The first thing I did when I got into work this morning was go to the WWL and see that the Redskins signed Albert Haynesworth and DeAngelo Hall to a total of $150 million in contracts and with almost $60 million in guaranteed money. I began laughing because they got a two turds for one deal and only had to pay $150 million! I give both of those players three years before they are cut. Typical Redskins move. I am surprised they did not make a play for Pacman Jones.
After a two week layoff, we finally have a Bill Simmons Friday column to sink our teeth into. Bill gives us the reason why he did not do an All Star column this year and the reason is a horseshit excuse. This is the Bill I have come to know and not enjoy. This column is a definitive Bill Simmons column, full of homer-ific ramblings, unfunny jokes and fuzzy information. This is a great, bad column.
After a two week layoff, we finally have a Bill Simmons Friday column to sink our teeth into. Bill gives us the reason why he did not do an All Star column this year and the reason is a horseshit excuse. This is the Bill I have come to know and not enjoy. This column is a definitive Bill Simmons column, full of homer-ific ramblings, unfunny jokes and fuzzy information. This is a great, bad column.
The book was a convenient excuse. I could have found time to pump out that column. I just didn't want to hand it in.
That's what I ended up discussing for four solid days in Phoenix. Hands down, it was the most depressing All-Star Weekend I've ever attended.
It would have been about money. You might remember me writing that the NBA was the No Balls Association two years ago. Now it's the No Benjamins Association.
No Benjamins Association! It is like NBA, but with a different word instead of Basketball. Brilliant.
I wish ESPN had a No Bill Association clause.
I wish ESPN had a No Bill Association clause.
The coming out party where he played a bunch of rookies and scored a ton of points where no defense was played or the coming out party where it took him an hour and a half to play a game of H-O-R-S-E?
I guess Bill is assuming that he is an insider here, because he gives us a bunch of information about this problem we don't know about...supposedly. Here is the thing. The thing is that outsiders know NBA franchises are in trouble, simply because 15 teams have had to borrow money to keep running, and most people have had their interest in the NBA dwindle over the past several year but they don't care as much as Bill does.
Even trade talk -- normally a staple of any All-Star Weekend -- revolved more around themes such as, "They have to cut payroll," "They can't take on any money right now" and "They're too terrified of the tax to do anything."
Insiders like Bill should know this. Ironically, I have watched more of the NBA over the last couple of years, but I still recognize the league is in a little trouble.
Teams wanted to dump clearly superior players on Portland at the deadline just to get Raef's insurance money. Phoenix would have traded Shaq for Raef and Channing Frye's expiring contract in a heartbeat.
This type of trade does not make sense to the average fan. They don't understand what the hell insurance money has to do with a player and a trade. MLB doesn't have this problem and the NFL doesn't have this problem. The NBA does.
Again, protected No. 1's? The average fan does not know what that is as well...and why the hell would the Nets give away Carter like that? The NBA has a lot of trouble connecting with the average fan who doesn't get into the NBA because trades like this make no sense to them. I am into the NBA and don't understand this.
The league would love for you to believe that attendance hasn't been affected, but the NBA's official tally counts only total "customers," counted as paid tickets, comps (seats given to celebrities, sponsors, friends of the team or whomever, a number that can be fudged any way you want), discounted tickets and no-shows.
The fans in my section at Staples Center finally figured out how Dunleavy dresses for games: like someone who owns a funeral home. No, really, He wears ugly gray suits or light blue suits; they always look as if he bought them at a two-for-one sale; and he always looks like he's going to tell you how sorry he is that your aunt passed away. He even slicks his hair back like an extra on "Six Feet Under."
Half the arena is empty most nights, unless they're playing a team with transplant fans in Southern California
At what point are we going to stop calling them "transplant fans" and start calling them what they really are? Fair weather fans. You can't tell me that the Cleveland Cavs fans travel well either or the fans are in Southern California for any good reason, other than the fact the Cavs have LeBron James and he is popular, so therefore so is the team.
The NBA is turning into the WNBA.
Yet declining attendance isn't even one of the league's four biggest problems right now. I would rank the top four like this:
I don't know how much I would really care...and I actually like the NBA. Maybe the NBA should lock out its players and force them to use illegal PEDs, I mean it worked for baseball's popularity.
Please tell me this is a Rick Reilly crack.
Let's say I hired 10 interns and locked them into deals for $100,000 apiece through 2012
See, we learned a dirty little secret in the last lockout: An inordinate number of NBA players live paycheck to paycheck. Yes, even the guys making eight figures a year.
I Don't Give a Flying Fuck
Up Your Ass WayAre You Kidding Me, U.S.
Quick tangent: You're asking yourself, "Wait, how can a dude making $8-10 million a year live paycheck to paycheck?" Easy. First, he's only banking 40 percent once the IRS and agents are done with him.
When the players' union waves a white flag and the lockout finally ends (2012? 2013?), I predict a raise of the individual salary max (to $24-25 million), a softer salary cap, a restriction on long-term contracts (can't be more than three years unless you're re-signing your own star), the elimination of opt-out clauses and the midlevel exemption, and the rookie age limit rising to 20. That's seven predictions in all … and I bet I'll end up nailing six.
I bet Bill ends up nailing 3 of those...and I don't see how raising the salary max will fix anything at all.
I think Bill is wrong here. It is not the fear of trading, it is the bizarre and random ass way the financials of the NBA are set up. Trading has become a salary dump because teams are allowed to do that with impunity and the trade has to be completely equal (nearly) financially, so Shaq can't get traded for Devin Harris and Brandon Bass because the contracts don't match up. I think the 120% rule (or whatever it is...I like the NBA and don't even know) is stupid.
(think Mychal Thompson, Brian Williams, Clyde Drexler, Pau Gasol, Rasheed Wallace, Jason Kidd, etc.)
Every other contender except Orlando had a fixable flaw, thought about fixing it, then said, "Nahhhhh … maybe we can win anyway." Boston never replaced James Posey. Cleveland never landed a quality shooter with size. The Lakers never found Andrew Bynum insurance.
3. Lousy officiating
The NBA has an interest in the best players making it to the playoffs and succeeding. That is how the NBA did well in the 80's and 90's and that is how it will continue to thrive.
But sure enough, with the Celts somehow leading by just one (they were awful all night) and only 35 seconds to play, Rajon Rondo missed a free throw that ricocheted to Mardy Collins, only Big Baby Davis somehow swiped the ball away as Richardson's whistle blew. The Boston bench exploded, thinking it was an undeserved foul, only Richardson had blown his whistle for a Clippers timeout.
He called a timeout when the Celtics could have gotten the ball? How unfair, the Celtics deserve a shot at getting the ball back before the referee calls timeout. I have not seen a replay but how dare the official make a mistake.
One problem: Collins never had the ball. He fumbled the easy rebound to Davis even as the Clippers were signalling for time. Richardson granted the timeout because he's inept at his job and didn't make sure Collins, you know, actually secured the rebound.
Don't forget the NBA wants the Clippers to win the game. I wonder if the referee also caused the Celtics to not score as many points for the other 47 minutes of the game? If not, then the loss was not completely the referees fault...even if he did blow the call.
The referees called a touch foul on Kevin Garnett. How dare the referees have the balls to call a foul on Garnett, much less 35 feet away from the basket. The Celtics are always getting screwed over like this.
What Bill should really be worried about is not that the officials called this foul, but what Kevin Garnett was doing 35 feet from the basket trying to commit a foul. Of course why question Garnett when you can bitch about the officiating?
The NBA: Where Amazingly Bad Officiating Happens. When will someone take responsibility and admit that something is seriously, drastically, undeniably wrong?
Exactly, the Mavericks can get screwed over as much as it takes in the NBA Finals, but once the Celtics start not getting all of the foul calls, then we know the officiating is terribly wrong and Bill more than talks about it, he wants to take action now.
For a league that claimed to take the Donaghy scandal so seriously, we haven't seen any inclination that it did. Not even a hint.
Exactly. The NBA Finals were the Celtics-Lakers last year, which was the best case scenario for the NBA, so Bill brings up a great point. Of course he is too stupid to realize his arguing about the officiating being unfair would also have the effect of proving maybe there could be a case bad officiating put the Celtics in the NBA Finals last year, since that is what the NBA wants. Nevermind this though.
So that's the climate for the No Benjamins Association right now: Murky, unpredictable and not so lucrative. And you wonder why I didn't want to write about All-Star Weekend.
That reason probably had more to do with laziness and a whole lot less to do with the fact Bill is actually depressed about the NBA. If he just started getting depressed about the state of the NBA, then he is about two years too late.
Other than the NFL, the NBA will emerge from this financial quagmire in the best shape of any professional sport; not just because its billion-dollar deals with Disney and Turner (inked fortuitously in the summer of 2007) run through the 2015-16 season but because the Lockout That Hasn't Happened Yet will ultimately solve every major league issue except its stupefyingly dreadful officiating.
Only time and constant bitching will solve that major officiating problem of the Celtics not getting every single favorable call in a basketball game. Other than the complete folding of NBA teams and the fact teams can't afford to run a team at all, I would say that the Celtics getting gypped on a few calls during a game is very high among the league's concerns.
I like how Bill Simmons seamlessly manages to throw in basketball's major problems like league attendance, teams losing money, and franchises going under with the fact the Celtics can't get any favorable calls during games. It's just Bill being Bill. He manages to take a league wide problem that affects the economics of basketball and throw in a complaint about how his favorite team getting screwed over on calls during games as if this is an example of a massive problem going on in the league. Sure, officiating generally sucks, but I guarantee poor officiating is not one of the top reasons the NBA is struggling financially.
Good job Bill, you wrote a Friday column.
I think it was you who brought up Chad Finn before. Did you see his latest on sports radio? http://www.boston.com/sports/ot/2009/02/sports_talk_radioactive.html
ReplyDeleteI think it got something like 800 responses. It was a really well written article though, I thought. He got tore up on EEI though.
You love to point out Simmons' hypocrisy, so I'll return the favor for you:
ReplyDelete"Man, I wish I had a job where I was required to write three columns every two weeks and one of those weeks I could just feel lazy and just not hand in a column. That would be very nice. I am sure Bill had other more important things to do in working on his book, so I can understand."
You wouldn't know, considering you have a free sports blog that you can update whenever you want, but when you write professionally, there are these things called "deadlines." I'm not sure if you've heard of them.
"They don't understand what the hell insurance money has to do with a player and a trade."
Except for the fact that Simmons explains how the insurance works literally 4 lines above the part you pulled out.
"At what point are we going to stop calling them "transplant fans" and start calling them what they really are? Fair weather fans."
Of course staying in Boston to root for his favorite teams is more important than moving to Los Angeles because he got a job writing for Jimmy Kimmel Live. Obviously people choose staying near their favorite sports teams over a new job.
"Bill is completely out of touch with the world and it is hard to read articles by someone who says "only" in this instance."
Ok, you tell me how that sentence should read. How else do you say that a player is keeping just 40% of his salary? His use of the world "only" simply describes the fact that the player is not, in fact, keeping 100% of his salary.
"I have not seen a replay but how dare the official make a mistake."
How the hell can you make fun of Simmons for commenting on the play when you haven't even seen the play yourself? I have. The Clippers were granted a timeout despite the fact that no Clipper ever controlled possession of the ball. It's as simple as that.
"Exactly, the Mavericks can get screwed over as much as it takes in the NBA Finals, but once the Celtics start not getting all of the foul calls, then we know the officiating is terribly wrong and Bill more than talks about it, he wants to take action now."
Except for how Simmons wrote 3,000 words about how fishy the calls were during the 2006 finals, and still brings up the poor officiating all the time.
"Of course he is too stupid to realize his arguing about the officiating being unfair would also have the effect of proving maybe there could be a case bad officiating put the Celtics in the NBA Finals last year, since that is what the NBA wants. Nevermind this though."
Really? I'm starting to think you haven't watched the NBA since 1997. The officiating in both the Atlanta series and the Cleveland series were egregiously one-sided, like in game 4 of the Atlanta series, when the Hawks had a 33-18 advantage in Free Throw Attempts, or in game 6, where they had a 47-25 advantage. Or in game 6 against Cleveland, when LeBron shot more free throws than the entire Celtics team? Do you think it's a coincidence that when there was a chance to force a 7th game (and tons of revenue for the NBA), the underdog home team got a ridiculous free-throw advantage and ended up winning both times?
"That reason probably had more to do with laziness and a whole lot less to do with the fact Bill is actually depressed about the NBA."
Again, the man is writing a book. This might come as a shock to you, but you can't throw together a book in 45 minutes, like you do with these posts.
"He manages to take a league wide problem that affects the economics of basketball and throw in a complaint about how his favorite team getting screwed over on calls during games as if this is an example of a massive problem going on in the league."
Again, I'm doubting you watch any NBA at all. I really do. As someone who watches at least 5 NBA games a week and writes about it for a living, I can attest to the crappy officiating. Simmons simply chose 2 ready-made examples that he had in front of him that display only a small microcosm of the bigger problem: The officiating in the NBA is bad. When you have officials deciding an NBA championship, like in 2006, that's bad for business. It may not affect ticket sales, but it certainly affects who would watch an NBA game on TV, which hurts advertising, which means local advertising will bail, which means team lose money. So yes, everything is related. And if you knew anything about anything, you might know that.
Fred, I don't think I am the one that brought up Chad Finn before, to be honest, I have never heard of him. I did a google search for his site and I bookmarked it. I am going to read what he is all about.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments Anon, I am not sure if everything you wrote falls under the title of hypocrisy but you make some good points. I actually have never heard of a deadline before you just mentioned it. Living in my mom's attic allows me to live a stress free life and I just pretty much write on this all day. Apparently I just write things that piss you off.
When I am talking about the casual fan, I am talking about someone who is not actually sitting here reading Bill's article, so they would not be privy to his explanation. I thought it was clear I was talking in generalities, about casual fans of the NBA who follow their local team, not someone reading the article Bill wrote. I think the NBA needs to be saved and the casual fan is the undecided voter in this instance. If they want and can follow the NBA, I think the NBA could beat some of its financial problems.
I was also not talking about Bill Simmons when I talked about "transplant" fans either. Again, since the topic was generally about Bill, I can see how you would get confused. I realize Bill is not a bandwagon fan, I was referring more to Cavs fans, hence the idea of Larry Nance spinning in his grave and me talking about how they only like the team because of LeBron James.
No one keeps 100% of their salary, so athletes are not the only ones that pay taxes. The sentence could read perfectly fine with the qualifier of "only" in it. It would read "First he is banking 40% of his total salary once the IRS and agents are done with him." It would stand as a fact and not "only" indicating 60% of the salary is not that much money.
I was also just saying the official made a mistake, it was a mistake not a vast conspiracy against the Celtics. I don't need the replay, if Bill says it was a bad call I was accepting it was a bad call, just saying it happens sometimes.
Bill did write a whole article on the officiating, you are correct about that. I don't think the officiating is great in the NBA, though if you watch college basketball you will see it is much worse. The foul calls on charges are just completely overdone now, mostly thanks to Duke. I think college officiating is worse than professional officiating. You clearly disagree. I think we have a right to disagree.
He was not writing a book, he was in Phoenix for the All Star Weekend. It's his life, he can do what he wants, I was just commenting.
I just don't see the officiating as bad of a problem as the product that is being put on the court and the fact the general casual fan doesn't understand the economics of the game. If you write about the NBA for a living, no offense, but you only watch 5 games a week? That seems like a small amount to me, but as you said, I am clearly a moron.
yeah, he probably doesnt fit the profile for what this website stands for. He actually gives new england fans a good name (criticizing variteks intangibles ect.)
ReplyDeleteAlso, just a heads up. Peter King does a weekly interview on dale and Holley up here. It might be a goldmine of material for you http://audio.weei.com/m/21934819/peter_king_si_nbc_sports.htm
To write about the NBA for a living and watch five games a week means that we have most likely a GENUINE newspaper beat reporter here! YE-HAAAAAW! Welcome to the Blahg, Mister 5 Games a Week! (I don't write about teh NBA for a living, and I watch 5 freaking games a week between the Lakers and the Clips, AND I get the LA Kings in too cause I'm a hockey guy)
ReplyDeleteFair weather fans was clearly about teams like the Cavs not having transplants. The Steelers? Browns? Yankees? Sure. Not the Cavs. What you have are LeBron fans showing up to cheer for him cause they don't give a damn about the local team. If I lived in Sacramento, damned right I'd be that fan for every Spurs, Cavs, and Clippers game. Being a Laker fan, I guess I'd be their transplant. Oh and by the way, Bill hasn't written for Kimmel since the first year of the show. He could have moved back to Boston at anytime.
Apparently the concept of Bill NOT turning in a COLUMN when it's DUE, is a little too much too handle for Anon the Destroyer. Bill MISSED the deadline. He DID NOT turn in the article, he didn't collect 200 dollars...but he didn't have to go straight to jail either. On the other hand, at my job if we miss a deadline, bad shit happens and people might get fired and all.
Let me help out too with Bill ebing out of touch. Ain't no NBA plyer paying out 60% in taxes and agent fees. Not...even....close. 35% is the top tax rate. Toss in a state with a fairly high tax rate...say California, that's another 11%, which becomes 46%. Agents rarely make more then 5% now. So at most, AT MOST, they are paying 50%, not 60%, and that's not counting the beau coup deductions they should be getting. any competent accountant or business manager will make that total amount of taxes be much closer to 35% en toto. So that 10 million dollar a year contract is more likely 6 1/2, not 4 million coming home. Bill's use of the word only shows that he has no real grasp on the amount that players really would pay, and that fans should understand that players don't make nearly as much as we think they do...except like, they do. Like Ewing said, they make a lot fo money, but they spend a lot of money too.
While I give Bill much credit for blasting the refs for 2006 time and again. If you'd read his columns this year, he's been on a "Celtics are being screwed" rampage since the Xmas Day game against the Lakers. of course it's coming from the man who bitched about John Hollinger not having the Celts as the best team according to PER the week before that Xams Day game, and that any system that didn't have the Celtics #1 was stupid and needed a complete overhaul. He also said he was going to be calling Hollinger out about it on their next podcast. Yeah well DIDN'T happen. The big ass losing streak, and subsequent not-so-dominant results since that loss have apparently slapped him back to Humble City a bit. He had Hollinger on his podcast last week and....peep...chirp...crickets. He didn't say a thing. The wanker.
As far as Bills book. Know anything about it? Like he's been working on it for more then a year? Like he took the entire summer off to get it finished. That would be LAST summer. That he's still not done with it? That the original concept was a bunch of his basketball columns being used as source material for his book about him, the NBA, and the game in general? As a professional writer who doesn't have any obligations other then 3 columns every two weeks, this is a DISMAL pace. I speak from experience, having written two books myself. Issac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, Stephen King, and Alexander McCall Smith LAUGH at you.
Overall, I think Bill had his heart in a good place, but when an unnammed basketball executive is his source for BASEBALL financial news....he lost me.
Kick out the jams.
Fred, this here blog does not stand for giving New Englanders a bad name. If I had feelings they would be hurt. I know it seems that way, but I think it is just because Peter King talks about Matt Cassel all the time and I write about Bill Simmons a lot. I can definitely start hating on the teams I really don't like if you want me to. Sure, I will admit the Red Sox are my least favorite MLB team but that is just because I can't hate the Yankees as much anymore for personal reasons.
ReplyDeleteI wish my favorite team would so stuff like the Patriots in free agency. They traded Mike Vrabel and got a 1st round pick for Deion Branch, now they signed Fred Taylor, who is perfect for them. I can't really argue too much with their personnel moves, especially when they get 2 1st round picks for Matt Cassel.
A newspaper beat reporter visiting once and telling me off would be nice. I wonder if he meant he actually watches (like in person) 5 games a week? Either way, how come anyone who rips me on here in Anonymous. I find it ironic that I rip professional writers but if they stumble upon this site, they could email me or leave a comment telling me how dumb I am, which one has before, but the anonymous people just rip and there is no way to truly know who they are. Hell, anyone could have written that. I don't need to know everyone's name, it is just interesting.
Martin, I thought it was pretty clear I was talking about Cavs fans, but I guess it wasn't. I have no problem with Bill not turning in his column, I am not his mommy, but I just thought it was funny he said he was writing his book, then said he was laying and was actually at All Star weekend.
I realize the players are in the highest tax bracket, I just don't understand how you can put "only" in that sentence because it infers the remaining balance is not that much. If I said, "Brett Favre threw 35 TD's in only 14 games last year," it would indicate he threw a lot of touchdowns in a short time span. Hence by saying "only" 40% of their salary indicates the players keep a little bit of money out of a lot of money. That little bit of money is still a lot though...and you are right, a player is not paying 60% taxes. I should have ripped Bill for that.
Bill did say the officiating was horrible in the NBA in 2006 but his two examples were of Celtics games, which made it sound like he was bitching about calls against them, which he was. Kevin Garnett fouled someone 35 feet from the basket (I watched the game and it was not 35 feet), it was maybe 25 feet.
I don't really care about the book he is writing, if he can't keep up with his real job on ESPN he shouldn't write a book. If I bitched at my job about not having enough time to do something extra semi-related to my book, instead of getting two months off, I would be laughed at and told to go back to work.
I appreciate feedback from people and I don't throw a post together in 45 minutes. I wish that were true, then there would be an excuse for some of the mistakes I make.
I also think the NBA is in trouble and I think I am more qualified to judge this, as compared to Bill, because I am a casual fan and I know tons of casual fans of the NBA who have been turned off by the quality and pace of play. Bill is a diehard and he only really knows diehards. I like watching about 8 teams play, and after that, I would rather watch a college game...and I know many who feel this way.
“Quick tangent: You're asking yourself, "Wait, how can a dude making $8-10 million a year live paycheck to paycheck?" Easy. First, he's only banking 40 percent once the IRS and agents are done with him.”
ReplyDeleteOk, first of all, the highest tax bracket in the US is 35%...and agents take their money at the time of the signing, not every single year. So if a player signed a $100 mil contract in 2006, the agent would take his 5% or whatever in 06…so in 2007 and beyond he isn’t taking 5% anymore. So 40% is way off, considering they would be banking 60% in Bills case study above. It’s as if he is saying they are getting taxed 60%!! That’s not the case, no one would get taxed more than 35% period, that is nowhere near 60%. And living off of $6 mil plus a year (on a $10 mil contract) is still better then living off $25K. I don’t care how you make it out, making millions and millions of dollars a year is MORE than enough for any one person to live off. Hell, I get taxed almost 30%...and I’m willing to bet the 30% I get taxed is a bigger deal to me than someone getting taxed 35% of $10 mil. Anyone making that much money that is living pay check to pay check is an idiot, plain and simple.
And the NBA is declining for most of the reasons you already said…like the fact that there is usually only one player hanging on to the ball while 3 or 4 others sit there and watch. It’s just getting hard to watch. Another problem is the season is just too long, and that doesn’t include the playoffs that seem to take forever to finish. The officials clearly suck and favor the popular teams and players (just watch the Pistons Heat Eastern Conference Finals a few years ago). You have teams that tank at the end of the year on purpose to get better draft choices…there are cities that just shouldn’t have teams at all, which brings up another thing…the NBA has to many teams.
Hey Anon most people understand the word “deadline”. We also understand how EASY it is to meet a deadline, especially when all you do for a living is write articles ONCE (in Bills case) a week. Most of the people who work for a living have a lot more than one thing to complete in a week. And writing a book was his choice, it is not part of his job. I couldn’t tell my place of employment that I couldn’t get my work done cause I was busy playing video games or some other activity that has nothing to do with my job. Wow, a Clipper never controlled position of the ball and got granted a time out…wowowowow I have never in my life seen that happen before, I mean other then at least 10 times a year. And no, I don’t believe forcing a game 7 had anything to do with the officials and the league wanting a game 7…I think it was more about the better team winning at HOME. I assume you are talking about Cleveland winning game 6 at home and the Spurs winning game 6 at home. I would never ever expect the home team to actually win a game 6, that’s stupid talk. And your whole theory goes out the window when Detroit loses at home in game 6 of the Conference Finals, therefore, NOT having a lucrative game 7. Go back and look, tell us all if Cleveland or the Spurs lost at home during those series (I’ll save you the trouble, the answer is no they didn’t). In fact, Cleveland went 5-1 at home and SA went 7-1 at home in the playoffs. And wow, you watch 5 games a week and write about it for a living? Seriously? You do something for a living but only watch 5 games a week? There are 7 days in a week, so you don’t even average a game a day? Hell I watch 5 games a week and I don’t get paid for it. I think you should spend less time reading blogs and more time watching games.
Oh and Bill is a homer for Boston, and that is the reason he specifically calls out things that happen to them…when there are bad calls every single night in every single city.
AJ, I am glad you got what I was writing as well. As if I needed any more proof to feel like I am right that officiating sucks everywhere and it is not just when Boston plays, Virginia Tech got absolutely screwed at the end of the game the other night when Duke in bounded the ball to Jon Scheyer and he changed his pivot foot approximately 3 times trying to keep the ball away from the defenders and then called a timeout. Duke was only up by 2/3 points at the time. Boston lost a game so Boo-hoo for them but if Virginia Tech had won against Duke, there was a good chance they would have made the NCAA Tournament.
ReplyDeleteThis call by the officials and if VT doesn't make the tournament because they lack a quality win against an opponent it will cost the school a good amount of revenue. Officiating sucks everywhere.
Bill's tax bracket argument was beyond stupid, I am surprised that got past the editor. I can't help but not feel sorry for someone who still has a million or two leftover after taxes. No one says they have to live a great lifestyle and own more than a couple of cars, homes, or anything else. That's my point.
ESPN does benefit from Bill writing a book because his name is synonymous with ESPN but he still got 8 weeks this summer and he is still complaining about not finishing it. It is probably like his other book where it is actually not completely original material but contains previous columns that he edits. That should make it a little easier to write.
I still think 5 NBA games a week is a bit low for someone who follows the league and gets paid to do so.