FiveThirtyEight’s top stories this week
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Sunday, June 24, 2018
1. Which Teams Made The Biggest Gambles On NBA Draft Night?
The NBA draft is a time for optimism, the launching pad for 60 pro careers full of aspirations of championships and star-making moments. In reality, though, only a couple will likely become stars; many more will become key role players, while others will barely sniff the league. Here are the biggest questions about those future careers -- and the teams investing in them -- that arose out of Thursday night’s proceedings:
2. The Next Phase Of NBA Superteam Technology: Creating One From Scratch
When healthy, San Antonio Spurs swingman Kawhi Leonard is a card-carrying MVP candidate and one of the game’s premier all-around talents. But here’s the thing: Leonard hasn’t really been healthy since the 2017 playoffs, when he landed awkwardly on Zaza Pachulia’s foot in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals. Between that season-ending ankle sprain and a mysterious quad injury that sidelined Leonard for all but nine games of the 2017-18 season -- fueling rumors of a growing rift with the Spurs organization -- most of the recent headlines about Leonard have been over rehab schedules and locker-room turmoil, not his on-court brilliance.
3. Who Is In The Most Trouble: Brazil, Germany Or Argentina?
The World Cup has been full of surprises. Of the five teams rated most likely to win the World Cup before the tournament by FiveThirtyEight’s Soccer Power Index, only France won its first match. Spain, Argentina and Brazil could manage only draws, and worse yet, Germany lost to Mexico. While Spain’s 3-3 draw against Portugal can be excused -- Cristiano Ronaldo’s team is rated the eighth-best side in the tournament and has legitimate hopes of winning the whole thing -- the other three face larger problems.
4. How Trump’s Popularity Is Holding Up, By State
Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.
5. The Most Promising Players In The NBA Draft According To My Computer
We usually don’t release our CARMELO NBA projections until after the NBA draft. But this year, in an effort to procrastinate from other modelling-related tasks, I finished them a little early. We’ll publish the complete set of CARMELO projections later this month, but with the draft scheduled for Thursday night, I wanted to share the system’s take on the best NCAA prospects.
6. An Updated Look At The Race For The Senate
Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.
7. Messi Walks Better Than Most Players Run
In the 12 years since he became the youngest Argentine to score a World Cup goal, Lionel Messi has won more Ballon d’Or trophies, awarded to the world’s best player, than anyone before him. He has scored more official goals in a calendar year than anyone in living memory. He is the top scorer of all time in Spain’s La Liga, and this season, his performances have been characteristically devastating:
8. What Is Really Behind Trump’s Controversial Immigration Policies?
Welcome to Secret Identity, our regular column on identity and its role in politics and policy.
9. Doug Jones Thinks He’s Supposed To Be Here
You probably know Alabama’s new senator, Doug Jones, because he narrowly won a special election last year against a man accused of molesting underage girls. But there are probably quite a few things you don’t know about him. His first name is actually Gordon, and he is left-handed, hitches his head a bit when he’s making a point and is what experts on emotions might call an “active listener.”
10. Separating Families At The Border Is Really Unpopular
We finally have a decent number of polls testing support for the Trump administration’s policy of separating parents from their children at the border. As of early Tuesday, four pollsters -- CBS News, CNN, Quinnipiac and IPSOS -- had released surveys; they found that about two-thirds of the American public oppose the policy, on average.
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