Bill Simmons' Greatest Hits: Part 1
by pagingstanleyroberts on Jul 25, 2010 11:31 PM CDT
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PrintTurnabout is fair play, so I thought I'd start posting some of Simmons' crack analysis over the years. I like his writing and his ideas, but his predictions have shown me that he's not quite a basketball mind on the same level of guys like Britt Robson. Though he does admit often, "I'm an idiot," it's nice to have a reminder of that idiocy. So here's the first installment in an ongoing series:
- "Joe Forte falls to the Celts at No. 21! Dad and I are fired up right now."
- "As the New York crowd howls in disgust, Vecsey reports that the Nets dealt Eddie Griffin to the Rockets for Richard Jefferson, Jason Collins, Kermit Washington and the No. 23 pick, or as I like to call it, "C-R-A-P." Is there a worse franchise than the Nets?"
- "Brimming with cap space, the Pistons' big summer moves were 1.) handing out $33 million over six years for Corliss Williamson (that isn't a misprint), and 2.) dealing for Cliff Robinson (apparently Alex English and Larry Nance weren't available). That reminds me, here's a math equation for all you aspiring Will Huntings out there: (Cold weather teams + lots of cap space) X (free agency) = ??????? (Answer: The lottery!)"
- "To the Toronto Raptors, who defied the odds by keeping their major free agents (Alvin Williams, Antonio Davis, Jerome Williams) and even securing a $5 million trade exemption from the Oakley trade to make a run at another free agent. One more key addition, and they might even be the Eastern favorites ... heck, they might even convince Vince Carter to play his entire career in Canada!"
- "Deep down, you know Duncan is kicking himself for staying in San Antonio for three more years. It's not like David Robinson is going to do better against Shaq next season. And it's not like the Derek Anderson-Steve Smith exchange will help the team's chances of defending Kobe Bryant next season. Orlando must be look pretttttttttty good right about now."
- "To the Suns. You knew they would shake things up, but did they really have to exile J-Kidd to New Jersey? Shouldn't there be an NBA rule that reads, 'Any point guard who can run a fast break and actually cares about getting his teammates involved should not be allowed to play for a crappy team that's off the radar map?' I feel bad just thinking about Kidd wearing a Nets uniform, the same way I felt bad when John C. Reilly popped up in Never Been Kissed and For Love of the Game two years ago. Some things are just out of our control"
- "To Marbury. From all accounts, his biggest problems in New Jersey revolved around the fact that he couldn't handle playing with lousy teammates on a lousy team. Now he's in a lively NBA city, in good weather, with better teammates on a team that desperately needed a GTG (go-to guy) ... and as an added bonus, he hasn't had his breakout year yet. Right guy, right place, right time, just like Dirk Diggler at Jack Horner's pool party back in the late-'70s. You've been warned."
- "There isn't a more underrated player in the league right now than Keon Clark. I'm not kidding. I keep writing this and nobody listens to me -- if he played 40 minutes a game, he'd be a 20/10 guy, night after night. Mark my words. And it's all done on two toothpick legs."
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+ 1 and as many zeroes as you can imagine
"Styx might be the mullet of bands."
by biggity2bit on Jul 26, 2010 12:12 AM CDT up reply actions
Yep. Simmons is very clearly a moron.
You could have kept going for a few dozen pages.
by Ricky Business on Jul 26, 2010 12:16 AM CDT reply actions
WOW
and some thought he could run our team? Now I feel better that he hates the Wolves, that means we have hope.
I like Bill Simmons
One of the few national writers that actually cares about the NBA.
Talking myself into DeMarcus Cousins since 5/18/10
Agreed.
Simmons is basically a talk radio host who just happens to write a column instead. He doesn’t know jack, he’s not a journalist, he steals a lot of his bits, he’s barely even a writer, but – and this is a big but – at least he’s genuinely interested in the NBA. And it’s nice to have somebody in the media who’s passionate about the league as a fan.
by princelyfrank on Jul 26, 2010 12:50 AM CDT up reply actions
Steals a lot of his bits?
Where do you get that from?
Actively looking for red flags since my 5th grade traveling team
I should not have said that
he’s been accused of plagiarising other blogs a couple of times, but nothing Carlos Mencia-style egregious. For a guy who clearly doesn’t put much thought into anything he writes, he’s bound to include ideas that aren’t entirely his from time to time.
But I stand by my statement that he doesn’t do much that’s very original.
He had one great idea – “Hey, I’ll compare moments in sports to moments from classic movies from my youth (mostly Rocky 3).” Then he decided to ride that idea for years.
Now he barely even does that. He also barely writes columns. And most of his bits aren’t stolen, but a huge percentage of them are borrowed (or freely given to him) by his readers, his buddy House, and others.
While his column was at one point the equivalent of morning sports chat radio, now he’s become so convinced of his own greatness (and busy with a small child, for which I have sympathy) that he hardly even writes columns anymore. Instead, he lets his readers write his columns in the form of his mailbags (in which his readers write in his style and he writes basically nothing). And he also does his podcasts, which just are sports chat radio, which is, I suspect, what he always wanted to do in the first place.
That being said, I still read him most of the time and he’s sometimes very funny.
by princelyfrank on Jul 26, 2010 2:11 PM CDT up reply actions
He may have come up with this himself, but either way his is hilarious and that is my new phrase to announce whenever I have to shit
I think “taking my talents to South Beach” will be overused because it’s so malleable — in just the past two weeks, it became a phenomenal masturbation euphemism and replaced “I’m gonna go take the Browns to the Super Bowl” as the funniest way to announce to a group of people that you’re heading to the bathroom (and not to pee).
by NuthinBurger on Jul 26, 2010 4:45 PM CDT up reply actions
The reason why he makes such outlandish predictions is probably because he doesn’t steal others’ bits
by WhiteManCantWrite on Jul 26, 2010 1:44 PM CDT up reply actions 2 recs
Thus illustrating the difference in character between Tim Duncan and Bill Simmons.
“People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.” – Emerson.
But to be fair, Keon Clark? Had toothpick legs, for sure.
Chicken vs. Egg
Yes, the Spurs won three more championships after Duncan decided to re-sign there. However, had Duncan signed with the Magic to team with McGrady, the Magic may have won 3 or more titles with him. Having the greatest Power Forward to ever play the game (I’m a huge KG fan, but their records don’t lie when it comes to this) as a member of your team puts you in position to win a lot more games than you otherwise would. As for the rest of that comment, neither Derek Anderson nor Steve Smith could guard Kobe at that point.
To be fair
we would all have a list of mistaken predictions/expectations like that if we wrote 10s of thousands of words about the NBA.
Reasonable to point out his egregious mistakes, but let’s not pretend that we wouldn’t have just as poor a scorecard.
We Are the Washington Generals
by Eric in Madison on Jul 26, 2010 8:23 AM CDT reply actions 2 recs
we have all had bad predictions
But being an analyst/commentator is not are jobs. Hell If I had all the time resources like this clown has I can make way better predictions then he does. For Example I knew about Marbury being a jackass and being a team cancer because of his time in minny . But since Bill doesn’t pay attention to small market teams he does not know these things. That is why he even calls his own reporting the BS report because its all bullshit. He is chubby rich dude that has never picked up a basketball in his life.
Sure he has
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHuKft-Sv1k&feature=related
=)
Actively looking for red flags since my 5th grade traveling team
Being a professional writer is not "are job."
Noted.
by feral on Jul 26, 2010 6:18 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
Meh. I don’t read his stuff hoping to be enlightened about the NBA. I read his stuff because he’s entertaining. He can make all the bad predictions he wants. It doesn’t change how enjoyable his columns are.
The thing that bugs me is when people take him seriously and refer to him as a basketball guru or whatever. He’s a fan who knows how to write. I didn’t read Fever Pitch because Nick Hornby knows soccer better than anyone else, I read it because it was a relatable account of fandom. Ditto for Simmons.
heart of a champion, will of the warrior.
I agree
And most of these are meant to be outlandish to show why he shouldn’t be taken seriously. Once he starts campaigning for team GM jobs, he’s trying to be taken seriously on some level. There have been several posts (some by fans of other teams but not you) that use his slams as some sort of evidence, which it is only on the most superficial of levels.
by pagingstanleyroberts on Jul 26, 2010 3:01 PM CDT up reply actions
Yeah, you’re preaching to the choir. Citing Simmons is pretty much the equivalent of citing something your buddy who watches a lot of basketball said at the bar. Could be valid, could be garbage, if you want to repeat it, you better back it up—it doesn’t stand alone.
Which is, of course, a million times more valuable than repeating something Skip Bayless said. That guy is awful and never entertaining.
heart of a champion, will of the warrior.
I'm trying to think of...
any basketball writer or analyst whose opinions are noticeably “better” than most of the others. Some prefer hardcore stats analysts, while others prefer wise old basketball junkies like Hubie Brown or Jack Ramsey. There are also recent former players like Webber, Barkley and Jet Smith. Then, there is Bill Simmons, a lifelong “superfan” who has probably watched as much NBA basketball on TV as anyone living.
All the different perspectives are interesting… I love reading Simmons’ columns and mailbags because they’re funny — his NBA stuff is original and worth reading, but not necessarily more insightful than others, out there.
I think it depends on what you’re looking for. For the most part, guys who stick with what they actually know are really good. JVG and Hubie know Xs and Os like no one else. Webber and Chuck know locker rooms and aren’t afraid to speak their minds, but don’t always hit the nail on the head about current players (Chuck seemed to lose touch a couple years back, but has been better recently; CWebb and Payton going through all-star ballots and mispronouncing names and mocking talented players was hilarious, but not exactly basketball analysis). The problem with TV as a basketball talk format is that so much is just off the cuff “here’s what I think” sort of stuff. It isn’t always completely thought out and there isn’t anyone who I’d say I take totally at their word. Most of what’s on TV is more entertainment than info, and that’s great, but isn’t always the best way to learn more about the game.
Honestly, there are at least a few people on this blog whose opinions carry more weight for me than most television analysts. But again, we do something totally different here than they do on ESPN and TNT.
heart of a champion, will of the warrior.
My favorite is David Thorpe
because he actually works with players and does some worthwhile scouting. I also like J.A. quite a bit.
Actively looking for red flags since my 5th grade traveling team
Thorpe through a certain lens is great. He rewards players who do the right things to get better with high praise. It’s a really useful perspective, but Thorpe says a lot of things that make me pause and wonder why he would ever say “Player X is going to be a stud next year.” A lot of the time, when Thorpe calls a player a star, it just means that he’s doing the right things to become a star.
I like Adande a lot, too. I wish he wasn’t LA based, because his stuff is always worth reading, and this results in me reading way too many Lakers stories.
heart of a champion, will of the warrior.
My only issue with Thorpe...
is that he heaps way too much praise on average or worse NBA players. He sort of goes out of his way to explain to us lay people how good these NBA guys REALLY ARE… as if that isn’t a given, amongst NBA fans talking NBA basketball.
Also, I don’t really like how Thorpe ranks rookies… if Rose is having an off-week or two BY ROSE STANDARDS, he’ll drop him to 15 or 20 in that class, when he should always be in the Top-3, no questions asked. That sort of thing bugs me, but I guess by keeping those rankings in constant flux he gets more readers for each update.
But yeah, he’s a good writer and I appreciate how much attention he pays to all 30 teams, and the hundreds of players in the league.
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