The Finder With Tom Haberstroh

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The NBA 82-game regular season is just around the corner. Balls are bouncing. Lineups are forming. Ideas are flowing.

Friend of The Finder Nate Jones, an NBA agent and entrepreneur, joins the pod to propose a wild way to juice fan interest in the NBA regul...

Early this week, I texted Kirk Goldsberry to invite him onto the pod and talk about his awesome new book, HOOP ATLAS: Mapping the Remarkable Transformation of the Modern NBA. He was in. He had one request.

Can we get Brandon Payne on too?

YES.

A man of many talents, Goldsberry is a professor of Sports Analytics at the University of Texas and has worked at ESPN and the San Antonio Spurs, and evidently, he is also a great producer. It ...

You might have seen the Patrick Mahomes stat that went viral this week. The man behind that stat, Neil Paine, joins us this week at The Finder.

An old colleague from the ESPN days, the whip-smart proprietor of Neil’s Substack talks about using numbers to do premium storytelling, his final days at the now-defunct The Messenger, Denver’s altitude as a superpower, the full-circle response to his “infamous” Andrew Wiggins story, reima...

After Kyrie Irving dropped 44 on the red-hot Knicks, we had to run it back with Brandon Payne.

Stephen Curry’s longtime trainer Brandon Payne couldn’t wait to talk about Irving’s array of shot-making, creativity and space creation. What struck me about Irving is how unique his moves are. Totally unpredictable. No one else is like him.

On Frida...

Victor Wembanyama celebrated his 20th birthday by melting candles and melting minds on Thursday.

27 points, 9 rebounds and 5 blocks in just 26 minutes against Milwaukee Bucks’ frontline of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Brook Lopez. The numbers don’t do his performance justice.

The behind-the-back And-1 dunk in transition on Brook Lopez.

The backdoo...

Stephen Curry dropped 36 points on Tuesday night against Orlando with a couple shots that made its way through socials.

Since y’all seemed to love the Steph moonball video we did, I sent out the Brandon Payne bat signal.

He’s been Stephen Curry’s skills trainer and shot guru for Curry for years.

We went through each and every one of Curry’s 12...

One of my favorite people (and a favorite to so many others in the NBA universe), my friend Travonne “Tray” Edwards joins the pod at a very … let’s say transitional time in my life.

The copywriter at top ad agency Weiden-Kennedy / author of two books / confidante to NBA stars / Count The Dings co-founder / social media expert / Compton native / amazing teammate helps me untangle the web of emotions following my mother’s recent deat...

This week’s guest is ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky, a former NFL quarterback and terrific TV analyst for ESPN NFL Live and Monday Night Football. He’s also bff’s with my older brother Chuck.

This week on the pod, we discuss:

* Why don’t pro athletes play two sports anymore? My recent piece on Bo and Deion.

* Why specialization and year-round youth sports is “suffocating” kids

* Why Dan doesn’t want to parent like his father

* Did the end zone blo...

I was going to wait a bit before I launched a podcast on The Finder. And then on Tuesday, ESPN went ahead and announced ESPN The Sportsbook! Kinda.

I had lots of questions so I asked my two industry buddies/gurus to hop on — the Bens.

Ben Fawkes — formerly of ESPN Chalk, the gambling section of ESPN.com, and VSiN — came to us from Vegas to share his sports betting expertise from the inside.

Ben Aronson, a longtime media/marketing exec...