📝 The Week That Was (June 24-28, 2024)

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

Jun 29, 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

Stealing a bit from Will Leitch’s newsletter format, here are the things I wrote or podcasted about during the previous week, sorted in descending order by quality, popularity and/or current relevance.

🏀 Which NBA Teams Get the Most Bang for Their Free-Agency Buck? - With NBA free agency opening soon, I used Spotrac data since 2011 to look for which teams have spent the best — and worst — in free agency (based on surplus WAR value).
🏀 The Sixers are going free-agent shopping. They’ve previously hit the market with mixed results. - Relatedly, I used that same data to look at the Sixers in particular, as they lead the NBA in practical cap space to spend.
⚾ Why Are the Cubs So Very Mediocre? - I thought the Cubs would be pretty good going into the 2024 season, particularly if a few things broke their way. Which they kind of have! So why is Chicago still just painfully mid (at best)?
🏀 Do We Know a Weak NBA Draft When We See It? - If there was one thing anybody knew about the 2024 NBA Draft class, it was this group’s lack of can’t-miss star power. But how good are we at predicting how weak (or strong) any draft class will be?
🏒 The Florida Panthers Got Tough Enough to Win the Cup 🏆 - Two years ago, the Panthers were a great regular season team that couldn’t get over the playoff hump. But one radical makeover (and some huge growing pains) later, Florida found themselves hoisting the Stanley Cup this past Monday night.
🏁 Kyle Busch has broken out of slumps like this before: Can he do it again? - With Busch mired in one of the worst 6-race stretches of his career, my assignment at NASCAR.com was to see how he tended to respond to previous slumps — and whether the next few tracks might help in that regard.
🏀 12 Quick Takes: Big NBA Trades, the Draft & Free Agency - As my contribution to
Royce Webb
’s offseason, I covered Mikal Bridges’ fascinating journey from role player to star scorer… and possibly back again with the Knicks now.
🏀 The Sixers pick outside the lottery — and that’s not the worst thing - At the Philly Inquirer, I wrote about why the Sixers might be able to get better value with the No. 16 pick than we’d expect. (And I think that ended up being particularly true after they took Duke’s Jared McCain.)
🏒 Can the Oilers End Canada’s Stanley Cup Losing Streak in Game 7s? - Ahead of Stanley Cup Finals Game 7, I dug into the previous do-or-die Finals losses by Canadian teams during their Cup drought. (The Oilers will end up yet ANOTHER cautionary tale from history the next time we do this.)
🏒 How would Oilers' run compare to other great series comebacks? ($) - At ESPN, I took a pre-Game 7 look at where Edmonton’s potential 3-0 comeback would have ranked (according to championship probability added) relative to other all-time comebacks of that ilk — or ones of the 3-1 variety — in the NBA, NHL and MLB.
🏈 SPECIAL ROUNDUP!!! The Underdog -
Smayan Srikanth
was nice enough to ask me to add an interesting sports underdog to his collection. I picked the Detroit Lions, one of only two NFL teams (along with the Cleveland Browns, of course) who’ve existed 30+ years and never made a Super Bowl.
🏒 Goons: 2024! Stanley Cup! Game Seven! Preview! -
Walter Hickey
and I did our yearly hockey podcast episode before Game 7 of the Finals.