Look at this Graph
Charts I Liked In May
The calendar just keeps flipping, flipping, into the future. Welcome to June, and another roundup of my favorite charts of the month.
The Knicks Streak
Where else could we possibly start than with the New York Knicks. This good-but-not-great Regular Season team found a new gear in May. They demolished their Eastern Conference opponents all month and broke many analysts’ brains in the process. They just won their 12th straight game1 to extend what has been the single best run in NBA history, as Lev Akabas pointed out on Instagram.
The Knicks have outscored their opponents by a record 272 points over this 12-game winning streak, nearly 23 points per game. If they can close out the Spurs, this season’s Knicks squad may cement themselves as the best Playoff team of all time.
GOAT Jalen Brunson
Lev has had the best visual coverage of the Knicks this postseason, including this chart where he conveniently got to put Jalen Brunson’s head slightly above Michael Jordan’s.
Brunson only got two first-place votes for Regular Season Clutch Player of the year,2 but those two voters may have been on to something. In the biggest moments imaginable, close games, with time winding down, in the Playoffs, no player in NBA history has been better than Jalen Brunson. By both efficiency and volume, he’s been even better than Michael Jordan.
Cool People
Michael Jordan is still cooler than Jalen Brunson though, at least according to this YouGov survey from April. I’m guessing most of these survey takers are basing their responses on these dunks rather than his interviews in “MJ: Insights to Excellence”.
Taking politics out of it, Barack Obama may be the coolest guy in the room. As you can see above, he has the third highest share of “very cool” (dark purple), but his overall rank is dragged down by the 25% (presumably political opponents) who think he’s “not at all cool”. I’m sorry, but regardless of politics, this is cool.
Strata Hoops
One of the coolest new Instagram pages I found last month was Strata Hoops. These guys break down the numbers you should care about behind the biggest stars and matchups, through beautiful visuals. Give them a follow if you don’t already!
Christopher Nolan’s Collaborators
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey comes out next month, and to get ready my fiancé and I have been watching/rewatching his entire filmography.3 So we found these visuals fun, showing which actors appear in the most of his films.
Relatedly, someone calculated that, with The Odyssey, Hollywood has now spent over $600B bringing Matt Damon back home.
Cheap Costco
If you don’t have $600B laying around, consider shopping at CostCo!4 A new study from Consumer Reports found that the big box store sells the cheapest stuff, and I’m assuming that doesn’t even account for the free lunch you can get by going from sample table to sample table. Plus, (wedding hack) they have a very generous return policy.
I’ll have more coverage of the NBA Finals and WNBA next week. Subscribe below to make sure you get that directly into your inbox!
If you’re craving more cool charts here are the Jan, Feb, Mar, and Apr editions.
This was written last night. It’s now 13-straight for New York!
He did win it last season.
The Prestige would be in my Letterboxd “four favorites”
Nailed that segue.