, satisfied employees are good for the bottom line. In Price’s words, “When someone can actually focus on work without outside stresses, the company also benefits.”

And that employee loyalty has paid off through the economic upheaval of the pandemic. Price told the Idaho Statesman that when the shutdown happened in March, Gravity faced a 55% revenue loss. Determined not to lay anyone off, Price cut his own salary down to $0. He met with his 185 employees, and nearly all of them volunteered temporary pay cuts of between 5% and 100%.

In 16 years of business, Gravity has never laid off employees and he didn’t intend to start now. “I’m so proud of my team,” Price told the Statesman. “I’m genuinely shocked by their willingness to sacrifice in so many ways and to help so many small businesses and get us to a place where we’re going to be around for a long time.”

Price is an outspoken advocate for employee pay structures that don’t disproportionately enrich executives and upper management. In a tweet just today, he pointed out how much more CEOs make than their median worker—a number that has always been fairly ridiculous, but which has grown exponentially in the past few decades.

“At my company the highest-paid person makes 3x the median worker, down from 36x in 2015. Since raising wages and slashing my CEO pay, our business tripled.”

There’s no doubt that a CEO has more stress and higher risk, and may even work far more hours than an average worker. But 300 times more? No. That’s not even humanly possible.

He’s also highlighted the ludicrous reality that the stock market continues to climb and the uber-wealthy keep getting uber-wealthier during the pandemic, while tens of millions of Americans remain unemployed. Some of the reason for that, Price claims, is that companies are saving their billion-dollar profits by massively cutting jobs.

“Companies everywhere are doing this, which is how the stock market booms amid lower revenues,” Price wrote. “Remember which companies valued profits over humans.”

Price is a breath of fresh air in the business world—one it would be nice to see from more corporate executives. People over profits isn’t just a saying, but a deliberate choice people in charge have to make. Price made that choice five years ago, and it has paid off in more ways than one. Employees are healthier, they’re having more babies, they’re buying more houses, and putting more money into their retirement plans.

“We saw, every day, the effects of giving somebody freedom,” Price told the BBC.

And they’re appreciative of Price’s own sacrifices. So appreciative, in fact, that the team pitched in to buy Price a Tesla to replace the 12-year-old Audi he drove to work every day in 2016—a move they called giving Price “a tates of his own medicine.”

Gravity Payments Team Surprises CEO, Dan Price, With A Tesla!

www.youtube.com

More of this, please.

Earlier this month at a residence in Itaperuna, a city north of Rio de Janeiro, Henrique, the three-year-old child of a worker on the property, snuck away form his parents’ supervision and wandered over to the pool.

Security camera footage shows the young boy and fellow three-year-old, Arthur de Oliveira, sitting next to the pool when Henrique reaches for an inflatable pool and falls in to the water.

A frantic Arthur looks around for help, but there is no one to be found.

For ten seconds, Henqriue struggles to keep his head above water, until Arthur bravely extends his hand and pulls the boy up. If Arthur didn’t have the strength, he could have fallen in the pool and both boys could have died.

Luckily, Arthur’s strength held up and he pulled the boy to safety.

“This video serves as an alert for those who have a pool at home and children,” wrote Arthur’s mom, Poliana Console de Oliveira on her Facebook page.

“Thank God the ending is happy, because God sent the land under my care, my son, my little Arthur, a true hero! Real life hero, my pride.”

“Arthur saved his friend’s life,” she added.

Arthur hopes to be a police officer one day, so after the local police department learned of his bravery, it sent him a new basketball and a whole lot of candy.

Well done, Arthur.

Tenet is finally heading to theaters early next month, but the question of which theaters and where is still very much up for interpretation as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to complicate things in the entertainment industry. Christopher Nolan’s secretive sci-fi thriller has obfuscated and confused since its (sorry) inception, and the filmmaker believes that the movie is meant to be seen in theaters. As such, it’s been delayed a number of times as theaters have remained closed.

Many states have allowed theaters to reopen, though at limited capacity, and so Tenet‘s September 3 in the United States will come after it’s been screened in less disease-riddled nations across the globe. But the matter or whether it will be viewed in theaters in certain parts of the country is still unclear as mid-August becomes late. And that includes whether the few remaining drive-in theaters — which have seen a revival of sorts amid the pandemic — will be allowed to show the film next month.

According to Variety, Warner Bros. has offered “strict guidelines” to drive-in movie operators, including an interesting caveat: drive-ins in areas where theaters are currently closed aren’t allowed to screen the movie at all:

But two weeks ahead of its domestic debut, scheduled for Sept. 3, Warner Bros. offered some clarity to exhibitors about its plans for Nolan’s latest. The studio issued strict guidelines to drive-in operators across the country, mandating that “Tenet” can only play in outdoor venues if indoor theaters in that particular market are open.

Since traditional brick-and-mortar theaters have reopened in Chicago, for example, drive-in locations in the Windy City will be permitted to play the film. But in New York City and Los Angeles, where hardtop cinemas are still closed, drive-in exhibitors won’t have access to “Tenet.”

It’s an odd situation, but guidelines for opening theaters are about the health and safety of its patrons first and foremost. This could, conceivably, keep the movie from a wide audience of people who either are unable by law to see a movie in an enclosed theater or feel it’s safe to do so. Still, it’s entirely possible things change in the scant few weeks before the movie officially hits theaters in the United States:

However, given the rapidly changing nature of the pandemic, sources familiar with the situation stress these plans could be flexible. It’s possible the studio’s posture on drive-in theaters could soften in the coming weeks and that the film could screen on outdoor venues, even where indoor theaters are closed.

Regardless, the thickening red tape around actually seeing Tenet in theaters is beginning to resemble the confusion others have expressed about the actual plot of the film itself. The latter, however, is a problem likely to remain long after people actually see the movie in its unprecedented theatrical run in the coming weeks.

(Via Variety)

The legal rights to music have been a hot button topic this past year due to Taylor Swift’s headline-making quarrel with Big Machine Records and Megan Thee Stallion’s label refusing to release her music. While some artists take issue with labels and companies owning the rights to their music, others actually seek out the opportunity. Wu-Tang Clan producer RZA has done just that, selling half of his music to the company Hipgnosis Songs.

According to Variety, Hipgnosis Songs acquired 50 percent of the musician’s catalog in the deal, about 407 tracks in total. The new partnership with RZA isn’t the first collection of music Hipgnosis Songs has bought the rights to. Before securing the deal, the firm also scooped up the rights to music from Jack Antonoff, Timbaland, and No I.D.

In a statement, RZA said he is excited about the new partnership: “I wear various hats in my artistic expressions but the one that has been so deeply reflective of my life’s journey is my songwriting. I’m honored to partner up with Merck and the Hipgnosis team to usher my songs into an exciting future.”

Hipgnosis Songs founder Merck Mercuriadis echoed RZA’s anticipation and praised the musician as a trailblazer in hip-hop: “RZA and the Wu-Tang Clan did not invent hip-hop but they took it from being fun to something that represented a true reflection of what the streets and being Black in America was really like. They were and are the most authentic band and brand in hip-hop and it all starts with RZA’s vision, his songs and his struggle, manifested in music, that could show the entire world what was really going on. He is now globally recognized as a true renaissance man of hip-hop and most would argue that he is the G.O.A.T.”

In other RZA news, the rapper teamed up with Good Humor to pen a new ice cream truck jingle because the old one had a racist history. The current jingle is the song “Turkey In The Straw,” which originally didn’t have problematic connotations until blackface-wearing minstrel show performers adopted the tune and set it to racist lyrics in the late early 20th century. But with his new jingle, RZA aims to “make a new ice cream jingle for a new era,” saying he wants “to make a melody that includes all communities that’s good for every driver, every kid.”

Despite the fact that we miss being able to travel the world during what is arguably the best season for travel, we don’t envy anyone who has to jump on a plane in the near future. Right now both domestic and international travel are an absolute headache. If you’re from the United States, it’s just a lot easier to not travel than attempt to navigate all of the different rules and safety measures for the countries that are still accepting American travelers, of which there aren’t too many.

In 2019, the U.S. passport granted access to 116 countries without a visa. Today there are only 39. The U.S. State Department is under a global Level 4 Health Advisory — which strongly discourages international travel of any kind. Aside from that, most countries just straight up don’t want us around, considering the U.S. is the current epicenter of the coronavirus worldwide. Sure, lots of countries get significant economic support from our tourist dollars, but they’re not about to put their population’s health at risk in the name of making some money off of Americans.

Even the countries that are currently accepting American travelers aren’t doing so blindly. Many of them have very specific rules and precautionary measures that you’ll want to be aware of if you do happen to be traveling, for whatever reason (remember that a panel of epidemiologists we assembled strongly discouraged this). For information, edification, and context, we’ve created a list of all the countries that are still accepting your passport and all the information you’ll need before boarding an international flight (for whatever reason) to visit them.

Albania

Albania’s borders are now opened to international travel, including from the United States. U.S citizens returning to the United States are only allowed to transit into a Schengen country on their journey home, and additional health screening procedures are in place at airports and all points of entry for both arriving and departing travelers.

You do not need a negative COVID-19 test to enter the country.

Antigua and Barbuda

Antigua and Barbuda’s border is now open to international travel though all passengers arriving by air must have a negative COVID-19 RT-PCR test result that has been taken within seven days of their flight.

If arriving by sea, all travelers will be subject to quarantine and are subject to assessment by the Port Health Authorities for signs and symptoms.

Upon arrival, passengers will have to take a COVID-19 test at the cost of $100.

Armenia

Armenia’s borders reopened to American travelers on August 12th. Visitors will be subject to a 14-day quarantine but will be allowed to leave as soon as a negative test result is returned to them. Travelers may request a PCR test at their hotel, where they will self isolate while waiting for the results.

Aruba

Prospective travelers from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming must first take a PCR Test and upload their results prior to departure.

All passengers must be tested 72 hours prior to their departure time and the results must be submitted 12-hours before the departure time for processing.

Visitors from other states are encouraged to take the COVID-19 PCR test but must do so at their own expense.

All visitors are encouraged to bring masks and must wear them on the flight and while in the Queen Beatrix International Airport.

Bahamas

The Bahamas are finally open to American travelers, sort of. All Americans entering the Bahamas must have a negative COVID-19 PCR test result taken no more than ten days prior to the date of travel and will be subject to a 14-day quarantine.

Barbados

Commercial flights to Barbados from the United States resumed via JetBlue on July 25th, Virgin Atlantic on August 1st, and American Airlines on October 5th. As of July, beaches and parks in the country are no longer under limited hours and social gatherings of up to 500 people are permitted.

All travelers will need a negative COVID-19 test result for entry and will be subject to a 14-day quarantine.

Belarus

Travelers entering Belarus from the US are no longer required to self-quarantine upon arrival, though temperature screenings will be issued once arriving at the Minsk National Airport. Social distancing measures in the country are on a city-specific basis, with Minsk containing the majority of restrictions.

Belize

Belize opened to international travel beginning on August 15th but travelers will be subject to additional safety precautions. Travelers must register on the Belize health app, receive a negative COVID-19 PCR test result within 72 hours of travel, maintain social distance in the country, and wear face masks at the airport, where they will encounter additional screening processes.

Once in the country, visitors must regularly record their symptoms on the Belize Health app until the day of their departure.

Bermuda

All travelers must complete the Bermuda travel authorization process online within 48 hours of their departure. A $75 fee will cover the cost of COVID-19 testing in Bermuda, but travelers are encouraged to take a PCR Covid-19 test up to 72 hours before their departure.

Face masks are required in all public spaces on the island, and travelers must report their temperatures twice per day.

Brazil

Brazil is now open to American travelers with virtually no travel restrictions. The country advises that all travelers have valid insurance that covers COVID-19 treatment, which is kind of a scary way of suggesting that if you travel to Brazil, you’re probably going to get COVID-19.

Cambodia

Travelers hoping to fly to Cambodia will have to make a deposit of $3,000 at the Phnom Penh International Airport to cover any virus prevention services. Visitors will also be required to take a COVID-19 test and will have the funds returned to them, minus the $160 it costs to take the test. On the bright side, meals will be provided while you wait for your results. Meals that you pay for.

Costa Rica

Beginning on September 1st, travelers from New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, and Connecticut may enter the country with a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken at least 48 hours before their arrival.

Croatia

American tourists who can present a negative COVID-19 PCR test 48 hours before their flight have been permitted to enter Croatia since July 10th.

Dominica

Dominica opened its borders to American travelers on August 7th. All arriving passengers will need to bring a negative COVID-19 PCR test result taken no later than 72 hours before boarding, fill out an online questionnaire, and will be subjected to additional rapid testing upon arrival.

Dominican Republic

All passengers flying into the Dominican Republic will have their temperatures checked as they disembark. Anyone registering a temperature above 100.6 degrees or any symptoms related to COVID-19 will be given a rapid COVID-19 test and necessary protocols for isolation and treatment will be administered.

Travelers will also have to fill out and submit a Traveler’s Health Affidavit. Social distancing measures are in place at most hotels, bars, restaurants, and transportation services in the Dominican Republic.

Ecuador

Travelers arriving in Ecuador must have a negative PCR COVID-19 test result issued within ten days of their arrival. As of August 16th, the country has ended its mandatory quarantine.

Egypt

Officially, all travelers landing in Egypt will be subject to a 14-day quarantine in all cases, though Travel Off Path has some anecdotal evidence that this restriction is no longer in place.

French Polynesia

Travelers must submit proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken within three days of their departure date. Arriving passengers must self-test for days after their arrival to Tahiti.

Grenada

Grenada is now open to American travelers but requires quite a bit of hoop-jumping if you want to enter. American travelers must have two negative COVID-19 PCR tests, agree to contact tracing, and sign a lengthy health declaration.

Honduras

Honduras is now opened to American travelers, though all arriving travelers must bring proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken at most 72 hours prior to arrival.

Ireland

The Republic of Ireland strongly advises against non-essential travel into Ireland, and all arriving visitors must self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival.

Jamaica

Travelers from the United States must obtain a negative COVID-19 PCR test result at least 10 days prior to their departure date for Jamaica. All travelers must also fill out an application to obtain official travel authorization from Jamaica.

Kosovo

The Pristina International Airport is open to all travelers, though the U.S. Embassy to Kosovo reports that U.S. citizens continue to be denied boarding if they cannot prove they are a resident or citizen of Kosovo. The embassy suggests you contact your airline before your trip.

Lebanon

Lebanon’s borders are open to international travel but visitors must show a negative test result for COVID-19 taken within four days of their arrival. Passengers staying for over seven days must submit another test, which will be given at the airport. Passengers must self-quarantine while waiting for results.

Maldives

As of July 15th, the Maldives is opened to tourists of all nationalities with no incoming travel restrictions, though some restrictive measures are in place at hotels, resorts, and public spaces.

Mexico

Mexico’s border with the United States is still closed but travelers may fly into the country with little restrictions. Travelers may be subject to temperature checks, health screenings, and are advised to self-quarantine on a state by state basis.

Montenegro

Montenegro’s borders are now open to American tourists but all arriving travelers must present a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken 72 hours prior to their departure.

North Macedonia

North Macedonia requires masks in all public spaces but has no other self-isolation or test requirements to enter the country.

U.S. citizens are advised to avoid travel to the country.

St. Barts

International travel is now open to the island of St. Barts but all visitors must provide a negative COVID-19 test result taken within 72 hours of arrival. Visitors staying in excess of seven days must take an additional test on their eighth day.

St. Lucia

Saint Lucia is currently in its phase one of reopening, which requires the use of face masks on all island transportation and public areas. All arriving passengers must have a negative COVID-19 PCR test result taken within 7 days of their departure date.

St. Marteen

Prior to travel, passengers must receive a negative COVID-19 test 72 hours before their departure and will be subjected to additional health screenings upon arrival. Travelers must also complete a self-health declaration online.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines

All travelers arriving in St. Vincent and the Grenadines must take a COVID-19 PCR test if they don’t arrive with a negative COVID-19 antigen test or negative PCR test result. Travelers who arrive without the negative test results will be required to quarantine and monitor their temperature for 14 days, reporting any changes to local health authorities.

Those who arrive with positive test results will be isolated at a facility at the cost of the traveler.

Serbia

Serbia has no COVID-19 related restrictions for travelers, though U.S. travelers are advised to enroll in the country’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program to receive alerts and updates related to COVID-19.

Tanzania

Tanzania has no additional requirements for international travelers, though travelers may be subjected to additional health screenings once landing in the country.

Turkey

Turkey currently has no travel restrictions for international travelers, though passengers will be tested for COVID-19 upon arrival. Travelers who test positive will be referred to a private hospital by the Ministry of Health Border Unit if they aren’t Turkish citizens.

Turks and Caicos

Passengers must present a negative COVID-19 PCR test result within five days of travel. All travelers must have medical/travel insurance that covers medevac, complete a health screening, and agree to a privacy policy prior to arrival.

Ukraine

U.S. travelers are only allowed to enter Ukraine if they can prove they have medical insurance that can cover all possible expenses related to COVID-19 treatment. Ukraine also advises travelers to be prepared to self-quarantine at their own expense, though a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken 48 hours upon arrival will exempt travelers from the self-quarantine and insurance requirement.

United Arab Emirates

Travelers flying into the United Arab Emirates must be tested for coronavirus upon their arrival and will be subjected to a 14-day quarantine at their own expense, regardless of the test result.

United Kingdom

Travelers flying to the United Kingdom won’t have to provide a negative COVID-19 test but must self-quarantine for 14-days, though the country seems pretty lax about this requirement.

The last NBA game I attended in a non-media capacity took place on April 5, 2016. The Philadelphia 76ers picked up their 10th and final win of the season, a 107-93 win over the lowly New Orleans Pelicans. Carl Landry, and I swear I am not making this up, got MVP chants because he was the team’s best player that night — I beg you, please look at this box score, which includes a host of players you have not thought about in a minute.

The following day, Sam Hinkie resigned from his job as the team’s general manager. It had been a long time coming, as the team had hired basketball executive Jerry Colangelo as its chairman of basketball operations, reportedly thanks in part to an extremely persuasive nudge from the league itself. He wrote a long, strange letter that is funny to read in retrospect, one that included this passage:

The NBA can be a league of desperation, those that are in it and those that can avoid it. So many find themselves caught in the zugzwang, the point in the game where all possible moves make you worse off. Your positioning is now the opposite of that.

Plenty of people dislike Hinkie for justifiable reasons, and The Process rubbed a whole lot of people the wrong way for justifiable (and, in plenty of ways, correct) reasons, but having a plan — even a flawed one — that places an emphasis on never being in a position of desperation is sound. At the time that Hinkie left, Philadelphia had Joel Embiid, would go on to draft Ben Simmons a few months later, and boasted enough future draft capital and cap space that they were well-positioned to add at least one superstar to that 1-2 punch at some point — following Simmons’ rookie campaign, ESPN did future power rankings and put the franchise in sixth, with particularly high marks in “Money” and “Draft.”

Even if that optimism was 110 percent warranted at the time, it’s strange to look back on in retrospect. Because after Sunday afternoon, when the Sixers lost to the Boston Celtics and saw a season that had such high hopes end with a sweep in the first round of the playoffs to a division rival that is well-positioned to compete for championships going forward, Philly feels like a team that needs to do something desperate, only the sort of flexibility that existed in the past is gone.

The exact moment it happened is up for debate, but The Process in Philly is very much dead — perhaps it happened the moment Hinkie resigned or at some other point in the last few years. Whatever the case, now the Sixers face an offseason in which there are more questions than answers and no concrete plan in place guiding them to what’s next.

There are three ways to acquire talent: drafting players, signing free agents, and making trades. For years, the Sixers have failed to one extent or another at all of these, showing off startling roster mismanagement around their homegrown stars of Embiid and Simmons.

No team is going to hit on every single decision it makes. Plenty will miss more than they hit. And of course, the entire idea behind stockpiling so much young talent and so many picks for any team is that they are chips that can be cashed in when a disgruntled superstar asked for a change in scenery. In theory, it takes just one good swing to hit a home run, so giving yourselves as many cuts as possible is simply good math. The Sixers were more blatant with The Process than most other teams are when they decide to go through a rebuild, but some combination of those three paths get traversed by teams that win.

What makes Philadelphia’s run of late so infuriating for fans isn’t that they swung and missed, but that they had some hits and gave them away in the misses.

Hindsight is 20/20 but it is pretty wild to think about how the Sixers went from that group to the one that just got swept out of the playoffs unceremoniously. Bryan Colangelo, the sport’s all-time greatest poster, was someone who, as my pal Yaron Weitzman laid out in his book Tanking to the Top, felt he needed to make his imprint felt on the team while simultaneously trying to get past the reputation that formed after he drafted Andrea Bargnani in Toronto. So he burned draft capital to move up two spots and select Markelle Fultz at No. 1 overall, whose … whatever happened with him meant that he went from the theoretical perfect fit next to Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons to someone who was traded for Jonathon Simmons, a 2019 second-round pick that ended up getting flipped to Boston on draft night, and the 21st pick in the 2020 Draft.

They turned Mikal Bridges into Zhaire Smith and a pick, then turned that pick and other pieces (including Landry Shamet, who would have given them a seemingly snug replacement for sharpshooter J.J. Redick, who left in free agency last summer) into Tobias Harris. They turned two good contributors in Dario Saric and Robert Covington into Jimmy Butler, who was very good in his brief time in Philly but would leave after half of a season for a variety of reasons, depending on who you ask. With the exception of trading Bridges, which was done by Brett Brown in his role as interim GM, those trades were executed by a first-time general manager in Elton Brand.

That group came four bounces away from forcing overtime in Game 7 against the eventual champion Toronto Raptors and entered the offseason with some serious decisions facing them with Butler and Harris entering free agency. They chose to give Harris (a good player, albeit not a superstar) a near-max deal, executed a sign-and-trade to send Butler to the Heat for Josh Richardson (a good shooting guard whose biggest weakness is perimeter shooting), and gave a lot of money to Horford instead, who in addition to bolstering their concept of playing Bully Ball, weakened the Celtics (or so they thought) and was a nine-figure insurance policy for when Embiid would miss a few regular season games.

Even factoring in questions about fit and shooting, the most pessimistic prediction about the Sixers before this season tipped off would have guessed that this team would at least be a tough out in the Eastern Conference playoffs. In retrospect, there was much further down they could go. Philadelphia built a roster with an eye on a seven-game playoff series against the Bucks that would require battling against Giannis Antetokounmpo. Perhaps they thought losing Al Horford and Kyrie Irving would cause the Celtics’ chances to crater, even if only for a season. Perhaps they thought losing Kawhi Leonard would do the same to Toronto. And perhaps they assumed that teams like the Heat and Pacers just wouldn’t have the firepower — at least not yet — to realistically compete.

All of those teams finished with better records than Philly. The gambit made by the Sixers front office was that their size could overwhelm everyone else, particularly when games slow down in the playoffs. They did this by sacrificing ball-handling, shot-making, and playmaking, and despite the fact that they were a gigantic basketball team, this did not translate into the kind of indomitable defense (eighth in defensive rating) or unstoppable interior offense (16th in two-point field goal percentage, 22nd in free throw rate) that has to happen for this approach to work.

Their roster imbalance reared its ugly head consistently throughout the year, as, generally, the team’s best defensive lineups couldn’t score, while it’s best offensive lineups couldn’t get stops. Lineups that featured the four players that made the most money — Embiid, Horford, Simmons, Tobias Harris — were not good enough. When Simmons was out during the postseason, things got even worse. Playing Embiid and Horford together went so poorly that Horford’s own sister correctly pointed out that it just doesn’t work, which is not really the fault of these two, but rather, those who made the decision to pair a 7-foot center and a 34-year-old big man together at the same time, particularly when a 6’11 point guard who is a non-shooter is crucial to making everything work.

Their grand experiment of the Jumbo Sixers went horribly. Now Brown has been fired, some sort of big front office shakeup would be justifiable, and the Sixers will enter next season with a jaw-dropping bill to foot. They’re paying $119 million to four players on a team that just got swept in the first round of the playoffs, and even if one of those players didn’t suit up in the series, there should be three others who could have picked up the slack. Some fans would probably be pretty happy if the ownership group, which wasn’t particularly popular even before its recent self-inflicted wound in which it announced a salary reduction for employees amid a global pandemic that got overturned when fans expressed their fury and Embiid offered to foot the bill, sold the team. Things could, certainly, be going better.

Mapping out Philadelphia’s future is hard. It’s ironic, in a way, that a team that once had so much possibility — money to spend, picks to make, two young pillars to build around — seems stuck, to an extent. Embiid and Simmons being in town means the floor will never get too low, and the job for now is to figure out what needs to happen to raise the ceiling. Even then, Philly went 31-4 at home this year. There is a dominant team within them. The goal, then, is to make sure that dominant team shows up on a nightly basis.

With Brown officially out, a new coaching hire that is more in the mold of the Lakers hiring Frank Vogel than the Raptors hiring Nick Nurse makes sense. Philly isn’t a team that needs a young, innovative head coach as much as it needs someone who can step in there and be the adult in the room, particularly after Josh Richardson lamented after the Celtics sweep that “I don’t think there was much accountability this season, and I think that was part of our problem.” That could mean former Cavs coach Tyronn Lue or ex-Nets coach Kenny Atkinson, or convincing Stan Van Gundy to come back to coaching, or keeping an eye on the soon-to-be out of contract Mike D’Antoni. Whatever the case, look for them to go the route of experience, particularly working with superstars.

The front office could use something, although as Shams Charania of The Athletic noted, it seems unlikely that that’s coming. Still, around the time Brand was promoted from the front office of the team’s G League affiliate, three individuals from the previous front office received promotions, with two of them still in town (the third, Marc Eversley, is now the GM of the Bulls). At the very least, bringing in a new voice and a different perspective on things would be wise, although as the Hinkie/Colangelo experiment showed, the balance needs to be struck between that and undermining a person’s authority.

All of this has to get sorted out before getting to the roster, something Philly hasn’t always been great with. Consider the 2018 offseason, when among other things, the team was rumored to be one of three franchises that piqued LeBron James’ interest. At the time, Brown served as interim general manager. Considering they had 3.5 weeks to hire someone after Colangelo resigned in early-June, it makes sense that they couldn’t get someone in right away, although it’s strange that it took them until mid-September to eventually give someone the job.

Regardless, the Sixers need to sit down and figure out their roster, with Weitzman reporting that the expectation are that major changes are coming. Embiid and Simmons should be untouchable. Even if their fit next to one another isn’t perfect, they are two uniquely talented All-Stars who can become top-10 players in the league. Unless you are able to acquire another top-10 player, breaking up that duo would be short-sighted. And even then, Embiid is 26 and Simmons is 24. The window to win with them is longer than it would be for most other teams if everything else around them works.

The issue, of course, is the “everything else.” Horford is a good player, and it might be reasonable to think he can look like himself in a different situation, one where he is surrounded by four players who can shoot and constantly move. Figuring out a trade for him is tricky — let me be the 10,000th person to suggest Sacramento, which wanted to give him big money last offseason and can make something work with disgruntled guard Buddy Hield‘s upcoming extension kicking in — but as long as the team isn’t giving him up for pennies on the dollar and can figure out a way to use Horford (along with whatever additional players/picks they would need to give up) as a way to get players that complement their two standouts, moving him wouldn’t be the worst idea.

Things might be a little trickier with Harris. He is a good (albeit inconsistent) player, but he is owed a shocking amount of money going forward. As of now, the only people in the NBA who have more guaranteed money coming their way are Damian Lillard and Klay Thompson. Is there a team that would be willing to take on this money? Is there a way for the Sixers to do a trade without giving up everything they have and/or taking back gobs of bad contracts? Or is the most likely outcome that Philly is in a position where it has to hold onto Harris and turn him into a more expensive version of Harrison Barnes on the 2015 Warriors as a fourth option on offense who lets catch-and-shoot threes fly while occasionally giving them something off the bounce?

On top of all of that, we’re entering an offseason in which no one, not even the NBA, knows what the full financial ramifications of the pandemic will be on their business and what that means for potentially plummeting salary cap figures. That may make it even more difficult to find bidders for blockbuster type deals, as cap uncertainty might push front offices towards keeping big, longterm deals off of the books until things are sorted out.

Should they get some traction in trade talks, there are players who can help sweeten the pot in deals — Thybulle looks like a potential defensive stud, Milton has shown flashes of being a dynamic combo guard who can hit threes, and they do have a few picks they can move. Richardson is on an expiring deal and was inconsistent this year, but we have enough evidence to say he’s a solid player, and while it might be wise for Philly to keep him, it’s not hard to see why someone would want to bring him on board. And if the team can figure out how to make stuff happen while retaining all of them, even better.

In the past, it hasn’t always seemed like Philadelphia’s plan has been to build the best team around Embiid and Simmons. Signing Horford was, in part, a move to give them insurance for when Embiid got hurt. Trading for Butler was, in part, a move to get someone to initiate the team’s offense when Simmons could not. Getting Harris was, in part, a move to get someone who could take the ball and hit a shot off the bounce. This offseason, priority No. 1 absolutely needs to be to view every single thing that happens in relation to those two. If the plan is anything other than to build a team — hell, an organization — around them, then this offseason is a failure before it even begins.

“I just feel like, a couple years ago, when we made the playoffs for the first time, we had a bunch of great players that were drafted here or either formed in Philly and we had a bunch of guys especially that were in a great situation,” Embiid said after Sunday’s loss. “And then we, as you know, we decided to trade a lot of it with the picks and stuff for Jimmy, Tobias, and we got a bunch of great players in return. Like I said, it just didn’t happen. We could never find a rhythm this year. It is disappointing. There’s a lot of regrets. I felt like the focus was not always there. And we got to do better; we just got to look at ourselves in the mirror and just do better.”

A weird little quirk about The Process was the level of hope that it instilled in a not insignificant pocket of Sixers fans. Calling it polarizing was an understatement — a whole lot of people, both in Philly and beyond, weren’t fans of how brazen the entire experiment was. It’s perpetually fascinating to me, an idiot who knows a disproportionate amount of Sixers fans compared to every other NBA fanbase solely based on where I went to college, about the extent that being loud impacted views on the whole experiment, especially compared to teams that aren’t actively trying to miss out on the playoffs year after year but do.

But boy, were those people who believed (and, to be fair, still believe) in The Process loud, in large part because they were fine with not being stuck in the NBA’s version of purgatory — somewhere between the 5 and the 10 seed every year, losing in the first (or, if they got lucky, second) round; lather, rinse, repeat — if it meant there was something on the other side. This is where hope came into play. Rejecting The Process, to those fans, meant rejecting hope. And for some time, that inherent hope looked like it was paying off in a big way. The 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons were the first two times since the mid-80s that Philadelphia won 50+ games in back-to-back seasons.

In terms of how this season went, the Sixers are back in purgatory, stuck in the morass and surrounded by other teams that can win, but not compete. The good news, relatively speaking, is that a path out of this does not involve embarking on a years-long project that leads to things like Carl Landry getting MVP chants in the team’s 10th and final win of the season and the objectively pretty crappy approach of alienating agents by viewing every player as nothing more than things that exist as assets and numbers in a spreadsheet. There will not be another capital P “Process” this time, but there must be a plan put in place with Embiid and Simmons’ input that is more in-line with how you win basketball games in the NBA right now.

Hinkie’s plan was always to have the longest view in the room. That, more than anything, is why The Process, as it has been defined, is dead — Philadelphia is not in a position to look 5-10 years down the road, because Embiid and Simmons are entering their primes. Still, not making hyper-reactionary moves driven by fear of what happens if next season is a repeat of this one is going to be a challenge. It’s one that they need to face head-on, and funny enough, it was something that was addressed in the strangest resignation letter in NBA history.

“It’s clear now that I won’t see the harvest of the seeds we planted,” Hinkie wrote. “That’s OK. Life’s like that. Many of my NBA friends cautioned me against the kind of seed sowing that felt appropriate given the circumstances for exactly this reason. But this particular situation made it all the more necessary, though. Part of the reason to reject fear and plow on was exactly because fear had been the dominant motivator of the actions of too many for too long.”

While The Process is over, the potential for a new era in Philadelphia is on the horizon. Embiid and Simmons will always serve as a link to the past just as much as they are the bridge to the future. That future is incumbent on soul-searching occurring across all levels of the organization, accepting that this season was a catastrophic failure and getting to work. Whether or not this happens is a completely different story, but having the right people put together a sound plan together is huge. If it’s a good one, trusting that process is, ironically enough, the best path forward.