“In 2010-11, there were 18 documented calf injuries across the entire season. Last season, there were 60. This season, 86. ” - Kirk Goldsberry, data author, from his article linked below.
🎙 Leading Off
Heading to an Amigo’s house for Wolves-Spurs tonight. Game 6. A minimum of 4 children under 4 will be scurrying around the house. My goals:
Chart loose ball/deflections for bench players including Keldon Johnson, Mike Conley, and Luke Kornet.
Track Quality Box Outs for each Minnesota Big to better understand the Battle of the Boards.
Record Open Looks Generated by baseline drives from Castle and Harper.
Those are the keys to the game fellas. Gotta grind that tape and ship the notes off to your quant to see who has the edge in Game 7.
🏈 Hard In The Paint
(RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
God I wish for once I could just write about the NBA playoffs instead of football. Deliver me the strength to invest mental capacity in the Thunder instead of the NFL’s Schedule Release Extravaganza. Heal me from this calendar exercise and lift me up with two competitive Game 6’s Friday night. Or wait till next week.
Compare/contrast moment: the NFL spent weeks strategically leaking marquee schedule dates, spent Thursday releasing all the games, and had a two-hour ESPN featured launch show to chat about all the possibilities. It hijacked an entire date in May, when the best the NBA could do for its Draft Lottery was 30 minutes on Mother’s Day. And the hijacking doesn’t end there.
The 2026 NFL schedule features the following:
2 Wednesday games (one to open the season, one on Thanksgiving Eve)
A Friday game after Thanksgiving
3 Friday Christmas games
9 international games featuring: Madrid, Melbourne, London, Paris, Rio, Mexico City, Munich
4 weeks that feature games on at least 4 nights
You know the Why (money). If this schedule feels like overload, understand it’s just the beginning. This is one of the last seasons before the NFL goes for the Mega Calendar. How are they going to pull it off? League executives are openly discussing an 18 game schedule and will likely have to concede a second bye week for each team. The additional bye could serve to enable even more Wednesday night football. A full 2 weeks off is just so much to ask these owners to forfeit, but 1.5 weeks has a nice ring to it. More to the point, as part of the Great Stream, the NFL linked up with Amazon and Netflix. Therefore, they have no need to worry about bumping the Big Bang Theory or whatever the hell CBS shows on mid-week nights that they’d want to protect from an NFL game. Beyond that, every traditional media company has their own streaming service. If push came to shove, I’m sure Survivor and Raiders-Chiefs could air at the same time on Paramount+.
Americans (me) watch NFL games whenever, wherever, however we can. Last year’s Chiefs-Cowboys Thanksgiving surpassed 57m viewers. Not every Wednesday game in 2027 is going to come near that, but the NFL’s insatiable appetite for more media windows guarantees we’ll see mid-week football. Enjoy softball or bowling or sketch comedy while you can, come October 2027, you’ll be dedicating Wednesday night to Titans-Saints.
📻 Over The Air
🔗 Injuries: NBA, lower leg - (Ringer)
🔗 Rays inch towards a new $2b stadium – (ESPN)
🔗 Jazz, Wizards Summit about the #1 pick – (Hoopsrumors)
📡 JumboTron: Tonight’s Must Watch
All times PST
PGA Championship at Aronimink, 9:00am ESPN
Pistons vs Cavaliers, 4:00pm Prime
Spurs vs Timberwolves, 6:30pm Prime
☎️ The Phone Line
Best thing on the timeline today:
🎵 Walkup Song
▶️ For the Golden Knights knocking off the Ducks in the NHL Playoffs:
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