If ESPN Were The NBA, Then Bill Simmons Would Be An Expiring Contract

Bill Simmons has come out with his annual trade value column and, as usual, it is a doozy. My biggest problem with his annual trade value column is that it naturally favors younger players over older players and is not directly tied to a player's performance. So it comes off as a sort of ranking of the most valuable players in the NBA, when it is not. Basically, a team is going to naturally want a 26 year old player who entered the league 6 years ago who has not reached a maximum contract level yet, over a 31 year old who is making a maximum contract but is actually a better player. The trade value of these players does not reflect their actual value to a team, yet Bill still couches some of the arguments in the terms of performance. That may not make sense but I will say I could argue with nearly half these selections but I won't. This reads like a list of the most valuable players in the league when it is not exactly that.

I spent two solid work days researching this year's column; made a vague attempt to understand the parameters of PER before giving up; treated HoopsHype's salary Web site like Dirk Diggler treated Rollergirl (note: had to make the mandatory "Boogie Nights" reference early so we don't have to think about it)

Our little guy is becoming so self aware. It sounds like Bill does read a little bit of the criticism and critiques of his work. I hope it doesn't start to drive him crazy to the point he starts to write "The same jokes over and over make Bill a dull boy" on a sheet of paper and then he would go on a murderous rampage. That would be sad but I can see the critics driving him crazy at one point.
deliberated the question, "Who should be higher, Duncan or Wade?" longer than the Supreme Court deliberated on Roe vs. Wade;

I think Bill throws these type sentences into his columns just so everyone doesn't think that Rick Reilly has the easiest job at ESPN.

He will never defeat Reilly though, Simmons writes too many words and does write three columns every two weeks, which is more work than Reilly could dream of doing.

Carlos Boozer (11) gets a "Trade Value DNP" because he's an injured free-agent-to-be and is definitely leaving Utah, so basically, I have no idea what to do with him.

I don't know if Boozer is definitely leaving Utah. It seems to me the Jazz are trying to decide between Boozer and Paul Millsap. LeBron James is going to be a free agent in two years and he is ranked #1 in Bill's rankings, so any team that trades for him would have to take this into account, just like any team that traded for Boozer would have to take into account his free agency status after this year.

J.J. Hickson: My favorite under-the-radar rookie and a legitimate 2009 Playoff X Factor. If he played for the Lakers, L.A. fans would be comparing him to a young Karl Malone right now.

Sure, Bill doesn't hate the Lakers. He just takes every chance he can get to make smart ass comments about them.

Paul Millsap: Would have cracked the top 30 if not for his expiring (and dirt-cheap) contract, which makes him a Trade Value DNP since he'd never get traded for soon-to-be-irrelevant reasons.

I say this same argument could be used for Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. What teams are going to trade for them knowing they can become free agents in a year and a half? A team that wants to contend right now? Then that same team would trade for Paul Millsap and hope they could sign him. He is going to be easier to sign most likely than James and Bryant.

You know, if Michael Beasley wasn't such a colossal disappointment and semi-fraud, the 2008 draft could have ranked among the best ever (and certainly superior to the more ballyhooed '07 class).

I wonder if this answers my question about whether immaturity is a character issue? I thought Beasley had too many questions coming out of college but I didn't think actual basketball performance would be one of them.

What frightens me is that The Team That Shall Not Be Named somehow has become my favorite non-Boston team to watch. Love the Durant-Green-Westbrook foundation, love Scotty Brooks (who knew???), love the spirit of their crowds, love their style of play (attack off every miss, which is exactly how the Bulls should play).

Their 12-38 record certainly reflects how much this style of offense works for them. The only reason Bill loves this team is because Kevin Durant is on the team and Bill was pimping Russell Westbrook last March and claiming no one had been talking about him...which was of course wrong. I love it when Bill talks college basketball. Bill finds excuses to like teams so he can pimp out his favorite players, including the perpetually underrated reigning Rookie of the Year Kevin Durant.

Every Clippers fan feels Gordon is like one of those kids from a bad family who has a ton of potential, but there's still an overwhelming chance that his parents (in this case, Donald Sterling and Mike Dunleavy) will screw him up. And actually, that's how this will probably play out. Ladies and gentlemen, your Los Angeles Clippers!

Hahahahahaha! That joke never gets old. Bill starts off describing a player or a team that sucks and ends it with "Ladies and gentlemen, your _____!" It never gets old.

Why is my nose bleeding? Ewww....apparently I was punching myself in the face will writing that last sentence.

You have to love a country where Love's best rookie card (Upper Deck's '09 SPX set, the signed autographed jersey card) goes for one-eighth the money of Beasley's card ... and yet, Miami could offer Beasley for Love right now and Minnesota would make a face and hang up.

That is so crazy! How could there be no correlation between how much people value rookie cards and how much General Manager's value that player? It's not like those are two separate, completely different things that are valued completely differently.

It's like why are elephant tusks valued so highly by poacher compared to a leopard's coat...and yet, a person would much rather be put in a steel cage with an elephant than a leopard! Crazy!

If any team is considering hiring Bill Simmons as the team's GM or as Sports Czar, please read that last paragraph and reconsider immediately. Really, he is comparing basketball cards to a player's actual value.

Russell Westbrook: The rookie MVP of the Table Team for guys who bring a ton of stuff to the table, but also take a fair share of stuff off it ... but still, he wins you over in the end. I like him. He is definitely not a point guard. This much we know. I'd like to be the chairman of the "Is He A Point Guard Or Not?" Committee.

Simmonsologists know that Bill takes credit for certain things that are either incredibly obvious or he takes credit because he has not researched enough to see that everyone is as smart as he is. Russell Westbrook is 6 foot 3 or 6 foot 4, depending on what you want to believe and here are four scouting reports on him. All of them say he can play point guard but also say the attributes a point guard traditionally has: passing, decision making, and ball handling need some work in Westbrook's game. This was very obvious.

So Bill would have a lot of room on the "Is He A Point Guard Or Not" Committee and it would most likely be filled with people a lot smarter than him.

So that's what Chauncey turned out to be for the Nuggets -- the pleasant follow-up girlfriend to the nightmare witch. If Denver had swapped Iverson for Kidd, the same "turnaround" would have happened. I am convinced.

Because Jason Kidd is three years older than Chauncey Billups he does not have as much trade value according to Bill (because he was not listed here), despite the fact the Jason Kidd trade netted the Nets Devin Harris (#38 on Bill's list) and the Chauncey Billups trade netted the Pistons Allen Iverson, who did not make Bill's list. Got that?

In other words, Bill believes the Nuggets would have turned it around in Denver with Jason Kidd as the starting point guard, but he still thinks Chauncey Billups has more trade value, even though in real life Billups does not have as much trade value, according to what talent was traded for Kidd and Billups respectively based on Bill's rankings, and yet Kidd is not as valuable according to Bill. Got it?

Fine then. It doesn't make sense to me how Kidd could be traded for #38 on Bill's list and Billups was traded for a player that did not make Bill's list AND Bill thinks Billups is as valuable to a team than Jason Kidd, but the result would have been the same in Denver. Either the result would not have been the same or Billups should not have made the list or Kidd should have made the list. Real life trades are not jiving with Bill's listing of trade values.

38. Devin Harris Hey, TNT, here's a list of "people to show after every basket Harris scores in the 2009 All-Star Game" (in descending order from "most funny" to "not funny"):

I think Mark Cuban is the only person who thought trading for a weaker, older point guard in exchange for a younger, better point guard was a good idea. Devin Harris needs to be moved up this list.

I still say the Amare era is salvageable -- stick the kid on a team with a good point guard (Chicago?), tell him to just worry about putting the biscuit in the basket (New York? G-State?), or trade for him and say, "We love you, you're our franchise guy" (Sacramento? Memphis? Indiana?) and I think he'd start slapping up 29-9s again.

Two of those three teams that would make Amare the franchise guy, Sacramento and Memphis have two guys ranked above Amare in Bill's trade value list, Kevin Martin and O.J. Mayo. So Bill thinks Amare would be the franchise guy, just not the most valuable guy on the team. Got it? This is what I was talking about where there is a difference in actual ability and production in Bill's trade column. There is no way Amare cracks the list in my mind, he has a big contract and his production is down...but whatever.

As Michael Corleone screamed after the Joey Zaza assassination, "This is not ... WHAT I WANTED!" (Wait a second, did I just quote "Godfather III?" I'm clearly running out of movies and need to retire soon.)

He is becoming VERY self aware. Seriously, I think his critics are starting to drive him crazy. Now he is taking shots at everyone in his columns who think he uses old movie quotes. I was going to leave a comment talking about this in his comment section but...........I can't because he is protected by ESPN.

Three ideas from the Picasso of the Trade Machine: Butler to Houston for Luis Scola, Shane Battier and a 2011 No. 1; Butler, Juan Dixon and Darius Songaila's crappy contract to Atlanta for Marvin Williams, Speedy Claxton's not-quite-as-crappy contract, Acie Law and a future No. 1; and Butler plus Etan Thomas' crappy contract to Portland for Travis Outlaw, Raef LaFrentz's Expiring Contract (you knew it was coming) and all the insurance money that comes with Raef's Expiring Contract.

If Bill had ever become a GM, I would have given it three weeks until someone is telling FoxSports about what a horrible GM Bill Simmons is and that the other GMs laugh behind his back at his absurd trade proposals. Explain to me again why you want Alston, Butler, McGrady, Ming, and Artest on the floor at the same time again? T-Mac as a PF, I would love to see that.

28. Josh Smith

Tailed off less than expected after inking that worrisome $58 million extension ... although he's the captain of the 2009 "Why The Hell Are You Shooting 3s?" All-Stars, missing 41 of 54 this season (24 percent) and missing 324-for-438 for his career (26 percent).

I still wish he had played at UNC for one year before going pro. I wonder how many times in one year I would have seen Roy Williams call a timeout, take off his glasses and put them on the scorer's table, and then bench Josh Smith for Bobby Frasor?

26. Rajon Rondo

Number of 23-and-under point guards in NBA history who started for consecutive 60-win teams: Zero. Stay tuned. Also, he made a sneaky statistical jump from last season to this season: 10.6 ppg, 5.1 apg, 4.6 rpg, 1.7 steals and 49.2 percent FG, to 11.2 ppg, 8.3 apg, 5.1 rpg, 2.0 steals, 50.4 percent FG. Factoring in the typical jumps as players get older (as well as better free-throw shooting), we might see the following peak season for Rondo some day: 16.1 ppg, 10.8 apg, 7.2 rpg, 2.5 steals, 55.4 percent FG.

Tony Parker came really close to doing this, the Spurs won 58 games in the West one year after they won 60 games, not to mention the Celtics have not won 60 games yet this year. Seriously, I love Rondo, but the day that he averages 7 rebounds per game and 55% field goal percentage is the day I apologize for only thinking his numbers are so great because he plays with three Hall of Fame players.

All Suns fans will now light themselves on fire with a framed photo of Bob Sarver dunking off a trampoline.

I never get enough of the Mab Libs jokes Bill does. You know he keeps the same basic sentence structure and throws different words in at key places. It just kills me when he does this.

Seriously, I feel a little bit of my life slip away everytime I have to read one.

As for Bynum, I would have bumped him to Group E if Kobe hadn't intentionally injured his teammate's knee Jeff Gillooly-style. (Just kidding, Lakers fans. Just kidding. Jokes. Settle down.)

See, no grudge.

Either way, it's a bad sign for Portland's 2007 draft that (A) the Blazers don't even have the best under-22 center in their own conference, and (B) we're still four groups away from getting to the guy the Blazers passed up.

Normally this would be a bad sign, except this is a completely made up trade value column, you have a massive crush on Kevin Durant, and you are pretty much making this all up, so it has very little factual basis.

22. Tony Parker
21. Joe Johnson

I bet 100 Cheez-Its that if you polled 10 NBA GM's and asked them if you offered a Tony Parker for Joe Johnson trade, where their team would give up Johnson and get Parker and I bet 9 of them would take it immediately.

20. Al Jefferson

I know I am in the minority on this issue and I really should be biased but I would take Al Jefferson today over Kevin Garnett. I still wonder what the Celtics would have done if they had kept Jefferson over Garnett. I am very interested to know if they would have won the NBA Finals, all signs point to "no," but really is Jefferson that much less valuable than Garnett?

15. Pau Gasol

The starting center on the "Guys Who Are So Much More Impressive In Person" Team. Wonderful player to watch. Terrific passer, smooth low-post moves, runs the floor much better than you'd think, and he always pulls out two flying-out-of-nowhere tips from weird angles. Seems like he'd be fun to play with, too. I always leave the Staples Center wildly impressed by him. Right team, right fit. But can you win a title with him? Hmmmmmm.

They almost did win a title last year. If Andrew Bynum had not been injured, I think they very well could have won the title. Don't be such an ass.

(Before you make fun of my bromance with KD, explain how a kid who just turned 20 four months ago has basically been averaging a 29-8 with 49-88-45 percentages and this isn't a national story. I mean, you should be tired of hearing about Durant by now. By the way, he's averaging 31.9 ppg, 8.1 rpg and 45.4 mpg over the past 12 games, six of them wins. Here's his game log if you don't believe me. And check those numbers compared to a 21-year-old LeBron in Year 2, or Kobe's third season when he turned 20. Hmmmm. What do you think Durant has to do to crack one of the first three segments on "PTI"? Score 40 for five straight games? I'm just curious. Again, he's 20. He's can't drink yet. This whole paragraph is making me feel bromantic.)

So many problems with this paragraph. First scoring points on a crappy team is always easy to do and especially for a team that does not play a whole lot of defense. Durant is the #1 scoring option, so of course he is going to score. I am tired of hearing about Durant by now and if you are going to compare his national Q rating to anything, please leave PTI out of the discussion. I like the ESPN show, but it is an ESPN show which means anything non-Celtics, Cavs or Lakers related doesn't get any play. Bill helped create this, he should at least understand why Durant doesn't get a segment.

Quick question though: Yao is one of the 10 most famous athletes in the world, right? So what would the top 10 look like? I had a great argument about this with someone recently and we honestly couldn't figure it out -- definitely Yao and Tiger, definitely Beckham and Federer, definitely Phelps, maybe Thierry Henry, maybe a Formula One guy (I won't even embarrass myself by guessing), maybe Kobe ... and then ... I mean ... does LeBron make the list? Brady or (Peyton) Manning? Nadal? More soccer players? Any female tennis players? How do we figure this out?

Remember Bill's "tennis is dead" column? Where he said this:

Unlike golf, another time-sucking sport that appeals to a specific audience, tennis lacks a Tiger to keep it relevant.

Yet, 8 months later he lists 2 male tennis players as two of the 10 most famous athletes in the world along with Tiger and then asks if a female tennis player should be included. Apparently tennis players are very relevant. This is why it is so hard to take anything Bill writes seriously.

6. Kobe Bryant

Kobe, who is arguably the best player in the league and a person who is only 30 years old and has been to the NBA Finals 4 times (and actually played a key role on every single one of those teams) has the 6th most trade value in the league? That's it?

Sure, there is no bias here.

If the Lakers win the title, he becomes one of the top 10 players ever, and that's that.

(Now here's where the Lakers fans e-mail, "But wait, he's in the top 10 already!!!!!" They're a delight.)

3rd swipe at Lakers fans in this column.

Dwayne Wade is #5 on the list and I have little doubt Pat Riley would trade Wade straight up for Kobe Bryant right now. Maybe he would not, but I would.

1. LeBron James

James can become a free agent after this year. I am not saying he doesn't deserve to be #1 on the list but if Bill is going to take contract matters into account with other players he has to do it with LeBron as well. I am not arguing with this selection, just bringing this point up.

As a Celtics fan, I shudder for the future. As an NBA fan, I am pinching myself.

As a Celtics fan, you are the reason I don't cheer for them.