FeedCity: Defector

Defector
27 May 17:09 • Tom Ley

Enough With This Stupid Camera Angle

A terrible thing keeps happening to me. About three hours before the start of each game of the Western Conference Finals, I start to enter the "pumped and jacked zone." That's when I get pumped and jacked for the game, and plan my evening around my excitement to watch it. An...

Defector
27 May 17:09 • Lauren Theisen

That Was Embarrassing

I know that every Presidents' Trophy winner has lost in the playoffs before the Cup Final in each of the last 13 seasons, and that the Colorado Avalanche advancing even this far made them more successful than your average No. 1 seed. I get that Cale Makar was too injured to ...

Defector
27 May 17:09 • Ray Ratto

Vegas Is Built For Springtime

The Vegas Golden Knights are a grudgingly acquired taste with one of the gristliest coaches in modern North American sport, but when they serve the meal as they did Tuesday night, you're eating it because the alternative is leaving hungry. Sweeping the battered Colorado Aval...

Defector
27 May 15:09 • Giri Nathan

What Is This Alien Feeling Of Watching The Knicks Without Pain?

Every spring, as the flowers open and the days warm, Knicks merchandise bursts out of closets in New York City. Hats, T-shirts, and jackets adorn eager New Yorkers across the five boroughs. I wish I were a mature enough person to handle this particular bandwagoning with grac...

Defector
27 May 15:09 • Chris Thompson

The Thunder Have Numbers

The Oklahoma City Thunder have options. Their best player got off to a rough start in Game 5. Before scoring a single point Tuesday night, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander committed three live-ball turnovers and a shooting foul, leading to seven points for the visiting San Antonio Sp...

Defector
27 May 15:09 • Tom Ley

Josh Jacobs Arrested On Domestic Violence Charges

Green Bay Packers running back Josh Jacobs was arrested on Tuesday in relation to an alleged domestic violence incident that occurred on May 23. He has been charged with battery, criminal damage to property, disorderly conduct, strangulation and suffocation, and intimidation of a victim.

The news of Jacobs's arrest was announced by the Hobart-Lawrence Police Department in Hobart, Wis. The department put out a press release on Tuesday announcing that officers had been dispatched to a disturbance involving Jacobs at 8:37 a.m. on May 23. The subsequent investigation led to Jacobs's arrest on Tuesday. The department's press release also stated that it will be releasing no further information.

Attorneys representing Jacobs have released a statement denying the allegations against their client. From ESPN:

Defector
26 May 19:09 • Israel Daramola

Knicks Fans Turned Radio City Music Hall Into The Best Party In Town

NEW YORK — On Monday night, the Knicks punched their ticket to the NBA Finals. Local fans of the Finals-bound team had gathered to watch the game together at Radio City Music Hall, after the team decided to change the venue for the official watch party because the authoritie...

Defector
26 May 18:33 • Drew Magary

I Am Captain Of The Democrats Now. Here Is My Battleplan

Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it. Today, we're talking belts, the Thunder, remembering some book characters, and more.

Your letters:

Dave:

Defector
26 May 18:03 • Kathryn Xu

Mercedes Championship Battle Already More Evil Than Last Year’s

In 2025, McLaren came in fully prepared for its drivers to lead the championship battle. For McLaren, this meant doing the equivalent of writing up a 100-page legal document to try to settle the championship with as little actual conflict as possible. The year's paltry tensi...

Defector
26 May 17:42 • Patrick Redford

The Enhanced Games Were A Predictably Stupid Failure

The Enhanced Games, a marketing stunt for direct-to-consumer steroids dressed up in a thin Olympics disguise, were held this past weekend, on the far north end of the Las Vegas strip. The event was a miserable failure on every front it supposedly contested, serving as neithe...

Defector
26 May 17:03 • Kelsey McKinney

New Bumpus Jones Just Dropped

Everybody knows Bumpus Jones, even (maybe especially) you! He was iconic for one single day: October 15, 1892, which surely you remember. I definitely do. Little Bumpus was a mere rookie, up in the show for the first time for the Cincinnati Reds. Back then there wasn't even ...

Defector
26 May 16:15 • Ray Ratto

Mike Brown Is Turning Skeptics Into Believers

Amid all the joyful preening and proclamations of destiny deferred but no longer denied, the most obstreperous of New York Knickerbockers fans arose today to the knowledge that they were dead-ass wrong about coach/reformed pariah Mike Brown. At least for now, anyway. There ...

Defector
26 May 16:15 • Chris Thompson

The Not-So-Great Defector Bake Off Is Whooped By One Of Its Own Damn Readers

Welcome back to The Not-So-Great Defector Bake Off, where Kelsey and Chris attempt to complete the technical challenges from the newest season of The Great British Bake Off in their own home kitchens, with the same time parameters as the professional-grade bakers competing o...

Defector
26 May 15:18 • Lauren Theisen

Close Isn’t Good Enough For The Canadiens

The Canadiens are being outplayed by the Hurricanes. You can see it in the shot differential, where the Canes held a 38-13 advantage in Game 3. You could see it just by watching, as the Habs struggled again and again to move the puck up the ice without ceding possession to a...

Defector
26 May 15:18 • Albert Burneko

You Wouldn’t Think Having Eyes Is A Challenge, And Yet Here We Are

I have a sort of hazy memory to share. I was a kid, riding in my parents' car on a bright sunny day, and we were sitting in traffic on a bridge over the Dulles Toll Road in Northern Virginia. I looked to my right, where you could see several miles of the highway stretching o...

Defector
26 May 13:18 • Tom Ley

Rich People Mildly Inconvenienced By Clownish Organization

Knicks fans travel well, especially when there is a series sweep on offer. The Philadelphia 76ers' home arena was bursting with belligerent New Yorkers during Game 4 of the second round, and that augured grim possibilities for the Cleveland Cavaliers headed into what would b...

Defector
25 May 15:30 • Maitreyi Anantharaman

The Crossword, May 25: Astrobiology (Themeless)

It's time to wrap up the month with a challenging themeless. Keep an eye out for tricky clues and fun wordplay. This puzzle was constructed by Will Eisenberg, and edited by Hoang-Kim Vu. Will is a French horn player, music teacher, and puzzlemaker. Will is 3rd horn...

Defector
25 May 15:30 • Tom Ley

It’s All About Victor Wembanyama

A playoff series will eventually teach you how to watch it. Once the players have settled into their matchups and the coaches have made their big tactical adjustments, you can start to zero in on a few things that will decide the series. If Team A is able to do Y and prevent...

Defector
24 May 18:30 • Lauren Theisen

The Avalanche’s Season Hinges On Cale Makar’s Busted Shoulder

I'm generally loath to make the same pun that all the other media outlets are running with, but the Colorado Avalanche's current situation makes it irresistible. So here goes: Dude, where's Makar? The Avs were the juggernaut of the NHL this year, and after going 8–1 through...

Defector
24 May 18:30 • Chris Thompson

Shocker: Jaxson Dart Is A Trump Guy

It will comfort New York Giants fans not at all to learn that quarterback Jaxson Dart did not chitter like a raccoon, or bark like a walrus, or vocalize in the manner of any other wild creature, when reached on Saturday by teammate Abdul Carter. A little bit of gibberish mig...

Defector
24 May 16:30 • Lauren Theisen

Nikolaj Ehlers Rewrote The Hurricanes’ Old Script

The Carolina Hurricanes have long known what they've been missing: a dynamite top-line presence (or two) who could force a breakthrough with sheer skill when the team's fundamentally sound play wasn't doing enough to give them an advantage late in the postseason. The underly...

Defector
24 May 16:30 • Chris Thompson

The Knicks Have All The Juice

The Knicks, barring cosmic intervention, are headed to the NBA Finals. All that is left to learn in this series is whether or not New York will let Cleveland have a game. The 121–108 scoreline from Game 3 pretty badly misrepresents the gap between the East's last remaining c...

Defector
22 May 18:12 • Defector Staff

Hey! Over Here! Come Chat With The Defector Staff

Well, well, well. Would you look at that. It's the Friday before a holiday weekend and we don't really want to work anymore. So let's chat! Hit us with your best questions down below.

Defector
22 May 17:24 • Giri Nathan

The Cavs Created The Conditions For A Josh Hart Game

What is Josh Hart? If you had never watched his tenure with the New York Knicks and had to reconstruct the player from box scores, season averages, and the sauced utterances of people milling around outside Madison Square Garden, it would be a puzzling task. OK, so he's 6-fo...

Defector
22 May 16:33 • Nicholas Russell

How The U.S. Military Rots American Masculinity

The American military has always maintained a relatively strong grip on its public perception. Its most essential message—internally and externally, during peace time and active conflict, under presidents Republican and Democratic—is the necessity of its sprawling, expensive...

Defector
22 May 15:45 • Sabrina Imbler

Foolish Humans! Gulls Are Not So Gullible After All

In the Western Baltic Sea, fisheries target migrating mackerel and needlefish with pound nets, which funnel passing shoals into a series of smaller nets until they are trapped. The traps are emptied every few days, but as the caught fish idle in the nets, they become quite a...

Defector
22 May 15:21 • Patrick Redford

Back-To-Back Blown Leads, With Noah Kulwin Of ‘Blowback’

You know what it is. Many-time NBR guest Noah Kulwin came back this week to talk about the two pretty incredible NBA Conference Finals we have going. Noah predicted both the Boston Celtics' ultimate fraudulence, as well as the New York Knicks' comeback in Game 1, so we had to bring him back. We also talked about the Oklahoman publishing an op-ed comparing the Oklahoma City Thunder to the state of Israel, which Samer wrote about this week.

Speaking of Israel, Noah's podcast Blowback (which is great!) is about to drop a mini-series about the history of the U.S.-Israel relationship. It's called "No Daylight," and it drops next Friday, May 29. Subscribe!

Defector
22 May 15:06 • Ray Ratto

What If The Canadiens Are Just This Good?

It took only 33 seconds to safely write off the Montreal Canadiens as just another quaint overachiever, the kind of humorously game yet clinically overmatched entrant that has filled out nearly every conference final field since the National Hockey League decided to have con...

Defector
22 May 15:06 • Kathryn Xu

Oh No! Outfielders Have Forgotten How To Play Defense!

A late-May crisis has struck Major League Baseball. What seemed on May 16 like a funny, isolated incident, in which Shohei Ohtani scored a Little League home run (officially scored a triple and an error) against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, has turned out to be far mor...

Defector
22 May 15:06 • Ray Ratto

The Tampa Bay Rays Are Still Flourishing, And Still Invisible

ESPN will still on occasion tear itself away from the subjects and sports leagues with which it shares bed space, and so it was with Alden Gonzalez's 2,800-word free-weight on the newly innovative (wait for it, and don't spit out your coffee when you see it) Miami Marli...