By the time you read this, it will probably be just slightly passed the first week of the 2021 NBA season, and what better way to prep us for all the uncertainty of a barely functioning-COVID existence to take a nonsensical look at some alternate universes and scenarios for basketball as we know. Allow me to be your guide though these vast new realities that I just made up. Follow me and dare to face the unknown. All while pondering the question: What If….?

When it happened to me, I didn’t get out, at least not at first. Predictably, the reality of domestic violence is far more complicated. The thought, “I should leave him” occurred to me at least a hundred times before I ever attempted it, and I even tried to end the relationship twice before I was able to sever it for good. It takes an average of seven attempts for a victim of intimate partner violence to get out of the relationship. It isn’t easy. When it comes down to it, I think we need to reframe the question.

Injury Reserve’s By the Time I Get to Phoenix and Tirzah’s Colourgrade are both exercises in the unconventional. One sounds like it came out of left field and the other sounds like it came from outside the stadium. Both are unique creations, and their creators are standing on the shoulders of ancestors, parents, and kids that graduated a few years before you.

I no longer remember the first time I viewed porn, but I do remember having a birthday party at my great-grandparents house as an adolescent and hanging out in the basement with a few friends where we came across an old box of playboys. We sat together going through them in amazement, especially since we were still in our awkward and gawky phases. They were fascinating.