2 comments The NBA Lottery Results Make Bill Plaschke a Sad Little Man

The NBA lottery results are in and the Los Angeles Lakers did not get the #1 overall draft pick, which was apparently completely expected in the mind of Bill Plaschke. Bill is frustrated, sad, insolent, indolent, lactose intolerant and regretful over the season the Lakers had that wasn't even rewarded with a top-3 draft pick. Those assholes in Cleveland got the #1 overall pick and they totally didn't deserve it like the Lakers deserved the #1 overall pick...or at least a top-3 pick. See, it's better for the NBA if the Lakers are good and that's why Bill is so angry and has become a sad little man. What's good for the Lakers is good for the NBA! If the Lakers win, the NBA wins. Can't the NBA see this? It's good for the NBA that one (multiple officials if you ask me) rigged Game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals in favor of the Lakers. It's good for the NBA when superstars come to Los Angeles to play for the Lakers (but not the Clippers of course). It's so...well, this is just unbearable for Bill and he writes about his feelings on the subject in an article featuring his signature one sentence paragraphs.

The best and most appropriate reaction to the Lakers' luck Tuesday came from the Jerry Buss and Chick Hearn dolls sitting on James Worthy's desk.

Next paragraph!

Shaking, shaking, shaking their heads.

Whew, that was an exhausting sentence to write! Next paragraph!

EVEN THE BOBBLEHEAD DOLLS KNEW THE DRAFT LOTTERY WAS RIGGED AGAINST THE LAKERS BY NOT BEING RIGGED IN FAVOR OF THE LAKERS!

For their final act of the 2013-14 season, the Lakers tanked the lottery. More than a month after their final game, the Lakers managed one more loss.

The Lakers dropped one spot from #6 to #7. Let's keep it in perspective. The reason the Lakers were in the lottery is they have several injured, fairly expensive players who are in the mid-30's. The Lakers acquired a guy like Nash and combined with him Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol in the hopes it would lead to a championship. The Lakers team stayed pretty injured this year and I don't feel bad for them. Of course Lakers fans aren't used to a bad season, so the whining from sportswriters about the situation begins.

The team with the sixth-worst record in the NBA will somehow draft seventh

Not "somehow," but the Cavaliers moved into the lottery which meant other teams like the Lakers got pushed back in the lottery. There's no "somehow" involved. The Lakers falling back one pick (and let's be honest, it's not like the #6 spot is just a much, much better spot to be in) had a clear cause for why it occurred.

after those pingpong balls paddled the Lakers all over Times Square during a lottery drawing that felt like a contrived episode of "Survivor."

I'm not sure Bill understands how "Survivor" works. When I watched the show 12 years ago competitors voted each other off the island. Other NBA teams didn't vote for the Lakers to move back one pick, though if NBA teams could vote for other NBA teams to move back the Lakers would probably be a prime candidate to move back as far as possible. The Lakers would potentially be voted to move back into the second round.

The final three teams were represented by a tall NBA legend from Philadelphia, a young woman from Milwaukee in a treacherously short dress,

Okay perv, her dress wasn't that short. I'm won't post a picture here but Mallory Edens' picture was all over the Internet the day after the lottery. Her dress wasn't that short and I'm happy to see Bill Plaschke has Gregg Easterbrook Disease and takes time to check out 18 year old girls and comment on their attire. Not at all slightly creepy.

and a nerdy dude from Cleveland with a 1.7% chance of winning. Of course, the nerdy dude won.

(Bill Plaschke) "Nerds are taking over the world! This has to end! What a bunch of losers."

(Bill then goes to the local YMCA swimming pool to check out the high school girls in their bathing suits)

For the third time in four years, the Cavaliers will have the top pick, their general manager, David Griffin, clapping in glee while Julius Erving rolled his eyes in disgust and Mallory Edens — a Bucks co-owner's daughter and the newest Internet sensation — simply blushed.

Because a team that lost 26 games in a row or the team that just gave a huge contract extension to Larry Sanders, those are the teams that really deserve the #1 overall pick. Few teams who have a serious shot at the #1 overall pick "deserve" that pick. They have all probably made a few bad moves to get them where they are.

The Cavaliers didn't deserve it.

The Lakers didn't deserve the #1 overall pick simply because they had one bad season. If the #1 overall pick went to the team that "deserved" it because they ran their team well it would (a) ruin the point of the NBA draft lottery or (b) go to the Spurs/Thunder/Pacers/Heat/Grizzlies. I don't know about Bill but I'm not sure I'd like to see Joel Embiid added to the roster of the Heat or Spurs. I know it would be fun to see Andrew Wiggins and Kevin Durant play together, but that sort of ruins the point of the NBA draft lottery.

There should be a rule against giving another No. 1 overall pick to a team that spent last year's No. 1 overall pick on somebody who averaged two baskets per game. Does even Anthony Bennett remember Anthony Bennett?

Bennett had injuries last year and he was coming off one year of college. I think it's a bit early to give up on him.

The Lakers deserved better. They at least deserved to pick where they had finished. 

The Lakers don't deserve anything. In fact, if we are going to start talking about what teams "deserve" then the Celtics and Lakers don't even deserve a top-10 draft pick. The Celtics traded away their best players in an effort not to tank necessarily, but knew it would result in them just not being very good, while the Lakers had one bad season because they built the team around a 35-year old shooting guard coming off a major foot injury (and gave him a $48.5 million extension) and a 39-year old point guard who has had bad back issues (though he was injured this year due to leg issues) for going on almost a decade now. If there is karma in the world, then the Lakers would have gotten pushed back out of the lottery, as would the Celtics. So don't tell me what the Lakers "deserve" after struggling for one season.

They should have been rewarded for their injuries, their incompetence, their dysfunction, and the fact that they somehow talked Mike D'Antoni into leaving town.

I don't know if this is sarcasm or not. It's hard to tell. But no, the Lakers should not have been rewarded for all of these things.

Heck, if the league was smart, it would have helped the Lakers move into the top three. Considering a new rumored NBA scheme surfaces about every month, why couldn't one have popped up now?

Again, I don't know if this is sarcasm or not. This does seem like the type of inane crap that Bill Plaschke would write in an effort to make it seem like the Lakers are more important than other NBA teams or the NBA needs the Lakers to be successful in order to thrive.

Couldn't they have drugged up a couple of pingpong balls? Maybe shuffled a few cards on the way to the podium? 

Maybe the NBA did drug up a couple of ping-pong balls or shuffle the cards to give the #1 overall pick to the Cleveland Cavaliers. I guess Bill didn't think about that, because why else would a team other than the Lakers be favored by the NBA?

The league was happy to block a trade that kept Chris Paul from the Lakers — couldn't it have finally paid for David Stern's misstep and evened things up?

While I agree David Stern was an asshole, and well, his typical self by blocking this trade, the NBA doesn't have to "even things up" by giving the Lakers the #1 overall pick or a top-3 pick. That's not how it works. If the whining is this bad after one year where the Lakers don't make the playoffs, I can't imagine how bad it would be if the Lakers didn't make the playoffs for 2-3 years in a row.

The NBA needs the Lakers now like it needed the Knicks back then.

No, it doesn't. The NBA needs to let the lottery play out however the ping-pong balls fly and not worry about whether a franchise like the Knicks, Lakers or Celtics are successful in a given season or not. The Lakers are not the center of the universe and they weren't wronged because they got the #7 pick and not the #6 pick. I know the Lakers "earned" the #6 pick by being terrible this season and Bill believes they should rightfully be given this pick, but sometimes the ping-pong balls don't fall a team's way. I know it's rare that something doesn't fall the Lakers way, but it does happen. Somehow I think the team will survive and still excel in the near future.

The NBA needs the Lakers' glamour and drama. The NBA needs Kobe Bryant, in his final run, to be relevant again.

Bill needs to write paragraphs that are longer than two sentences.

Saddled with the turmoils of dueling owners and an aging superstar, the Lakers desperately need a reason to believe in themselves next season.

Oh no! After failing to make the playoffs for the fifth time since the 1957-1958 season (think about that) the Lakers don't believe in themselves anymore! What a tragedy of epic proportions! Why wouldn't the NBA give the Lakers a reason to believe when they are so down on their luck of late? Sadder events have never transpired before.

One of the first three draft picks would have made that happen. The seventh pick does not.

This is pure bullshit. Kobe Bryant was drafted 13th overall, Nash was drafted 15th overall, and there are other instances of teams finding great players outside of the first three draft picks. It's not the NBA's job to make the Lakers believe in themselves, but if the Lakers do a good job of scouting they can possibly find a great player with the #7 pick.

Joel Embiid, Jabari Parker, Andrew Wiggins, and Dante Exum are guys who could have immediately made the sort of impact that would make the Lakers fun again. 

I would guess Bill Plaschke knows very little about these players, but Exum and Embiid may not make the immediate impact that Plaschke is wanting to see. Players that will be available potentially at the #7 spot like Marcus Smart, Gary Harris, Noah Vonleh, or Julius Randle could have an immediate impact on the Lakers team equal to what Embiid or Exum could provide. In terms of long-term impact Plaschke has a point, but he's talking in the short-term.

None of them is expected to be around at No. 7, which is a location currently occupied on draft boards by guys like Julius Randle, Aaron Gordon and Marcus Smart, none of whom will immediately make a well-coiffed courtside head spin.

Clearly Bill Plaschke has never seen Aaron Gordon play. In fact, I would say of all the players in this NBA Draft Aaron Gordon is the most likely to make a person's head spin with his athleticism and some of the dunks he can pull off. I guess I have to remember Bill is coming from a place of ignorance and is simply mindlessly bitching because the Lakers didn't get their way.

Heck, the Lakers could have even traded one of the top three picks to Minnesota for Kevin Love, assuming the Timberwolves realize they need to get something for him now before he walks next summer. 

Oh, so Bill doesn't really want to draft a player who makes an immediate impact, but he wants the Lakers to shortcut the rebuilding effort and use other NBA teams as their farm system as they have done in the past? It's not about drafting and developing good players, but about using draft picks to trade for players who have already developed into good NBA players.

But there's no way anybody like Kevin Love is traded for something like a seventh pick.

Well, not in the position the Lakers are in. If the Lakers had any type of assets on their roster they could package with the #7 pick then a deal could possibly get done, but the reason the Lakers don't have assets to trade on their roster is the same reason they struggled this year and the same reason they don't "deserve" a top-3 draft pick. They are in win-now mode and sometimes that can backfire when injuries occur. A team that went for it all by paying 2-3 players large salaries doesn't necessarily "deserve" a top-3 draft pick because the plan didn't work for one season.

If they were convinced they could acquire a cornerstone player, they would have probably searched for a young and potentially cornerstone coach who could grow with the new star.

See what you have done, NBA! Now you have messed up the Lakers coaching search by not rigging the lottery in the Lakers favor. They were totally going to search for a young head coach rather than a head coach with previous coaching experience, you know, like they have never really done over the last 20 years.

But now, one wonders if they won't just grab a calm veteran like George Karl to steer them through the final years of Bryant before pushing reset again to accommodate whoever will lead them into the next era.

That would be terrible if the Lakers had to hire a coach with a 59.9% career winning percentage. However would the Lakers recover from making such a disastrous hire? Where's Mike Brown when you need him?

Granted, the Lakers had only a 6.3% chance of winning the lottery, and a 31% chance of dropping into the seventh spot, so Tuesday's fall — precipitated by Cleveland's leap — wasn't that unexpected.

But the fall was totally unfair and just proof the NBA rigs the lottery in favor of teams like the Cavaliers when they should be rigging the lottery in favor of unloved NBA teams like the Celtics or Lakers.

But, still, one could dream, and the Lakers sent their last No. 1 overall pick, Worthy, to New York with bobbleheads of past Lakers greats — Buss and Chick— in pursuit of that dream.

It was over 30 years ago that the Lakers had the #1 overall pick. Granted, this has more to do with the Lakers winning eight NBA Titles and missed the playoffs only three times since 1982, but it was a dream of Bill Plaschke's that the Lakers could struggle for one year and then be granted a top-3 pick to immediately revitalize the team. Alas, life is just not fair and the Lakers only have the #7 pick.

Big Game James was big-time crushed, beginning with the pre-lottery interviews, when ESPN's Heather Cox pointedly asked Worthy — and only Worthy — how it felt to watch his team stink all season.

"It was difficult … we had a plethora of injuries … we could never catch up," said Worthy.

What a struggle! I'm sure the plethora of injuries caused Worthy to cry into his over-sized goggles and wonder why life just couldn't be more fair and those teams that deserve a top-3 pick aren't granted one?

They finished sixth. They will pick seventh. The chase continues.

The 2014-2015 season is obviously over before it even began. Sadness accrues. Bill Plaschke may not be able to carry on, though I'm sure he'll have plenty of energy to write 15-20 columns during the next NBA season bashing the Lakers. 

2 comments Bill Simmons' "Fuck It, I Give Up on Writing Original Material So Here's a Mailbag" Volume 4; Now It Seems Bill is Running Out of Mailbag Questions to Answer

Bill spun a Phil Jackson-related conspiracy in his last "real" mailbag, as well as suggested that NBA owners should be willing to relegate their team to a lower division for running an incompetent franchise. We all know business owners are quick to punish themselves for being crappy at running their business. One of Bill's readers also proposed the idea of a Bill Simmons sex tape and then wanted to talk about Bill's testicles, because that's just how pathetic his readers are. This week Bill retroactively looks back at the trades that involved draft picks from the 2014 NBA Draft and uses the "Khan" joke for probably the 9,000th time.

Editor’s note: We’re taking next Wednesday off from the NBA Bag, then writing three more for the Triangle on April 2, April 9 and April 16 (last day of the regular season).

What do you know? Bill has given up writing original material and now he can't even churn out a mailbag on a weekly basis. 

We might keep it going through the playoffs if the questions are good enough.

If Bill can think of enough questions to ask himself. 

Every NBA Bag has a 5,000-word limit. As always, these are actual emails from actual readers.

Of course they are. They are actual emails from actual readers and Bill didn't write any of these questions himself. I completely believe that. 

Q: If I was (Suns owner) Robert Sarver, do I pray to make the playoffs? Or do I see that Minnesota is only one spot below me, and that I get their top 13 protected pick if my team can out-suck them down the stretch?
—David Bruxvoort, Ames

SG: Good lord, I didn’t even know about that stealth tanking angle! 

It's not really a stealth tanking angle. It is just a higher form of tanking. It's losing games so you can get an additional draft pick. Though if the Suns did this then it would put them in (what Bill claims) is the dreaded draft spot just outside the lottery or barely in the lottery where no NBA teams want to be, right? Bill has said when referring to the Milwaukee Bucks that the 8th seed in the playoffs isn't where a team wants to be in order to improve. So I'm sure Bill answers the question mentioning this theory of his, right? Actually, Bill never really answers the question. And here I thought that was the point of a mailbag, to answer questions from readers. It turns out the purpose of a mailbag in Bill Simmons' opinion is to give him a reason to go off topic about something he wants to discuss that isn't directly related to the question being asked.

We’ve spent the season dealing with so many pick swaps, protected picks and semi-protected picks, even I can’t keep track

Bill is more intelligent than everyone else so if he can't keep track of the pick swaps, then Bill knows no one else can keep track.

Last week, I found out my poor father was rooting against Atlanta every night because he thought our Celtics had Atlanta’s first-rounder; actually, we’re almost definitely getting Brooklyn’s first-rounder.

And because rooting against a team has real world implications, Bill's father has altered the NBA landscape by being personally responsible for a few Hawks losses.

So let’s figure it out. If only for Dad’s sake. The following teams have their own picks: Milwaukee (no. 1, with the highest odds to win the lottery), Philly (2), Orlando (3), Boston (4 – LET’S DO THIS!!!!!), Utah (5), L.A. Lakers (6), Cleveland (9), Phoenix (14), Chicago (19), Toronto (20), Memphis (21), Houston (25), L.A. Clippers (26), Miami (27), OKC (28) and San Antonio (30). The other 15 teams either traded their picks or traded protected versions of those picks. We’re putting those trades in one place because, for whatever reason, this hasn’t been done well enough yet.

Bill is the first person to put all of these trades in one place. Who says "no" when given the chance to read about all of these NBA trades? Not anyone, that's for sure. NO ONE DENIES THIS!

FYI, I dumbed down the trade details as much as possible.

Thanks, Bill. The rest of the world isn't up to your intellectual standard, so I'm glad you dumb the trades down for your readers. Everyone is stupid except for you.

See the man's ego? He hasn't even started writing the answer to the email that is asking a completely different question from the answer Bill is giving and he has twice subtly mentioned how he considers himself to be smarter than anyone else.

The Trade: Last June, Philly sent Jrue Holiday to New Orleans for Nerlens Noel, a top-five protected 2014 pick and a nine-month loss of dignity (expires April 16).

They’re losing this pick and they know it. You gotta love the Cans — they trade Chris Paul for 12 cents on the dollar

Now let's be fair, Bill. The Pelicans had a trade which would have given them Luis Scola, Lamar Odom, Kevin Martin, Goran Dragic and the Rockets 2012 first round pick at #16 (which turned out to be Royce White but given the fact the Rockets now had Pau Gasol probably would have been higher...or maybe not). The Pelicans were in a tough spot at that point because they had lost leverage and weren't able to make the one trade they wanted to make, had a pissed-off superstar, and had their options narrowed through David Stern's meddling. It's ridiculous to blame them for trading Paul to the Clippers for the package they got, because they tried to do better and the NBA would not allow them to.

Trade No. 1: In 2011, Denver sent Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups to New York for Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari, Timofey Mozgov, Raymond Felton, an unprotected 2014 pick, a 2016 pick swap and three boxes of JD & the Straight Shot’s new CD, Don’t You Know Who My Dad Is?

James Dolan, Isiah Thomas, David Kahn...Bill really takes repeated cheap shots at the low-hanging fruit doesn't he? That's until he meets them in person, at which point they come to an "understanding" brokered by the king of annoying broadcasters, Gus Johnson.

Trade No. 2: In a 2012 four-teamer, Orlando lost Dwight Howard and basically gained Arron Afflalo, Moe Harkless, Nic Vucevic, the inferior Denver/New York pick (in 2014), and a lifetime reprieve from Dwight’s farts on the team plane.

It's amazing what an NBA team can receive back for a superstar when the commissioner doesn't do the owners' bidding by blocking a perfectly reasonable trade for that superstar.

2014 Draft Ramifications: Right now, Denver gets no. 10 (from New York), Orlando gets no. 12 (from Denver), and New York gets a situation so dire that it just panic-splurged $60 million on a 68-year-old GM who’s never done the job before, might commute from California, hasn’t been around the league for three solid years and is already openly admitting things like, You probably won’t see me at the draft combine. Sounds promising!

I can't believe that Phil Jackson took the Knicks job just so he could land a job with the Lakers. Considering Jackson now actually has a job with the Knicks, and not the Lakers, I'm not sure how his brilliant plan to land a job outside of the Lakers and make Jimmy Buss jealous enough to offer him a job within the Lakers organization is working, but I'm sure Bill has a half-assed theory about this.

Trade No. 1: In 2011, Cleveland sent J.J. Hickson to Sacramento for Omri Casspi, Sacramento’s future pick (protected 1-12) and a signed, sealed confession from Geoff Petrie that he’d given up and was just trying to hurt the Maloofs with stupid trades.

Trade No. 2: In January, Chicago traded Luol Deng for Andrew Bynum’s overweight/frowning/limping cap ghost and that same Sacramento pick.

2014 Draft Ramifications: Assuming the Kings keep this pick (and they will — it’s no. 7 right now), it rolls over to 2015, 2016 or 2017 (top-10 protected). Unfortunately for Chicago, no Sacramento first-rounder has fallen outside the top 10 since 2008 — it’s like holding a blank personal check from Lindsay Lohan.

Oh, a Lindsay Lohan joke. It must be 2008 again.

Tanking Potential: No need … although Sacramento and Boston have done the best jobs of anyone at playing hard for 45 minutes and then blowing games late. They’ve really made it an art form.

Come on, like Bill wasn't going to drag the Celtics into the discussion at some point? Bill can't go an entire mailbag without talking about his favorite team and slobbering all over how other teams may tank but the Celtics are too competitive to tank. They just don't have a very good team on the court, so that's why they lose games. Other NBA teams put a bad team on the court and that's tanking, but not the Celtics. They may be putting a non-competitive team on the court but they are definitely NOT tanking.

While we’re here, kudos to the Celtics for how they’re taking advantage of this “Rondo can’t play back-to-back games yet” rule. Last week, they played him in an unwinnable game in Indiana on Tuesday, then sat him for a totally winnable home game against New York 24 hours later. Yes, they lost both games. Now that’s how it’s done, my friends.

Okay, I think I'm confused. So the Celtics aren't tanking, they just play hard, unlike the other teams that are tanking who don't play hard? So the Celtics are tanking, but trying really hard while tanking, which differentiates them from other teams who are tanking? But of course. The Celtics are special and so are you, Bill!

I caught Cleveland in person on Sunday against the Clips — that’s the most miserable visiting team I’ve seen in a couple years. They make the Kings or Wolves look like the 2008 Celtics.

It never stops and it never will. The Boston Sports Guy has to go back to what he knows.

The Trade: A 2012 three-teamer in which New Orleans got Robin Lopez and Hakim Warrick, Phoenix got Wesley Johnson and Minnesota’s top-13 protected pick, and ’Sota got cap space and yet another segment for the future Emmy-winning 30 for 30 KAHHHHHHHHHHNNN!!!!!

Then Bill embeds the YouTube clip as he always does when mentioning David Kahn and further punches this one-note joke into the ground. For added effect, he also embeds a "Kahn" .gif, because no joke gets old after the 9000th time it has been told. Bill learned this from his friend Jimmy Kimmel. Did you know Bill used to work on Jimmy Kimmel's television show and Bill is friends with Jimmy Kimmel? He totally is. Do you want Bill to prove it by calling Kimmel right now? He'll do it.

Tanking Potential: Very low. Phoenix (29 losses) only gets that pick by reverse-passing Minnesota (32 losses). Not on Jeff Hornacek’s watch! Not on Goran Dragic’s watch!

The Suns could always do what the Celtics do, which is try really hard all game and then lose at the end. This isn't tanking, but trying really hard yet failing because there are purposely few quality NBA players on the roster...which is totally different from tanking.

Trade No. 1: In 2012, Atlanta sent Joe Johnson to Brooklyn for expirings, plus a 2013 first-rounder (no. 18: Shane Larkin), plus the right to swap first-rounders in 2014 and 2015, plus a 12-hour nap until the drugs wore off.

Trade No. 2: Boston sent Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Jason Terry to Brooklyn for expirings and Gerald Wallace’s contract, plus the lesser Atlanta/Brooklyn first-rounder in 2014, plus unprotected first-rounders in 2016 and 2018, plus the right to swap firsts in 2017. This wasn’t a trade as much as a pillaging.

It was a pillaging except for the fact the Celtics had to take on three years of Gerald Wallace's contract and these first round picks don't mean anything if the Celtics don't use these picks to draft good players who contribute. Basically, what Bill refers to as a "pillaging" right now could easily be the basis for a Bill Simmons column in 2019 about how Danny Ainge ruined the Celtics franchise through stupid draft picks and personnel moves. If I had a good memory, I would try to remember Bill wrote this when 2019 comes around and Bill is doing some of his usual whining (or straight-out ignoring of a team by becoming a "widow") when the Celtics becomes non-competitive for more than one season.

2014 Draft Ramifications: Right now, Atlanta gets no. 15 (from itself), Boston gets no. 18 (from Brooklyn) and Brooklyn gets a draft STD. Hey, Minnesota — what about no. 4, no. 18 and Jared Sullinger for Kevin Love? Come on, you gave us KG and Big Papi, it’s tradition!

Actually Ortiz was a free agent, so the Twins didn't "give" Ortiz to the Red Sox, Ortiz chose to sign with Boston. I also love how Bill just can't stand the rebuilding period it will take for the Celtics to be competitive again and wants to have the Celtics trade for Kevin Love. I wonder how Bill would handle it if his team really had a 2-3 year rebuilding process where that team wasn't competitive for 2-3 seasons? I'm guessing he wouldn't handle it very well.

The Trade: So this one gets convoluted.

Well gosh, I hope we can understand it. Just use small words please. 

Right after the lockout ended, Dallas traded a future pick (top-20 protected) to the Lakers for the Artist Formerly Known As Lamar Odom, four Keeping Up With the Kardashians cameramen, three missed urine tests and five unexcused absences to be named later. Whoops. L.A quickly flipped that pick to Houston to dump Derek Fisher’s contract (for Jordan Hill). In October 2012, Houston re-rerouted that pick to OKC in the James Harden hijacking.

Boy, that was complicated. So basically, Oklahoma City should never have traded James Harden. That's the vibe I'm getting.

Since we’re here, check out these numbers since the All-Star break.

James Harden: 26.7 PPG, 6.4 APG, 4.5 RPG, 49% FG, 42% 3FG, 37.6 MPG
 
Jeremy Lamb: 3.6 PPG, 0.4 APG, 1.8 RPG, 29% FG, 21% 3FG, 12.2 MPG
 
Steven Adams: 2.0 PPG, 0.2 APG, 3.8 RPG, 53% FG, 00% 3FG, 16.1 MPG

I think since we are talking about James Harden, remember when Bill didn't like that the Thunder picked Harden over Rubio? Bill wishes you would forget this, but it happened.

I recognize this trade isn't going to be equal, but Steven Adams would have been a sophomore in college right now and Jeremy Lamb would be a senior in college at this point. I also recognize that James Harden is only 24 years old himself, but it's not like Adams is even close to a finished product for the Thunder.

The Trade: Golden State traded the Richard Jefferson–Andris Biedrins–Brandon Rush expirings plus unprotected picks in 2014 and 2017 to Utah for cap space, a prolonged handshake and five autographed copies of Karl Malone’s upcoming autobiography, Hunting for Little Mexican Girls.

2014 Draft Ramifications: Right now, Utah gets Golden State’s 23rd pick. You know what’s not mentioned enough? Utah allowed Al Jefferson (killing it in Charlotte) and Paul Millsap (an All-Star) to leave so they could take on $24 million of bodies … just to eventually get the 23rd pick in the 2014 draft and a 2017 unprotected pick, as well as some unabashed 2014 self-sabotage.

The issue is that the Jazz would have had to pay Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson to stay in Utah, which would have cost quite a bit of money on a long-term deal (at least for Jefferson) and it's not like the Jazz were going anywhere with Millsap and Jefferson on the roster. I have a feeling if the Jazz had re-signed both of those guys then Bill Simmons would have made jokes about the Jazz re-signing two players from a non-playoff team that play the same position and then end the discussion with a comment like, "If you are going to pay $22 million per year for two players make sure they play the same position, one doesn't play defense and they aren't the core of a playoff team." I know Bill would have said something like this. Alas, the Jazz rebuild and Bill criticizes anyway.

The Trade: Phoenix traded Luis Scola for Indiana’s pick (top-14 protected), Gerald Green, Miles Plumlee and a lifetime of “I JUST KICKED LARRY LEGEND’S ASS IN AN NBA TRADE AND THERE WERE WITNESSES AND EVERYTHING!” bragging rights for Suns GM Ryan McDonough.

Retroactive Verdict: Holy mackerel, that trade was one-sided, especially with how well Green has been playing. Can you believe McDonough, a Boston kid who grew up loving the Celtics, somehow outwitted the Basketball Jesus in an NBA trade?

Can you believe the fact McDonough grew up in Boston and was a Celtics fan has absolutely nothing to do with whether he outwitted Larry Bird in a trade or not? It's shocking that these two facts may not have something to do with each other. Mind-blowing really.

2014 Draft Ramifications: Right now, the Suns are picking no. 14 (their own), no. 17 (from Washington) and no. 29 (from Indy). Well done, Ryan McDonough. I hereby dub you the Anti-Kahn.

Hold on, that's well-done? Doesn't Bill tell us that the worst position for a team to be is to be drafting in the middle of the first round while getting the 7th or 8th seed in the playoffs? Bill has stated this on several occasions, but now it seems Bill's little rule about not wanting to fall in the draft position from 14-18 while making the playoffs isn't true when he doesn't want it to be true. Not that Bill is full of shit most of the time or anything like that.

(Wait a second, I still have almost 2,000 words to play with! Let’s hit some other emails … )

How about you answer that last email? No, you won't do this because you only answered the email so you could sum up all the trades that led to the 2014 NBA Draft order and mention the Celtics needlessly a few times? Okay, great.

Q: The people who think Blake Griffin has been more valuable than Kevin Love this season are the same people that think Miguel Cabrera was more valuable than Mike Trout in 2012. We have advanced statistics now. What the hell is your case for Griffin over Love?
—Ben G., Los Angeles

SG: Um … I watch basketball?

Interesting, because this is the same "eye test" that MLB voters used to claim that Miguel Cabrera deserved the MVP over Mike Trout in 2012, well along with the fact Cabrera's team made the playoffs and Trout's didn't, despite the Angels actually winning one more game than the Tigers in 2012. So basically, Bill uses the same reasoning as guys like Murray Chass and couldn't be more proud of it.

Then Bill uses the word "we" three times and says "you" once in a paragraph about why "we" need to not count out the Rockets as a potential destination for Carmelo Anthony this offseason.

Q: Kendall Marshall and Ricky Rubio have very similar stats. —Malc Dawson, Fort Worth

SG: So you wouldn’t give the five-year max to Rubio?

Much like how Bill won't remind his readers that he didn't like Harden for the Thunder, he's just hoping his readers forget how much he was on the Ricky Rubio train back in 2009. I detail it a bit here, but suffice to say that Bill Simmons was a Rubio fan. He's quietly made a violent leap off the Rubio bandwagon since then and has erased all of his footsteps into the woods so his getaway can be clean. Bill is now openly knocking Rubio like a thirteen year old mocking a classmate in the gym locker room for wearing tighty-whities when he only switched to briefs a couple of days earlier.

Q: I’m thinking of naming my rock band “Boogie Cousins.” Is there any reason I shouldn’t do this? —Dan, Potsdam, New York

SG: None. Just remember, if I had this mailbag 25 years ago, I may have gotten this question:

We’re thinking of naming our rock band “Mookie Blaylock.” Is there any reason we shouldn’t do this?
—Jeff and Eddie, Seattle

The members of Pearl Jam would definitely have been big Bill Simmons fans. And also, naming their band "Mookie Blaylock" was a bad idea since they shot to fame as "Pearl Jam."

Q: On your list of post-1989 top-3 picks that played less than 500 minutes in their rookie season (in NBA Bag No. 3), you accidentally omitted your #3 MVP and breakout superstar Blake Griffin. Remember? He missed all of the 2009-2010 season with a knee injury.
—Jeff Bess, Missouri

SG: Yup — total brainfart. And in the section about “Coming Home” tributes, I mistakenly omitted Paul Pierce’s “Coming Home” video that the Celtics made for his return to Boston because of a tragic copy-paste error. It’s the best one, too.

What a shock, Bill thinks the "Coming Home" video for Paul Pierce is the best tribute to that song on YouTube. Bill says this as a completely unbiased biased observer of course.

Q: When are you publishing your march madness picks? I’ve followed your NFL picks for years so I need to see your picks so I can make different ones and win my work pool. C’mon man! Get with it!
—Ben, Cincinnati

SG: My Final Four: Florida, Michigan State, Duke, Arizona. My winner: Michigan State over Arizona. Now please, go against me.

Sad face for Duke. I'm pretty sure Bill just put them in there as a reverse-jinx anyway.

Q: After watching Byron Mullens get posterized the other day, I started to think about which NBA player is most likely to end up on the receiving end of a massive dunk. Call it the “Shawn Bradley Award” since Bradley is the godfather of being dunked on. The qualifications go beyond just being posterized frequently, the player must also have to be tall and probably white,

I'm not sure why the player probably has to be white, but carry on...

and be either naive or arrogant enough to think that they can block Serge Ibaka with a full-head of steam coming down the lane. So who’s the 2014 winner? Mullens? You can’t rule out Greg Stiemsma or Robin Lopez.
—Jesse Collings, Waltham, Massachusetts

Lopez isn't technically white since one of his parents is Hispanic.

SG: The Plumlee brothers can’t fathom that you left them out of this conversation. They’re on Skype just staring at each other in disbelief right now. Along with naivete and overconfidence, Jesse forgot one crucial element: the Bradley Award candidate has to be a decent dunker in his own right.

Oh, this is a crucial element? Well let's see how crucial this element is when Bill lists his Top 5 candidates and ignores this very crucial element that the Bradley Award candidate (Bill is REALLY stretching for additional "teams" and "awards" to be added to his Wikipedia page by his rabid fans at this point) must be a decent dunker in his own right.

My top-five finalists for 2014’s Bradley Award: (1) Miles, (2) Mason,

Okay, okay...

(3) Cody Zeller, (4) Tyler Zeller, 

Wait, I thought the Bradley Award candidate had to be a decent dunker in his own right? Tyler Zeller is not a great dunker. Cody? Sure, but Tyler Zeller isn't a great dunker. You are awarded no points for this suggestion.

(5) Mullens. By the way, we may or may not be working on a 30 for 30 short about Bradley called Posterized. (Like you wouldn’t watch this.)

I would really not watch this.

Q: After watching Night Shift with my wife last night, it occurred to me that this was the movie version of Breaking Bad. Billy Blaze is Jesse Pinkman. Chuck is Walter White. Prostitution is meth. The morgue is the Studebaker/lab. Now I’m enraged that Night Shift was a two-hour film rather than a five-season cable series. While I loved Night Shift as a movie (very underrated), there is so much more character development to be had. I want to see Chuck go completely nuts a la Walter White (I’m talking way more than what he does at the end of the movie; I want him to blow up a Dodge Challenger). I want to see Billy Blaze become hardened by the prostitution business. You have to make this happen, Simmons. Forget all-NBA mailbags. Focus on this and this alone. The world is counting on you.
—John O, Creelsboro, Kentucky

SG: Yup, these are my readers.

In a fitting ending to this weak mailbag, this "Yup, these are my readers" question that Bill made up is incredibly weak. This question has all the hallmarks of a Bill Simmons-created question. It mixes two pop culture references together and tries to make them comparable and has hero-worship of Bill in it so he can feed his ego. Come on, he can come up with a better fake question than this.

Actually, since Bill is taking next week off from his weekly mailbag that he swore he would write every week until April 16, maybe he can't write better fake questions than this. 

4 comments Bill Simmons' "Fuck It, I Give Up on Writing Original Material So Here's a Mailbag" Volume 2; Getting Edumencated on How NBA Teams Can Tank

In Bill's last mailbag he came to the shocking conclusion that the Celtics are the perfect place for Kevin Love to end up. Who ever saw that coming? This week Bill gives the steps to tanking perfection and answers more email from his readers, who have become increasingly desperate to get their questions answered by Bill in a mailbag. Getting a question answered in the mailbag is one of the highest honors that a Simmonsite can receive, sort of the Congressional Medal of Honor for lemming, mindless fans of Bill. Let's have Bill teach us the correct steps to tanking, since there are only 10 steps and Bill is the only one who knows them.

The best part is that Facebook comments are allowed on Bill's mailbags! So if he cared and didn't mind having his fragile ego hurt then he could read the comments and see that he isn't universally loved. Also, there is only one question in this mailbag. That's it.

Editor’s note: Every Wednesday from now until the final day of the regular season (April 16), I am cranking out an all-NBA mailbag for the Triangle with a 5,000-word limit. As always, these are actual emails from actual readers. We’re tackling only one this week.

I'm going to get the obvious joke out the way now. Bill does a mailbag with only one question in it. It seems like may be an expert on how to tank after all. Just hilarious.

Maybe this mailbag will be the one that allows him to have the guts to stop writing columns like he so desperately seems to want to do.

Also, does Bill edit his own columns? The editor's note talks in the first person, so that's what has me a little confused.

Q: What are the odds that the Sixers finish their season on a 36-game losing streak? They’re at 15 already with 21 games to go. They put two actual NBA players on the floor each night, and things are so bad that I just thought about whether or not Byron Mullens is an actual NBA player. Is there a chance for L36?
— Jack, Philly

This is the question that required an entire mailbag to answer. It's from Jack (a common name) from Philly (a large city...also notice how many of Bill's "real" readers come from "Philly" as opposed to "Philadelphia." I just find this a little weird), so we know this is a real person and all.

SG: The short answer … YES!

The long answer...the rest of this freaking column. Apparently this is such a riveting question it requires a 5000 word answer.

You know how Lance Armstrong was the greatest cheater ever? 

I don't think Bill ever digresses. I think his writing is just one big digression.

How he blended his commendable charity work with state-of-the-art science and relentless lying to pull an ongoing Jedi mind trick on the American public?

He never failed a drug test that says he used PED's, but otherwise I'm not sure parts of the American public were fooled.

The 2013-14 Sixers have a chance to go down as the greatest NBA self-sabotagers ever. They haven’t been tanking games as much as obliterating any chance of winning them.

Nearly everyone understands the Sixers are tanking though, so how is this anything like Lance Armstrong fooling the American public? The Sixers aren't fooling anyone.

And they’re doing it because the NBA gives every team the same loophole …

If you want to throw away a season, depress your fans and disgrace the league for a 25 percent chance at the no. 1 pick and a 100 percent chance at a top-four pick … knock yourself out!

All four of the major sports give their teams this loophole. MLB, NHL, NFL, and the NBA. The only difference is the NBA has a lottery that doesn't guarantee the worst team in the NBA the first pick in the draft. So as far as comparisons go, the NBA gives teams a smaller loophole than any other major sport because the team with the worst record is only guaranteed at top-four pick and not the #1 pick in the draft. The NBA does less to give teams an incentive to tank than the other three major sports.

they’ve done everything short of signing Kevin Hart and Allen Iverson’s mom to 10-day contracts. And those moves might be coming next week. Would anything shock you? Look at the self-sabotage blueprint that Philly’s new owners and GM Sam Hinkie have followed.

Two pop culture references, with one of those references being dated. This doesn't shock me coming from Bill. Also, I'm still not understanding the comparison to Lance Armstrong since it is obvious the Sixers are tanking and it wasn't obvious to the American public Lance Armstrong was doping.

Step 1: Trade your best player for future assets if you don’t feel like he can be the best player on a championship team.

And that was a GREAT trade: Jrue Holiday for 2013’s no. 6 pick (Nerlens Noel) and New Orleans’s top-five protected first-rounder in 2014.

So the key to tanking is making a great trade that takes advantage of an overvalued player? Isn't this the key to putting together a good team and not just the key to tanking?

they improved their own 2014 lottery chances by turning 82 games of Holiday into zero games of the already-injured Noel. A crucial part of self-sabotage: maiming yourself in the short term. You don’t want to sorta suck or kinda suck in the NBA. You want to suck all kinds of suck.

Bill feels like he needs to tell us the best way to tank is to put yourself in a situation to lose as many games as possible. Apparently he doesn't think this is obvious to everyone already. It wouldn't be tanking if a team was trying to improve the team in the short-term would it? This seems obvious to me.

I love Rajon Rondo, but if the Celtics got a Holiday-like offer for him, I’d be packing his bags and his leather Connect Four case for him.

So I think Bill would agree this was a good trade overall and not just a good trade for tanking purposes. Of course, Bill has to shoehorn this trade into his discussion of tanking because he needs as many steps as possible on how to tank so he can make it seem more complicated than it really is. I think the key to being a great NBA team is to make great trades and if any GM has the chance to trade one of his players in a lopsided trade in his advantage then he should do it, right? I'm not sure why making great trades is part of tanking perfection, but should be a part of being a good GM.

Step 2: Don’t sign anyone who can help you, even if it means dipping under the salary-cap floor and going down as the cheapest NBA team ever.

Because Bill is out of column ideas and desperately needs to kill space he is going to rephrase "Try to lose as many games as possible by putting the worst players with the shortest contracts on the court as much as possible" quite a few times in this column.

What’s the point of signing veterans like Jarrett Jack, Carl Landry, and Shaun Livingston in July just because you have the extra money?...Screw that! Fill your bench with unproven young guys, failed draft picks and fringe bodies who make you say things like, “Wait, wasn’t that the dude on Jimmer’s BYU team who got suspended for getting laid?” and, “Is that the same Jarvis Varnado who was on Miami, or is this another Jarvis Varnado?”

Again, try to put the worst team on the court as possible. There's only so many times it can be said, but Bill isn't afraid of trying anyway. So far, the first two steps have been painfully obvious steps a team would need to take in order to suck in the short-term.

Step 3: Don’t get discouraged if you win early.

Philly started out 5-4 for two reasons: Michael Carter-Williams was better than everyone expected, and its three holdovers (Thad Young, Evan Turner and Spencer Hawes) clicked in a surprisingly entertaining way.

Yes, Michael Carter-Williams was better than EVERYONE expected. Bill didn't expect Carter-Williams to be this good, so obviously no one else thought Carter-Williams would be good. I thought Carter-Williams could "conceivably be great," if he shot the ball better and didn't turn it over. The talent was there, along with great height for a point guard.

The Sixers handled it perfectly — never celebrating, never improving their roster and allowing Young-Turner-Hawes to be thrown in every conceivable trade rumor without ever saying, “We kinda like what we have here … change of plans!”

Because the Sixers had already decided they were tanking and weren't going to turn their plan around. Basically, Bill is giving the Sixers credit for planning to tank and not changing their plan. Also, wasn't it just last week that Bill sort of insinuated Sam Hinkle is helping to keep his job by undergoing a long rebuilding plan? It seems like Bill wants it both ways kind of. He wants to say the Sixers have a great tanking plan (assuming the plan works) and he wants to say Hinkle was just buying himself time by dedicating the team to a long rebuilding plan (if the plan doesn't work).

By January, Carter-Williams was developing poor habits and learning to lose. Young was asking for a trade. And Hawes was mailing in games and carrying himself like the star of a hostage video. Well played, Philly.

Yes, well played. Because if there is one thing the Sixers want it is their rookie point guard developing bad habits and learning to lose.

Step 4: If you can’t get fair value for your trade assets, trade them anyway.

Before the deadline, Philly gave away Turner, Hawes and Lavoy Allen for three second-round picks, two expiring contracts they immediately bought out (Danny Granger and Earl Clark) and the immortal Henry Sims. People get carried away with second-round picks because they’re cost-effective assets if you nail them, but recent history says you have about a 10 percent chance of landing a rotation player from picks 31 to 40. 

Yes, but the second round goes past pick #40. So there is a 10% chance of landing a rotation player from 31 to 40, but what about the rest of the picks in the second round?

(Since 2009, only Draymond Green, Kyle Singler, Chandler Parsons, Lance Stephenson, DeJuan Blair and MAYBE Nate Wolters came through.) After that, you’d have a better chance of hearing someone say the words, “I think what James Dolan is doing is really smart … ” By stockpiling second-rounders (five in all), Philly gave itself a puncher’s chance of landing someone who, someday, might be 80 percent as good as Spencer Hawes.

The second round does go past pick #40 and since 2009 the following players have been selected past pick #41 in the second round.

Chase Budinger
Patrick Beverly
Jodie Meeks
Marcus Thornton
Danny Green
Lavoy Allen
Isaiah Thomas
Mike Scott

Notice one other thing about Green, Singler, Parsons, Wolters and some of these successful second round picks is they stayed in college for four years. So perhaps a team has a good chance of finding a contributors in the rotation by focusing on four year seniors? This, of course, isn't a hard-and-fast rule but just a suggestion.

Congratulations! But that’s a self-sabotage staple — you’re not throwing games, just making it impossible to win.

This is otherwise known as "tanking" and Bill will continue to rephrase, "Lose as many games as possible" in a way that makes it seem like he isn't repeating himself.

Step 5: If you can affect the playoff race just to be dicks, even better.

Philly gift-wrapped Turner and Allen for Larry Legend for 10 cents on the dollar. Then, the Sixers bought out Granger to save $500K over keeping his sign-and-trade rights and hoping one of the league’s most respected veterans affected Carter-Williams in a positive way. Granger signed with the Clippers, meaning Philly potentially improved two of the league’s five best teams. 

I'm not sure affecting the playoff race just to be dicks was part of the Sixers plan. They needed a team to take Evan Turner off their hands while getting back a player they hoped would only play one year for them and then go his own way (Granger). Then Granger didn't want to play for the Sixers so they bought him out and had no absolutely no control over which team he signed with. So the Sixers just took advantage of the Pacers willing to take on Turner and give back Granger, then bought out Granger with no regard to which team he might end up playing for.

Totally fine. The NBA enables this behavior — there’s no trade committee, no “spirit of the league” rule, nothing. So, why not?

Well, there is a "spirit of the league" rule when David Stern decides he doesn't want Chris Paul getting traded to the Lakers, but that's just a part of Stern's legacy. The "spirit of the league" rule only applies to trades made teams the NBA has controlling interest over and when Stern doesn't like what the GM of that team has chosen to do with his players. Totally fine. And Tim Donaghy was the only NBA official fixing games, so just believe it. Nothing to see here. Move on.

Step 6: Trade for Byron Mullens.

The man knows what he’s doing. Nice guy? Absolutely. Could he be your 12th man? Sure! But if you’re riding him for big minutes, you’re riding a center who doesn’t protect the rim, rebound, defend or draw a double-team. You’re riding a sabermetic eyesore. You’re riding a 3-point specialist who can’t actually make 3-pointers.

The awfulness of Mullens aside, he does shoot about 35% from three-point range on the season. So for a seven-footer that's not too terrible.

Even with the Clips pushing to dump Mullens to open up a roster spot, Philly still traded a second-round pick to get him. He ended up fetching one fewer second-round pick than Spencer Hawes did! Has there ever been a better self-sabotage move? It was like the 1987 Lakers landing Mychal Thompson, only the exact opposite.

I'm shocked they still traded a second round pick to get him. This is absolutely unbelievable. My mind is completely blown. Like really blown.

Here’s an interesting blueprint dilemma for Philly — only Carter-Williams can cost them a couple of losses (by playing too well), but the Sixers want MCW to win Rookie of the Year so that SOMETHING good comes out of this season.

My God, what a dilemma. Fortunately, the rest of the players on the Sixers roster aren't good at all, so the odds of Carter-Williams winning games by himself are not high. Dilemma fixed, thankfully.

The case for not shelving Williams with a bogus injury: He feeds into the self-sabotage as long as he’s forcing too many plays and cheating for steals over actually playing defense. Have you watched him lately? Yikes. That’s what happens when you enable an impressionable kid and allow him to chase the Rookie of the Year award over trying to win games. 

It's not Carter-Williams' fault he is cheating for steals over actually playing defense. He went to Syracuse simply so he wouldn't have to play a real defense and could sit back and hold his hands up in a zone, using his length to bother the offensive players. Carter-Williams isn't used to having to work on defense and actually play defense in a man-to-man situation. If he wanted to work on defense he wouldn't have gone to Syracuse.

Step 8: Give tons of minutes to young players who aren’t ready for them, and come up with as many doomed/goofy/ridiculous lineups as possible.

Whatever. If the Celtics landed Kevin Durant in 2007, do you think Boston fans would care seven years later that we played Allan Ray too much, or that Young Gerald Green had the green light to shoot from any spot on the floor, or that we played two and three point guards together at the same time?

A little revisionist history here. I think it was Greg Oden that teams were more excited to land originally in the 2007 draft, but I think it's fun to pretend it was Kevin Durant that teams were excited to acquire with the first pick in the draft. Durant eventually snuck up a bit on Oden, but mostly NBA teams were excited about Oden. Except the Celtics of course, because they are smarter than every other NBA team.

Again, we repeatedly played Delonte West, Rajon Rondo and Sebastian Telfair together at the same time.

Oh, "we." I didn't realize Bill played for the 2007 Celtics team. That is something that I did not know. 

Within a few months, we had KG and Ray Allen and nobody cared. Sixers fans won’t care in six months, either. Assuming there are still Sixers fans. 

I forgot "we" had them. Good point, Bill. I guess Bill was released off the Celtics roster fairly quickly during the 2007 season, because I don't remember him being on the roster. Also, the Sixers are rebuilding, which is different from being impatient and trading for two Hall of Famers because your fan base may not want to deal with a rebuilding situation. The Celtics didn't have the patience to rebuild.

Step 10: Weigh the benefits of self-sabotage against the long-term damage to your most valuable asset.

Isn't it a little funny that a fan of the Celtics, which is a team that hasn't ever really gone through a long rebuilding period with an actual plan to rebuild, is handing out the ten steps on how to tank? The Celtics have never had a long-term plan of being bad over multiple seasons to get better draft picks until this season, the 1997 season and possibly the 2007 season. Other than that, they mostly have been in "compete now" mode over the last...well, as long as I can remember.

The Sixers are only one loss behind, with no plans of ever winning again. But they shouldn’t ruin Carter-Williams to do it. In 1997, I watched M.L. Carr irrevocably alter Antoine Walker’s career with that same “Rookie of the Year on a Crap Team” carrot. As the Celtics threw away their last two months for Duncan ping-pong balls, they had Antoine playing out of position at center, hogging the ball, chasing his own numbers and learning horrendous habits.

Celtics, Celtics, Celtics, Celtics, Celtics...apparently they are the only example of a team that has tanked during a season in order to get a good draft pick. I would dare Bill to write a column about the NBA and not mention the Celtics. He can't do it, partially because he only does mailbags and doesn't write columns, but also because he's still the Boston Sports Guy. It's all he knows.

Trust me: Antoine was only 20 years old, and he NEVER recovered from those two months. He learned all the wrong things. All of them.

Oh yeah, I trust you. When have you ever lied or tried to deceive your audience by believing you could read minds?

Well, the same thing is happening to Carter-Williams right now. He might be special, he might never get there … who knows? He’s a fantastic athlete with size, and someone who quickly adapted to the speed of the NBA game and belonged from day one. Could he have the career that we always wanted Shaun Livingston to have — just a slew of 22-9-12’s on a series of entertaining teams?

"We" always did want Shaun Livingston to have that kind of career. I would have preferred Livingston have that kind of career after spending at least one year at Duke of course (he had committed there), that's what "we" wanted.

But he’s also a genuinely dreadful outside shooter (see Kirk Goldsberry’s shot chart below)

As I said back in June, he's gotta learn to shoot to be an outstanding player. The benefits of watching college basketball and not simply watching the NCAA Tournament and claiming to be an expert on college basketball players is immense.

he’s a little older than you think (at 22, he’s actually five months older than Kyrie Irving).

Don't tell me how old I think he is. I know exactly how old Michael Carter-Williams is. Not everyone ignores college basketball or lacks the knowledge that Bill thinks they lack because he lacks that knowledge. Shockingly (to Bill Simmons), there are people who know as much about basketball as Bill Simmons does.

They’re better off punting on Rookie of the Year, coming up with a bogus injury and keeping him away from the team’s festering stink. There are no good lessons from intentionally getting your asses kicked every night.

And of course because Carter-Williams is a robot, and not a human being, who doesn't care about his future earning value he will gladly sit out games with a fake injury in order to cost himself the Rookie of the Year award and perhaps get a reputation as slightly injury-prone. Why wouldn't Carter-Williams sabotage his future for the good of the Sixers team?

Please remember that Bill Simmons wants to be an NBA GM and has passively-aggressively attempted to land two NBA jobs over the last decade (Minnesota and Milwaukee). Can you imagine him as a GM going to his team's best player and telling that player to pretend to have an injury and sit out the rest of the season? I can't imagine how this would hurt this player's relationship with the team if the GM basically says, "We are trying to lose games, so be a sport and don't play the rest of the season and hurt your individual value for the good of the team."

We have too many teams (that’s never changing), a season that’s too long (that could easily be fixed) and far too much incentive for non-contenders to intentionally fail (that can DEFINITELY be fixed).

Again, I would argue the incentive to fail in the three other major sports is stronger because the NBA is the only major sport that has a lottery system which doesn't guarantee the worst team the first pick in the draft. Of course, in the NBA only five players play so one certain player can dramatically turn a team's fortunes around. I guess that's the flip side, but the NBA gives teams less incentive to tank by instituting the lottery system.

We also don’t have any penalties in place — not even something as simple as, “If you lose 90 percent of your games for any 35-game stretch during a season, your season-ticket holders receive a 30 percent discount for the following season.”

Oh, so the NBA would tell teams how much they have to charge for games. I can't imagine what's wrong with a heavy-handed approach like this, as nice as this sounds on paper.

Would we see as much self-sabotage if the owners’ wallets were involved? Somehow I doubt it.

Right, but good luck getting the owner's representative, the commissioner Adam Silver, to recommend measures that takes money out of his constituents' pockets. Not going to happen. Welcome to the real world, Bill where money matters.

Two weeks ago, I wondered about the best way for an NBA general manager to make sure he stays employed for four to five years. “The answer: Blow everything up, bottom out, build around young players/cap space/lottery picks, make a bunch of first-round picks, and sell the ‘illusion of hope’ to your fans. I’d like to see people in other professions try this.”

As a San Francisco reader named Aziz pointed out, I inadvertently “described the private equity business model. Take over a bloated company, load it up with debt, dump assets, cut research & development, and basically guarantee the company can’t do anything innovative for a decade. Once the debt is paid off, you have a company with nice free cash flow (‘cap space’).

What Bill means by "inadvertently" is "I had no idea the private equity business model worked like this, but I won't acknowledge that because I have to be the smartest most clever person in the room at all times and admitting I don't know something isn't going to ever happen, so I will think of a bullshit excuse like I inadvertently described a business model rather than admitting I didn't know this was the private equity business model."

Many NBA teams are now owned by private equity or venture capital investors, including some of our most unapologetic tankers.” One of them? Philly’s Josh Harris. Hmmmmmm. Could there be a correlation? And why would the NBA want any correlation?

Because if the end result is a really good team in Philadelphia then this model will have ended up working well.

The dirty secret of Stern’s last 18 months was that, as much as the 30 owners respected him, they also believed it was time for him to leave. And somehow, the smartest guy in the room was the last guy who realized it.

Who would have thought this would happen and has it ever happened before? Has a powerful person stayed past his prime and no one had the guts to notify him that he had stayed past his prime because they had respect for the job he had done. I'll say, "no," this is the first time this has ever happened.

It didn’t just win the last collective bargaining agreement; it destroyed the players and checkmated a fractured union. Do you realize that Brian McCann signed for more guaranteed money this winter than LeBron’s last contract?

Yes, I think many people are familiar with the comparisons of MLB salaries as compared to the salaries of players in other sports. In McCann's defense, he does stand up for traditional baseball values like not slow-trotting a home run, which is super-important to a sport that has a death-grip on it's past while refusing to allow the future to breathe.

His owners want to hear a little less about “growing the sport abroad” and a little more about “building the sport domestically.” Other than the way he treated people and carried himself, that was their single biggest issue with Stern.

Other than his heavy-handed approach to nearly everything and the fact he probably covered up a huge officiating scandal with the popular "lone gunman, not a conspiracy" argument, while waving his hand telling anyone who questioned him on this that "These aren't the droids you are looking for," and also finding a way to lose all of the momentum that the Bird/Magic/Jordan era gained during the late 1990's and early 2000's of course. So yeah, I think maybe the owners could have bigger issues with Stern than how he grew the game abroad...if they chose to of course. I personally believe David Stern grew the game abroad because he had no clue how to build the sport domestically.

Can you tell I'm not a big David Stern fan?

And that’s why this tanking bullshit matters. When 36 percent of your league is willfully throwing away the last five weeks of an 82-game season, you’re doing something wrong.

Remember when this column was about tanking? This is how Bill is ever-so-tenuously tying in tanking with David Stern. It's like Bill had enough for half a column about tanking and half a column about David Stern, so he just threw the two topics together with a mailbag question from a person named "Jack" who lives in a large city.

Stern stuck his head in the sand. He pretended self-sabotage wasn’t a recurring danger, just like he pretended the broken officiating system was fine … and the always-disappointing All-Star Saturday was fine … and the annoying 2-3-2 Finals format was fine … and the stunning lack of minority league executives at every CBA bargaining table was fine … and the embarrassing Chris Paul trade veto was fine … and The Decision was fine … and the Maloofs destroying basketball in Sacramento to the point that the fans had to revolt was fine … and Clay Bennett extorting Seattle for a new arena and ultimately hijacking the team was fine … and the league owning the New Orleans franchise as it landed the no. 1 overall pick was fine … and starting off Silver’s commissioner transition by hovering over him for an extra eight months was fine.

I completely agree with Bill. I'm not sure I see the tie-in with tanking, but I agree. Though notice that Bill Simmons didn't take these pointed of shots at David Stern while he was the NBA Commissioner. That's not coincidence. This is fairly typical of Bill to take shots at someone after they can't hurt him (because, let's be honest, if Bill had been this critical of Stern in a public forum while he was commissioner then he's just a little bit afraid Stern would derail his career momentum on the ABC/ESPN NBA pregame show...just a little bit concerned) or takes shots at a person and then backs down once he meets that person. Look no further than Bill bashing Isiah Thomas for years in print and then meeting Thomas in Vegas where Gus Johnson played peacekeeper between the two as they reconciled their differences (i.e. Bill backed down).

I would be a little afraid of Stern too if I were Bill, but it's no coincidence Bill goes a little harder on Stern once he isn't the NBA Commissioner anymore.

This isn’t tanking. Nobody is throwing games. They’re just shitting on them. And they’re doing it because it’s the smartest thing to do. Don’t pretend this is fine. It’s not.

I think it's completely fine. I don't like it and tanking is a good way to alienate your fans, but if the Sixers think this is the best way to turn their team around then that's their decision as an organization. NBA teams still have to draft well for tanking to work, so if the fans can wait it out and the team drafts well, then it could all work out in the end.

So this mailbag had one question. Next week, will the mailbag feature half a question before Bill interrupts the question and just talks about the Celtics for 5000 words? Stay tuned...

4 comments Bruce Jenkins Smells a Conspiracy Surrounding Jason Collins

I kind of figured this was going to happen when Jason Collins came out of the closet back in May. He's currently not employed by an NBA team. His statistics from last season were 1.1 ppg, 1.6 rpg, 0.2 apg, 2.2 fouls per game in 10 mpg. That's right, if Collins played a full 48 minute game he would be on pace for just below 10.5 fouls per game. Also, Collins is 34 years old and will be 35 in December. He's old and unproductive, which isn't a great combination when it comes to wanting to continue an NBA career. Jason Collins is currently unsigned and is a free agent. Bruce Jenkins suggests Collins is unsigned because he is gay. There's no way to know for sure why Collins isn't signed, but even if he had not come out as gay then I would imagine he would have difficulty finding a job in the NBA given his statistics for the 12-13 season.

There was a similar issue recently in the NFL concerning Kerry Rhodes (who has not come out as being gay and it doesn't matter if he is gay...the perception is out there so there will be those who assume he isn't under contract with an NFL team because he is gay) and how he isn't signed by an NFL team. Jason Lisk of the Big Lead did a great job debunking this conspiracy. Rhodes is older, had certain salary demands and Quintin Mikell (a younger and more productive safety) wasn't signed until September. These are three explanations that don't require a lot of reaching to explain Rhodes being a free agent. I think the case with Jason Collins is easier. He's older and unproductive. That's it. Of course Bruce Jenkins sees more than that.

As teams prepare for the opening of training camp next month, time is running out on Jason Collins' chance to become the NBA's first openly gay active player.
If this historic milestone is bypassed, there will be no accountability, no villains, just an opportunity shamefully missed.

I'm torn on this issue. While I understand the importance behind an actively gay player on the court and playing against his fellow NBA players, I also have to wonder if the opportunity hasn't been missed in other ways outside of Jason Collins being on the court. What's wrong with the NBA hiring Jason Collins in a position they can create to foster awareness and help to break down stereotypes about gay athletes? Wouldn't this be beneficial like having Collins on the court as an active player? The NBA would be making a statement by hiring Collins and he could create awareness among all NBA teams as opposed to just creating awareness among the players on his current team and whichever opponent that team is playing on a nightly basis.

So I don't think the opportunity has to be missed. The NBA would have to step in (and we all know the NBA and David Stern has shown itself to be hands-on in the past) and say, "If no one will make Collins an active gay NBA player, then we will hire him." So I don't completely blame NBA teams for the opportunity being missed. It's on the NBA as well. But of course, David Stern is perfect and doesn't make mistakes so I'm completely wrong.

It was widely assumed he'd land somewhere as an unrestricted free agent to continue his career.

Not really. He is old and unproductive. He is excellent at committing fouls though.

Four months later, the wait drags on. The league faces unflattering introspection and a public-relations disaster if Collins goes unsigned. The gay community will not hide its extreme disappointment.

Bruce, I know. Those "gays." Always getting extremely disappointed and going off to cry like gay people do. It's not like any social movement has helped turn a setback into a way to further call attention to the movement's cause and successfully turned a negative into a positive.

And the worst of it is, we won't know exactly why. 

Without question, homophobia will be at the core of some teams' rejection.

Yeah, maybe. It could also be the fact Collins is 34 years old and not a very good NBA player. Look at the current free agent list in the NBA.  There are younger, more productive centers that haven't been signed by a team yet, so the idea a 34 year old center who averaged just over a point per game last year remains unsigned isn't too shocking. Look at the list and count how many players, even centers, you would take over signing Jason Collins. Professionalism in the locker room can only go so far.

So the idea of an unproductive center still remaining a free agent isn't unheard of. Ask DeSagana Diop. Possibly part of it is a team doesn't want all the publicity they will receive to sign the 11th or 12th man off the bench. Maybe it would be a smart PR move to sign Jason Collins, but it would also bring attention (the fear of the excessive attention is the issue, not the reason behind the attention) for a team to sign a player who will play sparingly. It's possibly not homophobia, but the fear of unwanted attention that could cause NBA teams to shy away from Jason Collins...assuming they would like to sign him as opposed to the other younger, more productive centers on the free agent market.

This is much of the same reason Tim Tebow remains unsigned by an NFL team. It's not because NFL teams don't like him as a person, but it's too much drama around him to justify signing him to be the backup or third-string quarterback.

Fear and prejudice remain evil partners in every aspect of American society, leaving Collins as that brave individual who dares become a pioneer.

This is usually how this type of writing goes. The writer wants to reach a conclusion in order to explain an issue. Unfortunately, that conclusion is one of many possibilities or explanations for that issue, but the writer chooses to go ahead and ignore the other possibilities and then runs off at the keyboard pretending his conclusion is the only real possibility. That's what Bruce Jenkins is doing here. Sure, Collins remaining a free agent could be explained by his lack of productivity and age, but that explanation certainly doesn't help Bruce Jenkins write a column.

It's possible, however, that NBA teams are making judgments based strictly on talent and/or financial restrictions. The league's increasingly oppressive luxury-tax constraints have become a major issue, and because the 34-year-old Collins is of limited value - a defense-and-rebounding presence off the very end of the bench - teams have legitimately addressed their concerns with younger, cheaper, more valuable players.

One thing I love about modern sportswriters are those sportswriters who will write down, in an eloquent and convincing fashion, the opposing point of view. Then the sportswriter will absolutely ignore this opposing point of view and how this point of view is very convincing, while being completely unable to counter this point of view. It's as if Bruce Jenkins thinks because he acknowledges that Collins is expensive and non-productive then his mere mention of these facts is the counter to these facts being the real reason no NBA team has signed Collins. This isn't how it works. To create a strong counter-argument as a writer you actually have to counter the argument you are attempting to refute. Mentioning the opposing point of view and then just moving on only goes to show how weak your argument may be.

The Bay Area is a haven for tolerance and understanding, and team president Rick Welts, one of the league's most respected executives, is the highest-ranking openly gay man in American sports.

The fact that Rick Welts wouldn't sign Jason Collins I think speaks to the real reason Collins hasn't been signed by an NBA team. Sure, Welts would love to support a cause he believes in, but he isn't going to support the cause if it doesn't improve his team.

It's not known how coach Mark Jackson truly felt about adding Collins, given his less-than-jubilant reaction to Collins' announcement: "We live in a country that allows you to be whoever you want to be. As a Christian man, I have beliefs of what's right and what's wrong. That being said, I know Jason Collins. I know his family. And certainly I'm praying for them at this time."

It's absolutely outrageous that Mark Jackson's point of view may not be the same point of view of Bruce Jenkins. How dare Mark Jackson have an opinion that Bruce Jenkins doesn't find to be socially acceptable!

I doubt if Jackson would have blocked the path to progress if it meant improvement on the court. 

And herein might lie the answer as to why Jason Collins doesn't have an NBA job. It may not be bigotry or the fear of a homosexual in the locker room, but it very well could be based entirely on performance (or lack thereof).

There's an element of blatant desperation on the big-man front, considering that Miami gambled on Greg Oden - who hasn't played since 2010 in the wake of five major knee surgeries - 

Comparing the risk the Heat took on Greg Oden to Jason Collin is very misleading. Greg Oden has the skill set to be a starting center in the NBA and the Heat only took a one year risk on Oden. There is desperation on the big man front, but Oden has a high ceiling if he is able to stay healthy that Jason Collins simply does not have. That's why the Heat signed Oden, because if he is healthy from his knee injuries he provides skills that Jason Collins doesn't possess.

and Houston signed 39-year-old Marcus Camby.

In nearly the same amount of minutes per game, Camby had superior statistics over Jason Collins in nearly ever category. It's close, but Camby was better.

Assuming Collins is in shape - he's been working out regularly in Los Angeles, while avoiding interviews - there's no reason he couldn't help a contending team, and he has long been known as a strong, much-admired presence in the locker room.

I'd love to know from Bruce Jenkins which contending team should sign Jason Collins and would like to know which player this contending team signed instead. I've already established Greg Oden is a much better player than Collins when healthy and Marcus Camby is a slight step-up from Collins for the Rockets. Of course, we don't get an idea from Bruce on which contending team should sign Collins, but he knows one contending should sign him.

But as Collins' Atlanta Hawks went up against Orlando in the first round of the 2011 Eastern Conference playoffs, Collins' work on Dwight Howard was a major story line.

That was almost three years ago when Collins guarded Dwight Howard in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Committing fouls at a rate of 10.5 for every 48 minutes means Jason Collins isn't exactly built to stop Dwight Howard at this present time.

"The key was not just that he limited Howard's points and periodically got him out of the game entirely with his penchant for drawing charging fouls," wrote John Hollinger on ESPN.com, "but that his single coverage took away Orlando's three-point game." Stan Van Gundy, the Magic's coach at the time, called it "the best defense on Howard all year. He didn't even get good shots. Collins is big, he's physical, and he doesn't give Dwight anything easy."

I'm not saying an NBA team should not sign Jason Collins, but stating Collins should be signed by an NBA team because nearly three years ago he played 85 minutes in a six game playoff against Dwight Howard and "held" Howard to 27 ppg and 15 rpg is ridiculous. After all of the positive comments that flowed from Van Gundy and Hollinger about Collins' play during that series, the fact remains that Howard shot almost 15 free throws per game and put up 27 points and 15 rebounds per game in the series. So I'm sure Collins played Howard physically but he in no way shut Howard down.

(Atlanta won the series in six games.)

All because of Jason Collins and that's why three years later it is mystifying no NBA team has signed him?

It seems imperative that Collins sign before the start of the season, as a full-time roster member. Teams signing him to a 10-day, midseason contract would only become vulnerable to nasty speculation if the arrangement didn't work out. And it certainly doesn't help that a couple of teams (Detroit and New Jersey) were interested, according to published reports, only to back off.

It's not just on NBA teams to sign Collins, the NBA could offer him a position within the NBA if they chose to do that. Maybe the NBA has done this, I don't know, but there are other ways for an openly gay player to make an impact on athletics despite not being an active player. I don't know why Jason Collins isn't signed, but his performance on the court certainly gives an indication part (or all) of the reason is performance-based.

This is David Stern's final season, certain to be all about his legacy and contributions to the game. Employing an openly gay man would mark a signature stroke, never to lose its impact.

Then David Stern should offer Jason Collins a job with the NBA. Help foster awareness and make sure there is an openly gay NBA employee if there can't be an openly gay NBA player. 

There's no way of knowing if there is a conspiracy to keep Jason Collins off an NBA roster as an active player, but taking a look at Collins' statistics and age certainly gives a good indication as to why teams may not be banging down the door to sign him.

6 comments Chuck Klosterman Decides Everything Involving Sports is Pointless, So He Doesn't Even Understand Why He is Writing This Column

Maybe Chuck Klosterman is too smart for me. I have a small ego and can accept that maybe his writing is above my head. I don't think that's the case (this is the part where Chuck Klosterman, were he in my position, would write 1000 words on whether the fact I don't think this is the case that he is smarter than I am shows I have a large ego), so I will work under that assumption. Chuck reflects on the incident of David Stern fining the Spurs $250,000 and wonders, naturally, if sports really matter. Chuck tends to do this circular, navel-gazing type wondering about sports quite often. Whether it is suggesting rule changes he thinks aren't good or wondering what our dislike for Chris Johnson says about us. Now Chuck uses the $250,000 fine enforced on the Spurs as a way of determining exactly why sports matter. It seems Chuck likes to over-think issues whenever possible.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich elected to not dress four of his best players (Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and Danny Green) so that they could rest their legs at the end of a four-game, five-night road trip. This outraged NBA commissioner David Stern, who fined the club $250,000 for committing a "disservice to the league and our fans."

This statement isn't of itself stupid, but if you are me and want to create a straw man argument saying if David Stern really cared about the league and the fans he wouldn't have simply swept the Tim Donaghy mess under the rug by finding him to be the lone gunman and insisting there was nothing else to be seen here, then you find the idea of Stern giving a shit about "the league and our fans" as fairly ironic. This is the commissioner who has presided over an era of officiating where, at best, important NBA playoff games were decided by poor officiating, and at worst, he presided over an era with a conspiracy by officials to fix certain playoff games.

The NBA is a league where one official (Joey Crawford) can clearly have a bias against one team/player, while also having pleaded guilty to falsely stating his income on his taxes from 1991-1993. Crawford resigned immediately after pleading guilty in 1998 and David Stern then reinstated him in 1999, with Crawford never missing a single game. People make mistakes, but mistakes over a three year span? An NBA official Crawford gets reinstated as soon as he possibly can for lying to the IRS, but the Spurs are committing a disservice to the fans by benching their older star players as they see fit. Would it have been a disservice to the league to not immediately re-hire Crawford?

The NBA is also a league where another official's name has somewhat become synonymous with him getting assigned to a game when the NBA has a certain outcome they want reached (Dick Bavetta). The fact Tim Donaghy stated another official on the crew for Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals had a reason for wanting the Lakers to beat the Kings, and Bavetta was a part of that crew, along with being on the crew for quite a few other NBA games with questionable officiating, doesn't bother Stern at all. Nothing to see here. Donaghy was the lone gunman and sweeping this under the rug wasn't a disservice to the league and the fans, but Gregg Popovich has ruined the NBA's fake good name by daring to rest his players and ruining the competitive nature of a certain game.

You get my point and I could go on. David Stern pretending to give a shit about the fans is hilarious to me. If he gave a shit about the fans he would explain his decisions with more than a statement and a brisk walk back to his ivory tower.

The initial debate was straightforward: Is it acceptable for the commissioner to penalize a coach for not playing the players fans want to see?

I wouldn't like it if I was attending an NBA game to see the Spurs' stars play, but I fully understand Gregg Popovich's reasoning for benching Duncan, Ginobili, Green, and Parker.

These smaller, less important debates focused on the following: 

1. Should it matter that Popovich is the most respected coach in the league (and therefore warrants special treatment)?

No.

2. Would it have made a difference if the Spurs had still won the game (which they almost did)?

No, but it goes to show the competitive nature of the game wasn't negatively affected by the absence of the Spurs' star players.

3. Is the NBA schedule too taxing?

Sometimes.

4. Is Stern unnecessarily draconian?

Yes. He is a good example of a commissioner who believes he is above the game and also believes only he knows what is good for the NBA. So any decision he makes is a blessed decision and the right one.

5. Was Popovich consciously trying to poke the bear?

Who cares? It's his team and his right. If David Stern really cared about the fans and the league he wouldn't block trades. If Stern also wants to get involved with personnel moves, then he needs to get involved with personnel moves and begin to tell NBA owners which players they can or can not sign, as well as tell NBA owners how to run their team. He can't pick and choose when to do this. If the Warriors are making moves that hurt their team and therefore the NBA and Warriors fans, Stern has to stop those moves. I'm not advocating Stern do this, merely stating he can't pick and choose when to break out with the "disservice to the league and fans" argument simply when it is convenient for him to do so.

6. Would this have been less problematic if Popovich had warned the league of his decision in advance?

He shouldn't have to warn the league.

7. Did ticket buyers in Miami deserve a refund?

No. They have Wade, James, and Bosh. They shouldn't come to the game to see the Spurs stars anyway.

8. What responsibility does Popovich have to TNT (the network that broadcast the game and potentially lost viewers because of who wasn't playing)?

Some, but he has a bigger responsibility to his team.

9. How is this different from teams who tank games at the end of the year in order to qualify for the draft lottery?

Completely different. The Spurs are still trying to stay competitive and win games.

In fact, I suspect those minor issues were mostly being analyzed as a way to avoid the deeper question this conflict demands, simply because the answer is too big to reasonably confront.

As always with Chuck Klosterman, it can't be a simple discussion. There ALWAYS is a deeper issue that only he is smart enough to manufacture---I mean discover and then he will write a column about this issue.

The question is this: What are we really doing here?

Oh God, really? It's like Chuck can't help but navel-gaze. Chuck probably takes a piss and wonders what this piss means in the grand scheme of things. Did he just flush the toilet selfishly taking water away from someone else? Could he have pissed three times today instead of four times? What does the fact he pissed three times instead of four times say about him as a person? If Chuck is really selfish in how he goes to the bathroom then how come going to the bathroom made him feel better? Is Chuck not supposed to feel better because it may be selfish to people he has never met?

What I'm asking is, "When a dilapidated version of the Spurs plays the Heat in late November, what is actually at stake?"

A victory? A game to put on a SportsCenter graphic in June when the Spurs and Heat meet in the NBA Finals that shows the team's record against each other this year?

I'm wondering about the central purpose of pro sports, and how much of that purpose is directly tied to entertainment.

Some people watch sports because they like the competition and entertainment factor. It's entertaining to me when my team wins.

In order for a Spurs-Heat game to be entertaining, it has to be competitive; in order for the game to be competitive, the outcome has to matter; in order for a regular-season game in November to mean anything, the outcome of the NBA title has to mean a lot. And if we're going to accept the premise that the outcome of the NBA Finals is authentically important (and that who wins the title truly matters), then this whole experience needs to be more than casual entertainment.

See, when I do my Chuck Klosterman "piss parody" I'm not too far off. 

This is fairly typical Klosterman schtick. He takes something sports-related and then creates a bunch of questions out of it. At some point, a reader may actually think there is a discussion or a point being made when Chuck is really just churning ideas through his brain. This game is entertaining because sports are entertaining. This game could be entertaining without being competitive, depending on your point of view. Chuck is looking at this from a neutral point of view. As a Heat/Spurs fan, this game would be entertaining even if it weren't competitive.

Popovich is a beloved, admired coach who appears actively unconcerned with the entertainment requirements of basketball (which is how most serious fans would insist they want him to behave). He's exclusively concerned with real competition over the long term, particularly in the month of June; everything else is a distraction. Stern's essential rebuttal is that pro basketball only exists because pro basketball is fun to watch (and if you ignore its entertainment import, the rest of this will all disappear).

Chuck is clouding the issue. Popovich is concerned with running his team, while Stern wants a good product on the court. I get that. The issue is being clouded because Chuck is making these two positions be at cross-purposes when they possibly may not be. Perhaps a person finds basketball to be inherently entertaining, so regardless of the competitive aspect a person finds the game fun to watch. There aren't necessarily two competing visions present. Popovich could be unconcerned with entertainment, but the game still be entertaining, therefore meeting Stern's purpose.

What is present is David Stern overreaching because he is insecure about the product on the court. Stern believes the NBA has to be a superstar-driven league and fans won't show up if there aren't superstars on the court. I can see this view in this specific situation if this game didn't take place in Miami where the best player in the NBA was on the court.

That dissonance between Popovich and Stern is what forces my question.

Haha...this question isn't even being posed by Chuck. This question is forced to be asked.

If what makes sports entertaining is the degree to which the games matter, should we value competition above all other factors, even if doing so occasionally makes things less entertaining? 

There you go assuming. What makes sports entertaining isn't necessarily the degree to which the games matter. Sports can be entertaining simply because you like watching two teams play. I haven't (this is embarrassing and sad) missed a Duke basketball game in about 10 years and I have missed two Carolina Panthers games throughout the franchise's (short) history. There have been some bad games in there that weren't competitive, but I was still entertained. The sport itself can inherently be entertaining. So a competitive game in a sport I like is entertaining, even if the game doesn't matter, and very rarely will valuing the competition of a game make the game less entertaining.

This AT&T commercial never ceases to disturb me (which, I will grant, is mostly my own fault). We see a high school football player involved with a marginally crazy play during practice, captured on the phone of an anonymous peer who likes to invent unoriginal catchphrases. The footage goes viral and the player becomes famous — so famous that he gets recruited by Oklahoma football coach Bob Stoops,

It's a commercial and not in any way reflective of real life nor should this commercial cause an internal debate any more than the DirectTV commercials should make us wonder if that passive-aggressive married couple are really commenting on modern married life.

I hate this commercial. It's glib and insidious. However, I only hate it because it's fiction.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnd we are off topic now.

If a real kid got a scholarship to Oklahoma because of this kind of scenario, I would be charmed. Anytime a real athlete's individual performance outshines the unsophisticated concept of winning or losing, I inevitably love it. His or her motives are almost an afterthought. I only find it troubling when the scenario is fake. 

Are the odds that Chuck Klosterman sees a therapist an even 100% or do you think it is as low as 99%?

Fiction is always more real to me.

Which probably explains why Chuck takes real life events and then creates fictional problems or quandaries (or at the least problems that are fictional in that no one else worries about them other than Chuck) to discuss in relation to these events. Fiction is more real to him, so creating issues that may arise around real life events seems like a natural part of his writing.

Just before Thanksgiving, a Division III basketball player for Grinnell College scored 138 points in one game. The player, Jack Taylor, went 52-of-108 from the field; the rest of his team spent the entire game relentlessly feeding him the ball so that he could launch trey after trey after trey (their next-highest scorer had 13 points)...When I read about this game the next day, I was ecstatic. I've often wondered how many points a basketball player could score if that was the only goal,

So would David Stern fine an NBA team for doing this same thing Grinnell College did? It takes the competitive nature out of the game, but at the same time makes the game exciting, so I would guess Stern would not fine an NBA team for doing this. More importantly (to me), I find the idea of how many points a basketball player could score if that was his only goal as a boring question. Who cares? This seems like the pinnacle of taking a basketball game and turning it into a sideshow. It's just not my thing.

It was totally fascinating, but nothing more. Personally, I'd be happy if this became a trend in the low end of Division III basketball. I'd like to see a space race to 200 points.

I don't get how Chuck Klosterman (of course this is the same guy who thinks we treat Chris Johnson poorly by expecting him to live up to the expectations that Chris Johnson himself set) can think one player attempting to score 200 points in a game should be a trend. This is the pinnacle of team basketball turning into a one-person sport and attempting to remove the competitive aspect from a team game.

I don't see why it would have been better for Grinnell and Faith Baptist to play a 54-51 game that would be totally lost to history.

I don't think this performance was an abomination or anything of the like, and while a 54-51 game would be less historic, if this type of game planning for one player to score over 100 points occurred on a regular basis it would take some of the fun out of watching those games for me.

What if I saw a commercial in which a basketball team sacrificed every traditional, competitive impulse so that one kid could score every single point, and this was celebrated as a brilliant way to demonstrate the power of a 4G network? I'm sure I would hate it. And I would hate it because it would force me to consider what I'm supposed to like about sports, as opposed to just watching the games and feeling good.

The conclusion Chuck comes to is always about him. It's like he takes his own personal demons out on sports. Our feelings about sports have to be complicated because Chuck's feelings about sports are complicated.

Perhaps you think this is an imaginary problem. Perhaps you say, "Just don't worry about it and the problem will disappear."

This is the part where Chuck may just be smarter than I am. I don't understand what the problem truly is. Sports are entertaining, some games are competitive, other games are not competitive, and David Stern shouldn't tell an NBA team how to use their personnel. We all move on.

Right now, in pro football, there is strong statistical evidence that insists teams should punt less on fourth down (even if it's fourth-and-4 and they're at midfield).

As a footnote, Chuck writes: 

However, isn't part of the reason the numbers suggest going for it on fourth down at least partially because almost no one regularly does so? Statistics aren't predictive; they can only show us what happened in the past. So if going for it on fourth-and-4 at midfield is still a relative rarity, isn't the available data for its rate of success questionable? And isn't it buoyed by the specific situations in which it occurs? I mean, what kind of team tends to go for it on fourth-and-4 from midfield? It generally seems like it's teams who are desperate (and sometimes facing a prevent defense) or teams who feel confident that they have the personnel and the play-calling acumen to succeed (most notably the Patriots). But let's say every team started doing this, all the time (which appears to be what the stat-heads want). Won't the base rate drastically change in potentially unexpected ways? 

I wouldn't say I agree with these points, but I do wonder what would happen if every team started going for it on fourth down in this situation. I can see how the results would change in unexpected ways. Regardless, I am being strong and avoiding Chuck's rabbit hole. Back to his navel-gazing...

But if you're one who believes that this axiom must be embraced for its mathematical veracity, it probably means the reason you're watching football is because you really care about the outcome. 

But if you're the one who wants your team to go for it on fourth down then you are watching football because you care about the outcome of your team's game anyway. Maybe I'm different. I don't watch a game and want the Steelers to go for it on fourth down in a situation like this. I don't give a shit what the Steelers do. I only care about axiom's like "go for it on fourth down" as it relates to my team. I could be in the minority, but I suspect I'm not. This is where Chuck is missing the boat. He is taking the analytical view of going for it on fourth down and confusing it with the fan's view of going for it on fourth down. The fan's view is most fans don't solidly believe in one axiom and watch NFL games to make sure all NFL teams follow these axioms. Some do, but in watching a game between two teams a football fan doesn't cheer for then the actual competition is why that football fan is watching the game. These football fans don't care about the outcome, they just want to see a good game. If a football fan is watching a game involving a team they do cheer for, then naturally the outcome is what the fan cares about and going for it/not going for it on fourth down affects this outcome. So that would be why a football fan would care about the axiom of going for it on fourth-and-4 at midfield, because it affects the outcome of a game that fan cares about. Otherwise if the football fan doesn't have a preferred team in the game, then I would think that fan would care more about a competitive game.

It means you believe that the most important thing about a football game is who wins and who loses, which is fine. Except that it makes the whole endeavor vaguely pointless and a little sad.

Again, it depends on the game being watched. If I am watching Maryland-Georgetown play college basketball I want to see a good game. If am watching Duke-Georgetown I care about seeing a competitive game where Duke wins. Watching sports isn't always outcome-based, even though Chuck Klosterman finds it more convenient to assume all sports fans watch sports in this way.

For sports to matter at all, they have to matter more than that; they have to offer more cultural weight than merely deciding if Team A is better than Team B. If they don't, we're collectively making a terrible investment of our time, money, and emotion.

I sincerely have no fucking clue what Chuck is talking about. I don't get why sports have to offer more cultural weight than merely deciding if Team A is better than Team B. Sports are entertainment and a diversion. They don't have to have more cultural impact than a movie or any other form of entertainment has to have a cultural impact. If a person likes this entertainment based on who wins the game than this isn't a terrible investment of time, money, and emotion because that person was entertained. The goal was achieved.

What matters is not the outcome of Miami–San Antonio, but how important that outcome was to begin with.

It was a regular season game. Heat and Spurs fans cared because they want their team to win as many games as possible in order to make the playoffs. The outcome matters in terms of how many wins the Spurs/Heat have at the end of the year and how important the outcome was is irrelevant. People watch sports, they don't care to figure out why they like sports. Why must Chuck always know "why?"

So within this debacle, who was justified? Who was on the right side?

Why does it matter who was justified? Why is there a "right side" on this issue? Doesn't the idea Chuck is looking for who is "right" when there isn't a certain right or wrong contribute to his own hopeless nature of trying to quantify those things which can't be quantified?

My natural, non-thinking inclination is to side with Gregg Popovich...I am emotionally motivated to side with him, because his position makes it seem like sports are more important than the people watching them on TV (which is what I want to feel).

I am really glad this is all cleared up, because I gave two flying fucks to read 1000 words on which side Chuck Klosterman was on and why he was on that side. Chuck thinks it is somewhat sad and pointless for people to watch sporting events merely to find out who wins and loses, but to watch sporting events to find out who is "right" regarding a specific situation isn't sad or pointless...even though it is impossible to know exactly whether Stern or Popovich are truly right.

Yet — in my head — I know that David Stern is right.

His edicts are sometimes infuriating, but they're always enforced for the same motive.

Ego? His love of power?

He always sees the biggest possible picture. Stern holds an inflexible vision of how the NBA should operate, and he's never wavered.

This unwavering vision hasn't always helped the NBA or done anything to dispel the impression Stern is a dictator who will use his authority to turn the NBA into what he wants it to be, even if it means meddling in the affairs of teams and creating the competitive balance he wants to see in the NBA. The NBA is Stern's puppet and he doesn't mind if you see the strings attached. He probably prefers that actually. It gives his ego a boost. He denies trades, he sweeps officiating scandals under the rug, all while allowing terrible owners free reign as long as they kiss the ring.

The NBA will always provide the illusion of competitiveness, which fans will unconsciously accept as viable entertainment. If you turn on an NBA game, you will see the game you expect (and will be able to pretend that it's exactly the game you desire).

We are all sheep according to Chuck Klosterman. 

You will get what you think you want, and any question over what that should (or should not) be will not factor into the equation. And if it does, somebody will get fined $250,000.

So that's what's really going on here.

I'm so confused. This seems to have been a clusterfuck of words to me.

Chuck starts out deciding the conflict between Popovich and Stern isn't about sitting out the Spurs starters being benched, instead he says it's about what is entertainment versus what is competition. This leads to a discussion about how Chuck hates commercials, but if those commercials happened in real life then he would like them. Which leads back into a discussion of competition versus entertainment where Chuck decides a game isn't entertaining if the game is not competitive, but if you watch a game for the competition then that is sad and vaguely pointless. Sports fans only want to watch a game if it is a competitive entertaining game, but to want to watch a competitive game and care about the outcome is pointless. This would make sports pointless, which they clearly aren't since they entertain millions of fans. This leads to Chuck wondering if teams really should go for it on fourth down more often, but also wondering why fans care if teams go for it on fourth down more often. Then Chuck asks why the Spurs-Heat game was important at all and why we even care who won the game. Finally, we get to the final conclusion David Stern was in the right because he needs to keep up the illusion of competitive basketball, which Chuck thinks is pointless to care about anyway unless he doesn't like competition in basketball and enjoys it when basketball consists primarily one player trying to score as many points as possible. This would be something worth watching in Chuck's opinion, even though it removes part of the competitive nature of the sport out of the equation, which he claims is why basketball fans watch the sport.

I need a Valium.