15 comments Bill Simmons Confirms that God Does Indeed Love Cleveland

Remember when Bill Simmons threw a very minor hissy fit on the NBA Countdown set about the Cleveland Cavaliers getting their third #1 overall draft pick in four years? Bill didn't think the Cavaliers deserved another #1 overall pick for mismanaging their team. It turns out he doesn't like that Cleveland gets the #1 overall pick again, but he's perfectly fine with the Cavs signing the NBA's best player. Because after all, he needs to be liked and he can only rail against the Cavs so much before he could start alienating and losing the audience he used to work so hard to get. So while Bill manages to think the Cavs don't deserve another #1 overall pick, he's fine with the team getting LeBron James. Why? Because Bill issues the final proclamation that God loves Cleveland. Bill uses the word "God" loosely because he doesn't want to offend anyone or contradict many of his Simmonsites' idea that he himself is indeed God.

Yeah, I read LeBron James’s classy letter in Sports Illustrated. I believe him.

Rest easy now, LeBron! Bill Simmons believes you. I know this is a load off your conscience.

In the summer of 2010, LeBron handled everything wrong. He knows that now. His hometown turned on him. His former owner excoriated him. Everyone else hated what he did.

No, "everyone" didn't hate what he did. I didn't hate what he did. He chose his team and did it in a poor fashion, but I'm pretty sure Miami Heat fans didn't hate it.

We turned him into a wrestling heel, pushed him to a dark place, affected his personality, planted seeds of doubt that blossomed like a black rose during the 2011 Finals. 

"WE" did this. Not the media, not Bill, but "WE" did this. I hope we are proud of ourselves.

But he never forgot what happened, and deep down, he probably always wanted to atone. When the time arrived this summer, he flipped the script on us.

"US" got the script flipped on us. We did. Consider the script to have been flipped. Hope you can read backwards, planet Earth!

Those four Miami seasons made me sure of one thing: He’s one of the greatest NBA players ever.

Write it down on a tablet, because it's now official. Congratulations on getting your very own chapter in the "Book of Basketball Part 2," LeBron James. You have moved up in Bill's arbitrary rankings.

Add everything up and it’s the best possible story. He’s the conquering hero who came home, and, hopefully, will conquer again.

It’s also not entirely accurate. I think LeBron would have stayed in Miami — for at least one or two more years — if he truly believed he had a chance to keep winning there.

So what about the story isn't accurate? LeBron came home, he stated he wanted to come home and so he did. In fact, Bill said this a couple of paragraphs earlier in this column:

I think he wanted to come home. I think he always wanted to come home.

It turns out now that Bill's own statement isn't entirely accurate. You know what that means, right? WE are wrong about LeBron wanting to come home.

If you think of him like a genius, it makes more sense.

Here's the part where Bill Simmons writes thousands of more words than he has to in order to push out a column and overcomplicate an issue. Simply stating that LeBron chose where he thought he could win doesn't make for a great column, so Bill has to go off on a long tangent about how LeBron is a genius and that's why he chose the Cavaliers over the Heat. Sure, this whole part of the column could be summed up by writing, "LeBron didn't think he had a chance to win long-term in Miami, so he chose to go back to Cleveland," but that doesn't make Bill feel like he's smart and overcomplicate an issue in order to kill space.

He’s smarter about basketball than you and me, and, really, anyone else. He sees things that we can’t see. During that last Miami season, I don’t think he liked what he saw from his teammates. LeBron James wanted to come back to Cleveland, but he also wanted to flee Miami.

I think anyone who saw the NBA Finals understood Wade wasn't exactly at the peak of his career and Bosh is still a very good NBA player, but the Heat had to do better at putting a supporting cast around LeBron. It didn't take a genius to see this. So LeBron is much smarter about basketball than Bill and me, but what I saw from LeBron's teammates were that he had to work hard to carry the team at times. Anyone watching the games could see it wasn't sustainable.

And his brain works like very few brains — not just now, but ever.

Bill is really, really overcomplicating things here. Cleveland had a good, young core on their rookie contracts, while Miami was getting older. LeBron chose to take a step back rather than ride out his time in Miami and hope they could put a good team around him. 

Do you think Michael Jordan was a genius?”

I asked Doug Collins that question during the 2014 NBA Finals, on the afternoon of Game 3, hours before San Antonio transformed into some crazy hybrid of Russell’s Celtics, Walton’s Blazers and Bradley’s Knicks. We were eating lunch at our hotel’s pool, flanked by the radiantly blue ocean off Brickell Key, talking hoops, because that’s what you do when you’re around Doug.

Ah yes, it is the "Stories about the NBA Countdown Crew" section of Bill's column. It has become a staple along with "Throw up a YouTube video to kill space" and "Here's a Half-Assed Theory" whenever Bill writes a column.

The man has enough stories for three books, but too much respect for the game, and for the relationships he has cultivated over the years, to ever actually write one.

Meanwhile Bill doesn't give a shit about the game or his relationships, he just wants money and fame, which is why he was going to write a book with Steve Nash about his time in the NBA. I'm not blaming him. Money is great. Just pointing this out.

Fourteen years later, he started coaching Michael Jordan — someone who collected more ripped-out hearts than anyone. Do you think Michael Jordan was a genius? I barely got the words out of my mouth.

And Bill had not spoken for a full ten minutes, so he was really pissed off Doug Collins barely let him finish the sentence.

“Oh yes,” Collins said. “There’s no question.”

What did Bill expect Collins to say? "No, Jordan was a dumbass"?

If he sensed that a particular teammate would fail him, he’d gesture to Collins to remove that person from the game. All these years later, Collins delights in imitating how Jordan did it — by making eye contact with his coach, glancing toward the offending teammate, then unleashing one of those “Get him the F out of here” grimaces. Almost always, his instincts were right.

Of course prior to Michael Jordan being the super-winner that he ended up being, teammates found this behavior annoying and there was a book called "The Jordan Rules" by Sam Smith that detailed how Jordan would often try to fight and mentally tear down his teammates. So while Jordan's instincts were right, he wasn't quite the genius under Doug Collins he is played up to be.

Michael Jordan was an excellent basketball player who had a feel for how to play the game and was a genius in terms of understanding basketball. He had the experience, instincts and the knowledge required to be considered a genius in his field of sport. Great basketball players (or anyone who is an expert in his respective field) are geniuses compared to others who play the game of basketball that aren't professionals (or an expert in his/her respective field).

Of course, the greatest sequence of Jordan’s career didn’t involve teammates: Game 6 of the 1998 Finals, 41.9 seconds remaining, Chicago trailing by three. Pippen inbounded the ball at half court, and after that, nobody on Chicago touched it again. Jordan ripped through Utah’s defense for a floating layup, swiped the ball from Karl Malone like he was snatching a purse, then drained the title-winning jumper in Bryon Russell’s mug. It wasn’t just the storybook ending that made it so unforgettable, or even Jordan’s incomparable brilliance, but how premeditated everything seemed. There was something genuinely spooky about it.

It's like Jordan was intentionally trying to score points in order to win the game and he was attempting to score these points as quickly as possible because there was less than a minute left in the contest. It's eerie how Jordan knew the Bulls were losing and his team had to score points at a faster pace. Was Jordan's ability to score points based on the premeditated decision to win the game or is there something innate in him that encourages him to win games during the NBA Finals?

I watched Jordan play in person, many times, at various stages of his career. 

But never from the makeshift NBA Countdown set with the small television, so Bill never really WATCHED Jordan play in person.

when the Bulls occasionally rolled through Boston and eviscerated the carcass of Celtic Pride. One particular night, we turned on the locals and started cheering what we were watching. It didn’t happen because we were selling out, but because we had witnessed a special kind of greatness during the Bird Era. We knew what it meant. We knew how fragile it was. We missed seeing it.

Hey, it's a story about the Celtics and their fans. Remember when this column was about LeBron James coming back to Cleveland? As usual, every Bill Simmons column about the NBA is really about the Boston Celtics and their fans. In this case, it's not that the Celtics fans were selling out, it's just they are so much smarter than any other NBA fans only they could appreciate the greatness that was Michael Jordan. No other fans understood what it meant to see greatness because they didn't go through the Bird Era. Could Bill be more insufferable?

Pippen moved like Michael, saw the court like Michael, jumped passing lanes like Michael and blended with Michael’s game like a non-identical twin. It was crazy. I will never forget watching it for the rest of my life. Bird and Magic were genuises, too, but shit, they never figured out how to replicate themselves.

Yes, but shit, Bird and Magic didn't replicate themselves like Jordan did. Probably because there aren't too many 6'9" point guards out there nor are there basketball players with the high basketball IQ that Bird had. But Pippen was a replicant of Michael Jordan. The same thing, no differences, as long as you don't count all the differences between them.

For that reason and many others, I am never seeing a better basketball player than Michael Jordan.

I mean, shit, he replicated himself and all. That's some high-end science stuff right there.

“I was there,” Doug Collins will tell you. “We need to stop comparing people to Michael. We are NEVER seeing that again.”

Bill Simmons will now indeed start comparing LeBron to Jordan by stating they are both geniuses. Not basketball geniuses, but just geniuses overall.

From December 1990 through the 1998 Finals, not including his baseball sabbatical, the Chicago Bulls never lost three straight games with Jordan. Given the unforgiving NBA schedule, nonstop travel and general wear and tear, that’s basically impossible. But it happened. The man hated losing THAT much. Either he brought the best out of a teammate or he dumped that teammate like a showrunner killing off a struggling character. 

This doesn't make him a genius. It makes him a very good basketball player who brought out the best in his teammates. Intelligence doesn't translate to winning games or else the Ivy League would have won quite a few NCAA Tournament titles over the last 20 years.

Still, that was an exclusive genius — Jordan couldn’t transfer those gifts to others, with Pippen the lone exception.

Yeah, but Jordan replicated himself through Pippen. It wasn't a direct translation of skills but a replication of skills. It's a totally different scientific process.

Bird and Magic went the other way — if they made their teammates better, it gave them a better chance to win. Like Jordan, they were basketball savants who possessed a supernatural feel for what should happen collectively on every play, as if they had already studied the play’s blueprint and come up with a plan of attack.

Yeah, Larry Bird was great. Unfortunately this article is about LeBron James, so maybe we should either write about LeBron James or get to the fucking point quickly. Sound good?

Bird’s first Celtics coach, Bill Fitch, affectionately nicknamed Bird “Kodak,” explaining to a writer that Bird’s “mind is constantly taking pictures of the whole court.” You could have said that about Magic, too. That’s what made them such devastating passers; they always knew where every teammate would be.

Yep, Bird and Magic were great. Of course it's easy to trust your teammates and make them better when you have teammates you can trust to be in the right spot at the right time. Kareem, Robert Parish, Kevin McHale, James Worthy, Danny Ainge, Dennis Johnson, Bill Walton, Michael Cooper, and Mychal Thompson could be counted on to be on the right spot at the right time. Luc Longley, Will Perdue, and Craig Hodges? Not quite as much. It's almost like there are different methods to achieve the goal of winning, but that can't be true, can it? How could Bill waste space if his point was capable of being made in just a few sentences?

Bird learned how to fully harness “it” during the 1984-85 season; for Magic, “it” didn’t happen until two seasons later. And here’s what “it” is. Each guy could assess any basketball game — in the moment, on the fly — and determine exactly what his team needed.

It's halfway through this article and Bill still hasn't gotten to the point about LeBron James and why God loves Cleveland. He is so out of ideas that even when he is inspired to write a column, he is only inspired to write a short column and has to fill the rest of the column in with rambling around about topics ancillary to his intended topic.

That seems simple, right? It’s impossible.

You need to understand every strength and weakness of your teammates.

You need to realize that you can’t dominate every game, that your teammates have to shine occasionally — if only because it enables them and allows you to count on them later. You can make that concession because you know, deep down, that you can take over whenever you want.

You need to be so good, so talented, so ridiculously dominant, that you don’t even think about it anymore. It’s almost like breathing.

And you need to embrace the performance aspects of what you’re doing.

You’re not just playing basketball anymore. You’re an artist. You’re creating something that you want people to remember. Every arena is filled with people who may not have seen you before. On the road, you love silence. That’s your favorite sound. You want to hear cheering and yelling, you want to hear the panic, and then, you want nothing. Just a sound vacuum other than your teammates yelling and screaming. You want them dejectedly filing out of their arena, feeling like someone just hit them with a wrecking ball. You want them muttering that you’re the best player they ever saw, and that they have absolutely no idea how to stop you. That’s your goal on the road.

I include this portion of the column because I want you, the reader of this blog, to know what I have to wade through when covering a Bill Simmons column. If you are not reading the column I link, then you are probably a smart person. That's my point. This is just a bunch of space killer.

Collins told me a fantastic Bird story once.

I ask this despite the fact this column should obviously be about Larry Bird since it is about Larry Bird, but has Doug Collins ever told you a fantastic LeBron James story? If so, I think it would fit in this column supposedly about why God loves Cleveland in regard to LeBron James signing with the Cavaliers as a free agent.

In Chicago, Bird was feeling ornery because the Bulls had screwed up his complimentary tickets. He noticed Collins on the sideline, complained about the tickets and asked him what the “house record” was. Then he vowed to break it. Uh-oh. 

I'm guessing Bill models his childish temper tantrums over fairly irrelevant matters after Larry Bird as well.

You don’t get the nickname “Larry Legend” because of Game 7s, you get it because you brought it on those random November nights in Chicago because someone messed up your tickets. That’s a very specific kind of art, a genius crafting his performance with anger and competitive drive. That’s the final level of basketball. And when you get there, it’s not just about titles anymore.

(Falls asleep at the keyboard realizing it's over halfway through this column and Bill is still introducing the topic)

So what about this? What if LeBron James cared about making everything right in Ohio … but he also cared about protecting his ceiling as an artist? He couldn’t create what he wanted to create in Miami.

The replication machine that Michael Jordan used to replicate himself is only available in the Midwest, so obviously LeBron had to go back to Cleveland to take advantage of this. LeBron is an artist and the only cure for improving his portraits was finding more talented brushes.

This had quietly become 2009 and 2010 all over again — LeBron stuck on the wrong team, with the wrong teammates, being asked to do too much like he has been throughout his career.

This had not quietly happened. In fact, Bill wrote article (after the season was over, granted) about how Wade was declining and Bosh was becoming Sam Perkins. I think anyone who viewed the NBA Finals saw the burden being placed on LeBron. If he didn't perform well, the Heat struggled.

During Game 5 of the 2014 Finals, something happened that few people noticed because San Antonio played so wonderfully. Trailing by seven after halftime, LeBron came out for the third quarter and wouldn’t shoot. Every pass was sent with a little extra zip, as if he were telling Micky Arison and Pat Riley, here’s the team you stuck me with.

I'm going to need a chart explaining when it is fine for LeBron James to start giving up on his team. When he was with the Cavaliers and mailed in a playoff game then he was a bad person who only cared about himself, but when he's mailing it in while playing for the Heat, he's just sending a message to management that he needs better teammates...despite the fact he went to Miami from Cleveland originally for the reason that he would have better teammates. So please, I need the chart showing when LeBron is being an asshole by not playing up to his ability or when he is justified to not play up to his ability in order to prove a point.

Watching it in person, you could tell he was tired and pissed, but you couldn’t tell if it was because the season was slipping away … or because of something deeper. 

I love this "watching it in person" crap Bill throws in now that he is on NBA Countdown. Funny how he sees things that no one else can see because he's watching the game in person. Of course, this doesn't mean his observations about the NBA, as seen through the television over his previous 40 years are any less insightful of course. He's still preaching the truthful gospel when he can't attend a game, but he wants his readers to give extra weight to the observations he makes while watching a game in person. Because, he's there. 

Midway through the fourth quarter, trailing by 18, he missed a 3 and didn’t even run back on defense. The man was totally spent, mentally and physically. He had given everything he could give.

If LeBron didn't run back on defense when he was with Cleveland then he was a quitter who had given up on his teammates. In this situation with the Heat, he was completely justified. He was just spent, not being an asshole.

When he signed with Miami in 2010, I wrote that LeBron copped out, that he joined forces with Wade over doing the honorable thing and trying to defeat him. But the more I watched LeBron and the more stories I read about him, the more I wondered if something more organic had driven that decision.

You are going to love this. Rather than just write, "I was wrong" like any normal, non-ego driven writer who can't stand the thought of being wrong would do, Bill throws another half-assed theory out there to cover up for his original half-assed theory that was eventually proven incorrect. Bill wasn't wrong, he just wasn't as right as he is now.

What if LeBron was a genius like Bird and Magic?

What if he KNEW he was a genius?

I never thought about that, mostly because I don't make things up and then believe I discovered something deeper than I really have in overcomplicating an issue, but I didn't think of this. What if LeBron James knew he was a genius? What if he had never told anyone this, but he KNEW he was one of the great NBA players of all-time. How did "we" not see that LeBron James is good at basketball?

What if he was searching for some basketball version of the Holy Grail, some higher state of being, a level of basketball that he couldn’t find in Cleveland?

You mean like win an NBA Title? That's exactly why LeBron left Cleveland, to win an NBA Title. So there is no "what if" in this situation. It was pretty standard knowledge that LeBron left to find something he didn't think he could find in Cleveland. As usual, Bill overcomplicates an issue in order to confuse his lemming-like readers into believing he is saying something of substance that has any originality.

What if those nights during that first season when Wade (still at the peak of his powers) and LeBron (hitting his prime of primes) would take off after a rebound and unleash the most devastating two-on-one fast breaks we’ve ever seen in our lives … what if THAT was what LeBron really cared about, just playing hoops with someone who saw the game the way he did?

Oh my gentle Jesus. This is exactly why LeBron left Cleveland. He left to play with talented players who he believed could win him the NBA Title he so desperately wanted to win. He played with Bosh and Wade on the Olympic team and thought they would be a good fit together.

I think Bill Simmons truly believes he is spitting out some sort of knowledge here, but he's simply summarizing in more hyperbolic words why LeBron left Cleveland to go to Miami in the first place. He wanted to play with guys who saw the game the way he did so they could complement each other. I mean, this is really, really basic information, no matter how much Bill tries to pretend it isn't.

We never talk about his brain enough. Somehow we talk about everything else, but not that.

Maybe "we" should talk about his brain more while "we" are on national television talking about LeBron James. I know "we" always forget.

Bill's use of "us," "we", and any other term used to lump a large group of people together is annoying. There's no way getting around it. Stop using words in the plural in order to throw an entire group of people together like they all have the same thought that you do.

He’s the most criticized basketball star since Wilt Chamberlain, blessed and cursed by his immense physical advantages. Maybe that’s what happens when you blend the best of Magic, Mailman and Scottie into one frightening 270-pound package, only if that human had an unstoppable motor and Bird’s DNA.

There is no Scottie Pippen, just the replicant clone of Michael Jordan. Remember?

But you know what he can’t do? Play basketball at an insanely high level without the right teammates.

He has this in common with EVERY OTHER NBA PLAYER FROM THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE.

At this point, his résumé is unassailable: He could retire tomorrow as one of the best seven players ever.

I can't wait for the 5000 word essay from Bill on where LeBron is on his Pyramid of Basketball or whatever the hell that thing was in his "Book of Basketball."

I'm kidding of course. I can wait.

We always point to his physical gifts, but none other than Paul George recently called him the league’s smartest player. Think about THAT for a second.

You are going to have to give me a few hours. I have a small brain that hasn't watched an NBA game with the NBA Countdown crew, so I can't process information as quickly as you can.

Then Bill re-writes the LeBron "I'm Coming Home" magazine article with the "I'm a genius" bullshit and it's as bad as you can imagine. In fact, it ends like this:

I want to use all of my skills. I am Magic and Larry and Barkley and Malone in the same body. I am an artist. That’s what I am.

Apparently LeBron writes like he's Popeye.

I have caught LeBron in person maybe 50 times.

(Bengoodfella dies, his life now complete knowing how many times Bill has caught LeBron in person)

My favorite night happened in Game 4 of this year’s Eastern Conference finals against Indiana, right after Lance Stephenson stupidly challenged him. LeBron said he didn’t take Lance’s buffoonery personally, only we knew that he did.

Oh, "we" totally knew.

His numbers weren’t mind-blowing: just 29 points and nine rebounds through three quarters. But he dominated the proceedings in every conceivable way. You never forgot he was out there, not for a second. He made the correct basketball decision every time, even something as simple as “I should push the pace right here” or “I’m just gonna assume that Norris Cole is in the left corner even if I can’t see him, so I’m going to throw a 50-foot pass over my head to that spot and hope he catches it.”

LeBron had two turnovers so it seems he didn't make the correct basketball decision every time. Sorry, hyperbole on...

During the third quarter, I texted a friend that “this was an all-time non-signature signature game, he’s made like 13 incredible plays.” Almost on cue, the man made two more, including an insane full-court push that finished with a reverse dunk in traffic.

Because Bill KNEW LeBron was having a non-signature signature game. This anecdotal evidence proves it as true. What an all-time non-signature signature observation by Bill Simmons. 

LeBron loves playing at home — loves seeing the arena covered in white,

If LeBron likes to see white in his home arena, he should have signed with Boston then.

He’s been great at basketball for years and years, but now he’d figured out the sport itself. He reached that final level. This was art. This was genius plus performance.

It seems Bill has been hitting those hyperbole classes at ESPN hard lately. This column is the most hyperbolic column I have ever read in my entire life and probably the most hyperbolic column ever written. It's like Bill has reached that final level. His hyperbole is art now. This is bullshit plus space filler.

In an underrated movie called Six Degrees of Separation, Will Smith plays a scam artist who infiltrates the lives of four different wealthy families in Manhattan.

Since this movie is underrated, what is the proper rating for this movie? I'm just wondering. It's based on a Pulitzer Prize winning play, Stockard Channing was nominated for an Oscar for her performance, and it has a 88% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I would just like to know how it was underrated or the criteria Bill has used to come to this conclusion.

But as long as LeBron could keep cooking those Will Smith meals, Miami would be fine. Or so we thought. His Game 4 meal was a thing of beauty. He brought out the Magic course, the Jordan course and the Pippen course, even throwing in Bird and Barkley appetizers for good measure.

Charles Barkley doesn't do appetizers. Come on Bill, you know that about Charles. I would think you spend so much time looking up at him and TNT in the NBA pregame show ratings you would have studied Barkley enough to know he does buffets, not appetizers.

Who could have guessed that LeBron had only seven Miami games left? 

There were a few people who guessed.

I thought they were headed for a three-peat. I thought LeBron was never leaving Miami. I couldn’t see the things that he saw.

Well, he is a genius, so...

I watched Game 4 from our NBA Countdown set, sitting on the metal steps, and at one point, I emailed an NBA Entertainment friend asking if their photographer could snap a picture. I thought it could be a cool photo — me wearing a blue suit, surrounded by happy Heat fans dressed in white, the Celtics fan trapped in enemy territory, all of us watching someone at the peak of their powers. I just wanted to have it for 30 years from now. I know that sounds sappy, but that’s how I felt.

The truth is, I didn’t know when this would be happening again. And I still don’t.

Based on this column, it seems this will be happening again this very upcoming 14/15 NBA season. After all, LeBron has:

He’s been great at basketball for years and years, but now he’d figured out the sport itself. He reached that final level. This was art. This was genius plus performance.

LeBron has figured out basketball, so this upcoming season Bill can watch LeBron in Cleveland while he is at the peak of his powers. I mean, right? Isn't that the point of this column? LeBron is a genius and he's figured basketball out. He isn't retiring and isn't on the wrong side of 30, so he still is at the peak of his powers for a few more years. So when NBA Countdown inevitably comes to Cleveland for a playoff game, this moment can happen again.

Magic and Bird were done before I graduated college. Jordan came and went before I turned 30. Duncan, Kobe, Hakeem and Shaq never quite got there — all of them were great, but they were never GREAT. 

Oh man, I'm not even touching this right now other than to say I completely disagree in every way possible. Wasn't it just a few weeks ago that Bill stated if any NBA player could have another player's career that it would be Duncan's career? Now Bill states that Duncan wasn't GREAT. As for Kobe and Shaq, Bill must not remember the late 1990's and early 2000's. Shaq was the dominant force in the NBA.

After him, you’re looking at Anthony Davis — someone with an infinitely better chance of becoming the next Duncan than a basketball genius — and there’s nobody on the immediate horizon. This might be it for a while.

It also helps the Bill Simmons is completely making this "basketball genius" shit up based on subjective criteria that he determines. So it's hard to argue with him too much without turning into a crazy person.

So yeah, I wanted a picture. Shoot me. I was there for Larry. I was there for Magic. I was there for Michael. And I was there for LeBron James. Now he’s bringing his genius back to Cleveland.

And "we" had no idea that LeBron was a basketball genius!

It’s the right move at the right time for the right guy. This will be fun.

So in summary, the Cavaliers don't deserve the #1 overall pick three out of four years because they have mismanaged their roster in Bill's opinion, but they totally deserve to sign the best active NBA player and one of the four basketball geniuses that have ever played in the NBA. It's almost like he makes this stuff up as he goes along. 

0 comments So Apparently Bleacher Report Thinks the Celtics are Better Off with Brad Stevens Than with Doc Rivers

When I'm sad, I can always count on Bleacher Report to pick me up. There's no denying Bleacher Report has started to assemble a good roster of columnists for every sport, but it's just dressing for what lies beneath. You can dress a whore up like a princess for the night, but don't be surprised if she steals a $100 to put in her glass slipper on her way out the door. So the seedy underbelly of Bleacher Report still reveals the dregs of unpaid writers just trying to get their name out there by writing something that gains as much attention as possible. So Bleacher Report has an article up about how the Celtics are better off with Brad Stevens (he of zero NBA coaching victories) than Doc Rivers (he of one NBA title and two NBA Finals appearances), and you won't believe this, there is a slideshow that accompanies the six reasons why Stevens' presence means the Celtics are better off. There are six reasons, but of course there are eight slides in this story. As always, the 8th slide is really the next slideshow. This is just one of the little underhanded things Bleacher Report does to annoy me.

When Celtics president Danny Ainge released news of the hire this past Independence Day, it turned a lot of heads.

Many had to put down their hot dogs, climb out of the pool or pause Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum's world-saving mission 

In reading this author's biography it says he performs "sporadic" stand-up comedy. After reading this introduction, I'm assuming the "sporadic" part refers to the actual amount of comedy found in his stand-up routine.

to find out if Brad Stevens was indeed that young-looking guy who took a school they'd never heard of to two NCAA championship games.

This is as opposed to the other Brad Stevens that no one has heard of and happens to be a basketball head coach.

At first, it was equally surprising when news officially broke that Doc Rivers was the new Los Angeles Clippers head coach. However, that saga went on for some time before a move was finally made.

"It was very surprising that Doc Rivers was the Los Angeles Clippers head coach, but it took some time for him to actually become the Clippers head coach, so it wasn't really that surprising when news broke Rivers was the Clippers head coach."

Now, Boston has a new leader for the first time since 2004. The team may not be successful next season, but Stevens will be judged on so much more than that in year one.

Yeah, Stevens isn't going to be judged on those pesky wins and losses like Doc Rivers so strongly insisted the Celtics be judged on. Counting wins and losses is for losers. Also, later in this slideshow the author argues the Boston media wasn't hard enough on Doc Rivers, then he seems to indicate the Boston media will be even less hard on Brad Stevens and this is a good thing. I can't figure it out either.

Let's start the slideshow!

Stevens Wants to Be in Boston

It's the Bill Simmons argument about how Doc Rivers didn't even want to be in Boston anymore. It's true, but I think this reason comes more from a place of hurt at the Celtics getting rejected by a head coach (you don't do that to the Celtics!) more than anything else. It's sort of the idea that Rivers hurt their feelings, so they don't want him anyway.

Quite simply, there was no one forcing him out. He took some time for himself and his family and realized what he wanted out of the next few years wasn't going to be found in Celtics green. While there is certainly nothing wrong with that on a professional or personal level, Rivers made the choice to move on.

Couldn't there be an article written by a Butler Bulldogs fan saying their team will be better off without Brad Stevens because he didn't want to be at Butler anymore and made the choice to move on? Sure, and the factual nature of Stevens not being at Butler anymore doesn't mean the school is better off with a coach that wants to be there.

Brad Stevens is a different animal entirely. The new head coach, 15 years Rivers' junior, is grateful for the opportunity to just be at the NBA level. He views Boston as a gift, while Doc clearly saw the upcoming season as a chore.

Yes, your feelings got hurt that Rivers didn't want to be in Boston anymore. It doesn't mean the Celtics are better off with Stevens over Rivers. It may mean the Celtics are better off with a new head coach over keeping Rivers, but Stevens eagerness to coach at the NBA-level doesn't mean he is a better option than Rivers.

To illustrate that, Stevens has moved his entire family to a home in Massachusetts. Even though he coached in Boston for nine years, Rivers still maintained his official address in Florida.

DOC RIVERS WAS NEVER A TRUE CELTIC BECAUSE HE DIDN'T LIVE IN BOSTON!

Stevens Is Willing and Able to Coach Young Players

Generation gaps can be a difficult thing to cross, particularly in a sport like basketball, where so much praise is heaped onto individual players.

Rivers is old and crotchety, while Stevens is young and hip. I remember when this reasoning was used for why Raheem Morris was going to make a great NFL head coach.

Doc Rivers was occasionally knocked for not giving his youth enough real time to improve and grow as players. Last season's roster featured only three players who could be considered home-grown from Rivers' time: Rajon Rondo, Avery Bradley and Jared Sullinger.

To be fair, when your lineup includes three Hall of Fame players it is hard to find big minutes for young guys coming off the bench. Still, Rivers found room for young players to play good minutes when he coached the Celtics. It didn't make sense with the roster the Celtics had for most of Rivers' tenure to put young guys on the court for 30+ minutes  though.

2004-2005: Four players aged 20-23 years old played between 13-16 minutes per game.

2005-2006: Delonte West (22 years old) played 34 minutes per game and six players aged 21-24 played between 15-22 minutes per game.

2006-2007: Al Jefferson (22), Delonte West (23), Ryan Gomes (24) all played between 31-33 minutes per game. Rondo (20) played 23.5 minutes per game, Gerald Green (21) played 22 minutes per game, and Kendrick Perkins (22)/Sebastian Talfair (21) played 22 and 20 minutes per game respectively.

2007-2008 (the year the Celtics added three Hall of Famers): Rondo (21) played 29.9 minutes per game, Perkins (23) played 24.5 minutes per game and Leon Powe (24)/Glen Davis (22) played 14 and 13 minutes per game respectively.

2008-2009: Perkins (24) played 29 minutes per game, Davis (23) played 21 minutes per game and Rondo (22) played 33 minutes per game.

2009-2010: Rondo (23) led the team in minutes played per game, while Glen Davis (24) played 17 minutes per game.

2010-2011: Rondo (24) again led the team in minutes played and Jeff Green (24) played 23 minutes per game. You can see Rivers stopped playing young guys because there were no young guys on the roster. Luke Harangody was the second-youngest on the roster at 23 years old. There's no point in playing young guys at the expense of a team winning games.

2011-2012: Avery Bradley (21) played 21 minutes per game. Danny Ainge acquired veteran players to fill out his bench, so it made it difficult to play young guys that weren't on the roster.

2012-2013: Avery Bradley (22) played 28 minutes per game, Jordan Crawford (24) and Jared Sullinger (20) played 19 minutes per game.

Still, none of those three played more than 50 games. Bradley saw 28.7 minutes a night, while Sullinger played 19.8 on average.

What an incredibly misleading statement. Of course neither Rondo, Bradley, or Sullinger played more than 50 games. Rondo and Sullinger missed a lot of the second half of the season with season-ending injuries and Bradley didn't play his first game until January 2. Don't mislead your audience and make them think Doc Rivers refused to play these young guys when it was really injuries that caused them to miss a lot of season.

Those numbers, along with those of Kelly Olynyk, Vitor Faverani, MarShon Brooks and probably Phil Pressey, are going to go way up this coming year and beyond. 

The only reason these young guys will get major minutes is because the Celtics team as a whole is not very good. There's a difference in playing young guys who are good and playing young guys because it's all you have.

Where Rivers may have been stubborn in using mediocre veterans to try and win now, Stevens has a better grasp on young players and will hopefully utilize them better and give them a chance to grow.

Because we all know Avery Bradley, Glen Davis, Kendrick Perkins, and Rajon Rondo were not given time to grow with the Celtics. That's why Perkins and Davis have been so stellar since leaving Boston and Rondo/Bradley haven't been quality NBA players.

Open-Minded to New Basketball Ideas

However, recently there were a few stories about how Stevens is much more than that. According to the Boston Herald, the new Boston Celtics head coach does rely heavily on the eye test as well.

This is as opposed to Doc Rivers, who used to coach entire games with his eyes closed.

He does embrace the increasingly valuable analytics, as illustrated by bringing stat-man Drew Cannon on board from Butler to Boston. However, Stevens isn't rejecting old-school thought about the game.

He uses numbers AND the eye test. A revolutionary way of thinking for a town crucial to winning the Revolutionary War.

Doc Rivers learned to think one way over 13-plus years as an NBA head coach and another 13 as a player. Stevens can be more accepting of both worlds, which better suits the Celtics needs right now.

Okay, great. I'm not going to argue a different perspective is a bad thing, but it's known that Doc Rivers can coach NBA players and we haven't seen that yet from Brad Stevens. I think this is an important point.
 
Stevens Comes at a Discount

And when has "Hey, he's cheaper!" ever been a bad thing?

The move saved them a fair amount of money and garnered another first-round draft pick in 2015.

I like the idea of another first round draft pick, but that draft pick isn't any good if Stevens doesn't show himself to be a competent NBA coach. See, that's the biggest point missing here. The history of college coaches coming to the NBA is horrific and Rivers is a proven NBA coach while Brad Stevens isn't. I would hope Stevens would be cheaper than a coach who has an NBA title.

After sending that salary responsibility to the Los Angeles Clippers, the Celtics made a move to sign Stevens for six years and $22 million. The move will save them around $3.4 million per year, while having a coach locked up for an extra three seasons if he works out.

Or, you know, paying three extra seasons if he doesn't work out. The Celtics could have spent $7 million over the next three years on Rivers or $22 million on Stevens for six years. If Stevens works out then he is a great deal, but if he doesn't work it isn't such a great deal.

For what the Celtics were trying to do this past offseason, paying Rivers that much money seemed to be a stretch.

Because you definitely don't want a proven NBA head coach to be teaching young players. That's just crazy.

Stevens' contract is much more reasonable for the amount of power you want that position wielding.

I'm not even sure what this means. This means Stevens' contract is reasonable because the team won't be very good or it means Stevens won't have as much power in the organization so he shouldn't get paid like he does?

Stevens Has a Better Grasp on the College Game

Great! Unfortunately the Boston Celtics are an NBA team. So..............

As much as money, weather and proximity can help a franchise maintain success through free agency, eventually that team will rely on the college ranks to draft a player capable of occupying an important role.

But they are professional athletes, not college athletes. So while teams will rely on the college ranks in drafting good players, the NBA is not college basketball.

The Miami Heat have won back-to-back championships, and most of that credit will go to the acquisitions of LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Ray Allen and Shane Battier. However, without drafting Dwyane Wade, none of that happens. Miami draftees Mario Chalmers, Norris Cole and Udonis Haslem all played major roles in those wins as well.

Outside of Wade these are all role players. Role players don't win championships. So Stevens' familiarity with the college game doesn't mean he is better able to scout and find NBA talent in the college game.

Doc Rivers didn't have the greatest connection with the college game. He started his coaching career in the NBA, where he had finished his playing career just a few years earlier.

(Shakes head sadly) But it's his job to coach NBA players. He's pretty good at that.

Stevens will also relate better to players who were recently a part of that college atmosphere and are making the difficult transition to the NBA.

How will Brad Stevens relate to NBA players better than ex-NBA player Doc Rivers? How in the hell is this possible? Doc Rivers has coached and played at the NBA level, but Brad Stevens magically has some better connection to get through to NBA players coming from college because he understands their experience better than someone who actually made the transition to the NBA from college? What the fuckity-fuck?

Doc Had Reached Media Saturation

I'm not sure this is a real thing.

It is a good thing to have Doc Rivers as head coach of one's basketball team. He seems to have improved with the years of experience from a coaching standpoint, and you won't find a better person at managing both personalities in his locker room and the media when in front of a microphone and camera.

But the Celtics are better off with a coach who isn't as good at managing personalities in the locker room and the media? Also, I think you can find better coaches than Doc Rivers at managing personalities in the locker room and media. I would submit Phil Jackson has shown himself to be much better than Rivers. That's a different argument for a different day.

His smile is somewhat mesmerizing once you see it enough times. 

I feel like the author is kissing a poster of Doc Rivers right now. 

The media is an entity built on holding a mirror to society. In basketball terms, that means an honest description of how a player or coach is performing. With the Boston and, occasionally, national press, so enamored with Rivers, there was a lack of accountability starting to rear its head.

I know. Someone should have made Rivers more accountable for the seven playoff appearances, two NBA Finals appearances, and 506 wins he had over nine seasons as the Celtics head coach. It was horrifying how he took a rapidly aging Celtics team and continuously made them competitive by winning the Atlantic Division six times.

But, after a while, that air can become polluted with bias.

Someone needed to rip Rivers for existing and not winning an NBA Title every season. Thanks Dan Shaughnessy.

Brad Stevens may wind up being just as friendly and forthcoming with the media as Rivers was, but he'll most certainly be held to a different standard at the outset.

So the author says the Boston media was too easy on Doc Rivers and then states Brad Stevens is going to be held to a different standard. Given the fact the Celtics are rebuilding doesn't this mean the Boston media will go even easier on Stevens? After all, Stevens has less to work with, and if we are working under the assumption Rivers got a pass then won't Stevens get a pass for not immediately turning a Celtics team on a 3-4 year long-range plan around?

Boston fell in love too much with Doc for a while.  He could do no wrong. It is just human nature.

And of course the Celtics are better off with Brad Stevens anyway. He can relate to NBA players better than Rivers could. Also, I love the irony of the author saying Boston fell in love too much with Doc Rivers, while writing a slideshow about how hiring an unproven NBA head coach is better than keeping a head coach who has an NBA Title. Sounds like the author is a bit too much in love with Brad Stevens at this current time. 

4 comments Bill Simmons "Fixes" the Lakers Since He's the Best Candidate to Do This and All

Very reluctantly, and quite frankly because he hasn't written a column since June 18 and the SimmonsClones won't stand for their hero to stop writing despite Bill's desperate attempts to stop writing, Bill Simmons is going to help the Lakers fix themselves. Despite the fact the Lakers haven't ever really shown they need to be fixed, Bill volunteers himself for the job anyway. Hey, he's got a write a column again at some point and his brain isn't exactly kicking out new material at a fast pace, so this is what his readers get stuck with reading.

I know a Celtics fan should never try to help the Lakers. I know I should bite my tongue. I know I should hope Jimmy Buss keeps ruining his family's team,

And really, who else is intelligent and capable enough to help the Lakers other than Bill Simmons? Plus, if Bill focuses on the disaster that is the Lakers he won't have to focus on the Celtics blowing up their entire team and starting a 2-3 year (minimum) rebuilding process while drafting highly incapable big men like Colton Iverson and Fab Melo (wouldn't it have been easier to just forfeit a first round draft choice as opposed to drafting Melo?) to go along with the non-franchise cornerstone Jeff Green and the constantly disgruntled Rajon Rondo. Bill will do anything to keep our minds off the Celtics and on to another NBA team that may not have a bright immediate future ahead of them. Bill has to prepare for the post-Garnett/Allen/Pierce Celtics world, so don't be surprised if he becomes an NBA widow soon and starts talking about the Clippers more than the Celtics in his once a month columns.

But here's the problem …

You are the only one who considers yourself qualified to fix the Lakers?

I love making fake NBA trades, figuring out blueprints for franchises and determining the fastest, most efficient ways to save them. That's just who I am. I'm a weirdo.

This is why in his own head Bill would make such a great General Manager. Who says "no" to these fake NBA trades? You can't argue with the brain of Bill Simmons.

I found myself clicking on the Lakers' salary page just out of curiosity … but then my wheels started turning … and one thing led to another … and suddenly I found myself helping the Lakers.

You found yourself unnecessary italics helping the Lakers? But aren't they your sworn enemies as a Celtics fan? You must really love fake trades if you find yourself unnecessary italics helping the Lakers become a better NBA team.

In the NBA, you want to be either really good or really bad. You never want to land between those two "reallys" for long.

Tell that to the Raptors/Bobcats fans or fans of the Los Angeles Clippers who have been fans of the Clippers for longer than five years. Sometimes being really bad isn't a good thing.

You don't want to be squeezed into the no. 8 seed or keep finishing 12th or 13th in every lottery. Basically, you don't want to be the Milwaukee Bucks.

If you can't compete for the title, why not bottom out in the most flagrantly offensive way possible?

Other than it demoralizes your fan base, creates a losing culture around the team, the players on the current team become apathetic due to the organization's lack of concern for winning, and doesn't guarantee you will land the #1 overall pick due to the NBA's lottery system?

Of course, that's something the Lakers have never, ever done. They picked first in the 1979 and 1982 drafts (Magic and Worthy) by fleecing laughingstock franchises of their draft picks — not by being the laughingstock franchise.

Says the fan of the NBA team that dealt the first overall pick in 1980 for Robert Parish and Kevin McHale and had the #2 overall pick in 1986 fresh off winning an NBA title because they traded Gerald Henderson to Seattle. It's not often Boston is the laughingstock either. Just wanted to point this out.

They miraculously turned Vlade Divac, three cartons of Marlboro Reds and a pound of phlegm into a raw high schooler named Kobe Bryant.

To be fair, there wasn't a long track record of high school players skipping college and thriving in the pros at this point and the Lakers were taking a risk by trading a proven center for a late, late lottery pick (the 13th pick). Divac was coming off a season where he had put up 12 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists, and 1.7 blocks as a 27 year old. These days a guy like that gets a multi-year contract for $10-$11 million per year. It's not like Bryant fell in the Lakers' laps, they took a chance to acquire him.

No professional sports franchise has been this consistently good for this long: not the Yankees, not the Canadiens, not the Steelers, not anybody.

Yes, but now they need fixing that only Bill Simmons can provide.

But desperate times call for desperate measures. Their best player is hitting Year 18 and rehabbing from the worst sports injury an older player can have. Their second-best player just ditched them.

Notice how Bill just wrote an entire column about how Dwight Howard has hit his peak and is declining as a player, but now he needs to make it seem like the Lakers are losing an important player, so he suddenly considers Howard more valuable than Pau Gasol. In Bill's 2012 Trade Value column he had Gasol at #17 (and bumped Gasol this year because he is underused) and Bill had Howard at #18 in his 2013 Trade Value column.

Their coach is realistically two years away from taking over the Minnesota Lynx or the Pepperdine Waves. And they need to sell the illusion of hope to their fans, which means they need to save as much cap space as possible for LeBron, which means they can't add ANY contracts that expire after next summer.

At least they didn't draft Fab Melo. That's gotta be some consolation.

Fact: This year's Lakers team will be undeniably worse than last year's Lakers team … a team that didn't make the playoffs until Game 82.

"Fact." Apparently Bill Simmons is trying to write like Dwight Schrute talked. If he mentions something about a beet farm, I'm done writing.

Fact: This is bleak. Really, really bleak.

Not really. The Lakers could conceivably cash in on some free agents in one year. It's already been conceded by Bill that the Lakers have a very, very attractive franchise and city to play and the Lakers will have $50 million in 2014 to improve their team through free agency. Struggling for one year isn't really, really, bleak. The Celtics went from owning the 5th pick in the draft to winning the NBA Title in the span of a year half a decade ago. Things don't look good in the short term for the Lakers, but struggling for one year and still being the Lakers isn't really, really bleak.

OK, so they have two inherent advantages. First, the Lakers have only one contract on their books for the 2014-15 season: Steve Nash for $9.7 million. They might be $50 million under the cap next summer — perfect timing for an all-you-can-eat buffet of free-agent stars headlined by LeBron, who's only (a) the best player since Michael Jordan, (b) someone who wants to be a "global icon," and (c) someone with an established track record of treating free agency like he's organizing a bank heist with his buddies.

So the first part of Bill's plan to fix the Lakers is to sign LeBron James. Where would we be without his insight into this matter? Maybe the Lakers could sign another really, really talented player who is a free agent and the Lakers could turn their team around while moving on from the Kobe Bryant-era and it would all be because of Bill Simmons' grand plan.

Famous basketball players gravitate to the Lakers because of their storied history, and because Los Angeles remains the easiest American city for any wealthy celebrity to live in.

It looks very bleak for the Lakers though, doesn't it? I hope Bill's plan of using $50 million in cap space to lure free agents to a storied franchise in a city where celebrities love to live works out. It seems pretty unlikely this risky plan will work.

Celebrities in L.A. can be around other celebrities all the time, and if there's one thing celebrities love, it's being around other celebrities. If they want to dabble in music or movies or any other ego-fueled creative project, or meet just about any heavy hitter business dude on the planet, they have those options here.

BUT HOW IS BILL GOING TO TURN THE LAKERS AROUND WITH ALL THIS CAP SPACE THE LAKERS WILL HAVE IN 2014?

As recently as three years ago, had you told any fan of the other 29 teams, "In 2014, the Lakers will have $50 million in cap space during a loaded summer for free agents," their reaction would have been, "We're all screwed." But when they're being run by someone who can successfully be compared to Tommy Boy?

Let's investigate the logic that Bill is using here. He believes the biggest thing holding the Lakers back is their idiot owner, yet part of Bill's plan to turn the Lakers around relies on their owner being smart and having a plan. Here's the problem...if we assume Jim Buss is smart enough to have a plan and follow the plan, then we could also assume Jim Buss is smart enough to realize his plan needs to revolve around having $50 million in cap space and luring free agents to Los Angeles. What I'm saying is that Bill poo-poos the whole "We have a shit-ton of money and now we just go after the free agents we want" plan because the owner isn't smart enough to realize he can do this, but then part of Bill's plan is for the Lakers to have a shit-ton of money and go after the free agents they want. Basically Bill muddies the water enough to where his less discerning readers won't realize Bill is proposing essentially the same plan he doesn't think Jim Buss is capable of pulling off.

Making matters worse, the Lakers lost their L.A. basketball monopoly.

This isn't a real thing.

They've been spending money in the most anti–Donald Sterling ways possible, building around the league's most expensive coach (Doc Rivers), a $107 million point guard (Chris Paul), a $95 million, high-flying power forward (Blake Griffin) and a slew of quality role players. It's almost like the Lakers and Clippers switched bodies. And actually, we can't rule this out.

Actually we can rule it out since the Lakers and Clippers don't have bodies because they are organizations not human beings.

So if we ever needed a "Save the Lakers" plan, it's right now. Here's how Wolf Pope Simmons would hypothetically save the Lakers in 10 hypothetical steps.

Bill has to use 10 steps to get where he is going to make his plan seem more complicated. I can sum up his plan in three steps.

1. Save the cap space during 2013 by not taking on large contracts.

2. Accept 2013 may be a tough year and know if the Lakers miss the playoffs then they have a lottery pick and a lot of cap space.

3. Use this cap space to lure attractive free agents to Los Angeles and hope they get a Top 5 pick in the third consecutive "loaded" draft that may not end up being all that loaded.

There. That's a plan and it could work. Of course if Bill limited his plan to three steps he wouldn't be rambling, his column would be shorter, and he couldn't try to desperately show off his ability to jump on the Andrew Wiggins bandwagon...while also looking at Scout.com's Top 100 2013 class to see that Jabari Parker and Julius Randle are also highly rated and they may leave for the NBA Draft next year so he will name-drop them to make it seem like he knows all about them outside of highlights he has seen on YouTube.

1. Don't be afraid to suck all kinds of suck for one season.

Two facts about the 2014 draft. First, if you were ranking the Can't-Miss NBA Prospects of the 21st Century, Kansas freshman Andrew Wiggins would rank behind LeBron, but would probably land right on that second tier with Durant, Oden and Carmelo. He's T-Mac 2.0 by all accounts.

Then Bill provides a YouTube link (what else would Bill provide?) to Andrew Wiggins' Hoop Mixtape, which if there is a better measure of a player's ability to play basketball then a YouTube Hoop Mixtape I certainly can't think of it.

There's a reason the Tankapalooza committee (I'm the chairman) is thinking about changing the name of Tankapalooza 2014 to Riggin' for Wiggins.

Bill is so pumped to see Wiggins play he may even watch a few Kentucky games this year to see how good Wiggins is at playing college-level competition. At least I'm betting Bill believes Wiggins is going to play for Kentucky this upcoming college basketball season.

Second, it's the rare NBA draft that's deep AND top-heavy.

By the way, the draft doesn't occur for another 11 months but Bill already knows every player that will declare for the 2014 NBA Draft. Incredibly impressive, isn't it?

ESPN draft guru and former The O.C. star Chad Ford pointed out that, in 2013, he broke the draft down by tiers — with Tier 1 being "potential franchise players," Tier 2 being "potential All-Stars," Tier 3 being "potential starters," and so on — and there wasn't a single 2013 draft prospect in Tier 1 or Tier 2. In 2014? Right now, we have eight guys in those top two tiers, and that's without factoring in the possibility of one or two more breakout stars.

So there are a lot of potential stars in Chad "Darko for President" Ford's arbitrarily selected tiers? Because these tiers are based on fact and zero speculation color me impressed.

There's also a chance that Kentucky power forward Julius Randle might turn "Wiggins vs. Randle" into a "Durant vs. Oden"–type debate, and that Duke's Jabari Parker might be looming as a Carmelo-like sleeper.

Except I would bet anything these two players are already in Chad Ford's Tier 1 or Tier 2, so they would not count as breakout stars and they would simply be moving around from Tier 1 to 2. Also, I would love to hear Bill's opinion of the potential breakout stars in the 2014 NBA Draft, simply for the sake of hilarity.

Why not take your lumps, Jimmy? Your fan base is more sophisticated than anyone realizes. They've had four generations of success.

It's hard to stereotype an entire fan base, but the Lakers have had a ton of success over the last 40 years so I'm not entirely sure how the fans would respond to a 30-52 season.

They'd be fine with throwing away ONE season. Just not two.

Bill speaks for the Lakers fan base now. He's "The Sports Guy" so of course he speaks for EVERY team's fan base...or at least he thinks he does.

2. Clear every dollar off your 2014-15 cap. Get to zero, or close.

Bill thinks the Lakers need to do the thing that he doesn't believe Jim Buss is smart enough to do. Again, if we assume Buss is smart enough to clear money off the cap and then spend $50 million in free agency then that's the obvious plan (as well as being the plan Bill is proposing here, just in a more complicated fashion to make it seem like it is an original plan).

On paper, the 2013-14 Lakers could take the 2009-10 Heat's game plan to another level by jettisoning every contract while also landing a top-five lottery pick. But they have to worsen this year's roster.

They are going to trade a first round pick for Fab Melo?

3. Trade Steve Nash to Toronto.

Admittedly, Nash doesn't have much market value right now. He's 39 years old, his body is breaking down in a variety of ways, he seemed a step and a half slow last season, he's a turnstile defensively, and he's making $9.3 million in 2014 and $9.7 million in 2015.

But who cares about logic? This isn't logic Bill is using. Bill is just pretending trades can be accepted by one side of the trade even if they don't make sense for both sides of the trade. It's really the only way he can make his plan work, by assuming the Raptors will take on Steve Nash's contract, even though the Raptors just dumped Andrea Bargnani and his contract.

Other than that, he's pretty enticing. But you know where he's still a hero? CANADA! What would be better than Nash finishing his career on Canada's only NBA team?

It doesn't make sense, but it fits Bill's agenda. He can make nonsensical moves if he wants to rosterbate and make himself feel like the NBA trade king. He's done it for most of his ESPN career. There's no way the Raptors would take on Nash's contract.

Now here's where you say, Wait a second, the Raptors just hired Masai Ujiri from Denver. That dude is a shrewd mf'er — he'd never trade for Nash. Au contraire! Thanks to Rudy Gay's onerously onerous deal, DeMar DeRozan's extension, the cap-clogging quartet of Landry Fields, Marcus Camby, Tyler Hansbrough and Steve Novak (nearly $20 million combined in 2014-15) and a few other commitments, Toronto can't become a free-agent player until the summer of 2015 ... right as Nash's deal is expiring. So why not bring him aboard as their feel-good Canadian basketball ambassador?

(Shakes head sadly) I don't know why Ujiri would spend $19 million to feel-good.

Do you realize trading for Nash would immediately become one of Canada's five greatest NBA moments ever?

Do you realize how incredibly irrelevant this is when it comes to whether the Raptors would choose to trade for Steve Nash or not?

Anyway, here's my offer: Nash for Linas Kleiza's expiring contract and Aaron Gray's expiring contract. I can't do better than that.

Generally rebuilding teams choose to trade away expiring contracts so they can use some of that precious cap space on players who are 40 years old and want a chance to play for an NBA Title. And oh yeah, in Bill's absolute genius GM move to trade Steve Nash to Toronto he left out the human part of this trade where Nash won't want to play for a non-contending team over the next two seasons. Who cares what Steve Nash wants though? It's not like he is a real person or a player's opinion on a trade could ever impact the Czar of the ESPN Trade Machine's brilliant ideas.

Bill consistently leaves out the human element of his proposed trades. Why would the Raptors take on salary when they want to get rid of salary? Why would Steve Nash choose to be traded to a non-contender when he signed with the Lakers (in a sign-and-trade) to win an NBA Title? In the middle of Bill's brilliant "who says 'no'?" trade ideas he tends to forget the human element of his rosterbation.

4. Trade Pau Gasol.

You know who's not helping us Riggin' for Wiggins? A future Hall of Famer playing for a new contract. I don't need Pau dropping 23 and 11 every night.

This still wouldn't guarantee the Lakers could get Wiggins, but whatever.

Destination No. 1: Hey, Cleveland, why roll the dice on Andrew Bynum's fusilli knee ligaments when you can rent Pau in a contract year? You know he'll be motivated. You know he's one of the league's best 25 players when healthy

Bill referred to Dwight Howard as the Lakers second-best player earlier in this column. So doesn't that mean he considers Howard to be among the league's best 25 players when healthy? Then what was this column all about? I don't think that column reads as one of the league's Top 25 players is a free agent, but reads as more of a cautionary tale about signing Howard. Yet, now Bill considers Howard to be the Lakers second-best player and considers the Lakers third-best player as a Top 25 guy when healthy. I think I'm confusing myself at this point.

Even better — this trade gives the Lakers a low-post combo of Chris Kaman (always gets hurt) and Varejao (always gets hurt). They could be the Twin Owww-ers. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

Simmonsites, this is your hero. Your daddy figure and role model who you live and die with when it comes to him answering one of your emails in a mailbag. "The Twin Oww-ers," that's what Bill writes.

Destination No. 2: Flip Gasol's expiring contract to Chicago for Luol Deng's and Kirk Hinrich's expiring contracts. Just a fascinating trade. The Bulls know Jimmy Butler can replace Deng's minutes,

Yeah, the Bulls know this. Sure, Butler may not be able to replace Deng's production, but replacing Deng's minutes is easy.

For the Lakers, they'd keep Deng for a couple of months before rerouting him to a contender for expiring deals and a pick. (You don't need Deng in a contract year making you slightly better than you need to be.)

This is typical Bill Simmons logic. Trade for Deng under the assumption you can trade him again for expiring deals and a pick. Again, let's forget the human element, such as what if there isn't a team willing to trade expiring contracts and a pick for Deng or the Lakers can get expiring contracts but not a pick? It doesn't matter because reality is only nitpicking to Bill when he is rosterbating.

The Lakers can't sign LeBron after he wins his third straight NBA title for the simple reason that, in the history of basketball, the best player on a championship team has NEVER subsequently ditched that team.

And we all know LeBron has no ego so he wouldn't want to prove he can win an NBA Title for the NBA's most storied franchise without Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade. It may not happen, but it is a possibility.

That's why the Lakers need to improve the Bulls — they can't get LeBron unless Chicago, Houston, Oklahoma City, Indiana or Golden State beats the Heat. And Chicago's the best bet of them all.

Let's look at Bill's logic here. He thinks the Lakers should improve the Bulls so the Bulls can beat the Heat in the 2014 NBA Playoffs 10 months from now, so then LeBron will feel okay about leaving the Heat in free agency to go to Los Angeles? There's only like 20 assumptions in this scenario to get to Bill's desired conclusion. Assumptions like:

The Bulls aren't trying to get LeBron after the 2014 season themselves so they would trade expiring deals.

The Bulls are going to be healthy enough 10 months from now to beat the Heat.

The Bulls will match up with the Heat in the 2014 NBA Playoffs and won't get knocked out earlier by Indiana.

LeBron James won't re-sign with the Heat by mid-season next year.

LeBron James won't leave Miami regardless of whether he wins another NBA Title, due to Wade starting to further decline.

Chicago really is the best bet to beat the Heat.

The Lakers think they can't get LeBron to sign with them regardless of whether he wins another title with the Heat.

There are more, but I'm growing bored...

6. Since you're sucking anyway, bring back as many popular former Lakers as possible.

I'd go further than that — I'd also bring back beloved veterans Derek Fisher and Luke Walton for the veteran's minimum, then keep my 15th roster spot open and spend the season signing old Lakers favorites (Robert Horry, Rick Fox, Michael Cooper, Sam Perkins, etc.) to a series of 10-day contracts.

Important note: Lakers fans would LOVE this.

Yes, I'm sure Lakers fans would love it if the organization further made a mockery of the 2013-2014 team, as well as ruined their memories of favorite Lakers players. I'm sure Kobe Bryant would be thrilled to play for a team that brings back 50 year olds to sit at the end of the bench out of nostalgia.

Then Bill suggest Jack Nicholson sits out the season and gives his seat to Phil Jackson. Obviously this would never happen, but I do actually enjoy this idea. Though by doing this it would further disappoint some Lakers fans when Jackson doesn't come back to coach the 2014-2015 team.

8. Keep Mike D'Antoni for the entire year.

When I was going over my tentative "Save the Lakers" plan last night with my friend Lewis (a Lakers nut who's onboard with everything you just read),

Bill's one Lakers fan friend think these are all good ideas and this means these are all good ideas! NO ONE DENIES THIS!

"Are you kidding?" Lewis yelped. "YOU KEEP HIM! YOU KEEP HIM THE WHOLE SEASON! WE WANT THE WORST COACH POSSIBLE!!!!! WHY WOULD YOU EVER FIRE D'ANTONI!"

I would be much more moved by the fact Lewis agrees with Bill if I didn't think Bill surrounded himself with "yes men" who helped massage his ego and make him feel like everything he does is right. I don't have faith Bill has friends who will challenge his ideas.

9. Delay Kobe's return for as long as possible.

I'm not gonna lie — this is the shakiest part of my rehab plan.

The shakiest part of the rehab plan is that you felt the need to use 10 steps when fewer steps are required. Oh, and you make a ton of assumptions like the Raptors will want to trade for Steve Nash and Lakers fans would be perfectly fine with a season where the team intentionally tanks and signs Sam Perkins to a 10-day contract.

Kobe cares about two things right now: Ring No. 6, and Kareem's record. In that order. We could talk him into playing for a historically lousy Lakers team for one season if Ring No. 6 (and maybe LeBron) was the carrot dangling on the other end.

I think Bill is correct about what Kobe cares about right now, but this is one of the few times I think Bill is correct when he pretends he knows what is going on inside a player/coach/organization's head. This is the exception to the rule.

So he's 6,770 points away. To put that in perspective, he scored 2,133 points in 78 games last season before his Achilles ripped. This is doable … you know, assuming he recovers from that devastating leg injury.

Kobe would essentially have to play three or slightly more than three full seasons to take over Kareem's record. And let's be honest, he is going to have to play longer than that if he teams up with LeBron because his shots are going to decline with LeBron on the roster. If Kobe wants LeBron and Kareem's record he may have to play another four full seasons.

10. When Kobe comes back, allow him to hog the ball to alarming degrees.

You know what the best part of that plan is? Kobe's quest to score 40 every night will inadvertently become one of the more entertaining subplots of the 2013-14 season. I'd flip over to every Lakers game just to see how many points he had. So would you.

Actually I really wouldn't do this at all. Watching a player score as many points while ignoring the competition of the game and the flow of the offense becomes tiresome to me after a while.

Of course, they'd still be hoping that Jimmy Buss hired the right coach, made the right lottery pick, lured LeBron, kept Kobe and spent $60 million in cap space in the best possible way …

No matter what plan is used to fix the Lakers this is a concern. Really this sentence Bill wrote is all that is needed to fix the Lakers. Hire the right people, spend money the right way and hope to hit it big in free agency. Of course Bill has to get an entire column out of the idea of fixing the Lakers so he diddles himself for 2000 words before getting to the point.

See, you need a strong owner or a front-office voice to execute a long-term plan — like what Miami had with Pat Riley and Micky Arison four years ago. These Lakers don't have that voice. Kobe will convince them to compete next season because he's nearing the end of his career, and he wants to shove it in Dwight Howard's face, and he probably believes that he and Pau can still battle anyone on any given night. That's what makes him Kobe. And that's why I didn't mind trying to "save" the Lakers. I know they won't do the right thing.

You know who they SHOULD be emulating, actually?

You are going to have to sit down before reading who the Lakers should be emulating because it is going to shock you. Bill Simmons, "The Boston Sports Guy" wants to tell you who the Lakers should emulate will change how you think about the world and be completely unexpected.

My beloved Celtics.

I'M SHOCKED! Bill Simmons thinks the Lakers should be like the Celtics. I can barely breathe I am so surprised.

In the span of five weeks, Boston mortally wounded next year's team by dealing Garnett and Pierce (improving their Riggin' for Wiggins chances);

You know every team can't get Wiggins and I can see a scenario where Jabari Parker stays at Duke for two years. My point is the 2014 NBA Draft may not be quite as loaded as anticipated. Just a thought.

Boston got back a terrible contract (Gerald Wallace) in the Nets trade so Bill is contradicting himself in a big way by saying the Lakers should emulate the Celtics. Bill suggests a strategy to fix the Lakers where they don't take on any long-term contracts and get their cap space as low to $0 as possible, but then says the Lakers should emulate the Celtics who took on a longer-term contract when trading Pierce and Garnett, as well have no immediate plans to trade Jeff Green or Brandon Bass, both of whom have relatively large cap figures. The Celtics are essentially rebuilding around some of their current players which is not at all the strategy that Bill is suggesting the Lakers use.

As always, he plays both sides so that eventually he can be right when/if the Lakers turn it around. Bill writes an entire column about how the Lakers need to clear as much cap space as possible in order to try and lure LeBron, but then says the Lakers should really emulate the Celtics, who are rebuilding around a core of players and not entirely blowing the team up. Of course both teams are in completely different rebuilding situations, but Bill's need to talk briefly about the Celtics has caused him to waffle on the intended plan in this column for the Lakers. Only Bill could write an entire column about a plan for the Lakers and then ruin his plan in the last paragraph and his readers would think nothing of it. They are just happy he writes because they adore him so much.

turned the roster over to Brad Stevens (the perfect guy for a rebuild);

How do you know Brad Stevens is the perfect guy for a rebuild? He's never coached in the NBA before. This is pure speculation.

That's a team that knows who it is, and where it is, and where it needs to be.

The Celtics still have to draft well with the first round draft picks they have acquired. Bill is proposing the Lakers rebuild through the 2014 draft and free agency, which seems to be different from the way the Celtics are rebuilding. The Celtics are looking more long-term for their rebuild. Not to mention, Bill warns against teams trying to be the 8th seed in the playoffs while rebuilding, and guess what, as the Celtics are currently constructed that's the playoff spot they could be in contention for next year. So Bill basically now thinks the Lakers should do the opposite of what he just suggested in this column by emulating the Celtics.

Can you say the same about the Lakers? My gut feeling is no … and that in April, we'll be watching Kobe and Pau fighting for a no. 8 seed.

Damn them and their inability to tank on the off-chance they land the #1 overall pick. Really the Lakers should do what Bill suggests they do in this column or what they should really do is emulate the Celtics...that is unless Bill's suggested plan in this column works out, then that's really what the Lakers should have done. Either way, if the Lakers succeed or fail in rebuilding Bill feels comfortable in knowing he has covered every scenario to where he can claim he was right. As long as he can claim he was right and feed his ego, that's all that matters to him.

10 comments Bill Simmons Has Resorted to Just Reprinting Old Columns at This Point

I've said on repeat that Bill Simmons is out of column ideas. I don't even think he wants to write anymore. He's too busy doing other things like being editor-in-chief of Grantland and working on "NBA Countdown" to write columns. He knows his loyal lemmings like to read his work though, so he has to keep writing for the time being. The good news is that no matter what he writes, his readers will digest and enjoy it even if the quality of the writing feels mailed-in. Today, Bill tries to decide if Rajon Rondo qualifies for the "Ewing Theory" or not. Bill does this by reprinting the original "Ewing Theory" column (with added notes though!) and then updating the article with modern "Ewing Theory" candidates. So rather than just answer the question in the 1-2 paragraphs that a sufficient answer would require, Bill re-posts an old column and then calls it in his Friday column.

When we learned about Rajon Rondo's season-ending injury during ABC's Heat-Celtics game on January 27, every Celtics fan had the same reaction: So long, Puncher's Chance At Making The Eastern Finals.

This is what "every" Celtics fan thought upon hearing the news. Bill speaks for the entire Celtics fanbase of course. Personally, I sort of looked forward to seeing the Celtics offense run with a point guard who doesn't over-possess the ball and can hit a 16 to 19-foot jump shot. It probably wasn't ever the Celtics year in the first place. I think that was clear before Rondo got injured.

We zipped through the seven stages of grief in about 45 minutes, barely noticing that the Celtics were playing better without Rondo.

The proverbial "we" did do this didn't we? No Celtics fan noticed they beat the Heat that very day without Rondo. Only Bill, being the genius that he is, noticed that the Celtics beat the Heat.

I like the wording of this sentence, mostly because it doesn't make any fucking sense. It was found out during the Celtics game that Rondo was out for the year, but Bill claims Celtics fans didn't notice the Celtics were playing better (ridiculous use of italics is Bill's doing) without Rondo. The Celtics had not even played an entire game without Rondo yet, so how was anyone to notice the Celtics were playing better without him? It has been one game without Rondo. That's not nearly enough time to notice the Celtics were playing better without Rondo.

And somewhere along the line, more than a few Celtics fans e-mailed me or tweeted me the same two words.

Ewing Theory???

This deserves an entire column three weeks after Rondo went out with this injury.

Had I gotten another dog between 2010 and 2012, I absolutely would have named him "Rondo." That's my dude. Other than Larry Legend, he's the most original basketball player I have ever watched on a day-to-day basis. There will never be a Rondo 2.0.

Bill has already said a few things he can't take back. He should take a break for a minute and not get so carried away. I think calling Rondo the most original player he has ever seen on a day-to-day basis probably qualifies as a statement he will at some point wish he could take back.

Then Bill starts criticizing the player he claims to love. Of course, because he basks in misery and even the most original player he's seen on a day-to-day basis makes Bill sad sometimes, he has to tell us about all the things Rondo does wrong so we feel like he is just a little bit tortured.

Basic Cable Rondo gets bored easily. He pads his assist totals just to see if he can. He goes entire games without ever driving to the hoop or drawing a foul.

Don't you hate it when your favorite team's point guard is always looking for assists and finding ways to help his teammates score? How annoying!

But National TV Rondo? Sweet Jesus do I love that guy. He's a walking triple-double. He's a beast. He's one of the best eight or nine players alive.

But he's only in the Top 20 best players alive or dead. The corpse of Wilt Chamberlain, now that guy is a baller.

You could give National TV Rondo four mediocre teammates and he could hang with any contender. Shit, that's practically what happened in the Eastern finals last spring — Garnett and Pierce were worn down from the shortened season, so was Ray Allen, and nobody else on the team was worth a damn except Brandon Bass.

All you need to know about Bill Simmons is that he thinks giving National TV Rondo four mediocre teammates would be the same thing as giving Rondo three older Hall of Fame teammates and Brandon Bass. Sure, that's the same thing.

Defenses played Rondo for the pass on every drive and fast break, turning the streak into something of an ongoing detriment. I loathed the streak. It was a bad look for Rondo — you don't want your leader chasing numbers, even something as seemingly benevolent as assists.

(checks clock to see how much time has passed)

Isn't there a message board where Bill could post this? It seems sort of like message board whining to me. Bill uses italics for emphasis, seems to be whining about Rondo's historical achievement, and I'm just surprised he doesn't start using all caps to help make his point.

You know what happened next. They reeled off seven straight Rondo-less victories to the delight (and semi-confusion) of their just-when-I-thought-I-was-out-they-pull-me-back-innnnnnnnnn fans. Somewhere during that time, we realized two things.

What did "we" realize, Bill? You speak for the entire Celtics fanbase and probably NBA fans all over the globe, so tell us what the fuck "we" all thought.

1. We're not ready to say good-bye to no. 5 and no. 34 yet. Can't trade them. Can't trade them. Can't trade them. Celtics for life.

This is true except for the fact Kevin Garnett isn't even close to being a Celtic for life since he was originally drafted by the Minnesota Timberwolves and played a decade in Minnesota. So no, he's not a Celtic for life.

Our eyes weren't deceiving us. The Celtics moved the ball dramatically better without Rondo, to the point that Steve Kerr texted me that they suddenly reminded him of Popovich's Spurs.

"To the point" Steve Kerr texted Bill, as if Steve Kerr texting someone is the point at which we know something is true or not.

(Person #1) "The Heat won the NBA Title last year, right?"

(Person #2) "I'm not sure, Steve Kerr hasn't texted me yet to say whether this is true or not."

And these guys like playing with each other, which wasn't always the case.

It's the return of ubuntu!

You know who explained the post-Rondo Celtics better than anyone?

Let me guess...you? Jimmy Kimmel? Cousin Sal? Your dad? House? Hersch? Shoebox? JB?

(Okay, those last three names may or may not have been fake names of Simmons friends, but I'm betting he has one friend he calls "JB.")

Kevin Garnett.

Did he call the Celtics cancer patients before Rondo went down and now claims they have been cured of this cancer?

That's what happened here. The Celtics fell into a collective rut with Rondo, for a variety of reasons, and only when Rondo disappeared did they realize it. They made the appropriate fixes. 

They keep chugging along. Fair or unfair, they look like the Celtics again.
Which raises the question …
 
Does this mean Rondo was a Ewing Theory guy?

The only real way to figure out if Rondo is a Ewing Theory candidate is to reprint most of the original Ewing Theory column and make new half-hearted notes below each sentence. Plus, it's very old school for Bill to use one of his own theories to dissect his Boston teams. It fits perfectly with Bill's perception the world revolves around his ideas and his favorite teams. I just wish Bill hadn't decided to reprint most of an old column in trying to be old school.

For the answer, I thought we'd dive into my original Ewing Theory column, which ran on ESPN.com in May 2001 … just a few months before the single best Ewing Theory moment of all time happened. (We'll get to it.) The original column is in bold. My 2013 remarks are in regular font.

Bill's original Ewing Theory column will run in bold italics and his new comments will run in just bold. It makes sense to review the Ewing Theory a little bit here, but not to the extent Bill reviews it. It takes up a solid 60-75% of this column. This is basically a re-print of the Ewing Theory column with new footnotes added in.

It's bigger than the "SI Jinx." It makes the "Curse of the Bambino" look like child's play. It's creepier than the "Curse of the Spinal Tap Drummers" and the "Curse on the Careers of Everyone Who Leaves NYPD Blue" combined.

The Ewing Theory outlasted everything except the Curse of the Spinal Tap Dummers. The SI cover jinx stopped mattering right around the same time that Sports Illustrated stopped mattering as much.

Says the guy who works for ESPN and has absolutely no credibility when it comes to giving an opinion on this matter since he used to write for ESPN the Magazine. ESPN the Magazine is a "hipper" rip-off of Sports Illustrated. If Sports Illustrated doesn't matter anymore than ESPN the Magazine has never had relevance, unless you want to count trying to rip off the swimsuit issue with the Body Issue. Sports Illustrated isn't what it used to be, but they still break investigative stories in the magazine and people still subscribe.

Q: What's the Ewing Theory? Where did it come from? The theory was created in the mid-'90s by Dave Cirilli, a friend of mine

I somehow lost touch with Dave Cirilli. Unacceptable.

In fairness to Bill, Dave Cirilli probably doesn't live in California and he isn't famous, so Bill really has no reason to stay in touch with Dave Cirilli. If you aren't famous or haven't been mentioned in Bill's columns repeatedly, there's no need for you to pretend you ever even knew Bill nor a reason for him to keep in touch with you.

Ewing was only the CATALYST for the theory, and it was as simple as Dave wondering, "Do Ewing's teams always seem to play better when he's on the bench, or am I crazy?" We should also mention that (a) the '84 Hoyas won the NCAA title, and (b) there's no way the Gold Club trial would have been better without Patrick Ewing.

So basically the Ewing Theory was bullshit, but it was fun bullshit, so Bill stuck with it. We should have known early on that Bill would try to turn fiction into reality in his columns so that he could think of a interesting catchphrase. How could I not see that Bill would gladly turn reality around a bit in order to think of a half-assed theory? Of course in the eyes of many SimmonsClones, if Bill Simmons claims it then doesn't that make the claim true?

How has someone not added "First athlete to definitively prove Dave Cirilli's Ewing Theory" to Donyell's Wikipedia page yet?

It hasn't happened because the world doesn't revolve around you and your theories and truly nobody really cares who proved the Ewing Theory first. Bill clearly wants to show his power by having someone update Marshall's Wikipedia page with this little factoid. As I am writing this, Marshall's wikipedia page still hasn't been updated. Good to see the SimmonsClones have some sense of pride. If Bill wants it updated, update it himself. Of course if he updates the Wikipedia page he won't get a sense of pride and power from having told someone else to do it.

My gut feeling on Rondo's 2013 case: If we're measuring it just by those two elements, then no, he's not eligible. The Celtics enjoyed too much success with Rondo. And they DID win the title with him. I don't think he qualifies. You'll understand why as we keep going.

So not only does Bill reprint most of his original Ewing Theory column, but the answer on whether Rondo is a Ewing Theory candidate or not can be wrapped up and answered pretty quickly. He probably doesn't qualify and so the Celtics good performance with Rondo gone can't be attributed to the Ewing Theory. We have our answer and time to move on. But no, Bill has to keep re-writing an old column in order to keep up the illusion he still gives a shit about writing columns.

That really happened. I swear. The karma for me being briefly excited that someone tore his Achilles tendon is going to come back and bite me at some point, almost definitely at USC's Lyon Center as I'm chasing after some 20-year-old around a double screen.

By the way SimmonsClones, this is a little reminder Bill plays pickup basketball at the Lyons Center on USC's campus if anyone wants to come out and watch him play or discreetly try to get a peek of him playing. So if you want, come on out and make Bill feel important by recognizing him publicly.

Had Jeff Van Gundy's crew shocked the Spurs in the Finals without Ewing, Dave might have his own line of "How-To" videos out right now. (A Knicks upset was simply too tall of a task against Duncan and Robinson, Ewing Theory or no Ewing Theory.)

This is otherwise known as "to ensure the theory is 100% bullshit we will pick and choose AFTER THE FACT when the theory will or won't work." If the Ewing Theory were real, doesn't this mean the Knicks should have beaten the Spurs in the NBA Finals without Ewing?

The Mariners kept it going through the first round; the Red Sox fell apart in sections, cementing their legacy as the Most Unlikable Modern Red Sox Team for a good 10 years until the Fried Chicken & Beer Boys zoomed past them.

What else do the 2001 and 2011 Red Sox teams have in common I wonder? Oh yeah, they are both Red Sox teams that didn't make the playoffs. As I said when Bill wrote his column about baseball being boring now (because the Red Sox were boring, this of course meant all of baseball was boring), it's never a coincidence when Bill dislikes a team and that team just happens to not make the playoffs.

6. St. Louis Rams, 1999
 
Starting QB Trent Green tears an ACL during the preseason. Given up for dead, the Rams rally behind former Arena League football star Kurt Warner and win the Super Bowl, which might be the most unbelievable thing that ever happened.

Confused by two things here: Why did I include the '98 Wildcats when the '96 Wildcats also won the title? And why didn't I play up the '99 Rams more? Now THAT was a Ewing Theory team — post-Green injury, they were fetching 300-to-1 Super Bowl odds in Vegas. 

This violates the rules of Bill's Ewing Theory. Trent Green wasn't a star when he went down with the ACL injury. He had been in the NFL for two years and 1999 was his first season with the Rams. He wasn't a star and he didn't get inordinate amounts of media attention on that Rams team. This was a Rams team with Marshall Faulk and Isaac Bruce, by the way. So Trent Green going down violates the "star rule" of the Ewing Theory. Of course, why should I expect Bill to follow the rules he himself sets out to make? Bill is above his own rules.

All right, I'll bite. Remember, we're targeting stars on teams that haven't won anything, as well as teams that would probably be written off without the stars we're about to mention:

Hold onto your seats, this is about to get fun.

"Hey everyone, let's talk about what a good writer I used to be before I decided starfucking and spending inordinate amounts of time up my own ass was a better career path for me."

Drew Bledsoe: Every Patriots fan is nodding right now.

Bill got Drew Bledsoe right and then proceeded to miss every single one after that. Well, Bill doesn't think he missed every single one after that, but he did.

Pete Sampras: This one makes sense, if you think about it. Taking Sampras out of the men's tennis equation could make Wimbledon more interesting and allow younger, more charismatic players to rise to the forefront.

Bammo! Federer and Nadal! BOOM! I'm 2-for-7.

Okay, no. Bill can't take credit for saying the entire sports of men's tennis is part of the Ewing Theory. Younger and more exciting players always come along in the sport of tennis. The very nature of men's and women's tennis is cyclical like that. There can't be a Ewing Theory for an entire sport anyway.

If I can go four for my next 17, I can be the MVP of this column.

A 6-for-24 joke. It was old after the second time Bill told one and it isn't getting any better now. It just makes Bill seem more and more bitter.

Then when discussing Ewing Theory candidates he wish he had thought of, Bill included this one...

Jim Harbaugh and Andrew Luck — Let the record show that the 2012 Stanford Cardinal shocked an undefeated Oregon team (giving Alabama a second life and leading to an Alabama–Notre Dame title game), then won the Pac-12 title and the Rose Bowl … and neither Harbaugh nor Luck have won anything yet.

This is 2013 Bill Simmons saying this while fully knowing Jim Harbaugh has taken the 49ers to the NFC Championship Game and the Super Bowl in his first two seasons as their head coach. Andrew Luck played pretty well for a rookie in helping a 2-14 team make the playoffs. The Rose Bowl is impressive, but taking a team to the NFC Championship Game two years in a row is at the very least the NFL equivalent to winning the Rose Bowl. Come on. How can Bill say Harbaugh nor Luck have won anything yet? It's hard to compare college football and the NFL as it is, but I think Harbaugh and Luck are doing pretty well for themselves. Luck and Harbaugh have been in the NFL for three years combined and made three playoff appearances combined. Bill is always terrible when he even tries to discuss college sports. He's consistently over his head when not discussing the NBA or his favorite teams.

What a dumb comment. When I said Bill's old column takes up 60-75% of this "new" column, I was not exaggerating. Remember this column is being re-posted because Bill wants to find out if Rajon Rondo is a Ewing Theory candidate or not.

Spoiler alert: We only get one more sentence about Rondo and whether he is a Ewing Theory candidate. It sounds like this column was written more for the purposes of not having to do another mailbag. There's very little original material in here other than Bill commenting on his old columns...not that Bill has run out ideas of course.

And now, without further ado, the Ewing Theory Power Rankings — a.k.a., our best bets to become Ewing Theory candidates at some point during the rest of this decade. Even if there's no way to predict this stuff, I'm still predicting it. In no particular order …

George Lucas — You know, if J.J. Abrams invigorates the Star Wars franchise.

This doesn't count. Anybody who watched Star Wars I-III (who isn't 3-10 years old, because those movies were made for kids and kids love those movies) knows that George Lucas is not on top of his game right now and wasn't on top of his game when he made those movies. I almost expect J.J. Abrams' "Star Wars" movies to be better than the last three movies by Lucas. So I don't see Ewing Theory potential.

Brody in Homeland — Had they killed him off after Season 1, there would have been major Ewing Theory possibilities. FYI: There's still time.

This is kind of a cheat since the possibility of Brody being killed off has been present during the entire run of "Homeland" and the writers had a good chance to write him off after the end of Season 2 if they chose to. "Homeland" is a show that seems built to exist without Damian Lewis and built around Claire Danes and Mandy Patinkin.

David Stern — Kudos to the Commish because he sniffed out his own Ewing Theory potential, then decided to hang on through February 2014 until the league was in good enough shape that nobody could say, "Things turned around because Stern left!" Yet another reason why he's one of the smartest dudes in sports history.

Yes, David Stern held on as Commissioner of the NBA simply so that he wouldn't be a Ewing Theory candidate. Also, what is to stop the NBA from having a fantastic five year run after Stern retires? Wouldn't that possibly cause him to still be a Ewing Theory candidate? Does Bill believe February 2014 will be the absolute peak of the NBA's existence or something?

Rajon Rondo — Only if the Celtics make the 2013 Finals. And only then.

And that's all we get. Bill re-printed his entire Ewing Theory column in order to decide if Rajon Rondo has Ewing Theory potential, only to give his readers a one sentence answer. I thought Bill's column that contained television screengrabs from a regular season Knicks-Celtics game was Bill's low point in creativity, but I think re-printing his Ewing Theory column under the guise of determining if Rondo was a candidate for this theory is probably rock bottom at this point.

Bill Simmons — Here's how I could get foiled by my own favorite theory in two steps:

If anything, Bill Simmons has jumped the shark since he is now a parody of himself. I don't see how he is a Ewing Theory candidate. The idea Bill thinks he could be a Ewing Theory candidate does give a little insight into how large his ego is. Remember the Ewing Theory is what happens when a big star who gets inordinate amounts of attention is removed from a team. So basically Bill is stating he thinks of himself as a big star who gets inordinate amount of attention. While I agree with him getting too much attention, especially considering how knowledgeable he is about sports outside of the NBA and his favorite teams, this statement is verification that Bill's massive ego causes him to believe he is a big star.
 
1. I get fired for saying something totally inappropriate/offensive on live TV during NBA Countdown.

Because Bill is off the chain when it comes to being a rebel. He's super-crazy guys. You never know when he might say something totally inappropriate/offensive on live TV. He may say something passive-aggressive towards ESPN or even continuously bash a head coach only to immediately back down when he meets that head coach face-to-face. We all know how brash and inappropriate Bill can be until confronted by those he is brash and inappropriate towards.

2. Grantland takes off with new editor-in-chief Rembert Browne.
(Gulp.)

If I were jaded, I would think this entire column was an excuse to remind us that he is the editor-in-chief of Grantland, but most likely it is just what it seems. The result of a columnist not having the time to think of new, good column ideas or simply a case of him being out of new, good column ideas.