Hello everyone and welcome to the Minescape Podcast.

I'm your host, Sean Carroll.

And as long time listeners know, I'm a physicist, theoretical physicist, I have certain other

interests intellectually, academically so forth, but I also have, you know, my personal

hobbies and my individual enthusiasm.

I try not to force my individual enthusiasm on the Minescape audience too much.

Sometimes it leaks through, we get the occasional jazz musician or poker player, but mostly

we're talking about academic type things.

Today, one of the times when we're going to take a little bit of a detour, we're going

to be talking about basketball and the National Basketball Association, the highest level

of basketball being played out there, but I think this is a special case.

If there is one person, you would want to talk to about the idea of modern basketball

to an audience or with an audience that was intellectually and analytically inclined,

but not necessarily full of basketball fans, it would be today's guests.

Darryl Mori is the general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers.

Now coincidentally, the Philadelphia 76ers are the best basketball team in the world.

I could say this very objectively.

It's not just because I grew up in Philadelphia watching Dr. Jay and Moses Malone and Mocheeke

and Bobby Jones and so forth.

It's just because it's an objective fact.

I don't always win.

At the top of the heap, when it comes to one's favorite basketball team, if one is just

...