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‘Hot Takedown’ Wonders: Do Stars Matter?

Hot takedown analyzes whether stars matter

After Chris Paul and Alex Ovechkin were knocked out of their playoffs this month, there were a lot of hot takes about how neither was a big enough star to carry his team to a championship. On this week’s “Hot Takedown,” Kate Fagan, Neil Paine and Chadwick Matlin look at some of the research on whether you need a star to win a title, or whether winning a title makes you a star. According to Neil’s analysis, the sport that relies on star players the most is basketball — then come baseball, football and hockey.

Hot Takedown
 

Here are the notes Neil worked from for the conversation:

Jody Avirgan hosts and produces podcasts for FiveThirtyEight.

Kate Fagan is a writer for espnW and a regular panelist on the FiveThirtyEight sports podcast Hot Takedown.

Neil Paine was the acting sports editor at FiveThirtyEight.

Chadwick Matlin was a deputy managing editor at FiveThirtyEight.

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