Be cautious, Illumination. These early season records are not what they seem. Except for the Lakers, they're going to continue to have issues unless they find a creative way out of the Russell Westbrook Category.
Truth Teller Babak Somekh joins the program to discuss the paper he co-wrote with Paolo Falco and Mauro Caselli titled 'Inside the NBA Bubble: How Black Players Performed Better without Fans'.
Finally, Amin shares his first Inconvenient Truth from the new season, concerning Adam Silver's flirtation with relegation and how to properly incentivize tanking teams.
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Tanking Incentives

Tired of agenda-driven basketball talk that only offers glimpses of the truth? Wish there was a place you could get the full picture? Basketball Illuminati offers you salvation. Go behind the scenes with exclusive analysis previously restricted from the general public. Fearless NBA Insiders Amin Elhassan and Tom Haberstroh peel back the curtain on why things happen in the NBA.

Comedy

Sports

Basketball

While the rest of the league has been working on bulking up and getting in shape, Media Day has us in our feelings thanks to Jimmy Butler's new look.
Damian Lillard to Milwaukee, Jrue Holiday to Boston, everyone but Tyler Herro to Portland... It was a busy weekend. Meanwhile, Nikola Jokic clocks back in to work.
The voice of Basketball Illuminati himself Pablo Torre is here to share how he found out about the inciting phrase from Jordan Poole that elicited the infamous Draymond Green punch.
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Basketball Illuminati Finds Out

Dwyane Wade has started a campaign to tell every other superstar player that they were the reason he called and asked LeBron to take his talents to South Beach.
The Warriors finally solved their depth issues... By bringing in renowned bleeping tough guy Rodney McGruder instead of Juan Toscano Anderson?
Finally, limited fake Tim Bontemps Did His Own Research, surveying league insiders about who's gonna win the title, while Amin has some inconvenient insight into that investigation.
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Tough Guy Talk

An intrepid Twitter researcher @OtownNBA compiled a list of players that have racked up the most 'Bang!' calls by Mike Breen in the last decade.
As the Damian Lillard saga drags on towards training camp, the Illuminati look back at the greatest September trades in history, including an NBA Finals loser bringing in a star that propelled them to a title.
Then Tom Did His Own Research on which cities in the NBA had the highest and lowest participation rate by star players, meaning how likely they are to play when they come to town.
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September to Remember

The day after Novak Djokovic celebrated his 24th title and honored Kobe Bryant with a Mamba Forever shirt, Aaron Rodgers tore his achilles wearing the number 8. What is going on in NY?
The league's competition committee is incorporating a new fine system to govern star player rest, however there are a plethora of exceptions, which we are calling the NBA Acceptable Rest Protocol.
Team USA came up short of the bronze medal against Canada, so Tom Did His Own Research and put together 4 teams worth of players that could compete with Anthony Edwards and company.
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NBAARP

Andre Drummond makes a bold proclamation about his career and hall of fame status, so the Illumination digs into the numbers behind his claim.
Despite a brief hitch in their giddyup against Lithuania, Team USA rolled Italy in the FIBA quarterfinals, and there might be a motivational factor hiding in plain sight.
Finally, back at the end of May, we brought on a Truth Teller that connected the dots on Referee Eric Lewis' burner account. Lo and behold, three months later, he retired and vanished into the wind. What happened?
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Tanking Incentives

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