8 comments 75 Hours! Six Games! Magic Children!

Bill Simmons' writing has slowly become more and more about him. He doesn't necessarily write about sports or pop culture anymore. He writes about sports and pop culture as they pertain to him and his experiences in life. Bill's own experiences involving sports used to be in the background of his writing, but now sports are secondary to Bill's experiences with that sport. He has developed a very self-centric way of writing. Slowly Bill has come to believe because people enjoy his writing, they are extremely interested in his writing containing more and more references and discussions about him personally. Bill seems to have a case of only child syndrome. Apparently believing his SimmonsClones were clamoring for Bill to talk about his daughter a lot and hear about how he got to attend five playoff games in 75 hours, Bill has decided to write about the five playoff games he attended in 75 hours. He writes about how this affected him personally with the games as a mere backdrop to the exciting world that is Bill's life. It's like a reality television show, just in written form.

I don't dislike everything Bill Simmons writes, but this article is a great example of the type of writing I don't enjoy from him. It's self-centered and really isn't enjoyable. Of course the SimmonsClones will love it and I love poking them with a stick from time-to-time just to make sure they are still around.

You're gonna write about this, right?"

"I get recognized in public as a writer because I am famous. I just feel like I needed to remind you all of that. But other than being famous and people loving everything I do, I'm just like you. I write like I'm a fan. An extremely wealthy, self-involved fan who hangs out with celebrities and has nothing in common with 99.5% of my readers...but is still JUST LIKE YOU!"

Someone asked me that during halftime of Sunday night's Clippers-Spurs game. We were in the home stretch at that point: In the previous 74 hours, the same spot in downtown Los Angeles had somehow hosted six playoff games, two elimination games, two doubleheaders and an allegedly important cycling race.

I don't know how downtown Los Angeles did this. If I were Peter King I would congratulate downtown Los Angeles on hosting six playoff games in 75 hours.

If that wasn't enough, we also witnessed a solar eclipse and Antonio Cromartie's controversial halftime orgy with the Clippers dance squad. I only made one of those things up.

This is as opposed to his mailbags, where Bill makes up around 25% of the questions.

"Absolutely," I said. "I'm definitely writing about this."

"What's your angle gonna be? Just about going to all the games?"

"I only went to five of the six, but yeah."

"You should just lie and say you went to all six. That would be a good column."

"I can't lie, people saw me on Saturday night. I wasn't here."

"Dammit you asshole! I am famous and well-known among people in Los Angeles. I was at a party Saturday night. You know who else was there? Jimmy Kimmel. I know Jimmy Kimmel and he will blow my story wide open if I try to say I went to all six games. A person of my stature can't just pretend he was somewhere when everyone knows he was somewhere else. I get seen. By people. In public. Let me tell you a five-minute story about how my son crapped his diaper immediately after the Celtics lost Game 4 to the Sixers. HE KNEW WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN THAT GAME AND RESPONDED ACCORDINGLY!"

It's a great point. People love fibbing about fan-related stuff. Eight years after the Roberts Steal changed Boston sports history,

...you are still talking about it as if it was the day the first woman President was elected or the day the Berlin Wall fell?

83 percent of the swollen Red Sox fan base claim they were in Fenway when it happened, and even better, that they never left to beat the traffic (even though so many others did).

Unfathomable.

When do we get the first "Baseball is boring this year and that's why interest is down" column from Bill Simmons? I think he'll wait until late-June and then if the Red Sox aren't competing for the AL East title Bill will proclaim this year in baseball is boring and state nobody cares about the sport anymore.

Hitting L.A. Live for six playoff games over the course of four nights? Harder than it sounds. You need connections

Which Bill has. He knows Jimmy Kimmel you know! Adam Carolla is absolutely more hilarious in real life too. Let Bill tell you a story about how Adam Carolla said something absolutely hilarious to Jimmy Kimmel one time...

You need money.

Which Bill has. Do you want to hear about Bill's man-cave upgrades? You don't? Too bad, he's going to eventually write about them in a column which is really about him bragging how nice the technology he has is under the guise of the column being about a sporting event. It will start off,

"So me and three friends decided to watch the 2012 NBA Finals Game 1 in my man-cave. My wife (inserts something women always do to get in the way of a man enjoying his life). So it became an issue because we wanted to watch the Red Sox game, (insert some random MTV show no one over the age of 18 cares about), and the NBA Finals at the same time. Fortunately, I now have 8 big screen televisions to watch them on, so we spent the entire night watching each of the televisions and didn't miss a second of the action. Our heads were flipping back and forth between televisions like (insert dated pop culture reference)."

You need to be single.

OH! Bill isn't single, so his wife dragged him to some stupid social event on Saturday night which caused him to miss the sixth game. I'm sure Bill brought his iPhone and a group of guys crowded around the phone to watch action of the game while the women talked about women-stuff like getting their periods, making their husbands' life miserable through their constant need to engage in conversation and why Bill Simmons seems to have a semi-hatred for women.

Or, you need to be me.

Well Bill, as we have learned through nearly over a decade of reading your columns, we will never be you...no matter how hard we try, your life experiences and ideas trump every other life experience and idea anyone else has ever had. BILL SIMMONS FOR MAGIC GM! He'll trade Dwight Howard for Andrew Bynum/Devin Ebanks, sign Kevin Garnett to a three year contract and then sign Steve Nash to a five year contract. Who says "no" to this?

A few years ago, that once-downtrodden area was improbably transformed from a collection of hideous above-ground parking lots to the perpetually happy "L.A. Live," a multi-block complex featuring dozens of offices (including Grantland's headquarters),

Another little reminder that Grantland is succeeding beyond his wildest dreams. Kudos to him of course, it was a great idea. Still, I feel like this is a passive-aggressive brag about the location fo the Grantland offices. I've referred to Bill as that 11 year old kid many people knew as they were growing up. He was the kid with the massive ego who always believed his stuff was better than your stuff and always felt the need to remind you of all the cool shit he did in a passive-aggressive way. It isn't a humblebrag really. It's more of a passive-aggressive brag.

"My dad and I went to a car show yesterday. There were a ton of fast cars there like a Camero, a Ferrari, a Corvette (my father owns two of them) and the 330 horsepower Mustang which costs as much as our backyard swimming pool did by the way."

You couldn't ask for a better host for consecutive doubleheaders, simply because it's such an underrated place to waste time.

Congratulations again Los Angeles on hosting so many playoff games in 75 hours!

My favorite L.A. Live story before last weekend: A few months ago, a Kings home game at Staples Center started at the exact same time as a Wiz Khalifa concert at the Nokia Theatre, inadvertently creating the single funniest swarm of congestion that's ever happened. Let's just say there wasn't a ton of overlap between the two fan bases.

There were a bunch of wealthy white people and poor black people in the same area! Bill left Boston and moved to Los Angeles to get away from poor black people, yet here they are again showing up for a rap concert. What a crazy story! This has probably never happened in the history of the United States for two different events marketed towards two different groups of people to be scheduled at the same time. Thanks for sharing this story. Your life is enthralling. I'm riveted.

That story got supplanted by my new favorite story about L.A. Live, which happened Saturday during the first of two doubleheaders: Two of my friends caught the Clippers-Spurs game, then found themselves with three hours to kill before the Lakers-OKC game. Hmmmmm … three hours … MOVIE!

So two guys had some downtime and they went to a movie! That's now my favorite story about L.A. Live. I'm going to pretend I was there and experienced this firsthand.

They checked out movie theater times and found a perfect window to see The Dictator.

I want to say this play-by-play before actually getting to the point of this story is absolutely necessary. Very interesting. Did they get popcorn? Would Jimmy Kimmel have enjoyed the movie? More importantly, what did Bill's daughter think of the commercials for "The Dictator?"

So they walk over to the Regal Cinemas, buy tickets, sit down …

Whoa, whoa...back up a bit. What theater number was the movie playing in? You can't just go from them buying tickets to them sitting down. Spare no detail when telling this story.

and who do they see in another row killing time like them? That's right, Jimmy Goldstein, the stylish millionaire who sits courtside for seemingly every NBA playoff game, wears colorful leather jackets, sits next to long-legged blondes and always looks like he just smoked the biggest bowl on the planet. You know, this guy. Did Jimmy bring one of those long-legged blondes to The Dictator? Of course he did!

This story could easily have been told in a more timely fashion. It could have gone, "my two friends went to see a movie in between two playoff games and saw Jimmy Goldstein at the theater with a long-legged blonde."

Really, it took none of the interest out of the story to shorten it to one sentence. Of course if Bill was succinct in telling the story he wouldn't be able to show off clever he is in telling stories.

Actually, the entirety of last weekend was probably L.A. Live's greatest moment:

I'm glad Bill has spent 10% of this column space deciding which moment in the history of a group of buildings was that group of buildings' greatest moment. This isn't an unnecessary space-killer at all.

You know what actually happened?

Remember this is a column about sports. We are 25% of the way through the column and we haven't even come close to hearing about these sporting events. We've heard about the buildings around these sporting events and heard about why Bill didn't attend all six playoff games. This is what happens when you are Bill Simmons and your writing has become uninspired, so you want to stop writing forever but don't quite have the guts to do this yet.

That moniker alone scared people off the roads, inadvertently creating the best summer driving weekend of the decade. In all my time living here, that remains the only time I ever topped 100 miles an hour on the 10.

That's great. You have a fast car and were able to drive fast. Again. Your life = riveting.

I'm partial to "The Playoff Eclipse" because, again, I'm almost positive we won't see another American city host six playoff games in 75 hours during the same weekend as a solar eclipse. If you can beat it, feel free.

I'll jump right on trying to beat this arbitrary and irrelevant record the city of Los Angeles has set. Also, "The Playoff Eclipse" isn't a very good name for this weekend of games.

Then comes a story about his daughter having a favorite L.A. Kings player, which I am pretty sure Bill has written about previously over the last month or so.

I find myself caught up in a moment like the last two minutes of that Kings game — when you're embedded in the heart of 20,000 people basically losing their shit — and you think to yourself, Oh, yeah, that's why I do this for a living.

Bill, you don't write about sports for a living. You write about yourself, sporting events and how they made you feel, and then make up some bullshit about theories, corollaries, and answer a few mailbag questions from SimmonsClones who for some inexplicable reason require approval from you. No matter what I think about Bill's writing, I know one thing. That one thing is he doesn't write about sports. I'm not even sure he is a fan of sports. He is a fan of the storylines around sports, but I sometimes doubt he enjoys the actual sporting events themselves.

I had brought my buddy Geoff

Back up a bit Bill. Where is Geoff visiting from? This is crucial to the story because I don't read your columns to read about sports, I read your columns to hear about you and your friends. It's all about you.

(visiting from Sonoma)

Thank you. Carry on.

I can't handle what happened in Game 7 of the 2010 Finals for a variety of reasons

I can't handle you talking about what happened in Game 7 of the 2010 Finals ever again. Let it go and accept the Lakers beat the Celtics.

— most notably, the fact that the Celtics blew the title —

They didn't lose, they blew the title. The Lakers deserve little to no credit of course for winning this game, meanwhile every playoff victory for the Celtics is another dedication to grit, hard work, Ubuntu, and desire the team shows on a nightly basis which requires a 5000 word column to accurately describe.

but letting Kobe off the hook was my second-biggest regret. After Kobe single-handedly shot the Lakers out of that game, the Celtics only needed to score a couple of times in the third quarter to steal a title that, again, Kobe was gift-wrapping for them.

And yet the Celtics didn't score a couple of times to steal the title and the Lakers won.

Trust me, I was there. The fans were catatonic. You could practically hear them recalibrating Kobe's legacy in their own heads.

Trust me, I watched the game on television. The fans' reaction doesn't matter and can't be used as any proof the Celtics should have won that game.

If you were a Boston fan, would you want to willingly enter a world in which Kobe wears a superhero's cap, everyone wears yellow and "I Love L.A." blares after every victory?

And yet, Bill did willingly enter a world in which Kobe wears a superhero's cap, everyone wears yellow and "I Love L.A." blares after each victory. So he wants sympathy from his readers for attending a game he chose to attend and had great seats for. That sounds about right.

I didn't think so.

Oh no, I would absolutely do it. I'd love to attend a Lakers-Celtics game in L.A.

The Staples staff hustled everyone out, turned the arena over, burned some sage to get rid of Donald Sterling's aura, then reopened the doors for Game 4 of the Lakers-OKC series. I skipped this one because

And I skipped this part of the column because "because" doesn't matter. I don't read Bill's columns to hear about his personal life and I would bet others feel the same way. If someone does read a Bill Simmons column simply to hear about what his friends and family have to say...well that's very, very pathetic and I'd like to meet this person so I could tell him/her this.

Could we keep the momentum going on Sunday? The morning started off with an off-putting vibe because of the aformentioned bike race, which spawned a Carmageddon-like panic because it shut down so many of the morning's traffic routes. Kings fans were urged to show up three hours early and to even — gulp — take the subway to be safe. Personally, I would rather drive my car through the bike race and pancake some of the cyclists than take the L.A. subway.

Are there too many middle-class people on the subway?

Fortunately, my special L.A. Live parking pass enabled my daughter and me to circumvent the traffic, park, grab brunch AND watch the first wave of cyclists fly by toward the finish line.

Another passive-aggressive brag and the second time Bill has referenced Grantland's offices being in L.A. Live. Also notice how Bill doesn't have an L.A. Live parking pass, but a "special" L.A. Live pass. Again, I don't understand how Bill's loyal readers don't see him as braggart and coming off as self-important. The man clearly loves himself some Bill Simmons. Bill thinks the most impressive thing about Bill Simmons is being Bill Simmons.

This ended up being one of my favorite father-daughter moments in a while.

I need a play-by-play of this moment. I desire to know more about your life.

We stood in front of The Farm for 10 solid minutes waiting for the leaders as my daughter — becoming more and more excited by the second — fired questions at me like a district attorney. How many riders? How fast do they go? Do you think they'll have an accident?

Has any child ever fired questions at their parent? Probably not. Bill's daughter seems much more intelligent than a normal child would be, as well as better connected to understanding the irrelevant parts of sporting events just like her father is.

My daughter jumped on their bandwagon this season after we bought Kings season tickets, quickly embracing them and the NHL in general. (This is a whole other column.)

A column that I absolutely beg of you to never write. Your daughter's opinion on sports is absolutely irrelevant and should never be considered relevant in any way as to be posted on Grantland.

I talked about this about a year ago, but I'm going to go at it again. By talking about his daughter constantly, Bill is opening up her to the public. By this I mean, he is allowing people to become interested in his daughter's opinion and what she has to say. So when his readers show an interest in his daughter, and this could include at some point a picture being taken of his family members while out in public, Bill can't get angry about this. Bill seems to be a very private person, but if he wants to stay that way he should stop making his daughter and son a featured part of his column. I don't make personal attacks on people or mock a person's family, but Bill seems to be making his daughter a feature part of some of his columns and I would feel bad making fun of a six year old.

If you remember, my beloved Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in 86 years just a few weeks after she was conceived,

Yes, I remember exactly when your daughter was conceived. Your life history is charted out on my bedroom wall in a way that looks like I'm Claire Danes on the show "Homeland" trying to figure out what Sergeant Brody is up to.

(See? Anyone can make bad pop culture references)

Bill has such an enormous ego he expects his readers to recall when his children were born in relation to when his favorite team won the World Series. It's true. Bill Simmons does officially believe the world revolves around him.

so I wasn't even a little surprised when she turned around the unlucky Kings and made them a contender.

Bill's daughter is magic!

One other issue I feel like I need to mention. Notice how Bill seemed to only attend a few regular season Kings games with the two tickets that Grantland has, but when it comes time for the playoffs he is at every game? No one else at Grantland gets those playoffs tickets. The man is a front-runner to his very core. There is no bandwagon he is afraid to jump on. Even if he isn't a Kings fan, he is a front-runner in that he chases teams who have success so he can write about this success. Then he will attempt to describe the fan base's train of thought through the team's history as if he is the Fan Base Whisperer or something. He did this very thing a few weeks ago in the Clippers-Chris Paul column I posted.

As the third period limped along with the Kings trailing by two, my daughter vainly tried to get a few "Let's Go Kings" chants going, then turned around and yelled in frustration, "What's the matter with everybody?"

The magical child can't get a "Let's Go Kings" chant going? What is going with this world? This child singlehandedly made the Kings a better team by her mere presence at games and the crowd won't respect this child prodigy enough to chant with her?

it's the chemistry of the 2012 Spurs that leaves you breathless. I know, that's a weird thing to write. How can chemistry leave you breathless?

It really can't. This only happens when you are reaching so hard for a metaphor to describe what you want to say that you just lazily settle for a terrible sentence like this, followed by a question where you seem to be acknowledging you have no idea what you are talking about.

Duncan gleefully congratulating Danny Green after Green stopped Chris Paul at the end of Game 4. Duncan wasn't happy that Green came through for the Spurs; he was happy for Green as a friend.

And again, Bill's ability to read minds comes through when we need it. Of course Bill could also have known Duncan considers his teammates to be friends and cheers for them in that way by reading the Sports Illustrated article on Tim Duncan this past week. I'm sure this is something Bill knew intuitively though.

Watching the Spurs and their bench reacting to that moment (totally locked in, totally expecting the Clippers to cave), you could just tell where the game was going. I even tweeted about it.

Of course this Tweet was made as the Spurs started to come back in the game and after Bill's previous Tweet which said,

"Interesting subplot if Clips keep lead in the 20's - at what point in 2nd half does Popp pack it in because they're playing again tomorrow?

Apparently that feeling Bill had that the Clippers were going to cave didn't come until the Spurs actually started to come back. It's a bit easier to get this feeling once the comeback has started.

Over everything else that happened during the Playoff Eclipse, I will remember the San Antonio Spurs waltzing through town, laying the smack down and leaving with a smile.

Not me. I will remember the best three moments in the history of L.A. Live and the fact the "Playoff Eclipse" is a terrible name for a weekend that had six playoff games in 75 hours. It sounds like a bad sports-related "Twilight" book.