📝 The Week That Was (January 6-10, 2025)

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

Jan 11, 2025

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.

🏀 The Knicks Are Riding Brunson and Towns — But Are They a One-Trick Pony? - Collaborating with my buddy
Marc Campbell
, we wrote about the 2024-25 Knicks — and how their playoff-style reliance on a narrow set of players and plays is a double-edged sword.
🏈 Who’s Got the Best Chance to Win Super Bowl LIX? - With the playoff field finally set, I used a handful of different power ratings to look at each team’s odds to advance to (and win) the Super Bowl.
🏈 Which Dark-Horse NFL Playoff Team Can Crash the Favorites' Super Bowl Party? - Relatedly, I wanted to dig into the reasons why a team outside the heaviest favorites (the Lions, Bills, Ravens, Eagles and Chiefs) can actually make a run at the championship.
🏀 Cooper Flagg, freshmen, defense: Duke dominance by the stats - At ESPN, I wrote about the factors driving Duke’s early success: Yes, it’s Cooper Flagg, but he’s not the only reason the Blue Devils are a threat.
🧊 Can the New York Rangers Salvage Their Season? - After suffering one of the most abrupt in-season collapses of any (previously good) NHL team ever, the Rangers are suddenly in real danger of missing the playoffs.

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.