The Nerd Who Knew Too Much

EPISODE 271: Basketball Heaven.

I am numb to pretty much every story about statistics in sports, at this point.

And that’s largely because the war is over.

The nerds have gone from being stuffed into lockers to owning the entire building. Famous jocks are now a constant presence at CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, every summer, because their side gig is investing in tech startups. The star of Moneyball, which got six Oscar nominations, was Brad Pitt.

But today’s episode is an exception.

Rich Levine and Nick Altschuller are two journalists, longtime friends, and NBA obsessives who spent months reporting the strange and lost story of Martin Manley. And they titled the results of their full investigation Chasing Basketball Heaven — now a multi-part audio series, brought to you by 30 For 30 Podcasts and Meadowlark Media and Bradley Campbell (last seen probing a Russian oligarch’s German soccer team for PTFO). I highly encourage you to check it out.

Because the thing about history is that it’s written by the victors.

But Martin Manley wasn’t a victor.

And both writing and history are hard sells, lately, either way.

YOUTUBE SPOILER ALERT:

Sincerely,

Pablo