Voting in a Pandemic, Even More NHL Offseason, and a Garbage Section
It turns out voting with your life on the line changes some things. Plus: The Coyotes, buyouts, and some fake stuff at the end.
“Mom, if the sun comes out, does that mean the pandemic is over?”
“Son, it’s already been over for all us bike-riders, don’t worry, we’ve been free since the beginning because we do whatever we want. Because we deserve that sort of privilege.”
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Massachusetts Sec. of State Preparing Mail-in Voting Proposal
Bill Galvin, Massachusetts’ Secretary of State, said on Tuesday that he’s putting together legislation opening up early voting measures for people who’d like to mail their ballots in this fall in the Democratic Primary Senate Election between incumbent U.S. Senator Ed Markey and current House of Representatives member Joe Kennedy.
The Boston Globe reported that Galvin has “raised concerns about other mail-in voting proposals.” Galvin has been adamant that in-person voting on September 1, when the state primary occurs, and on November 3 when the national election takes places to give voters the most options possible to get their vote in, according to the Globe.
Galvin doesn’t think that the state should “proactively mail every registered voter in the state a ballot” since voters that identify by party need to indicate which primary they will vote in, but in order to ensure that ballots get counted and that people are actually able to get their votes in, Galvin said early voting expansion should be the state’s priority.
“We need to expand the time period for early voting by mail—make it earlier, longer,” Galvin told the Globe. “And I want that applied to the primary [as well]. There’s been a lot of advocacy … for voting by mail. We can do it. We just have to do it properly.”
Before now, there has not been an early voting option for the primary while voters had only a 10-day window to send in their votes in November elections.
State legislators have introduced a bill that would proactively send voters ballots, and Kennedy has endorsed such efforts, but Galvin’s take on the matter is likely to be the direction the state goes in. The bill that Galvin hasn’t endorsed automatically sends registered Democrats the Democratic primary ballot, while registered Republicans will receive the Republican primary ballot. It’s unlikely that that measure will be particularly popular with registered Republicans, since they’ll presumably want the option to vote in Markey and Kennedy’s primary, which is effectively a general election race.
New Bill Provides Another $484 Billion in Stimulus, Primarily Targeted Toward Small Businesses
President Donald Trump’s administration and congressional leaders came to an agreement on Tuesday that will replenish the small business rescue fund included as a part of the last stage of national stimulus for the country in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over $300 billion of that stimulus money will go directly to the fund, while the rest will go toward hospitals and coronavirus testing materials.
Originally, Republicans only asked for another $250 billion to be allocated to the fund, but Democrats asked for the health care funding and additional support for state and local governments, according to The Financial Times. The compromise appears to have been an additional $50 billion for small businesses in addition to the health care money, while increased funding for states has been put aside for the moment.
The rescue fund came under scrutiny this week when some publicly owned or larger companies were awarded forgivable loans from the fund, but Trump said he would ask for such companies to return the money. His Treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, said that over a million small businesses with less than 10 employees have received additional funding, according to the Times.
Democrat and Republican leaders did clash over how much was left off the table, as well as how long the bill took to pass—Democrats were critical of Republicans for not awarding more health care funds more quickly, while Republicans criticized Democrats for using the pandemic to create partisan leverage by holding bills up, according to the Times.
Who doesn’t love some useless partisan sniping during a worldwide disaster.
Trump tweeted Tuesday afternoon that he’s interested in discussing state and local government funding moving forward, as well as stimulus for infrastructure investments—he mentioned classic infrastructure projects such as bridges and tunnels but also said work on “broadband,” tax incentives for the restaurant and entertainment industries, and a payroll tax cut should be considered as well.
Elite Colleges, After Blowback From Trump, Forgo Payouts From CARES Act
$12 billion in federal aid was earmarked for distribution to colleges on April 9—$6 billion is required to be used for financial aid. For each college, a minimum number was attached to the allocation that must be paid out as emergency financial aid to students—that number tended to be about half of the total allocated to each university. The aid is based on how many Pell Grant recipients universities have combined with general enrollment data.
Harvard received an $8.6 million grant as a part of the various stimulus packages the federal government has passed over the last month and a half, leading to criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump, who said Harvard will return the grant on Tuesday since they shouldn’t need it due to the university’s $41 billion endowment—which is significantly larger than the endowments of the colleges listed above.
Initially, Harvard’s administration responded by saying the funds are being used for financial aid for students, not to cover “institutional costs.” Trump tweeted out later on that evening that the university endowment system should be looked at—his administration pushed out an endowment tax that brought criticism from various colleges. Ultimately, the rules for that endowment tax were severely limited and affect very few colleges that have extremely large endowments, including Harvard—the prior action proved Trump already isn’t a fan of the way endowments currently work, and through that lens it isn’t surprising Trump is disappointed that Harvard received and accepted federal aid.
Ultimately, Harvard reversed course late Wednesday afternoon, joining Stanford ($7,376,688) and Princeton ($2,424,099) as colleges that are choosing to opt out of federal aid.
Harvard administrators put out a second statement saying concerns had been raised, leading administrators to believe “that the intense focus by politicians and others on Harvard in connection with [the CARES relief for universities] may undermine participation in a relief effort that Congress created and the President signed into law for the purpose of helping students and institutions whose financial challenges in the coming months may be most severe.”
The statement goes on to ask “special consideration” be awarded to other Massachusetts institutions that could need the money more.
Neither Harvard’s immediate competitor, Yale ($6,851,139), nor any other Ivy League institution had made a similar move as of this publishing, though it’s certainly conceivable that others could follow suit in the coming days.
Other schools that received funds included Boston College ($6,448,576), Boston University ($14,995,316), Northeastern ($11,648,813), MIT ($5,045,387), and Dartmouth ($3,429,350). Georgetown ($6,110,643) and Notre Dame ($5,793,244) received money as well. The University of Massachusetts system received over $46 million in aid.
The average total payout came in at $2,435,213—the average minimum required for financial aid was about half of that—and 5,135 schools were awarded at least some aid. The median payout was much lower, coming in at $758,079—the median financial aid requirement was about half of that. If you take only data for schools that received enough money to be required to hand out at least a million dollars in aid to students, 1,476 schools qualified, receiving an average of $7 million in total payout with the median coming in at $4.4 million. 284 colleges received more than $10 million in aid—they tended to be larger public systems similar to UMass. Arizona State received the highest total payout at $63.5 million.
Unrelated note, but related to Harvard: Harvard administrators committed to divest from fossil fuels by 2050, according to The Boston Globe. From the article: “The slow move toward a more environmentally friendly investment policy is likely to disappoint those who had pushed for a swift withdrawal of investments in oil and gas companies.”
Baker Signs Into Law Bill on Eviction and Foreclosure Moratorium
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker signed legislation implementing a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures on Monday, according to WGBH. The law is targeted toward “residential and small commercial tenants,” per GBH, and “will remain in effect for the next 120 days or 45 days after the COVID-19 emergency declaration has been lifted.”
Until now, evictions and foreclosures have been effectively “pocket vetoed” by the state government: Such decisions are only enforceable via a court order, and state courts have been closed since Massachusetts entered a state of emergency in March. It took a month for the bill to be signed into law, according to WGBH.
In order to comply with the law, tenants have to provide landlords “documentation of financial hardship,” according to the station’s reporting. If that documentation isn’t provided within a month of a missed rent payment, landlords are allowed to report missed payments to consumer reporting agencies.
NHL Offseason Previews: The Arizona Coyotes Are Desperately Mediocre
By Tom Shea
The Yotes have had a rocky road. The Dave Tippett “wonderyears” (they won a playoff series!) are nearly a full decade in the rearview mirror. A few years back they were most prominently known for Chris Pronger, Pavel Datsyuk, and Marian Hossa’s contracts literally being buried in the desert.
But to their credit, they’ve evolved into one of the 20-some middling teams in the league. Though not saying much, they were on pace to post their best season in six years as the “Arizona” Coyotes, after they decided that the entire meth-addled state ought to be represented. General Manager John Chayka needs to keep building on that, and he won’t have much cap room to do it: after 4 playoff-less seasons, his seat’s getting hotter than a dump after a chimichanga (oh..guess I coulda just said an Arizona summer).
Given Elliotte Friedman’s recent report I’m still assuming a $81.5 million cap. For the sake of this argument, we’ll pretend that compliance buyouts won’t be a part of the offseason equation—for now (see Goldman’s article below for more on this). Thanks to Evolving Hockey for their contract projections, they’re worth the patronage!
Coyotes
Current total allocation: $74.7 ($4.4M/player)
Total spots to fill: 5 ($6.8M remaining)
— — —
Most certain: Defense
Current allocation: $28.7M ($4.8M/player)
Spots to fill: 1
On paper, there’s no reason for the Yotes to make any changes at all. Unfortunately, that hideous monstrosity known as the NHL salary cap will prevent them from doing so. 4 of the 6 they have at the moment are all UFAs after next year, so they have leeway with trading the guys they’ll need to trade.
My trade target would be Alex Goligoski. Even though he’s 34 and has been pretty brutal at 5v5 basically his entire Arizona tenure, he’s a puck-moving right-handed d-man who still puts up solid raw point totals; those guys tend to have reputations that precede them. He also fortuitously falls into that expiring UFA bucket, so his contract won’t be an issue.
Nashville makes sense as a trade partner, provided Arizona eats a bit of the cap hit. They never really replaced P.K. Subban, and the move would allow Dante Fabbro to play shelter minutes as he continues to develop. By the time 2021 comes around, Fabbro should be ready to jump into the top 4. He’ll be due for a raise by then anyway, which will push Gogo out of town.
Even without Gogo, the remaining top 4 is still great. Oliver Ekman-Larsson has sort of fallen into the so-underrated-he’s-now-overrated category, but his deal’s not terrible and he should be at least decent most of the way through. Nick Hjalmarsson basically lost last season to a broken leg, but even at 32 he remains one of the best defensive defensemen in the league. Jason Demers continues to fly under the radar. Jakob Chychrun’s only 22 and already pretty good.
Even the bottom pair should be pretty solid. Russian transplant Ilya Lyubushkin had the best 5v5 relative expected goal differential in the entire league last year, albeit in sheltered minutes. He’s an RFA but should be back for cheap. Jordan Oesterle’s the weak link and could be moved for cap purposes, but he only makes $1.4M so the savings wouldn’t amount to much. Aaron Ness played just 24 games last year but held his own, though he might make more sense as the 7th guy to light a fire under Oesterle. The d-corps hasn’t been a model of durability either, so expect to see 1 or 2 of these guys logging big minutes at some point.
Medium certainty: Goaltender
Current allocation: $6.1M ($3.1M/player)
Spots to fill: zilch
The Yotes have talent here, but there’s two reasons for the uncertainty. One is that Antti Raanta and Darcy Kuemper have been as close to a platoon as you’ll find. The last 3 years Kuemper’s played 94 games for them, Raanta 92. The other, specifically regarding Raanta, is injury. When healthy, he’s been a beast. Sans a rough rookie year, he has the best delta save % in the league since then. He backed up two of the best goalies in the game in Corey Crawford and Henrik Lundqvist before finally getting his shot as a starter with Arizona in 2017-18.
For $4.25M, you’d think he’d be the biggest steal in the league. But that season was the only year he played more than half the games. Despite his relative lack of playing time, he’s still 5th in goals saved above expected, essentially the volume version of dsv%, over that six-year run. For the Desert Dogs to get back in the playoffs, he might have to take the reigns as the guy.
This puts Kuemper in an interesting spot. He had a few tough years backing up Devan Dubnyk in Minnesota, but he’s been pretty solid with the Yotes, ranking 15th in dsv% out of the top 62 most played goalies over that 3-year span. $4.25M for a backup borders on volcano insurance, but the Yotes certainly needed him thanks to Raanta’s injury woes. Oddly enough, Arizona wanted it this way: They extended Kuemper through 2022 while Raanta was signed through 2021. It’s a premium for one position, but the logic makes sense.
Even though the numbers are promising for both guys, they have just 12 career playoff games between them. If the Yotes do in fact break through, expect some growing pains for whoever’s in net in primetime action. This isn’t to say that they can’t get the job done, just that there’s reason to be skeptical until we actually see it.
Least certain: Forward
Current allocation: $37.3M ($4.1M/player)
Spots to fill: 5
Yeesh. Just when the Yotes thought they solved their scoring woes with Phil Kessel and Taylor Hall, Hall’s likely gone and Phil likely had lake fishing in Wisconsin on the front of his mind with his performance last year. Derek Stepan brings leadership but not much else. Carl Soderberg probably won’t be getting a tribute video the next time he plays in the desert, though I could be wrong.
My first order of business was to send Stepan and Michael Grabner packing. Both guys have underachieved in Arizona, both in terms of scoring and driving play. Both have just 1 year left on their respective contracts, so they’re able to be dealt. Former Ranger captain Stepan gets a nice homecoming with the Rags, and Grabner provides an additional jolt to an already fast Canadiens team. A win-win all around.
Now comes the hard part. Left wing in particular is brutal. The current top guy is Lawson “not a Major League Lacrosse replacement player” Crouse; thusly, I signed Evgeni Dadonov. He’s due for a nice payday after balling out the last 3 years in Florida. He’s demonstrated a tolerance for toiling on fringe playoff teams, so the Yotes are perfectly par for the course. He’s not quite as good as Hall, but he’s really not far off.
To further cement left wing, I also brought aboard former Leafs superstar Tyler Ennis. He’s also in line for a substantial raise, but the Yotes have both the cap space and the urgency. His speed will help replace Grabner. He’s also a guy who can put up decent point totals without taking power play minutes from the stars.
The net result is a top 9 that actually looks not half horrific. Keller shifts back to center to fill Stepan’s void, where he’s flanked by Dadonov and the hopefully not washed Kessel. Ennis, Dvorak and RFA Vinnie Hinostroza form a young and spunky 2nd line. And Nick Schmaltz moves to the 3rd line for added depth. Right wing’s still pretty rough, but it looks a lot better if Phil can play to at least a fraction of his potential. They were 25th in goals per game last year, so this would be a vast improvement.
CapFriendly prediction: $253,000 in space ...https://www.capfriendly.com/armchair-gm/team/1711646
Big picture:
The Yotes are very fortunate they’re in the Pacific for 1 more year, where dreams (the Oilers are good again!) really do come true. Even if they get trounced by Vegas in the first round last year, it’s a step in the right direction for a team that never built on its last run of success. Though scraping into the playoffs when more than half the teams make it could seem like moving the goalposts, it’s imperative for this franchise in particular, where rumors of moving everywhere from Dublin to Dubai constantly swirl. With essentially the entire blue line up for free agency in 2021, next year could be a crossroads in convincing ownership that they don’t need to blow the whole thing up.
NHL Offseason: Let’s Talk Compliance Buyouts
By Jack Goldman
We’ve reached the point in our offseason previews that Tom asked me this week if we’re 100% sure the NHL salary cap will stay flat next season due to economic downturn caused by the coronavirus—the article we link to every week where Elliotte Friedman reported a flat cap was likely is about a month old now.
Details are still relatively sparse, but everything I’ve seen has indicated that the options the NHL has at its disposal are the following:
Keep the cap flat—probably for more than one year—rather than spiking the cap up and down due to the unforeseen economic circumstances and tossing the league into financial chaos and, if they aren’t lucky, ruin. To pull this off, player escrow payments will have to rise into the “greater than 20 percent” range, which sucks because salaries at that point will cease to be anything but a paper transaction that is immediately docked by a fifth of its value, but it will prevent teams from having cap charges until the end of time or free agents from being 100% screwed because teams won’t legally be able to make any moves, since they’ll have been magically dumped over the cap thanks to it dropping. It’s not a fun situation, but it’s likely.
To offset some of those escrow payments, it’s possible that players will accept formal salary rollback measures, as they did coming out of the missed 2004-05 season—the last time the NHL decided it needed to reign in player earning potential (for much worse, unexplainable reasons). That would lessen the escrow payments by a few percentage points for sure, but I’m not sure how that affects minimum salary or two-way players. If it’s complicated to pull off or requires further collective bargaining, that could mean escrow is the simplest way to pull off the revenue distribution curve that’s been essentially destroyed by the ripple effects of the pandemic. Trust me when I say that managing over 20 percent escrow payments is the easiest way to handle this, that means that there isn’t even a slightly simple way to handle this—how do you assign contract value when you know that millions of dollars are automatically being shaved off the salary figure the moment you put pen to paper on a contract?
But the creamsicle treat NHL teams and players are probably going to get to make everyone feel better about all this insane s—t is compliance buyouts. Last seen after every lockout in every sport but football, NHL compliance buyouts are similar to the NBA stretch clause buyouts (the same way regular old NHL buyouts work), but don’t carry a salary cap hit. It’s good for players (the bought out player gets paid and gets to go back out on the market for an additional contract) and good for owners ($$$, cap relief).
We’re going to concentrate on this option both in this article and moving forward with the team-by-team previews—you’ll find an additional section on potential compliance buyout candidates within each preview moving forward, though today the Coyotes’ buyout candidate can be found in just a few short paragraphs.
So today, we’ll go through each team we’ve already previewed and check out what direction they can go in to try to gain more cap relief. As usual, we’ll be forever indebted to CapFriendly, as they have a buyout calculator we’ll pull data from for this project. Since we’re also not the smartest people to ever live, we’ll also use the input of the actual smartest person to ever live, The Athletic’s Jonathan Willis, and his takes on who teams should be targeting for buyouts this offseason as a guide. If you’d like to catch up on all the previews we’ve done, click here.
Pittsburgh Penguins: Jack Johnson
Yeah, some of these decisions are going to be difficult, this is not one of those decisions. This is Willis’ pick, Jack Johnson is bad, Pittsburgh’s back end is pretty good and won’t miss him, and Johnson somehow has three years left at a $3.25 million cap hit, despite the fact that he’ll be 36 at the end of the deal. Unless you really hate Brandon Tanev or Patric Hornqvist, which you shouldn’t, there isn’t even another viable candidate on the list. Tom literally wrote in his preview that the best move to clear cap for the Penguins would be to dump Johnson but that it couldn’t happen. Good news: with a compliance buyout, it certainly should but definitely can happen.
Boston Bruins: John Moore
CapFriendly commenters yelled at me for trading John Moore away for very little in my preview, but Moore sees very little game action since Boston’s defense is typically healthy and his production is middling when he’s out there—he’s far from irreplacable. That in itself isn’t so offensive that he needs to be hauled out of town, but the Bruins are up against the cap, trying to retain Torey Krug, and need to make moves to pull that off. Moore’s remaining three years at nearly $3 million a year made him a good, though expensive, salary dump candidate when I wrote the offseason preview, and now it makes for a good buyout candidate. This is also Willis’ pick, and this one is essentially by default. There’s not a single other reasonably long-term deal on the Bruins’ books that needs to be off the roster right now (but we’ll always remember you, David Backes and Matt Beleskey).
Winnipeg Jets: Bryan Little
Willis has Mathieu Perreault here since his production is way down this year and he’s expensive at over $4 million per year, but the only reason he picks Perreault is because he thinks Winnipeg may be able to just toss Bryan Little on long-term injured-reserve and not have to deal with his cap hit for a while. I think regardless that Winnipeg should dump Little via compliance, since his deal is for four more years (he’d be under contract until he’s 36 years-old and he doesn’t look like a top six center now) at over $5 million per year (!!). His cap hit moving forward is higher than his base salary, the cap hit savings on his actual paid out contract would be over $6 million, this is a no brainer for me. Little was a great Jet, but he’s past his prime and overpaid—if Winnipeg wants to reopen its Stanley Cup window, I think they need to open up as much cap room as possible. Tom traded for Hampus Lindholm in his offseason preview to give the team a jump, that sort of move may not be necessary if the Jets have Little, Dustin Byfuglien (he’s gone, his contract was terminated), and if they also buyout Perrault the old fashioned way, they’ll have another $2.6 million in room. That sort of space could give the Jets a chance at either Alex Pietrangelo or Torey Krug if either are willing to head for the tundra. That sort of cap room could vault Winnipeg to the front of the line in terms of prime free agent destinations whenever free agency opens—they may be able to bring in Tyler Toffolli and another top-tier unrestricted free agent without breaking much of a sweat.
Chicago Blackhawks: Brent Seabrook
I tied myself in knots over this preview trying to find a way to get Seabrook off the Hawks’ books, settling ultimately on a P.K. Subban trade that I’m still not 100 percent sure is even possible. The introduction of compliance buyouts makes it more likely the Hawks just wipe Seabrook off the books for nothing and try to use the opened up cap space to snare an unrestricted free agent defenseman instead of taking a gamble on a Subban trade—or, they could still make the Subban trade but try to get New Jersey to add value to the trade instead of having to sweeten the pot to get New Jersey to take on Seabrook. Willis picked Seabrook as his candidate too, though the Hawks could lose their minds and decide Seabrook is an important part of the room for no reason at all and try to buy out Calvin de Haan or Andrew Shaw instead. It’d be stupid, but they could certainly give it a shot.
Vancouver Canucks: Loui Eriksson
I didn’t even mention Eriksson in my Canucks preview because I couldn’t envision any possibility Vancouver could get off his albatross of a contract (cap hit of $6 million), but a compliance buyout would certainly do the trick. There was no way the Canucks had a chance at retaining Toffolli before, but if they buy Eriksson out it’s possible they could find a way to fit Toffolli and goaltender Jacob Markstrom under the cap. The savings on Eriksson aren’t great—it’s supposed to be buyout proof until next year—and that’s why he’s a perfect compliance candidate. To get the full $6 million in relief on the cap would be a godsend for the cap strapped and very young Canucks, who need all the room possible as they work to retain as much of their core as possible while holding onto enough space when they come off their entry level deals to be able to surround them with some solid veteran role players. Willis picked Eriksson too, but the other option is to undo the mistake of tying up $6 million per year in Tyler Myers until he’s 34 years-old. Why was that a mistake? Because he wasn’t worth $6 million per year as a 29 year-old, and it’s only going to get worse. Having a mulligan on that contract, which still has four years left on it, would be nice, but I imagine Vancouver is too proud to admit after one year that they’ve made a massive mistake, plus Myers isn’t a pure negative player—just a relatively ineffective one at the price he’s paid. I’d seriously consider it—he’d be a prime buyout candidate if he was on any other team in the NHL (except Detroit)—but he’s not on any other team. He’s on the team that has Loui Eriksson, a glorified healthy scratch guy, signed for two more years at $6 million on an unbury-able, unbuyout-able contract. It has to go—at least Myers will eat some minutes and tread water.
Arizona Coyotes: No Buyout
Willis picked Michael Grabner, but he’ll either be on LTIR, be a useful player, or just be slightly overpaid for one year before hitting the open market and leaving Arizona. I wouldn’t pull the trigger. Tom traded Alex Gologoski and Derek Stepan in salary dumps, but the value he got back in those moves was far better than cap space. I think standing pat is the way to go for Arizona unless something seriously changes.
[Editor’s Note: If you are neither childish nor a future employer, now is when you can click out of this newsletter. Bye!
Ok let’s do the fun stuff. Everything below is either fiction or satire. It’s definitely not written by Jack Goldman, I swear. Seriously, he didn’t do it.]
GARBAGE: The Last Dance Has Inspired More Players to Tell LEGENDARY Michael Jordan Stories, and You Won’t Believe Number Seven
By Jonathan Silverman
We asked NBA players to tell their favorite Michael Jordan stories in concert with the release of ESPN’s The Last Dance. These are their stories.
Antoine Walker, former Celtic: “One time, I was guarding MJ when he brought the ball up while he was in Washington and he asked me with a straight face if I’d just come onto the court after finishing a three Blizzards from Dairy Queen. I had, but I didn’t want him to know that. He then proceeded to score 40 and I tore my hamstring when he shot the ball off my face into the hoop. I knew my days in Boston were numbered at that point.”
Steve Kerr, former Bull: “One time, MJ apologized for punching me in the face that one time, then he stole my children in the dark of night, turned them into better basketball players than me, and then revealed his treachery when I went to a basketball camp and asked kids if they wanted to play one-on-one. My former son, now Michael “Sort of Junior But Not” Jordan, III, f—king schooled me for an hour straight. Then MJ punched me in the face again and told me if I didn’t pass him the ball he was going to kidnap the rest of my family before the week was out. I never made another mistake in my life, he was an excellent teammate.”
Horace Grant, former Bull: “One time, MJ asked me how I could see out of my goggles when I was sweating. When I started to explain, he just held up one hand, stopped me, and said ‘I ain’t playing around anymore, go play with Shaq so I can absolutely ruin you in a few years.’ Then he picked up my lunch, ate it while never breaking eye contact, and then used me as collateral in a high stakes poker game. I’ve never been more honored.”
Shaquille O’Neal, former Laker and Magic: “One time, MJ told me I was his dog now and told me he expected me at his door the next day with a leash in my hand so he could take me for a walk around the neighborhood to get me back in shape, or else. I was so scared I actually went to MJ’s house the next morning. He just laughed at me and slammed the door in my face. I was so disappointed that I never got in shape for basketball ever again.”
Karl Malone, former Jazz: [sobbing noises]
Hakeem Olajuwon, former Rocket: “Thank God that asshole took a few years off. I needed that title man. I needed it. And you know I wasn’t getting that s—t unless he was grounding out to second for a few years. Good riddance to that dude.”
Jalen Rose, former Pacer: “If Michael hadn’t retired before Kobe roasted my ass, he probably would’ve come out the next night and scored 90 on me just to prove he was better.”
Paul Pierce, former Celtic: “One time, MJ told me my facial hair looked like if pubes were cut off my body, roasted in the sun for three weeks, and then glued back onto my face in the form of a ‘beard,’ and I was so honored by the compliment that I’ve kept that look to this day despite the fact that I’m now paid to go on national TV and supposedly look good during halftime shows.”
Shawn Kemp, former Sonic: “Jordan told me to go have a thousand kids and pick up substance abuse issues because he didn’t like playing against me, so I did it because I didn’t want to die.”
Scottie Pippen, former Bull: “One time, Steve Kerr bought me a bag of Cheetos, and Michael said I was selfish for eating them and not giving them to MJ for free. He was right. F—k Jerry Krause.”
John Stockton, former Jazz: “I should’ve kneed more people in the balls, then maybe I would’ve won a title. Oh, MJ sucks, I’m a big Sam Dekker fan though.”
Allen Iverson, former Sixer: “One time, me and MJ spent $4 million dollars at the club. That was the afternoon before I stepped over Ty Lue’s sorry ass in the finals. Never say MJ couldn’t motivate you to be better via strippers.”
Pat Riley, former Knicks coach: “I should’ve put a mafia hit on MJ, then I might’ve won a title in New York. Then again...he was awesome to watch, I’ve won plenty of championships, I’m glad it played out the way it did.”
Phil Jackson, former Bulls coach: “God I’m high as f—k did you guys know it’s 4/20 all month long? It’s like Toyotathon, but for weed, amazing stuff. Did you see my mustache?”
GARBAGE: A UGBC Letter Calling on the BC Administration to “Fix All My S—t, Please”
By Jonathan Silverman
This article was influenced in absolutely no way by this letter whatsoever.
Dear Boston College Administrators, and also, Mom,
Since the University’s decision to suspend on-campus academic operations one month ago, thousands of Boston College students, faculty, and staff have made the selfless decision to walk around their homes naked, prancing around like models, sacrificing their pants for the greater good—no, the greater great—of our community. The sacrifice we made by going home and not killing every single person on campus by breathing coronavrius all over each other because we have no impulse control is so incredible that we, the writers of this letter, are just boundlessly horny over how hot we are and how selfless we are and how much we give to others we are.
We are the reason the coronavirus is no longer spreading through the United States, no longer killing anyone, and the reason why America is safe. We are just as effective as Donald Trump has been.
Because of that, we have some f—king requests.
We want cheese available at every food kiosk on campus and in the greater Chestnut Hill area, we want it to be vegan cheese, and we want it to be free. Why? Cause f—k you, that’s why, we saved the country, we’ll do what we want.
We want you to hire 15,000 aides who will walk us to class, ask us how our days are going, spoon feed us our daily yogurt snack, and assure us that every insane decision we made last weekend was justified, even that “vomit on the radiator” thing—Tim had it coming, so what, his apartment is going to smell like a dead person for a month, HE WANTED ME TO STOP DRINKING THAT’S HIS PROBLEM NOW.
In addition to the 15,000 aides, we’d also like you to build dormitories to house our parents for when we want some cash. Why? Because Venmo is tiresome—we want to see the dead look in our parents eyes when we ask them for $30 because we really want some Malibu this weekend because we had to write a paper AND help a poor person (net worth less than $3 million) this week.
The BRAVERY of this campus’ students is unrivaled—do you see BU kids forgetting to pull their pants down before they go to the bathroom in their parents homes after celebrating the ultimate marathon Monday (4/20/20, Dad, weed is ok on 4/20/20 and so is eating opiates)? No you don’t. They’re cowards. They don’t know what it’s like to fight on the front lines of the coronavirus from the comfort of your couch while you watch either porn, Tiger King, or Two and a Half Men like a true American hero.
Also, when we return, we’d like every member of the administration, faculty, and staff to refer to each and every student as your majesty. If you use a gender pronoun before that title, you’re to immediately sacrifice yourself to Doug Flutie, the patron saint of the mods and BC students’ right to abuse property because their mom didn’t pack their favorite necklace and wouldn’t “loan” me $400,000 for a new Jeep Grand Cherokee. If you don’t think they’re worth that much, I have three words for you: You are a dumb bitch and I’m definitely not using that money for anything other than my Jeep and my Rubi that definitely isn’t just gasoline distilled in blue Kool Aid.
Also, just give me a bunch of f—kin A+’s while you’re at it. I have to click on a link to get into Zoom classes—what are we a bunch of f—king sheep? Get your heads out of your asses, don’t give me a grade for that. Pass fail? How about all you old in charge people pass a kidney stone and say hello to my pet Eagle, I named it double bird because double f—k you, good sirs and madams.
The implementation of this A+ only policy would destigmatize being an idiot who doesn’t know how to “make a phone call” or “send an email” or “put on your big boy pants in the morning” or “drink Miller Lite without spilling it all over myself” or “drink my kale milkshake without puking immediately.” That stigma turns each and every one of us into a member of the marginalized population in this country, and we’re pretty sure that means we must deserve more stuff because we definitely don’t have enough stuff. Do we even get any stuff?
That brings us to our next demand: We want some stuff. We feel left out of the stuff game. Without stuff, are we even humans? Give us stuff. And if we don’t like the stuff, apologize and give us your children, but not the ugly ones, only the independently wealthy ones that can take care of themselves but will make themselves available for when we want to pet them like dogs. Because dogs are stuff when you really think about it, and we want your children to serve us.
This would best provide equity to the overall undergraduate community, that doesn’t have any equity as things stand. We don’t want to disincentivize, devalue, de-dab, de-emphasize, de-beat a dead horse, decompress, deep-fry, or delude students from their determination to get a job with a starting salary high enough not to have roommates. We have sacrificed enough by not getting to live in squalor on your campus and return to our homes to play video games, watch television, and most importantly not pay attention.
It’s time you paid us back. Also, like, blow up Carney or whatever that place sucks lol. Fix all my s—t, please, and if you don’t, your families will be held hostage and forced to eat Five Guys instead of Shake Shack for up to six hours.
Respectfully submitted (but not actually though, may we remind you that you can go f—k yourselves unless we can write off your children on our tax returns and you bring me my Starbucks on my knees to my home in Kanye’s house in Wyoming),
Chad
Rebecca
Steve
Jennnn
And Chad, again
All, definitely, UGBC representatives.
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Jack Goldman is the publisher of this here newsletter and an independent reporter who goes to Boston College in his spare time, apparently. You shouldn’t follow him on Twitter @the_manofgold. You definitely shouldn’t subscribe and share A View Off a Ledge, which you definitely can’t do using those buttons right below here. They’re right there, seriously, just hit one and see what happens. I promise it won’t lead to you losing all your stuff. That would just be…cruel. I could never.