📝 The Week That Was (December 23-27, 2024)

A roundup of what I wrote, read, watched, etc. over the past week.

Dec 28, 2024

In this space on Saturdays, I do a weekly round-up of sorts: Sifting through what I wrote that you might have missed during the week, what I’ve been reading and watching myself, and some other fun things that have been going on. Let me know what you think about the format in the comments (or email me!1), and if there are running sections you’d like to see on a regular basis.

What I did this week

Here are the things I wrote or podcasted about during the previous week, sorted in descending order by quality, popularity and/or current relevance. (This week was admittedly light due to Christmas… 🎄🎁)

🏀 NBA Teams Might Genuinely Be Taking Too Many 3-Pointers Now - My ongoing interrogation of how “The Nerds” affected sports brought me to look into whether the traditional analytics behind the rise of 3-pointers actually even applies anymore to the current NBA.
⚾ Rickey Henderson Brought Baseball’s Past Into the Future - We lost one of baseball’s greatest — and most flamboyant — stars last week. 😢 My tribute to Henderson was focusing on how he changed the leadoff role forever, combining old-school speed with sabermetrics-approved OBP and the power that would become a top-of-the-order staple in the future.
🏀 Breakout seasons for NBA players under age 25: Nine most improved - For ESPN, I looked at the young players who are leveling up the most this season (based on strong Estimated RAPTOR ratings in 2024-25 versus a limited previous record of success).
🎁Let’s Have a Chill Holiday Hangout Opening Trading Cards and Remembering Some Guys!🎄- It was admittedly a bit of a different post for me, but I did a Christmas Eve video where I opened some packs of old hockey cards and waxed nostalgic about the players who came up (and even some players who didn’t!)
🏀 6 Basketball Writers And Their Most Underrated Player of All-Time - I contributed one of the entries to
Jack Zucker
’s list here 😊
Just for fun, here’s the latest College Football Playoff forecast simulation using SRS ratings:2

Also, check out these odds of ending up in each conference playoff seed, based on NFL Elo rating simulations:

Some interesting things I read/watched this week

A collection of articles (with a heavy focus on my fellow Substackers), videos and other media that I enjoyed and/or found thought-provoking over the past week.