By Neil Paine, Chris Herring and Kyle Wagner
Welcome to The Lab, FiveThirtyEight’s basketball podcast. On this week’s show (Dec. 7, 2017), Neil, Chris and Kyle explore the Cleveland Cavaliers’ current winning streak. After a tough start to the season, the Cavs have won 13 games in a row. How long can it last? Next, they break down what’s going so right for the Rockets’ James Harden this season. He is first or second in nearly every advanced metric and is the early favorite to be MVP. But will Harden’s excellence be enough for Houston to challenge Golden State this season? The Lab investigates. Plus, a small-sample segment on the recent string of star player ejections.
Here are links to what was discussed this week:
- Keep an eye on our 2017-18 NBA predictions, updated after every game.
- Kyle wrote about how LeBron James is still getting better.
- The Washington Post’s Neil Greenberg investigated when we can expect the Cavs’ win streak to end.
- Neil took a look at James Harden’s MVP campaign and asked whether it can survive the return of Chris Paul.