Tom Ley

I have only one prediction for the NBA postseason: Lu Dort is going to do something so nasty to Wemby that it will kick off a week-long discourse about whether the league needs to crack down on physicality.

Victor Wembanyama Sighting Confirmed In Brooklyn | Defector A couple months ago, some friends and I made plans to see the San Antonio Spurs when they were in town to play the Brooklyn Nets. Obviously, we weren’t going for the opportunity to see the Nets’ youth...

Here’s a dumb little blog about the experience of witnessing Wemby in person: defector.com/victor-wemba...

Victor Wembanyama sighting confirmed in Brooklyn: defector.com/victor-wemba...

🤷‍♂️

The Mournful Ballad Of Punch The Monkey | Defector When I first heard rumblings that the world had assembled a conclave to elect a new celebrity zoo animal, I felt preemptively wary, partly due to world events and partly because we still don’t know th...

I wrote about Punch the monkey and who, if anyone, is really to blame for the suffering of primates
defector.com/the-mournful...

What I Listened To In The Hospital | Defector Welcome to Listening Habits, a column where I share the music I’ve been fixated on recently. Having a severe chronic illness has made me intimately familiar with the American healthcare system and…

New Listening Habits! What I listened to in the hospital:

An Extensive And Exhaustive Player-By-Player Preview Of 'Survivor 50' | Defector There’s nothing quite like a returnee season of Survivor. Wednesday night’s Season 50 premiere will begin the sixth season in the show’s history featuring a cast entirely of returning players: 24 vete...

Happy Survivor 50 day!

Ahead of tonight's premiere, the Defector jury got together to explain every player's deal and pass judgement on their chances of winning.

You can read our (massive) preview here: defector.com/an-extensive...

What I Learned From My Annoyingly Long Correspondence With "Elena Ferrante" | Defector Earlier this month I received an email that, for a moment, made my heart skip. The email came from someone named Elena Ferrante, at “elenaferrante800@gmail.com,” and I feel no remorse leaking Elena’s ...

I wrote about my friend "Elena Ferrante" and what it was like to try to engage with a scammer
defector.com/what-i-learn...

The U.S. Hockey Men Spoil The Fantasy | Defector To be a U.S. Olympian is to represent the best that your country has to offer. That sounds extremely lofty when it’s written out like that, but I think that’s really how it works, ideally, if you’re t...

On the ideals of the Olympics, the fiction of hockey romance, and the real world: defector.com/the-u-s-hock...

Really cool story about a legendary player.

Rich Paul's Podcast Was Built To Be Useless | Defector Rich Paul, CEO of Klutch Sports and active NBA agent, has drawn some ire this season for things he said on his new podcast called Game Over, which he cohosts with Max Kellerman. Anonymous members of…

Rich Paul's podcast was built to be useless:

Alysa Liu Is Untouchable | Defector When athletes are said to thrive under pressure, that generally does not mean that they do not feel it. Rather, the common understanding is that athletes, or at least the great ones, are capable of ta...

for anyone craving more Alysa Liu content @yuekaxu.bsky.social has been on a tear of figure skating blogs that are simply beautiful to read and learn from defector.com/alysa-liu-is...

How Is A Figure Skater Like A Tree? | Defector Since returning to figure skating, Alysa Liu has displayed an indifference toward earthly happenings that a bodhisattva would envy. That is not to say that she doesn’t express joy upon completing a st...

4. defector.com/alysa-liu-am...

Are The Fellas In Sync? | Defector Gather ’round, friends, for it is time to play my favorite newly invented game of the Winter Olympics. The game is called “Are The Fellas In Sync,” and the way you play this game is by scrolling throu...

3. defector.com/are-the-fell...

Beautiful Wolfdog Now An Olympian | Defector By the end of a cross-country skiing team sprint competition, the athletes are on the brink of collapse. The best teams complete their six-mile sprint in about 20 minutes. Their legs burn, and their l...

2. defector.com/beautiful-wo...

The Suffering Of Lindsey Vonn | Defector I woke to a flurry of notifications on my phone. Overnight in Cortino, Lindsey Vonn violently crashed in her Olympic downhill race and was airlifted from the mountain. My group chat, made up of colleg...

1. defector.com/the-sufferin...

Threading four high-quality Olympics blogs that can be read right now on Defector dot com.

The Suffering Of Lindsey Vonn | Defector I woke to a flurry of notifications on my phone. Overnight in Cortino, Linsdey Vonn violently crashed in her Olympic downhill race and was airlifted from the mountain. My group chat, made up of…

The suffering of Lindsey Vonn: defector.com/the-sufferin...

Why The Hottest New Pro Wrestling Chant Is "Fuck ICE" | Defector The most intriguing storyline in pro wrestling this month is not a title chase or a bloody feud, but whether or not fans are going to keep chanting “Fuck ICE” at shows. I am more than happy to explain...

defector.com/why-the-hott...

The Big Canada-Sweden Curling Beef, Explained | Defector As a sport most people pay intense attention to for two weeks every four years and then not at all the rest of the time, curling can be slightly impenetrable to the casual viewer; its intricacies and ...

A thing that we do at Defector that I really like: explainers that don't suck defector.com/the-big-cana...

Chromosome Testing Will Take Sports Back To The Dark Ages | Defector In the late 1990s, Olympics officials were suddenly eager to exit the business of testing women’s DNA. After three decades of requiring all women athletes to sit for chromosome tests in order to…

Chromosome testing will take sports back to the dark ages: defector.com/chromosome-t...

The Big Canada-Sweden Curling Beef, Explained | Defector As a sport most people pay intense attention to for two weeks every four years and then not at all the rest of the time, curling can be slightly impenetrable to the casual viewer; its intricacies and ...

The big Canada-Sweden curling beef, explained: defector.com/the-big-cana...

Even Ilia Malinin Is Mortal | Defector Before Ilia Malinin had his disastrous free skate to lose gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics, there was Yuma Kagiyama—who skated a near-perfect short program only to underperform in his free skate on th...

Even Ilia Malinin is mortal:

When they cut back to the NBC studio after the men’s figure skating final Scott Hamilton looked like 9/11 had just happened.

kathryn does a good job articulating the ambivalence i feel toward power athletes in "artistic" disciplines. one additional problem no one is talking about is that he looks too much like jack suwinski

Famous Clients Bail On Casey Wasserman Over Gross Sex Emails To Ghislaine Maxwell | Defector While the world’s attention is currently focused on the various performances, admissions of infidelity, and blood-soaked mascots of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, the guy running the next Summer…

Famous clients bail on Casey Wasserman over gross sex emails to Ghislaine Maxwell: defector.com/famous-clien...

High-Level, Actionable Insights From Watching Doubles Luge For The First Time | Defector To the uninitiated, luge itself might seem a silly sport, given that the average person might guess it mostly consists of holding onto a sled real tight as it goes fast down the ice. Of course, this o...

I wrote about the best Olympic sport
defector.com/high-level-a...

Artificially Large Skier Penises Should Stay Legal | Defector To ski jump is to momentarily become a god. The track is narrow and slick, and the athletes plummet down the sloped hill at almost 60 mph. They leave the track and take up, up, up into the sky, where ...

defector.com/penis-scanda...

France's Viral Ice Dancing Team Has A Dark Backstory | Defector Blink and you might not have caught it. On Monday, Guillaume Cizeron and Laurence Fournier Beaudry took to the rink and staked their claim to the ice dancing gold medal. Dancing to Madonna’s “Vogue,” ...

defector.com/frances-vira...

Olympic Photographers: Stop Doing The Lugers Dirty | Defector Imagine the training for the Olympics. All the work, the anxiety, the parties missed, and the mornings you’d rather have spent in bed. The money spent on training, equipment, travel, all of it. You sa...

defector.com/olympic-phot...