Skip Navigation
Matthew Yglesias

Matthew Yglesias - Matthew Yglesias is a fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
More

Matthew Yglesias is a fellow at the Center for American Progress. His first book, with the working title Heads in the Sand: Iraq and the Strange Death of Liberal Internationalism, scheduled to be published next spring by John Wiley and co., deals with the Democratic Party's struggle to find a post-9/11 foreign policy, focusing primarily on the rise and (hopefully) fall of the liberal hawk movement.

Previously, he was a staff writer at The American Prospect and an Associate Editor at TPM Media, where he contributed to the group blogs Tapped and TPMCafe. His main blog, now at The Atlantic, has existed in various forms since the dark ages of the blogosphere in January 2002.

His writing has appeared in The Guardian, Slate, The New Republic, and The Washington Monthly, and he is a regular on BloggingHeads.tv and makes the occasional radio or television appearance.

Desperately out of touch with the American mainstream, Yglesias was born and raised in Manhattan and studied philosophy at Harvard where he was editor in chief of The Harvard Independent, a campus alternative weekly.

His latest writings can be found on the Matthew Yglesias blog.

« Previous Politics | Next Politics » Email Email Print Print

Defense Wins Championships, Damnit!

By Matthew Yglesias

Feb 20 2007, 9:52 AM ET Comment

I continue to think the San Antonio Spurs are being oddly underestimated. Yes, yes, they're "only" at a .660 winning percentage. Yes, they're scheduled for the fourth seed behind Dallas, Phoenix, and Utah. Yes, it's even true that "With Yao, Houston could potentially bump San Antonio down to No. 3 in the All-Texas Standings, stunning as that sounds." That said, look at the point differentials. Dallas is 7.4, Phoenix and San Antonio are both 7.3, Houston is 5.6, is 2.9.

Obviously, that's a classic quant argument and I do expect sportswriters to ignore point differential in favor of crude W-L. The weird thing is that all the other sportswriterly considerations also point in favor of adopting a forgiving attitude toward San Antonio's record; this is a classic curmudgeon's team, full of Veteran Leadership, featuring an NBA Legend, a the Best Coach, the Defense, Robert Horry, etc. Plus, it's an odd numbered year which, on its own terms, overwhelmingly favors the Spurs. I'm not saying I'd take an even-odds bet that San Antonio will win it all (odds are they'll need to beat Houston, Dallas, and Phoenix to get to the Finals, which is, um, hard to do) but I don't understand writing them off, either. People remember the way the Suns ran away with the 2004-2005 regular season (Joe Johnson was the fourth guy on that team), right?

Presented by

More at The Atlantic

Mutts Mobilize in Midtown Against Mitt Mutts Mobilize in Midtown Against Mitt
Greece Is on Pace for the Worst Recession in Modern History Why the Greek Recession Could Get Much Worse
Obama's Promise to Halve the Deficit Was a Bad Idea Obama's Silly Pledge to Halve the Deficit
The Many Questions Surrounding Walmart's 'Great for You' Initiative Does Walmart Want What's Great For You?
5 Lessons From the Rise of the BRICs 5 Lessons From the World's Great Rising Economies

Join the Discussion

After you comment, click Post. If you’re not already logged in you will be asked to log in or register.
blog comments powered by Disqus
Special Report
The Civil War National Portrait Gallery The Civil War
A 150th-anniversary commemorative issue, with Atlantic work by Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, and others. Read more ›

Correspondents

View All Correspondents

The Biggest Story in Photos

World Press Photo Contest 2012

Feb 15, 2012

The Atlantic Wire

what matters now in politics
Last Update: 7:00 PM

Subscribe Now

SAVE 59%! 10 issues JUST $2.45 PER COPY

Facebook

Newsletters

Sign up to receive our free newsletters

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)