Welcome to The Lab, FiveThirtyEight’s basketball podcast. On this week’s show (March 1, 2018), Neil, Chris and Kyle chat about Jimmy Butler’s recent injury and how it might affect the Minnesota Timberwolves, who are currently on track to make the playoffs. Next, they dive into tanking in the NBA. As of our taping, eight teams were within 2.5 games of having the league’s worst record. The crew take a look at why that number is so high this season and offer suggestions on how to reduce tanking. Plus, a significant digit on the New Orleans Pelicans’ Anthony Davis.

Here are links to what was discussed this week: