Note : Make sure to complete today’s NYT Connections before reading further! We’ll be getting into spoilers for today’s game pretty quickly. If you need some help to complete the grid, you can find my NYT Connections hints and answers column for today via my author page .

Hey there, Connectors! Welcome to my deeper dive into today’s Connections answers. The idea behind this is to help clear things up for anyone who isn’t sure how today’s groups fit together.

If I’ve missed any red herrings or misunderstood something, let me know via email or on Discord . I don’t typically look at X or check the comments here.

I’m going to assume that you’ve already beaten today’s game. We’re going straight into spoiler territory here. So, consider this your one and only warning .

Here are today’s NYT Connections answers explained (and any red herrings I spot) for Friday, May 15:

Today’s NYT Connections Answers Explained

Connections – Yellow Group

🟨 navigate through, as a river (CROSS, FORD, TRAVERSE, WADE)

WADE and FORD are similar words. A FORD is a shallow part of a river that one can WADE through. But FORD can also be a verb that means to cross a river at such a point. Slightly confusing!

Connections – Green Group

🟩 multi-time NBA MVPs (BIRD, CURRY, JAMES, JORDAN)

  • Larry BIRD, a three-time MVP and three-time NBA champion as a member of the Boston Celtics
  • Stephen CURRY, a two-time MVP and four-time NBA champion with the Golden State Warriors
  • LeBron JAMES, a four-time MVP and an NBA champion with the Miami Heat (twice), Cleveland Cavaliers and Los Angeles Lakers
  • Michael JORDAN, a five-time MVP and six-time NBA champion with the Chicago Bulls

🟦 non-palindromic words in a famous palindrome (ABLE, ELBA, SAW, WAS)

This refers to the palindrome “Able was I ere I saw Elba.” This was attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, but it seems that he never actually spoke those words .

Connections – Purple Group

🟪 homophones of kinds of dogs, familiarly (CIAO, PALM, PEEK, PITT)

  • CIAO > chow > chow chow
  • PALM > pom > pomeranian
  • PEEK > pik (pronounced “peek”) > Pekingese
  • PITT > pit > pitbull

Connections – Red Herrings

I initially suspected that (Dwayne) WADE could have fit with the group of NBA players. While he has three NBA titles to his name, Wade has been named NBA Finals MVP once. However, he was never a league MVP during his career.

There was also a red herring of actors:

  • Brad PITT
  • Idris ELBA
  • Harrison FORD
  • Tim CURRY
  • Michael B. JORDAN

You could possibly include Simon BIRD (of The Inbetweeners ) and Theo JAMES ( The White Lotus , and a rumored James Bond contender) on that list too.

If you’d like to chat about today’s game of Connections and just about anything else with me and a very lovely group of people, you can do just that in our Discord community . We’d love for you to hang out with us.

I’ll be back with another set of NYT Connections hints and answers tomorrow, as well as another edition of this one, all going well. You’ll be able to find both of those on my Forbes author page when the time comes (following me there helps me out too!). As for the weekend editions of my NYT Connections hints and answers column, I’m currently doing that via my newsletter, Pastimes .