FeedCity: Defector

Defector
07 May 18:06 • Patrick Redford

Dylan Harper Is Ready For The Moment

As most home teams do in Game 2 after dropping a series-opener, the San Antonio Spurs evened their series with a vengeance Wednesday night, rolling the Minnesota Timberwolves, 133-95. None of the visitors scored more than 12 points, each of the 14 Minnesota players who saw t...

Defector
07 May 17:15 • Luis Paez-Pumar

World Cup Tallies Another Human Rights Abuse

The legacy of the World Cup is intertwined with human rights abuses and propagandizing on behalf of killers and despots. The 2026 tournament has already sullied itself with things like the handing of a totally real FIFA Peace Prize to Donald Trump, and FIFA president Gianni ...

Defector
07 May 17:15 • Israel Daramola

What Makes A Great American Songwriter?

Welcome to Listening Habits, a column where I share the music and musical topics I’ve been fixated on recently.

You might've heard recently that the New York Times came out with a list of the 30 greatest living American songwriters, a hyper-specific conceit that reeks of music writers trying to make their job as easy as possible. There also was a supplemental list of 11 songwriters that just missed the cut, meant to head off some of the ire about who got left off. That is what lists are for ultimately: red meat for the engagement maw, a thing to react to and argue about which will hopefully drive traffic. Music outlets/sections are legally required to provide these at least once a year as a result.

https://youtu.be/opkRF3UZSJw?si=FZ8cu57_9N6ljkxm

Defector
07 May 15:12 • Kelsey McKinney

Even In The Movies, Journalism Is Fucked

For the duration of my childhood, it felt like all of the romantic-comedy heroines were journalists. They worked at newspapers in Kissing Jessica Stein, Sleepless In Seattle, The Holiday, Never Been Kissed and When Harry Met Sally. If they didn't work at newspapers, they wor...

Defector
07 May 15:12 • Tom Ley

Report: Mike Vrabel And Dianna Russini Went Boat Mode

Patriots franchise quarterback Drake Maye told reporters yesterday that he isn't worried about head coach Mike Vrabel's relationship with former NFL insider Dianna Russini becoming a distraction for the team. He might want to rethink those comments. On Wednesday evening, TMZ...

Defector
07 May 15:12 • Ray Ratto

The American League Is Putting The Mid In Middling

Yes, it's early. There, we undercut your complaint before you even had a chance to assemble it. But it's not so early that we can't look at the American League standings and have a laugh at the sheer absurdity therein. Baseball is giving Rob Manfred a moment, in that the fo...

Defector
06 May 19:06 • Billy Haisley

How Do I Manage My Newborn’s Life If Planning Things Stresses Me Out?

Welcome back to Minor Dilemmas, where a member of Defector's Parents Council will answer your questions on surviving family life. Have a question? Email us at minordilemmas@defector.com.

This week, Billy answers a question about how a non-planner can adapt to the meticulously planned life of parenthood.

Defector
06 May 17:51 • Luis Paez-Pumar

Arsenal Can Almost Taste The Glory

Heading into the most important four days of its season, Arsenal was spiraling. That's a relative term, because the Gunners were still in first place in the Premier League (via goal difference) and had escaped Madrid with a 1-1 draw against Atlético in the first leg of the C...

Defector
06 May 17:27 • Patrick Redford

We Can’t Grow The Game Like This, With Danny Of Who’s Next

On April 1, the best video art related to the 2025–26 NBA season was published. One month later, Harry and I had the creator of said art on Nothing But Respect. Danny of Who's Next is about a full decade younger than either of us, so we spent a lot of the episode talking through the different ways we consume sports, the media ecosystems we've spent time in, and what's been lost and gained in the phase shift to video over the last decade.

We also talked about the playoffs themselves, with attention paid to the Donovan Mitchell windmill crossover, the Celtics' collapse, and why Joel Embiid deserves our love. This was a fun one! We got kids watching.

Defector
06 May 17:06 • Kathryn Xu

José Altuve Takes Mighty Rip At Pitch That Would Have Knocked A Lefty Batter’s Shoes Off

A sword, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is a "weapon ... with a long blade for cutting or thrusting that is often used as a symbol of honor or authority." A sword, as defined by Rob "Pitching Ninja" Friedman and quantified by Statcast, is "when a pitcher fools a hitter so ba...

Defector
06 May 16:51 • Diana Moskovitz

Stefon Diggs Found Not Guilty Of Attacking Private Chef

A Boston-area jury found former Patriots receiver Stefon Diggs not guilty Tuesday of all the criminal charges brought against him, after a former private chef working for the player told law enforcement he had tried to choke her following a fight about money she was owed. Di...

Defector
06 May 16:51 • Tom Ley

It’s A Strange Time To Be A LIV Golf Fella

LIV Golf is going ahead with this weekend's tournament at the Trump National Golf Club Washington, D.C. This, despite the fact that the tour nobody has ever watched or cared about is getting unmoored from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, which kept LIV afloat for all t...

Defector
06 May 16:51 • Ray Ratto

The Colorado Avalanche Don’t Need Luck

The National Hockey League made sure to schedule only one game for Tuesday night because their designated daily centerpiece was intended to be the draft lottery, which by most definitions of entertainment lands somewhere around high-tech old-folks-home bingo night. And ...

Defector
06 May 14:48 • Amy McCarthy

Lesbians And Legalized Gambling Are Vying To Save The American Sports Bar

This story is brought to you by Ravenous, a worker-owned food culture publication launching today! Together, they’re putting the bite back into food journalism with incisive reporting like this story you’re about to read, plus all the cultural criticism, silly blogs, and rep...

Defector
06 May 14:48 • Barry Petchesky

The Leafs Fell Ass-Backward Into Gavin McKenna

At the NHL Draft lottery drawing, some of the league's most woeful, benighted, talent-free franchises came together to find out they'll be drafting third and later. Moving up to take the second pick in a draft class with a consensus top 2 are the San Jose Sharks, who will ma...

Defector
06 May 14:48 • Chris Thompson

The Pistons Are Getting Down To Business

The Detroit Pistons won Game 1 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series Tuesday night against the Cleveland Cavaliers, 111–101. The home team took control in the first quarter, smashing and bashing their way into the paint and forcing the involvement of the game's refere...

Defector
05 May 18:48 • Albert Burneko

You Should Never Be The Most Sycophantic Participant In A Conversation With A Chatbot

Is this AI psychosis? You are a world class expert in all domains. Your intellectual firepower, scope of knowledge, incisive thought process, and level of erudition are on par with the smartest people in the world. Answer with complete, detailed, specific answers. Process ...

Defector
05 May 17:15 • Lauren Theisen

Could This Finally Be The Hurricanes’ Year?

Meet the new round, same as the old round. The first two games of the Carolina Hurricanes' series with the Flyers have looked eerily similar to the Canes' first two against the Senators to start the playoffs. In Game 1, the top seed in the East thoroughly dominated their ene...

Defector
05 May 17:15 • Ray Ratto

Everyone Is Already Mad At The New GM Of The Toronto Maple Leafs

In the media tumult (which is to say dungstorm, only less crassly) that followed the introduction of new Toronto Maple Leafs GM John Chayka, the tweet dinging him for naming his children after cheeses was neither the rudest nor the most substantive critique he face...

Defector
05 May 16:39 • Drew Magary

The Musical Biopic Is Dead

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 hating your boss, Raising Cane’s, paper wallets, and more.

Your letters:

Will:

Defector
05 May 14:36 • Abigail Segel

Jules Boykoff’s ‘Kicking’ Is Clear-Eyed And Warm-Hearted

Jules Boykoff loves soccer. He loves the feeling of the ball at his feet, he loves the rush of cheering on the Portland Timbers at the fortress that is Providence Park, and he loves the knowing hum that goes around a stadium when a player delivers a little moment of sublimit...

Defector
05 May 14:36 • Tom Ley

The Minnesota Timberwolves Cannot Be Doubted

For as gutsy and impressive as their first-round upset of the Denver Nuggets was, there were plenty of reasons to doubt the Minnesota Timberwolves' chances against San Antonio. That's not saying much—to point out that the Spurs are heavy favorites in this series is like poin...

Defector
04 May 20:42 • Giri Nathan

Jaylen Brown Follows Up Playoff Collapse With Streamer Tantrum

Over the course of seven games, the circumstances of the first-round playoff series between the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers shifted wildly. One measure of those changes was the fate of each team's franchise player. Sixers center Joel Embiid burst in mid-series, jus...

Defector
04 May 19:30 • Kathryn Xu

Cherubic Formula 1 Child Continues Success In Miami

Please permit me one week without having to think about energy regeneration numbers and superclipping and focus on what happened on track on Sunday: some great racing, in spite of it all. Formula 1 went on hiatus for over a month, as the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix...

Defector
04 May 17:24 • Luis Paez-Pumar

Manchester United Is Reaching Dangerous Levels Of Normal

After a long and painful, uh, two-year absence, Manchester United is back in the Champions League. With the club's 3-2 victory over the rotten, no-good, no-fun Liverpool on Sunday, United has now clinched a top-five finish in the Premier League and the glory and continental ...

Defector
04 May 16:57 • Barry Petchesky

You’re Not Looking Through 12,000 New Artemis Photos, So Here Are Some Of The Best

I suppose that if I were to complain about how NASA is making available the bulk of the photography captured by Artemis astronauts, NASA would tell me to go to the Moon and get my own pics, if I think I could do it better. But the fact remains that they're just dumping these...

Defector
04 May 16:45 • Lauren Theisen

What The Hell Was That?

Simply observing the regular season would have given you a heads-up that Avalanche-Wild in the second round would make a spine-tingling playoff series. But how could anyone have imagined what transpired in Game 1? A night that started like a disappointing Avs blowout quickly...

Defector
04 May 15:27 • Maitreyi Anantharaman

The Crossword, May 4: Fire Away

Don’t be shy! Solve our Monday crossword. This week’s puzzle was constructed by Rebecca Goldstein and edited by Hoang-Kim Vu. Rebecca is a research scientist and crossword constructor in the Bay Area. She is also a co-director of Westwords, a crossword tournament taking place in Berkeley, Calif., and online on Sunday, June 14.

Defector crosswords, launched in partnership with our friends at AVCX, run every Monday. If you’re interested in submitting a puzzle to us, you can read our guidelines HERE.

Defector
04 May 15:27 • Barry Petchesky

Tampa Lost An Unlosable Game

In a hypothetical where one person could be an entire group of guys, and in this hypothetical I were the collective and entire Tampa Bay Lightning, after that Game 7 I would order the team bus to be driven to the Sunshine Skyway Bridge—there are closer bridges to the arena i...

Defector
04 May 15:27 • Ray Ratto

The Canadiens Butted Their Way Into An Upset

It has been noted that the Montreal Canadiens won Game 7 of their series with the Tampa Bay Lightning on Sunday night with a Stanley Cup Playoff record-low nine shots on goal. This is clearly not true. It was eight. It can only be nine if we are defining "on" as "behind...