Brandon Payne hit me up on Monday. Stephen Curry’s longtime trainer couldn’t wait to do another video.

Payne was listening to Hall of Fame point guard Isiah Thomas on Sirius X/M NBA Radio and heard Thomas’ scathing review about today’s style of basketball.

To put it lightly, Isiah ain’t impressed.

Here’s a clip from Isiah’s interview with Rob Perez and A…

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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 regular season: Gamify it.

If the owners aren’t willing to shorten the season from 82 games, there might be an alternative way to raise the stakes and make games matter more. Pulling from his affinity for professional wrestling and Monopoly, Jones introduces The Gauntlet, a points-based system that incentivizes teams to play more and play harder throughout the season.

Instead of the standings being decided by win-loss record, Jones argues for a points-based system that awards bonus points for wins in (but not limited to) the following circumstances:

* Second-night of a back-to-back

* In-Season Tournament

* On the road, especially deep in a road trip.

* National TV

The goal is to transform the NBA from an Inventory Sport into an Event Sport without putting players more at risk for injury. We also look at interesting comps to the Continental Basketball Association 7-point system from the 80s and the FedEx Cup on the PGA Tour.

OK, Finders:

What do we like?

What do we not like?

Let’s hear it.

If you’d like to watch the episode, it’s up on YouTube. (Sorry for my blurry video. We’re still recovering from Hurricane Helene here in NC).

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 was a great hour with Goldsberry and Payne.

Goldsberry’s changed the way we watch and talk about basketball, if not changed basketball itself. In his chapter on Stephen Curry, Goldsberry talked to our pal Brandon Payne, Curry’s longtime trainer, and shared a bunch of insights on what makes Curry one of one. You should pick up Goldsberry’s book at your local Amazon store. Tell ‘em I sent ya!

We caught Payne just before he headed out to The Bay to run some workouts with Curry before he jets off to France for the Olympics this summer. As always, he shared so much wisdom with us about basketball, especially here in the States compared to abroad.

On this episode, we hit a bunch of topics:

* The technology that Stephen Curry uses in workouts

* Why the nose is so important

* Why swishes aren’t good enough for Payne re: Steph

* Goldsberry’s campaign to kill the corner 3

* The return of the bigs

* The problem with American youth basketball

* What is Wemby going to do to basketball?

* Are there too many 3s?