Plain English with Derek Thompson29 Touko

Why the NBA Feels Broken—and Why the League Can’t Fix It

The NBA’s vibes have been unusually awful recently. There has been widespread hand-wringing about the homogenization of modern offenses and the league’s notoriously weak regular-season TV ratings. A tanking crisis saw about a third of teams purposely try to lose games in a race to secure the top pick in the 2026 draft. A barrage of gambling scandals took out a head coach and several players. And the playoffs have brought relentless complaining from fans about foul-baiting and flopping, tactics that have often been rewarded by the referees.At the center of this is Adam Silver, who was once the most popular and celebrated commissioner in all of sports. In recent years, though, his reputation has soured. Fans have begun to wonder: Why isn’t he addressing the problems that everyone else seems to see? Is the right guy running the league?In a profile of Silver for The Atlantic, the journalist Tim Alberta wrote, “Companies take on the personality of their leader.” Today, Alberta joins Derek to talk about the state of the modern NBA, whether the league has optimized the fun out of basketball, and what the impact is when a sport stops being treated like a game that exists to remind people that there is more to life than work and money. Visit https://www.uber.com/safety to learn more. Subscribe to our YouTube channel here:https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek ThompsonGuest: Tim AlbertaProducer: Chris SuttonAdditional Production Support: Ben GlicksmanLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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What Translator Emily Wilson Thinks of Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey'

Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' has brought one of history's oldest stories back into the spotlight. It’s also sparked a fresh debate about what it means to adapt a classic. Today, Derek is joined ...

22 Heinä 0s

Why 'The Odyssey' Is the West’s Greatest Story

Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' is finally here, but how exactly has a 3,000-year-old story endured long enough to become the foundation of Western storytelling? Derek is joined by Karen Ní Mheallai...

17 Heinä 1h 3min

A Philosopher’s One-Word Theory for Why the World Feels So Weird

Why does it feel like everything is more divided and exhausting than it used to be? Philosopher Agnes Callard has a surprisingly simple answer: the unicontext. It's her term for what happens when bill...

14 Heinä 58min

How Israel Is Transforming American Politics

Peter Beinart joins Derek to unpack a major shift inside the Democratic Party. As Democratic Socialist-backed candidates notch a string of surprising primary victories, one issue has emerged as a defi...

7 Heinä 1h 4min

MEGAPOD: The Most Overrated American Who Ever Lived

To celebrate America's 250th birthday, Derek is joined for a history draft by three of the country's leading historians: Beverly Gage, H.W. (Bill) Brands, and Richard White. The goal isn't to revisit ...

3 Heinä 1h 9min

A Surprising Theory About the Future of War

From the bombing campaigns of World War II to the precision strikes of the modern era, for 80 years air power has defined modern warfare. But today, a new technology is changing the battlefield: drone...

30 Kesä 56min

SpaceX, AI Bubble Fears, and The Age of the Trillion-Dollar, Zero-Profit Company

For decades, investors valued companies based on a familiar formula: Grow revenue, earn profits, and reward shareholders. But a new era may be beginning - one where trillion-dollar companies can lose ...

26 Kesä 53min

The Iran War Is Ending. Everybody Lost.

Four months ago, the U.S. and Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran. Supporters predicted a decisive victory that would curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions and reshape the balance of power in the Middle...

23 Kesä 56min