The Week That Was (June 1-5, 2026)
A roundup of what I wrote, read, watched, etc. over the past week.
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.
📝 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.
⚽ Is the U.S. Men’s National Team Finally Ready for a Breakthrough? - As World Cup co-hosts, it’s time once again put the USMNT under the microscope and see whether they’re on the verge of making any more progress than their usual Round of 16 exit.
🏈 The Liberation of Myles Garrett - With Garrett heading to the Rams in this week’s blockbuster deal, I looked at the historic disconnect of his Cleveland tenure, between individual and team success.
🏀 A couple of NBA Finals preview-ish pieces:
The Spurs Rebuilt Their Dynasty in Fast-Forward - San Antonio’s rapid return to the NBA Finals came after the franchise completely cleared out its old championship core, hit rock-bottom, and then constructed a new powerhouse around Victor Wembanyama on a historically fast timeline.
The Knicks Are Trying to Become the Team Who Used to Haunt Them - In a weird bit of historical irony, Jalen Brunson and the 2026 Knicks followed the same breakthrough blueprint of the 1991 Jordan Bulls by refusing to blow up their core after years of playoff heartbreak.
🏁 Taking stock: Five drivers trending up, down since start of May - For NASCAR, I wrote about 10 drivers — five up, five down — who saw their fortunes change in the month of May.
🏁🎙️ Podracing: Who’s Up, Who’s Down? - In this week’s Podracing, Tyler Lauletta and I recapped Denny Hamlin’s dramatic win at Nashville — with multiple cars on different strategies duking it out — before talking about my piece on trending drivers, and looked ahead to Michigan, where speed still rules:
🚨 Special announcement: Tyler was unfortunately among the recent Sports Illustrated layoffs, so he is a free agent if you want somebody to do a great job blogging and writing newsletters for you!!
🏒 The 2026 Stanley Cup Final Is About Who Can Outrun Regression - With Carolina and Vegas battling for the Cup, I examined why the series could hinge on whether unexpected playoff heroes — particularly goalies Frederik Andersen and Carter Hart — can continue outrunning regression-to-the-mean for one more round.
⚾🎙️Behind the Numbers: Baseball SABR Style on SiriusXM: Dan Szymborski, Neil Paine - I joined my friend Vince Gennaro to talk about what’s drawing my attention in the 2026 MLB season thus far.
📊 Chart(s) of the week:
Here were my favorite items of the week from Scoreboard, my daily newsletter for Sherwood News…
🏒 On Brett Howden’s remarkable playoff heater…
⚾ On Cristopher Sánchez’s scoreless-inning streak…
🏀 On the market’s flagging faith in the Indiana Fever…
🏀 On the NBA’s eight different champs in eight years…
🏀 On the Knicks’ Game 1 Finals comeback…
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👀 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. I don’t always 100% agree with or endorse what’s linked here… but that’s also sort of the point.
⚾ How loaded Texas Tech fell short again in the WCWS by Stewart Mandel
⚾ A Giant Narrative Change by Bill Johnson
⚾ The domination of one-run victories in Major League Baseball by Mark Kolier
⚾ In Praise Of The Marlins Boxscore Guys by Chase Thomas
Related: Chase’s story alerted me to this cool site.
🏀 I Will Miss the Sixers Having a Front Office Guy With Personality by Andrew Unterberger
🏀 The Endorsement: Rooting for Terrible Teams by Michael Weinreb
🏀 The New Excitement Index is now live for NBA and WNBA win probabilities by Michael Beuoy
🏀 Chet Holmgren and the $240 Million Disappearing Act by Kevin O’Connor
🏒 A wild ride in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final by James Mirtle
🏒 SCF Spotlight: Shayne Gostisbehere’s Point Play by Vinh Cao
🏈 A.J. Brown was Football Nirvana: The Eagles part ways with an all-time great by Jeremy Keys
🏈 Real Football: Josh Allen 2.0, Rams as NFL villains, NBA fun & Joe “dime a dozen” Montana by Tyler Dunne
🏈 I wonder if the paths for rookies are trickier by Ben Gretch
⚽ England wins* the World Cup for an eighth successive tournament! by Nick Harris
⚽ Depending where you are in the US, up to 50% of World Cup matches kick off during the workday by Hyunsoo Rim
🏁▶︎ From NFL to NASCAR: Is Jason Kelce Fast Enough? by NASCAR
🎾 In a Loss, Naomi Osaka Gains Her Peace, at Last by Ben Rothenberg
ℹ️ When More Information Creates Less Clarity by Vince Gennaro (Notes from the Quantum Edge)
🌍 The Week in International Sport: Volleyball ratings, test cricket’s popularity and Ivar Stenberg by Ben Wylie
▶️ Old YouTube Game(s) of the Week
NBA Finals 1999 Game 3 New York Knicks vs. San Antonio Spurs
🎵 Music to Play Us Out
“Mario Kart 64 & SNES but it’s Casiopea Jazz Fusion” by Phantasia Records
Filed under: Weekly Round-up