How Baylor Happened
WACO, Texas — There’s not much to recommend spending four years in Waco. Driving into town up Interstate 35 from the south, the endless stretch of Texas nothing fills out slowly. It’s flat in the way you think Texas is flat. Empty fields give way to John Deere dealerships, then fast-food chains. On ...
No One Wants Publicly-Financed Stadiums—Except The People Who Count
The Milwaukee Bucks have—obvious exception aside—been a depressing team to watch this season. The defense that made them one of the surprise teams of 2014-15 has completely disappeared. The gamble on Michael Carter-Williams as the point guard of the future has been a disaster, as Carter-Williams has...
America Has Always Wanted To Pretend That Sports Aren't Work
Last month, given the chance to affirm that college athletes have basic labor rights, the National Labor Review Board punted. It’s rare that a sports metaphor so perfectly crafted for lazy headline writers is so fitting, but punting—the most cowardly, spineless, and responsibility-evading decision r...
NBA Court Factors: How Assists Aren't As Unbiased As You Think
There will never be any question over what it means to have scored 25 points, or recorded a number of rebounds, blocks, or steals. Sure, if we've learned anything in the age of analytics it's that raw stats can be misleading—they fail to account for pace or efficiency—but at least they are facts. Ru...