3 comments Bleacher Report Is Now Including Other Site's Original Content on Their Slideshows

I have started a Fantasy Baseball league and Fantasy NCAA Tournament Bracket in Yahoo if anyone cares to join. The league ID is 76959 and password is "eckstein" for the Fantasy Baseball league and the league ID is 5876 and password is "eckstein" for the NCAA Tourney bracket. We have about three spots left in the Fantasy Baseball league and feel free to give feedback on the set up of the league if you would like.

What do you think when you hear there is list of the 50 most overrated players in the NFL circulating among the Interwebs? You would probably think this has to be a Bleacher Report production and you would be absolutely correct. Today, we are all lucky that we are going to discover the 50 most overrated players in the NFL right now. Actually, the author found 33 overrated players and then stole (sorry, "borrowed") 17 of the players from a list NFL players made earlier this year for The Sporting News. Don't worry, it will be seem even more egregious in a minute when the author explains it since uses the word "we" to describe The Sporting News poll.

My biggest issue is many people link other people's articles and content on a site for others to read, but where is the line for this. I link other people's articles all the time and for every post. I present another site (or person's) work as a way to discuss/refute what is being said. Without the original content, the reader would be very lost as to what I was complaining about. The issue for me is at what point does citing the content allow you to include your own original content along with the content from the other site? Can these two be mixed into one list? I don't think it is unethical or anything like that, but is it right to create a (supposedly) original list of 50 overrated NFL players and include 17 players based on information gathered from another site? Isn't that cheating the idea of creating original content by piggybacking another site's work, even if you do provide some commentary? What makes it worse is the author who wrote this Bleacher Report article states he doesn't agree with some of the 17 overrated players chosen by NFL players. So he potentially disagrees with a third of the original content he is creating for his slideshow.

I think if you are a site like Bleacher Report and an article about the 50 most overrated NFL players is being written, you owe it to your readers for 100% of that to be original content and not have 33% of the content in your slideshow be from another site. I don't think there is an issue in taking original content from another site and posting it as a part of a larger discussion (for example, if I included another person's criticism in with my criticism of an article), as long as the original content is part of the larger discussion and isn't intended to BE the discussion (for example, if I included another person's criticism of an article as my critique of an article). At the very least, including 17 slides (out of 50) from a poll The Sporting News did is lazy.

Who would be on your list of the top 10 of the most overrated players in the NFL today? If you are struggling to come up with 10 names, maybe you need to think about the question in a different way.

Or perhaps I just need to extend my list to 50 players in order to increase my pageviews. Yeah, I'll do that.

What if we asked who are the first 10 NFL players who come to your mind, the ones who receive far more publicity than their play on the field merits? Is it easier to come up with 10 names from that perspective? What if we plugged in the term "over-hyped"? Are the names coming easier now?

No, they are absolutely not coming easier now because being overhyped isn't the same thing as being overrated. They are two completely different things. LeBron James is overhyped, but he isn't overrated. Bleacher Report needs to hold a meeting very soon to explain their writers have to stick to the dictionary meaning of words. Overhyped and overrated are not the same thing. This seems to be a continuous problem in Bleacher Report articles I have read.

NFL players who make more money than their play warrants is another way to identify overrated players.

Nope. These players are overpaid. Again, this is different from being overrated.

Another way to think about this topic is, if you see an NFL story on a player and as soon as you either see the player on the screen or hear his name, and your first reaction is that you want to change the channel, there is a very good chance that you have identified a player who is overrated.

No, you haven't (Bengoodfella pulls all of his hair out), you have found a player who is overhyped or perhaps you have found a player you just don't like hearing about from the media. Jeremy Lin is a player like this for me. The fact I don't want to hear about Jeremy Lin doesn't mean he is overrated.

An overrated player is a player whose reputation and standing in the minds of many exceeds his actual output on the field. At least that's my definition.

We were asked not to just come up with 10 names, but rather the top 50 NFL players who are the most overrated in the NFL today.

Who is "we?" Do you have a squirrel in your pocket or something? This column only has one author from what I can see.

To help me out with this assignment—which is sure to make fans of the individual players who are named to this list jump up and defend their player—I am going to turn to some NFL players for help.

What he means by this is he is going to attempt to set a new low for Bleacher Report. He is going to use data that a real sports media entity (The Sporting News) gathered, link an article from CBSSports.com about this data, and then incorporate this data into his list of the 50 most overrated NFL players. Basically, he is going to attempt to pretend Bleacher Report partnered with The Sporting News to gather this data. That's why he uses the word "we" a few times. I can't think of another reason the plural "we" would be used in an article with one author.

Of course this act immediately passed the smell test of the Bleacher Report editor (assuming they exist). There may be nothing wrong with using data someone else gathered as long as you provide a link to the data, incorporate this data into your article, and then use the word "we" to repeatedly to make it seem like you personally had something to do with the gathering of this data. What's wrong with this? Maybe nothing. At the very least it is incredibly lazy to use 17 of your 50 slides based on data someone else collected. This is data that isn't even your own opinion included in a slideshow that is supposed to be an opinion-based slideshow.

We located a collective group of 111 NFL players from 31 NFL teams that agreed to participate in a poll by the Sporting News, to identify the NFL's most-overrated player.

"We." Who the hell is "we?" Were you or Bleacher Report part of the study? If not, then there isn't a "we" and you are merely taking someone else's work, including it in your slideshow as part of your opinion and indicating you were a part of the study when this isn't true.

If you feel the need to question their opinion, then I would have to wonder who else is in a better position to appreciate who the most overrated players are than fellow NFL players?

Apparently you are in a better position to judge who the most overrated players are, since 33 of these 50 players are players you chose for your own list.

Also notice how the author vouches for the ability of NFL players to accurately choose which NFL players are overrated and which aren't, but then the author disagrees with the NFL players' assessment of whether a few of these players are overrated or not. I'm not even sure why the results from The Sporting News poll are thrown into the slideshow, especially considering the author doesn't agree with some of the results of the players poll.

These players voted, and their votes are good enough for me to qualify their choices for the final 17 names on the list.

Since "we" gathered the data you may as well use the data "we" gathered, no?

As for the other 33 names, I came up with those, not because I have any personal issue with these players, but because that is my job.

Yes, you and The Sporting News. It's your job.

Get your Viewmaster ready and let's start the slideshow!

Bob Sanders

Ever since Bob Sanders joined the NFL in 2004, he has never played in all 16 games in the regular season. Not once. In fact, from 2004-present, he has only appeared in at least seven games in any year just twice in his entire career.

So he has been injured a lot. This doesn't make him overrated. This makes him oft-injured.

Sanders was named the NFL AP Defensive Player of the Year in 2007, and even since then he has been trying to live up to that reputation, failing miserably to do so due to his inability to stay healthy.

Thanks for proving Sanders isn't overrated and contradicting your own opinion. So Bob Sanders is one of the best defensive players in the NFL when he is healthy, but he's never healthy. Therefore Sanders isn't overrated because he is what we believe him to be when he is healthy.

Because he was the Defensive player of the year, that would imply a certain level of toughness.

Outrageous. So Bob Sanders is injured every year because he isn't tough enough? And Sanders should be tougher because he is a great defensive player when healthy? So Sanders' implied non-toughness makes him overrated.

Matt Leinart

He seems to be content to exist as a backup quarterback, as if he is resigned to the assessment that his days as a starting NFL quarterback have passed him by.

I don't know if anyone rates Matt Leinart that high anymore. He is a backup quarterback at this point. I don't know of anyone who thinks differently.

The Houston Texans gave Leinart a great chance to be in the spotlight in 2011, but he couldn't even last one game as the starter after Matt Schaub went down for the year.

What a misleading sentence. The reason Leinart couldn't even last one game as the starter for the Texans had nothing to do with his performance, but he didn't last the entire game because he broke his collarbone. Of course, based on the author's comments about Bob Sanders, I am sure he believes Matt Leinart should have just played through this injury.

Nate Clements

Clements had 12 passes that he broke up in 2011, which was tied for the Bengals lead. While on one hand you might look at that and think that it was a good thing, the reality was that Clements skills have been starting to fade in pass coverage, so more teams are now throwing his way to pick on him.

I am not arguing one way or another for Nate Clements, but wanted to show how the author uses passes defensed as a negative statistic for why Clement is overrated. Again, I will agree with passes defensed not always being a sign of how good a cornerback actually is. I want to compare his use of passes defensed in this situation and with the next player on the list.

A.J. Hawk

In the 2011 season, Hawk's production dropped in most key categories. He played in 14 games in 2011, and his tackles dropped from 111 to 84.

A.J. Hawk had a terrible 2011 season. I don't know if he is overrated or not though. He only had one bad year and has been pretty solid prior to 2011.

He defended 10 passes in 2010—that number dropped to three in 2011.

But wouldn't this be a good thing? Also, are we really using passes defensed for a linebacker in a 3-4 defense?

Fine though, we can use passes defensed. If we are going to use passes defensed as proof a cornerback isn't very good in coverage because teams throw at him a lot, wouldn't it also make sense to say a drop in passes defensed means a linebacker covered well and teams didn't throw at him as much? You can't just flip-flop when you want passes defensed to be a positive and negative statistic based on the point you are trying to prove. If you use an increase in passes defensed as a negative, then you can't use a decrease in passes defensed as a negative because it fits what you are trying to prove.

He came up with three interceptions in 2010, and had none in 2011.

Again, interceptions can be a result of a quarterback throwing in the direction of a defensive player. A decrease in interceptions doesn't mean a player didn't play as well in a given year, it can mean a player didn't have as many passes thrown in his direction.

Michael Crabtree

It is the Crabtree Curse!

If you are a top 10 draft pick, there is a certain level of production that is expected from you.

Granted, Crabtree's production has been on the rise every year since he turned pro. The third year is the year you are supposed to break out, and it is true that this past year was the best year of his career.

"While it is true Crabtree has improved every year he has been in the NFL and this was the first year he had consistently quality quarterback play, let's not let this get away from the fact I want to believe Michael Crabtree is overrated."

But when the San Francisco 49ers were in the national spotlight, playing the New York Giants for the NFC Championship game, Crabtree basically disappeared, as he only caught one pass for three yards in the entire game.

Why use a larger sample size of 14 games to judge Crabtree when you can use one game where he didn't play well to help prove your point? Use whatever sample size helps to prove your point. It's about convincing us you are right, not about whether the facts support your contention or not.

Also, Crabtree is only 24 years old and has improved every year in the NFL. I think this is important to know. He needs to step it up this year, I will agree with that, but I don't know if he is overrated.

Crabtree has had the opportunity to work with his quarterback, Alex Smith, for three straight years. By now you would think that their chemistry was such that they would be able to connect more than one pass play in a crucial game.

This is the first year Alex Smith has started 16 games for the 49ers with Crabtree on the roster. They haven't been able to work on their chemistry because they haven't been on the field together for three straight years.

Hines Ward

Hines Ward isn't overrated. He is 35 years old and not able to play at a high level anymore.

As emotionally attached as Steelers fans appear to be to having Ward remain with the team, the only way that I can see that happening is if another team signs away Mike Wallace in free agency.

I don't believe Hines Ward is the backup plan for Mike Wallace's potential free agency departure. I would hope the Steelers are deciding Ward's fate independent of Wallace's contract situation.

That would create a roster opening, and free up money for Ward.

But who would Steelers fans rather have in the lineup, Wallace or Ward? Case closed.

No, case re-opened. Hines Ward is old and no longer useful to the Steelers. Ward isn't overrated based simply on the fact the Steelers would rather keep a 25 year old Pro Bowl receiver on the roster over him. The case for a 35 year old Hines Ward to be overrated is based on the fact the Steelers would rather keep a 25 year old Pro Bowl receiver over him. That's not a very convincing case for Ward being overrated. Though I do have to respect the confusing logic behind using Wallace's value to the Steelers to call Hines Ward overrated, while ignoring the 10 year gap in age between them.

Michael Turner

Turner had a 4.5 ypc average, 11 touchdowns and 1300 yards last year. He isn't considered a premier running back, but is considered to be very good. I think those numbers back this contention up.

But when I conducted research on players who were overrated in the NFL, I was rather surprised to see how often Turner's name popped up.

Quick question...is conducting research on players who are overrated in the NFL actually doing research or simply finding out which players other people think are overrated so you can include them on your list also? I'm just wondering since whether a player is overrated or not is purely an opinion. If you are doing research on other people's opinion, doesn't this mean you are not using your own opinion and are merely using a consensus of what others think and passing it off as your own opinion? I can see doing research as to why a player you believe is overrated actually is overrated, but I'm not sure about "researching" other people's opinion to come to a conclusion about a player.

From an article by WalterFootball.com, Turner is thought to look sluggish and came up with too many rushes that resulted in negative plays.

If you take a look at that overrated list by Walter Football, you will see quite a few of those players end up on this Bleacher Report list of overrated players. This again goes back to my question of whether this is good research on if a player is overrated or simply a matter of one writer parroting what another writer has written?

If you look at forums for Falcons fans, you will see a number of complaints that Turner's stats are misleading because he has many one- and two-yard runs, and then he will break off a 20-yarder. The stats don't tell the whole story.

You could say the exact same thing about Barry Sanders. He lost yardage all the time on runs and then would break a long one. Was he overrated?

It is very conceivable that he has taken enough of a pounding over the years that his legs and body are starting to wear out and that he has lost at least a step, if not more.

So the fact he will wear down as he gets older, just like most running backs tend to do, makes him overrated right now?

Miles Austin

Austin's receiving yards have dropped from 1,320 to 1,041 to 579 in the last three years.

Of course Miles Austin only played in 10 games last year due to injury. If he has an overrated quarterback throwing the ball to him (whoops, spoiler alert), then can we consider him overrated? At what point does Romo's overratedness affect the perception of Miles Austin? If Tony Romo is overrated then wouldn't that make Austin look overrated as well? That's the problem with naming two players who rely on each other as both being overrated. It is possible one player's performance has an impact on another player's performance.

If you look at the numbers Austin would have had 926 yards receiving on 68 catches in 2011 if he had played in all 16 games. Those statistics are below his 2010 numbers, but it is also reasonable to think Austin's performance was affected by his injuries.

Is it possible that Austin has peaked already by the age of 27?

It is possible. It is also possible he isn't a superstar, but a receiver who catches 60 passes for 1000 yards and 7 touchdowns on a yearly basis. I'm not sure his contract of 6 years at $54 million with $18 million guaranteed makes him overrated if he keeps putting up these type of statistics.

Jermichael Finley

Now that the contract is done, Finley can go out and start focusing on catching the football again. In 2011, Finley had nine drops in 13 games, according to this article from the Journal Sentinel.

If the drops continue in 2012, Aaron Rodgers will not have any trouble looking for his other targets. As Finley's level of compensation goes up, so does the expectation that the drops will be a thing of the past.

That's it. That's all the reasoning we get that Finley is overrated. He had trouble with drops this past season, so this makes him overrated. Finley isn't considered to be one of the best tight ends in the NFL and his statistics reflect he is really good, but not great.

DeSean Jackson

Jackson has been impacted due to several concussions and he prefers not to run routes over the middle that could lead to some devastating hits.

The author basically parrots the opinion from the Walter Football overrated list that was linked earlier...

But here's the thing - they shouldn't have been so afraid. Jackson's bark is way worse than his bite; after suffering concussions last year and taking a vicious hit against the Texans in an early December battle, Jackson apparently decided that he would run nothing but go routes.

Then comes this comment...

Not only that, but he has too many drops to be relied on, and then when you factor in his attitude,

From Walter Football...

If that's not enough, Jackson's frequent drops and poor attitude make him undesirable in my book.

Obviously the author didn't copy this directly and he does make a point or two that are sort of different from Walter Football's opinion. We do know he used Walter Football for his research, so it is a bit suspicious. Still, this is a list of 50 overrated NFL players where 17 of the players are taken from a list already formed and some of the other overrated players seem to be taken from other lists that were researched by the author.

Dez Bryant

So we have Dez Bryant as being overrated, Tony Romo as being overrated, and Miles Austin as being overrated. A smart person might think it is impossible for all three players to be overrated and would understand how one player's performance could possibly be linked to another player's performance. So is the entire passing game of the Cowboys overrated?

What is of more importance to us is how his production numbers will either improve or decline in 2012. So far, there have been enough concerns posted about Bryant that make us wonder how high the ceiling will truly be for him.

He's been in the NFL for two years, is 23 years old and posted 63 catches for 928 yards and nine touchdowns this past season. I can't see how he is overrated.

James Harrison

I am not necessarily arguing against Harrison being overrated, just arguing against the reasoning.

In 2011, Harrison didn't have a single interception, defended pass or fumble recovery.

So we are judging 3-4 linebackers on how many interceptions, passes defensed and fumbles they recover? I've already described the issue with using passes defensed. The statistic is being used in a positive way or a negative way, depending on which way this author chooses to use it.

Harrison has 18 career passes defensed, with a season high of 5. He's probably lost a step in coverage, but he hasn't always racked up the passes defensed and 0 passes defensed isn't necessarily bad. It could be good. It could mean quarterbacks didn't throw in his direction while he was in coverage. It could mean Harrison didn't drop back in coverage as much in 2011 as he did in previous years.

Harrison has seven career fumbles recovered, so what if he didn't recover one in 2011? This is a weird statistic to use. Why not use forced fumbles?

Harrison has five career interceptions and plays linebacker. He only had one interception in 2008 when he was named Defensive Player of the Year, so it isn't like this is the statistic that can easily tell us if he is overrated or not.

Note: The final 17 slides include the most overrated players as voted on by their peers in the Sporting News poll.

Oh yes, the slides that "we" came up with. The author states in the comments that he doesn't necessarily agree with these 17 choices, which doesn't explain why the hell he put them on his list if he doesn't agree with them.

These players are the ones who got multiple votes and eight of them got 2 votes, which doesn't seem like a whole lot of votes to call a player overrated. It does make me wonder what the players are thinking for some of these players. Here are the players who received multiple votes as being overrated which I disagree with...

Darrelle Revis
Eli Manning
Maurice Jones-Drew
Tom Brady

Then Tim Tebow was named the most overrated player in the NFL. This survey was taken among NFL players halfway through this past season, which could explain why Eli Manning was on the list.

Either way, I don't get why a third of the slideshow consists of players the author didn't even have a hand in choosing, including some of whom he disagrees with in terms of being considered overrated.

8 comments Bill Simmons Tells Us A Little Bit About How To Evaluate Draft Prospects

Bill Simmons wants to be an NBA General Manager. It's no secret because he has publicly campaigned for the Minnesota Timberwolves' and Milwaukee Bucks' General Manager jobs. Bill has immersed himself in statistics and become friends with NBA GM's in the hopes they will someday recommend him to a team, he already follows the NBA religiously, and now he wants to show everyone that he knows how to properly evaluate NBA prospects.

How does he go about evaluating these prospects? (Other than hindsight in his evaluations of previous players of course) Using a two-week sample size of the NCAA Tournament of course. Now that Bill has paid attention to college basketball for two weeks he knows everything he needs to know about these players and he doesn't need to know anymore. If there is something else he may need to know, but doesn't, then clearly because he doesn't know it, that something else has no importance. Most people need to watch an entire season, but most people aren't as smart as Bill Simmons is. Ask him, he will tell you how smart he is.

So he writes an entire article, in list form with theories of course, on how to properly evaluate college basketball players in regard to their NBA prospects. Caution: The use of hindsight and the use of standards set by Bill to meet criteria Bill wants these standards to meet may cause your blood pressure to rise. If Bill is right about a college basketball prospect in this column, expect to hear about it, but the ones he was wrong about we won't ever hear about again. Remember how bad he said the NBA Draft was last summer? Yeah, he doesn't bring that comment back up.

I didn't want to right this article because I am afraid I come off as a college basketball know-it-all (this is a continual fear I have), but I promise I am not. Bill just tries to talk like an expert when he only watches a couple weeks of college basketball per year (or at least it seems that way).

I always like riling Chad up because he's a conflict-resolution professor. Ticking him off is like getting Tim Tebow to swear. Anyway, he tweeted that tournament performance affects evaluations by NBA teams, for better and worse, although he didn't think it was necessarily fair. I responded that it was fair.

There is nothing more fair than evaluating a prospect over a two week period as compared to evaluating him using the other 30+ games that player participated in during that season...or using his previous college seasons as well to evaluate this player. This two week period is much more important because it is a smaller sample size. New "statistics crazy" Bill Simmons knows this better than anyone.

What better time to determine someone's intestinal/testicular/mental fortitude than March Madness?

Agreed, this is a good time to test this player's fortitude. It is not the best time to determine a player's actual talent though. A player can have a bad postseason one season and that doesn't mean he is a bad player. This is so obvious I feel dumb even having to say it.

Here's my case in a nutshell:

His "case" isn't words but an example of what Bill is trying to say. As usual, he can't just say what he thinks, he has to compare what he thinks to something else.

Let's say I owned Marquis Jet and wanted to find new pilots to fly my 12-seat airplanes. Let's say I narrowed it down to 30 candidates and had a chance to fly cross-country with them in inclement weather. Let's say 20 of them did fine, five were amazing and five completely melted down, to the degree that I had to grab the controls or we would have crashed.

Should this matter?

Absolutely it should. What if...of the 20 candidates who did fine 7 of those had poor flight records prior to that day, of the 5 that did amazing 1 person had done terribly in bad weather until that day, and of the 5 that melted down 2 of those people had a great record in bad weather until that day?

Shouldn't this matter as well?

OF COURSE! OF COURSE IT MATTERS! I just looked into their souls. I just tested them in the most intense way possible. That doesn't matter?

Of course it does matter, but this is also a small sample size of this player's career so the results of this small sample size can't always be trusted. I am going to go ahead and skip ahead a bit for what Bill wrote later in this column to see how he contradicts himself in the exact same column.

But let's travel back to one of the lamest college seasons ever: 2002, when high schoolers and one-and-done guys were flooding the NBA draft, and the talent dipped so dramatically that our 2002 All-Tournament Team was …

(Hold on, you're not gonna believe this …)

Wilcox. Juan Dixon. Dane Fife. Lonny Baxter. And the one, the only, Kyle Hornsby.

So Bill's theory is that it matters what happens in the NCAA Tournament, unless it doesn't matter of course. The difference can be seen the best in hindsight, which is pretty much what this analysis relies on.

So Bill would choose these five players to pilot his ship during inclement weather, at least based on what he just wrote about the best players performing well in the NCAA Tournament. In case you were wondering, the leading scorers in this tournament were Juan Dixon and Jared Jefferies...both whom were/are in the NBA. So anyone who reads Bill's column twice can see this immediate semi-contradiction.

Sink or swim. That's March Madness. Should opinions on pro potential (or, as reader Shaun Fagan cleverly calls it, "protential") be formed entirely on tournament performance? Of course not. That's ridiculous.

It is ridiculous except Bill just used an example of choosing a pilot based completely on how he did in one flight during inclement weather and said the NCAA Tournament (not March Madness, that term annoys the shit out of me...it is a CBS marketing term, but Bill uses it freely like it is the name of the fucking tournament) is the best way to determine a player's intestinal fortitude. So he does give the NCAA Tournament a lot of sway...since he bases his entire article on the NCAA Tournament tells us whether a player will be a good pro or not.

What are those things? I narrowed them down to 10 questions. I don't need all of them answered, or even most of them … but if I can get three or four protential answers, I am delighted.

Oh yes...a list.

Question No. 1: Does Player X pass the Foxhole Test?

In other words, would you want him as a teammate if you were playing a pickup game to 11 with the following stakes: Losers spend the weekend in a movie theater watching a 48-hour marathon of "The Backup Plan"?

Haha...that's a relevant movie reference! Hilarious. I am not sure which is worse, the plot of the movie or a reference to the movie acknowledging the movie exists...probably the actual plot, but not by much.

Kansas State's Jacob Pullen passed this test Saturday: gamer, warrior, tough as nails, totally unafraid, bounces off bigger guys, carried KSU all game (eight 3s). Scouts are dubious because, basically, he's a 6-foot-tall 2-guard. Or so they think. Because I see him evolving into a goofy hybrid of Kyle Lowry and Aaron Brooks: a shoot-first point guard with 3-point range who battles on every play. You could do worse in the second round, that's for sure. At least we know he's a fighter.

Do you know how I know Jacob Pullen is a fighter? I watched the other games that he played this season that were on national television and noticed the exact same thing in those games. I didn't need the NCAA Tournament or a passing interest in college basketball to come to this conclusion.

I do a lot of Simmons-whining about his college basketball comments and I think I have a good reason for that. Bill has a lot of passing interest in college basketball at this time of year. He writes about the NBA intelligently so he knows basketball, but I don't think he knows college basketball. Unfortunately his readers will do ANYTHING he asks of them and they believe every word out of his mouth, so they believe he knows something what he is talking about in nearly every case, but he doesn't.

He watches the conference tournaments and the NCAA Tournament and ignores college basketball in his columns other than that. Then he jumps on a bandwagon come tournament time and tells everyone how great players are in college basketball, like everyone ignores the sport simply because he does. He is so self-involved in this way. I don't need the fucking NCAA Tournament to tell me Jacob Pullen is a fighter, I have watched him all year and know this. Thanks for showing up late to the party, grab some finger food, and sit in the corner and shut the hell up.

(One thing I won't let Simmons ruin for me, he tweeted something about Jason Heyward and being excited to watch him play. Stay off this bandwagon. I have followed this kid since he got drafted by the Braves and I won't let him jump on the bandwagon before Heyward busts out. I am very protective of baseball prospects.)

(Important note: I swear on my son's life that I first wrote the previous paragraph Wednesday afternoon, a day and a half before Pullen donned the hero's cape in Thursday night's epic double-overtime victory over Xavier. See? The Foxhole Test never fails!!!!)

I do not believe that. One thing Bill forgets here (but does mention later, but only to prove a point...he forgets this here when it doesn't prove his point) is that Denis Clemente played the hero while Pullen was ice cold earlier in that game. Pullen had 10 of his 28 points in the two overtimes. Clemente had 11 of Kansas State's last 23 points in the 2nd half and Curtis Kelly was a beast inside. I am not taking anything away from Pullen, but if it wasn't for Kelly and Clemente, overtime may never have happened.

One other Foxhole guy I love: John Wall.

Oh my God! No way! I love John Wall too! No one has ever heard of this kid. I wonder if anyone has heard of this Evan Turner guy? You know, he is a guy I want in my foxhole also.

During the SEC title game, with Kentucky trailing by two and needing to rebound an intentional free throw-miss, I watched him as the free throw was in the air, thinking "I bet John Wall finds a way to get this rebound."

I am sure that is exactly what Bill thought. Of course we can't prove it, but that's fine. What I find interesting is Bill leaves out the part where Wall had alligator arms in regulation because this doesn't fit his point. Who said John Wall had alligator arms?

Bill Simmons himself.

Question No. 2: If he's an elite guy, can he have at least one "By the way, in case you didn't know, I AM AN ELITE GUY!" game?

Circumstances may intervene if Player X's teammates and/or coach aren't up to the challenge (see: Kevin Durant's 2007 Longhorns).

Two questions:

1. Which game was it that Kevin Durant didn't have an "I AM AN ELITE GUY" game?

Was it his 29 point 10 rebound performance against St. John's?

The 34 point 13 rebound performance against Missouri?

The 37 point 16 rebound performance against Colorado?

37 points and 12 rebounds against Oklahoma State?

37 points and 23 rebounds against Texas Tech?

Or 37 points and 10 rebounds against Kansas?

Or was it the fact he was named National Player of the Year as a freshman? If anyone needs more proof that Bill only pays attention to the NCAA Tournament, the fact he ignored Durant's 37-23 game against Texas Tech should be proof of that.

2. It can't be Durant's teammates that hurt him because that was a monster recruiting class and that Texas team had AJ Abrams, Damion James, D.J. Augustin, and Dexter Pittman on it. So it obviously had to be Rick Barnes that hurt him. I think Barnes is a bad coach, but to be fair, Michael Jordan didn't put up insane numbers in college either so a college player's college statistics aren't always a great measure of his skill.

All of this goes back to my point that Bill doesn't watch that much college basketball. He accuses Durant of not having an "elite guy" game at Texas, when this did occur several times. Bill has a massive crush on Durant, shouldn't he remember these games if he watched Durant during the regular season?

Again, we're all about accentuating previously conceived feelings.

What he means by this is, "reinforcing the idea the best players in the country are really the best players in the country by acting like a 2-3 game sample size means more than the entire season." I am not saying the NCAA Tournament doesn't mean anything, but it doesn't take a genius to look at Wes Johnson and John Wall and say they are elite guys. You just watch the games they play in.

Question No. 4: If there are personality "concerns" about the player, can you see those concerns manifesting themselves during games?

It's the "Blink" test. Trust your first instinct. If you don't like the look on someone's face, the way they carry themselves and/or the way they interact with teammates and coaches, then trust that initial red flag.

All of these "tests" and rules Bill has get very tiresome at a certain point. On Question No. 4, I am already tired of what few there have been.

I remember seeing Eddy Curry in person for the first time (Bulls-Celtics in 2001), watching him in warm-ups and checking out of the Eddy Curry Era right then and there. Hated the look on his face. Part entitled, part angry, part crazy, part "I hate warming up, I wish we were eating right now." I was done with Eddy in three seconds.

I like how a lot of Bill's opinions are based on hindsight like this. If only Bill had a national column where he could have put this prediction in there and not have some stupid blogger like me disbelieve him. Wait, he did have a national column and didn't say this at the time...at least that I could find. Of course he hates on Curry in retrospect...

What's the difference between being a fixable head case and an unfixable head case? It's simple, actually. You can't become un-lazy. You can't go from being clueless to having a clue.

Zach Randolph hasn't seemed to have a problem making this transition this year. I am sure Bill would say it was only temporary.

You can't go from crazy to sane. You can't go from selfish to selfless. You can't go from soft to tough. You can't go from being a knucklehead to being savvy. You can't go from ADD to totally zoned in. You can't go from being a DEFCON 1 hothead to a soothing presence.

You absolutely can go from being ADD to totally zoned in and you can go from being a hothead to a soothing presence. In fact, I think athletes could go from one of these to the other during their career. I don't know how Bill thinks he can get away with saying you can't do this. Michael Jordan went from being selfish early in his career to being selfless once he got better teammates around him...or at least it seemed that way because the statistics of his assists don't bear this out. Maybe he just trusted his teammates more. Either way, my point is I believe players can progress from one side of this spectrum to the other. Many players may not, but it is possible.

Question No. 5: Does Player X have a meal ticket?

Saint Mary's Omar Samhan intrigues me for one reason: If you feed him the ball within seven feet of the basket, he's scoring unless Dwight Howard is defending him.

Or he may not score if he has a high caliber defensive player guarding him, like Epke Udoh. I think we all overreacted a little bit to Samhan doing well against Villanova and Richmond, both of whom didn't have a impact low post defensive or offensive guy.

He has to be one of the best 30-35 guys in this draft. Has to. You can count the number of effective low-post scorers in the NBA on two hands. Still, we needed to see him do it on national TV with the Madness lights shining on him. And he did.

We didn't need to see him in "March Madness" because we saw his statistics through the season. If anything the NCAA Tournament reinforced the idea that Samhan was a great low post scorer but he would struggle against a team that had an effective big man...otherwise known as the same guys he will be facing in the NBA.

Also, let's not pretend Bill knew who Samhan was before this past 2 weeks. I barely had heard of him and I follow college basketball pretty thoroughly...even the experts hadn't heard much of him. Bill just needed to see Samhan actually play, not see him during March.

That brings me to something I call the Gerald Green Corollary: You can't make it in the NBA unless you can do at least one thing exceedingly well.

This is also known as "common fucking sense." But hey, let's Bill pretend he invented this idea, because he probably believes he did.

Green was an incredible athlete, but he wasn't good at anything.

Of course this may have had something to do with the fact he never really got coaching because he skipped college completely and the NBA sure isn't going to help a young player try to get better. It is nice to think Gerald Green wasn't good at anything, but we also can't ignore the fact he never got the proper coaching that would allow him work on his strengths and make them something he did exceedingly well. This is partly what going to the NBA right after high school had done to him.

Throw in a Gump-like basketball IQ and he never had a chance. Meanwhile, Ty Lawson was lightning-fast in college; nobody could stay in front of him. Guess what? He's lightning-fast in the pros.

Of course Bill says this in retrospect and never said anything like this last year before the draft...during the time he was completely taking a dump on the quality of this draft.

J.J. Redick shot the living crap out of the basketball in college. Guess what? He's making 39 percent of his 3s on a contender.

It took him like three years to even get to the point where he could contribute though. This was from a guy who attended all four years of college. I feel like this needs to be pointed out.

My favorite example: In college, Brandon Roy felt like a lottery pick to me just because of his tricky hesitation move. Everyone fell for it.

Well of course Brandon Roy felt like a lottery pick to Bill. I mean, don't you remember all those times he said this about Roy?

Bill's "thing" he does exceedingly well is that he looks back in hindsight and is able to be absolutely right about everything. It's a gift he has to be able to tell you in 2010 exactly what he thought about a player in the draft from 3-4 years ago...and get this, he was always right about that guy. Amazing!

He was going to score 20 points a game in the pros. Minimum. Still, I wanted to see it from him in the tournament. He dropped 28 points in 32 minutes on Utah State. Good sign. In Round 2, he brought Washington back from an 11-point second-half deficit to beat Illinois. Our big-stage questions were answered. He became a can't-miss for me.

I think Bill Simmons is the only major columnist I can think of that actively had these thoughts and didn't share them with anyone. Despite the fact he has a national column and can say whatever he wants. Bill is the only guy who brags about shit he absolutely can not prove he actually thought.

Same for Ben Gordon two years earlier, an electric scorer who couldn't be stopped when he got going. In the regional finals, he destroyed Alabama: 36 points in 39 minutes, 11-of-19 shooting, four 3s, 10-of-11 from the line. Done. He had to be a top-five pick after that. Always look for that meal ticket.

It could have also had something to do with the fact Gordon was awesome in many, many other games as well during his time at UConn, but those were games were Bill wasn't convinced. It was this small sample size game against a team in the NCAA Tournament that convinced him. Who needs 35 games where Ben Gordon played well when you have that one game in the NCAA Tournament he played well.

(A great example from last year's draft that I blew at the time: Memphis' Tyreke Evans could get to any spot he wanted. This was obvious in college, and it's painfully obvious now. I got caught up in dueling issues with him -- "Is he a point guard or a shooting guard?" and "Why was he the driver in the getaway car of a shooting?" -- and missed the basic reality of the Tyreke Evans Era. Namely, that none of the other crap mattered. The dude gets to the rim whenever he wants. I am still kicking myself.)

Remember this?

You can't go from crazy to sane. You can't go from selfish to selfless. You can't go from soft to tough. You can't go from being a knucklehead to being savvy. You can't go from ADD to totally zoned in. You can't go from being a DEFCON 1 hothead to a soothing presence.

Apparently in select situations (in hindsight of course), players can have the fact you may have a bad feeling about them overridden by the fact they are great basketball players. You may ask, but "Bengoodfella, how do I tell the difference?"

Here's how you tell the difference. Wait for a player to be in the NBA for a few years and then make up a new rule about that player and how he doesn't fit the old rule...namely, because he proved the old rule wrong. So it's fine to have a bad feeling about a player, but don't mention it and then make up a new rule so your old rule doesn't look wrong. See, it's easy!

So if Tyreke Evans looked like a turd to Bill he should have trusted his first instinct, according to Question #4, then he should have trusted that instinct. Except in the case of Evans this instinct was proven incorrect, so he makes up another rule about a "meal ticket" which means his arbitrary rules aren't wrong, there are just exceptions sometimes, and most of those exceptions are realized a year or two down the road.

Question No. 6: Should we overreact because Prospect X missed the tournament or was quickly eliminated?

No! I'm convinced that this was why everyone (including me) blew Darren Collison's situation last spring.

I don't think everyone blew that situation really. He was drafted in the 1st round and he had a good college career. I gave the pick a "C" because they already had Chris Paul and didn't need Darren Collison. I didn't say how great Collison was, but I think it was apparent to some that Collison was a good point guard. Whatever, because Bill missed on Collison, everyone else did too.

Egads! How did we overlook him? Like it was his fault that he went from playing with two 2008 top-five lottery picks (Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook) and another guy starting right now (Luc Richard Mbah a Moute) to a crew of nobodies.

These "nobodies" included a high 1st round pick, Jrue Holliday, and a top 5 recruiting class that included the 3rd ranked point guard, the 3rd ranked center, and the 7th ranked shooting guard. Yes, they were all freshmen, but they weren't a crew of nobodies, just a crew of young players and role players. They also had Michael Roll on the team as well, so they were really a team of underachievers rather than a team of nobodies.

See?

Question No. 7: How much are Player X's teammates making/breaking his success in the tournament?

Five years ago, Deron Williams jumped Chris Paul on some lists (and ended up getting drafted ahead of him) because Illinois made the title game and Wake Forest got bounced in Round 2. I never thought this was fair. Paul was so superior to his teammates that I remember feeling bad for him; they just weren't on the same plane.

This is retarded reasoning. How many college teams can have a player like Chris Paul and other players on the same plane as Chris Paul? He's an incredible point guard so you aren't going to find many players with his same skill level on one college basketball team. Wake Forest had a good team that year with Eric Williams, Justin Gray, Taron Downey, and Kyle Visser. Did they win the National Championship? No, but they weren't a bad team. The fact they didn't have another player on the level of Chris Paul really means nothing.

(Can you name one player Paul played with that season? I bet you can't.)

I just did, without looking it up. Bill is such an egomaniac. He believes simply because he can't name players from the team, no one else has the knowledge to do so either.

I thought Paul would thrive as a pro with better teammates … and in this case, I was right.

He is taking credit for saying Chris Paul would improve in the NBA. The fact Paul will improve in the NBA, where yes, he has better teammates is pure common sense. It's not a revelation or anything. I can't believe Bill just wrote this sentence. It's the NBA, the teams are always better than the college teams.

Of course he is going to improve in the NBA! Any good player is going to end up with better teammates in the NBA than in college, this is almost a universal truth for a player when he moves from college to the NBA. Great players ALWAYS get better than they were in college, so if the player is worth a shit, he will get better with these better teammates. This proves nothing about Chris Paul or his Wake Forest team because this could nearly go for any player on any college team.

This month's ultimate "better than his teammates" example: Georgia Tech's Derrick Favors. For all we know, he might be the next Kevin Garnett. (Not saying he is; just saying that there's no way of knowing.) His guards were gawd-awful and couldn't get him the ball. His coach seemed uninterested in running plays through him (although to be fair, Paul Hewitt might just be in a coma). And if that wasn't enough, his only good teammate played the exact same position and had his own first-round ideas.

Wow, actual good analysis from Bill on the Derrick Favors issue. Apparently Paul Hewitt just realized it doesn't make sense to recruit players who play the exact same position and want to occupy the exact same space on the court. Gani Lawal should have transferred.

For instance, Kansas' Xavier Henry disappeared in the Northern Iowa loss when -- if you were thinking about him as a sleeper for the top 10 -- that would have been an ideal time for him to announce, "Hey guys, I got this, get on my back." He didn't. Did it mean anything?

Under Question #2 and #3, this should have absolutely meant something. If Tyreke Evans could do it, why couldn't Xavier Henry?

In my opinion, not really.

Of course not.

Sherron Collins had such a stranglehold on the 2010 Jayhawks -- they deferred to him constantly, especially in big moments -- that it was like watching a cocksure 12th-grader playing with wide-eyed ninth- and 10th-graders. Get out of my way, I got this. If Henry disappeared in a similarly big game as Kansas' best player next year, I would hold it against him. Not this year.

I can buy this. I will say if Henry really was an elite player he would have stepped up when he saw his team struggling, which is something he did not do against Northern Iowa. He only shot the ball 6 times the entire game. So while I will agree with Bill that Collins had a stranglehold on that team an elite player, even a freshman, wouldn't let the game get away without trying to take over.

A different example: Cole Aldrich in that same game. He had been playing with Collins for the past three years. He's a lottery pick. He should have been able to dominate Northern Iowa down low, Samhan-style. But it wasn't in him. Not his style...I didn't hold it against him. In the words of Denny Green, Cole Aldrich was who we thought he was: a complementary center who challenges shots, rebounds and scores if he gets good position. He's Joel Przybilla 2.0.

Would you pick Joel Przybilla in the Top 5 in the NBA Draft? I wouldn't. It's funny that Bill compares him to Przybilla and then he said this on Twitter:

I'm just getting acclimated into college hoops. But still... no way Cole Aldrich should go lower than No. 5 in June's draft.
6:53 PM Jan 25th via UberTwitter

Wow, so either Bill saw one game Aldrich played and overreacted to him or he is taking his love of Cole Aldrich back from what he felt in late January.

Or this:

My question: "You never write about Cole Aldrich, why don't you like white people?" RT @chadfordinsider: I'm chatting at 1 p.m. ET today.
7:49 AM Jan 26th via UberTwitter

Still, Bill was pretty high on Aldrich the next day. We can take him being drunk out of the equation for why he wrote what he did the day before.

Ed Davis over Aldrich? BAD CHAD! BAD! Go to your room! RT @chadfordinsider: My latest Top 100 Big Board: http://tinyurl.com/espnbigboard
8:49 AM Feb 3rd via UberTwitter

I would personally take Ed Davis over Cole Aldrich in a heartbeat. I am not saying Bill's opinion should be set in stone or anything, he has a right to change his mind. I just want to ask everyone if they really should trust his opinion on college basketball players when just one and a half months ago, he was all about Cole Aldrich in the lottery and now he thinks Aldrich is a complementary player? What's the difference? He started watching more college basketball games. It is just something to think about when determining how smart Bill is and if he knows what he is talking about in this column.

And you wouldn't want Joel Przybilla trying to save you from the biggest upset in 16 years … right?

Absolutely not. Which means Bill was wrong about Aldrich back in late January/early February, though you won't find him mention that in this column because he has to be right. Any evidence he thought differently of Aldrich may not paint him as the sports genius he believes himself to be.

Along those same lines: UNC's Marvin Williams couldn't start for the 2005 national champs, but some experts wrote it off as "That's all right, those guys were loaded!" and maintained that he was a top-three talent. Really? HE COULDN'T START FOR HIS COLLEGE TEAM!

First, this shows exactly how little Bill knows about college basketball. Certain coaches won't start a freshman over a senior or a junior no matter the reason. That team had 5 McDonald's All-Americans on the roster (one of which was Marvin Williams), they were loaded, but skill isn't the reason Williams didn't start. Roy Williams isn't known for starting some freshmen if there is a talented junior/senior in front of him. For example, Ed Davis didn't start last year, it doesn't mean he sucks it just means Roy Williams didn't start him over Deon Thompson.

Marvin Williams had David Noel, Jawad Williams, and Jackie Manuel ahead of him because they were a junior, a senior and a senior respectively. The reason was their seniority and had very little to do with actual skill. If Bill watched college basketball more than he does, he would recognize things like this tend to happen for various reasons. So Bill's reasoning for being outraged at Williams not starting is actually not very knowledgeable in my mind.

When we watched him play six straight games at the highest level, never -- not at any point -- did I feel like I was watching the No. 2 pick in the 2005 draft. I thought I was watching a complementary player.

Really? Even when he dropped 20 points and 15 rebounds in only 26 minutes on Iowa State in the second round? Are we sure this isn't revisionist history or someone needs to do a little research first? Yes, Williams should not have gone before Chris Paul, but he seemed to be a talented guy regardless if he came off the bench or not.

See, this is all knowledge we have in retrospect.

Behind Door No. 2: Sherron Collins' stink bomb in the Northern Iowa game. Collins wasn't the only reason Kansas lost -- I still blame Bill Self for allowing an underdog to control the tempo and not pressuring them with a superior crew of athletes --

Bill still blames Self for this. He in no way is just repeating what EVERY SINGLE analyst and columnist has said about the Kansas-Northern Iowa...even though they are all saying the same thing as Bill. I think it is universal that Bill Self was an idiot for not controlling the tempo better. This wasn't an original Bill Simmons thought. I have to mention this.

but his "I live for the big moments!" résumé was basically tossed in the garbage.

Again, Bill has a lack of college basketball knowledge. Kansas has crapped out in the NCAA Tournament under Self on quite a few occasions. He really isn't widely considered a big game coach in all honesty.

Behind Door No. 4: Wes Johnson's "disappearance" during the Butler upset. If you studied the play-by-play sheet only, you'd say to yourself, "Wow, Johnson went MIA! No shots in the last six minutes? What a choke job!" Not exactly. He was playing for a coach who made a career out of burying his No. 1 scoring option in big games (note: Syracuse fans are nodding grimly right now),

Bill has no idea what he is talking about. In 2003, Carmelo Anthony scored 33 points in the Final Four against Texas and in the championship game followed it up with 20 points and 10 rebounds. I am sure there are Syracuse players who don't do well in big games, but it isn't because Boeheim buries them.

and with skittish guards who lost their minds down the stretch (Andy Rautins and Scoop Jardine combined for eight shots and three turnovers in the final six minutes).

So Boeheim has made his career out of playing skittish guards that lose their mind down the stretch? Does this statement have any proof other than the one game against Butler? Does Bill have any proof other than that?

Question No. 10: Is Player X thriving during a talent-heavy season or a talent-light season?

Should we name this the Chris Wilcox Corollary or the Jared Jeffries Corollary? You decide. I don't care. But let's travel back to one of the lamest college seasons ever: 2002,

This is the point where Bill ignores the overall theme of the article that the best players prove themselves during the NCAA Tournament. The following guys didn't make it too much in the NBA after playing well in the NCAA Tournament, but there is always a reason one of Bill's other rules just don't work.

the talent dipped so dramatically that our 2002 All-Tournament Team was …

(Hold on, you're not gonna believe this …)

Wilcox. Juan Dixon. Dane Fife. Lonny Baxter. And the one, the only, Kyle Hornsby.

Yeah, a lot of those guys stunk. It wasn't the greatest year for college basketball, but we only know this in retrospect, which makes this rule pretty pointless for the present or future. Basically there is no way this should be a rule since we can't really measure the strength of college basketball teams in a season compared to other teams in other seasons incredibly accurately in real time.

And not to film a second episode of "Hindsight is 20/20 With Bill Simmons," but maybe it wasn't a great idea to overrate those title-game guys in what was clearly a septic tank of a tournament?

See? Even Bill admits it.

He ended up jumping Roy and getting picked fourth. Even better, Portland swapped his rights for No. 2 pick LaMarcus Aldridge, that year's version of Favors (a textbook "his teammates suck, so we have no idea how good he is" guy).

LaMarcus Aldridge's teammates sucked? The 2005-2006 Texas Longhorns made the Elite 8 and had P.J. Tucker, AJ Abrams, Daniel Gibson, Kenton Paulino, and Brad Buckman on the team. They weren't the best team Rick Barnes had at Texas, but Aldridge's teammates didn't suck.

One thing we definitely know: There isn't an algebra formula that applies across the board. There will always be can't-miss heroes who thrive in the pros (Carmelo Anthony, Mike Bibby, Rip Hamilton, Dwyane Wade, Ben Gordon, Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Shane Battier), just like there will be heroes who never match that success (Trajan Langdon, Ed O'Bannon, Mateen Cleaves, Miles Simon) or find the right NBA team (Christian Laettner).

Even though there isn't a formula, Bill feels comfortable enough to throw together 10 "Questions" that also serve as rules as to whether a player will succeed in the NBA after using the NCAA Tournament to have more people see their game. So while there is no formula, Bill thinks if there is one, he is the one that should be providing it. Why a person would say there is no set formula for something that can be used, but then try to seriously make one up (especially based mostly on the NCAA Tournament), I don't know.

Regardless, there is such thing as a "good college player" that doesn't have skills that translate to the pros or that player was only successful in the college system his school ran.

You know, like with Thursday night's Kansas State/Xavier game. I already believed in Crawford and Pullen. I already thought their protential was severely undervalued.

This may very well be true, but my entire point is this comment is made in retrospect and we have no proof Bill is telling the truth about this. I hate to say, I really do, but given the fact he seems to enjoy being right, I can't say I 100% believe he thought this...or didn't think this then as strongly as he seems to now.

Forget about swimming … those dudes were doing the breaststroke and the butterfly. I saw everything I needed to see.

Weak, weak "funny" comment about swimming..or whatever it was.

I like how Bill didn't watch these players all year and has no idea if these are players who were good for the entire year or not, he just needed to see them play in 4 games and that is all he needs to know.

I hate to break it to Bill, but this may not be a strong year for college basketball. It's not the strongest year in terms of the best teams being great, great teams, so Pullen and Crawford could fall under his Question #10 heading. It wasn't a terrible year for teams, but there wasn't a 2009 UNC team or even a 2008 Kansas team in the country really. Maybe Kansas and Kentucky came the closest, but there is a possibility this isn't the strongest year for college basketball teams. Of course a person would have had to watch more than 2 weeks of basketball to know this could be true and we won't really know until 2-3 years down the road anyway.

Jordan Crawford is an NBA player. So is Jacob Pullen. You will never convince me otherwise. March Madness, baby.

That "March Madness baby" ending was ever so corny. It just screams "casual fan" to me. Whatever, it doesn't really matter. Bill tried to make rules for something he admits there are no rules for, bases his observations on 2 weeks of sample sizes, and just generally seems to have an incomplete knowledge of the sport he is talking about. He is entitled to his opinion of course. The most annoying part is that his loyal readers are going to eat this shit up. They will think he knows EXACTLY what he is talking about and this column wasn't opinion, but was stone cold fact.

That's actually is what is most annoying about any Bill Simmons column. What may be an opinion article all of a sudden becomes the Gospel According to Bill and his readers will use it as their guide to sports and life. Much of what you can learn about a college basketball player is seen during the regular season rather than a 2 week tournament, regardless of the pressure on the players in the tournament. These 10 Questions aren't the ramblings of a man who is a casual observer of college hoops, but 10 Theses to be posted on the door that should guide how EVERY college basketball player should be evaluated.

This perturbs me.

10 comments Bill Simmons Makes A Comparison He Shouldn't Make

One last reminder, I have started a NCAA Tournament Bracket Pick 'Em in a Yahoo league if anyone is interested in joining. The ID is "8624" and the password is "eckstein." Feel free to join and of course we won't be able to make the picks until the brackets are announced.

Let's do a little backstory on this column first. Bill Simmons did a chat the other day on ESPN.com (naturally) and he was asked a question about Tiger Woods and if he would ever be the same golfer again. Bill Simmons responded by saying everything was different now for Tiger and his comeback was harder than Muhammad Ali's comeback from exile for refusing to serve in Vietnam. It's his opinion and he is doing a chat. I find the comparison to be wrong and I don't agree with it. It was just one answer so there was no need to really expand on this wrong opinion.

Well, Charles Pierce who HATES Bill Simmons decided this was another chance to attack Simmons and wrote a blog entry on this statement by Bill. I honestly thought this was a bit of a dick thing to do. I jump on Simmons sometimes, but Charles Pierce is acting like a crazy man in the way he does it I think. He's unrelenting. He panned Bill's book and takes personal shots at Bill on occasion. I am just a stupid blogger who hates sportswriters because he lives in his mom's attic and can't get a real job as a sportswriter. The standards are lowered for me. Plus, Pierce has a whole past with Simmons and really not liking him personally. Google it and you can see a little background on it. Anyway, Charles Pierce is VERY anti-Bill Simmons, while I am anti-bad sportswriting...which sometimes encompasses Bill Simmons. Commenters during the chat openly questioned Simmons when he said this and he tried to explain his point. I disgree with Bill, but didn't find one comment in a 3 hour chat to be worth ripping him apart over.

So Bill Simmons, in an act of defiance and some hubris, decides to write an ENTIRE column on how Tiger Woods has it worse than Muhammad Ali had it. I completely disagree with this and I think if you combine the racial tensions and the Vietnam War tensions together any person could reasonably see that Bill Simmons is wrong.

You wonder why I like Gregg Doyel? Here is his take on the article from Twitter:

greggdoyelcbs

Simmons just wrote that Tiger's comeback is tougher than Ali's after Vietnam. Simmons, meet Mariotti. You're both idiots.

Good times.

I followed up with Gregg Doyel on Twitter by agreeing with him and he responded that basically Simmons' ego and 1 million people will say he is great because he wrote this column and that's all that really mattered. I was against Twitter for a while, but fun times like this makes me like it.

Of course later I inadvertently insulted Gregg Doyel's sister, so the fun times didn't last long.

On to the column...

Writing a column is like chess; you have time to mull strategies and move pieces into the right places. But an online chat? Speed chess.

Which is why sometimes people can generally avoid trying to say things they may want to take back eventually. It's like a conversation with strangers where you have to be on your best behavior. Actually it IS a conversation with strangers.

Now here's why I rarely do chats anymore: Under speed chess conditions, it becomes exceedingly possible that either (A) I might say something inappropriate, (B) I might infuriate my bosses in some way or (C) I might argue a point incorrectly without realizing it until later.

(D) He doesn't have 2-3 days to think of jokes and fake theories that he can link to pop culture. What is revealed is a person who has to be self-referential and rely on his old jokes in order to amuse the masses.

On Friday, I made a mistake comparing the 2010 Tiger Woods to the 1970 Muhammad Ali, saying Tiger's comeback would be much tougher because "everyone under 35 was rooting for Ali." Total hyperbole that never would have happened had I spent more time thinking about it.

So there you go Charles Pierce. Bill thinks he was wrong, sort of. This is a reason I didn't go after one line in one ESPN chat by Bill Simmons. It was a hyperbolic statement. The rest of the chat wasn't terrible.

I do think Bill knows he is wrong about this comparison, but his ego just can't handle him being wrong so he had to follow his comment in the chat up with an entire article in order to try and prove he is actually right about this. Which he isn't.

Of course, now that he has written an entire column on it, I feel the need to comment...

Let's hop on the course and play nine holes (in the form of points) to bang home the point that, yes, Tiger's presumed return to golf in 2010 will be significantly more difficult than Ali's return to boxing in 1970.

9 holes to prove the point? Isn't this just slightly cheesy? If Bill was trying to advocate for Ali on this argument would have gone 12 rounds to bang home the point?

(By the way, I am not a boxing guy. I know so very little about the sport pre-1988, which is when I started watching it. I did research and so that is where I am getting any information I may use to dispute Bill's assumptions/arguments. If anyone knows anything I don't know that makes me look smart/stupid, of course chime in.)

Hole No. 1 (par 4)0
Tiger hasn't played golf competitively in four months.

Muhammad Ali did not box from March 22, 1967 until October 26, 1970. He was away from boxing for over 3 years. I am going to say it is harder to be away from boxing from the age of 25 to the age of 28, which really should be near a boxer's prime, than it is for Tiger Woods to miss 4 months at the age of 34.

That's just thinking about Ali coming back competitively, but not including all the other shit that had been going on at the time. This period was also the biggest period of civil unrest and disagreement in the United States since the Civil War. By refusing to go into the draft, Ali had pissed nearly every single person in the United States off. Remember, in 1967 the Vietnam War was occurring but the United States really hadn't outright lost a war in their entire history, so it was still a fairly popular war. Conscientious objectors weren't kindly looked upon. Especially black, outspoken, Muslim conscientious objectors in a time when some of white America was pretty disturbed (or at least feeling uneasy) about the Civil Rights Movement.

Just Tuesday, there was a news article saying Tiger has returned home and is "trying to get back into a routine that includes golf and fitness." Trying to get back into a routine? That sounds ominous.

Again, it's golf. Golf isn't the most extreme and physically demanding sport, like say, I don't know...boxing. It's easy to get back in golf shape, but Muhammad Ali took 3 years off from boxing to basically fight the United States government. Three years off from boxing is greater than 4 months away from golf.

Hole No. 2 (par 4)
The man is coming off two significant derailments: Reconstructive knee surgery (summer 2008) and a self-imposed exile (winter of 2009-10).

Tiger hasn't forgotten how to play golf though. He was mildly successful when he came back and won 6 tournaments. He proved he could come back strong and play golf after having knee surgery. I don't think a self-imposed exile will have a more negative effect on his game from a physical standpoint than his knee surgery did.

How many times have we seen an imposing golfer lose his way and never regain his mojo? Remember when Tom Watson stopped making big putts? Remember when Greg Norman lost his confidence after too many collapses? Golf is a mental sport. You need a ton of self-confidence, you need an unwavering belief in your own talents and you need to be able to tune out any and all distractions. Hell, Tiger could barely handle someone's camera clicking during his backswing. He's going to be able to handle … this?

This is absolutely pure speculation on what could or could not happen. That's what Bill's entire case is based upon...speculation. Tiger is only 4 months into taking a break from golf and Bill Simmons is already stating Tiger's journey back will be harder than Ali's was. We know how hard it was for Ali, but it is way too early to tell if Tiger is going to come back strong or not.

Asking open ended questions about whether Tiger will be able to come back or not isn't proof that Tiger is actually going to be able to come back and play well again on the PGA Tour.

If Tiger comes back with similar rust, I can't imagine him being able to change his style on the fly as Ali did. Either it comes back or it doesn't.)

I like how Bill is completely ignoring the fact Tiger changed his entire swing after he had his knee surgery and still won 6 tournaments in 2009. Tiger has proven he can change his swing before, so I think he will be able to adjust to playing golf with some rust. It just feels to me like Bill Simmons doesn't know what he is talking about.

It has been well documented that Tiger changed his swing after his knee surgery and has changed the way he plays the game of golf due to "Tigerproofing" of courses and other challenges that come with playing the game of golf and being Tiger Woods. He has changed his style on the fly before, he could do it again. I don't think 4 months away from the game will cause him a whole lot of rust that having surgery and taking 8 months off wouldn't do. I think the idea he will have some rust when coming back is a little exaggerated.

Hole No. 3 (par 3)
Don't discount Tiger's advancing age (34) at this point. Watson never won another major after he turned 34; neither did Arnold Palmer, Fred Couples, Seve Ballesteros or Curtis Strange.

Can't we all agree that Tiger Woods is a different type of athlete than these guys? He has access to resources I am not sure these golfers could ever have dreamed about. I am not saying Tiger Woods is going to win 10 more majors or anything, I am just saying age may not affect Tiger as much as it did these other guys.

Only Jack Nicklaus thrived from 34 to 40 (16 PGA Tour titles, three majors), although Norman (eight Tour titles, one major) and Lee Trevino (six titles, one major) also fared pretty well. Tom Kite peaked after he turned 34. Nick Price won two majors at 37; Mark O'Meara won his only two at 41.

So really Bill has no point.

Let's think about this. Tiger Woods was having sex with multiple women that weren't his wife and managed to keep it from his wife for a period of time. How is this less stressful or any less time consuming than actually being true to his wife and actually spending time with her? If Tiger just takes the time he spent with his various women and spends that time with his wife, there is still exactly the amount of time to put into golf that he had pre-scandal. It makes sense to me.

Hole No. 4 (par 4)
Winning his wife back will require significant effort -- certainly more than Tiger spent on his family pre-Thanksgiving. Ali, Jordan, Tiger pre-2010 … part of what made them great was that they weren't family men.

Right. Tiger can focus all the time he spent in hot tubs with pornstars and move that time over to trying to repair his relationship with his family. None of these reasons by the way have any resemblance to why Ali's road back after exile from boxing was easier than Tiger's.

Also, I don't know what that "family men" comment means. Michael Jordan had a family, so did Ali and pre-2010 Tiger did as well. Whether they were considered family men or not is pretty irrelevant. I would guess these men all found time to mess around with other women, since it is pretty well known this happened with all three, so how does becoming a family man weaken Tiger's game or make it harder for him to come back?

Because Tiger appears to be serious about keeping his family intact, how could that not affect his golf routine to some degree?

It may affect his golf routine. Absolutely no one is arguing this all won't affect his golf routine, but how the hell is this easier than being away from boxing for three years AT THE BEGINNING of your physical prime like Ali was? That's the question.

Ali had his entire ability to box taken away from him, while Tiger Woods would be welcomed back with open arms at any point if he decided to return to golf. How can Bill not take this into account when comparing the situations? Isn't a comeback a little harder when the people who oversee your sport won't let you play the sport AT ALL? Family problems or no family problems, Muhammad Ali had the complete inability during this period to even be licensed to box, much less even worry about whether he could physically come back or not, or even if people liked him enough to watch him box...which was fairly debatable even in 1970.

And what about dealing with the day-to-day stuff any philandering husband faces while trying to win back a wife battling trust issues?

How about the day-to-day stuff Ali dealt with during his court case with everyone hating him for being black, outspoken and a draft dodger? This obviously doesn't count for anything to Bill.

When Ali's second marriage finally fell apart while he was training for the George Foreman fight in Zaire, he simply fell for someone else...Had he been more worried about his brand, losing everything he had, keeping his family together and rehabbing his public image, wouldn't that have affected his performances in the Foreman and Frazier fights at least a little?

Again, this is pure speculation on the part of Simmons. Who knows if it would have affected his performances? Maybe it would have, maybe it wouldn't have.

What Bill fails to see is this happened AFTER Ali had come back. The Foreman fight was in 1974 and Ali was well on his way back at that point. Bill is trying to compare apples and oranges here and not let his audience know what he is doing. We can't compare Ali's comeback and how Ali boxed 4 years after he was given his license back to Tiger's comeback when Tiger is only 4 months into his exile. Ali had fought in 17 fights since he had gotten back from his problems in the late 1960's at that point. The comeback was complete, so he didn't have the external pressures his exiled caused him to deal with at that point. Now if the Foreman fight had happened in 1970 then maybe Bill would have a point, but it didn't, and he doesn't.

Hole No. 5 (par 4)
Once upon a time, everyone left Tiger alone, partly because the media didn't want to piss him off, partly because he crafted such a good buffer between himself and the outside world,

This is not entirely true.

I'm not saying Tiger's life was normal before Thanksgiving, but he didn't have paparazzi stalking him, tabloids making up things about him, bloggers chronicling his every move and people taping him with camera phones everywhere he goes.

Obviously the media frenzy pre-2010 wasn't what it will be when he gets back, but Tiger Woods was still recognized in public and would have people pay attention to his every move. Obviously with this buffer gone there is going to be more of a frenzy, but Tiger Woods was one of the most well-known athletes in the world. There was some attention on him pre-2010 because of this. It won't be completely new to him. I still have no idea how this shows Tiger Woods has it worse than Muhummad Ali did during the years of 1967-1970. I don't think Bill does either.

Hole No. 6 (par 5)
Forget about Ali; not even Jordan faced anything like the current sports/celebrity climate.

This is the only point where Bill Simmons may have a point. The news cycle is going to cause Tiger a lot of stress if he can't focus away from it, which given his ability to compartmentalize I think he could possibly do.

Plus, Jordan had the buffer of a basketball court. Ali had the buffer of a boxing ring and just a few fights per year. Golf? Doesn't work that way. You're walking among fans for hole after hole.

In boxing AND basketball there are fans surrounding the court. To make matters worse at a basketball game a fan can yell anything he/she wants at a player, while this can't always happen on the golf course. This is a weak point.

Tiger also has the advantages of having a much better PR and media group around him than Muhammad Ali did. Everything Tiger will do is going to be well-thought out and well-done, while Muhammad Ali was pretty much public enemy #1 in that he was considered a draft dodging athlete before the tide turned against the Vietnam War. There wasn't much he could do about this perception, other than go to Vietnam, either.

And you can't come and go; you need to be out there swinging your sticks week after week after week in city after city after city.

Tiger found a way to practice in private before this whole scandal started and he will find a way to practice after the scandal ends. What's interesting is that Bill is completely forgetting about Ali's fans being all around him in the ESPN "30 For 30" documentary "Muhammad and Larry." Bill produced that series, shouldn't he remember this? There were literally fans watching Ali practice and spar, fans outside the gym, and everyone wanted to talk to or see Muhammad Ali. This was 1980. Bill is telling me when Ali was in his prime 10 years earlier there wasn't that many fans and press clamoring for Ali's attention? I don't believe it. Ali always had people around him in some fashion, whether he was training or not.

Hole No. 7 (par 4)
How will the fans react? Do we know? Do we have any inkling?

No, we don't know. Because we don't know how the fans will react, and we know how the fans reacted to Ali (before the tide turned against the Vietnam War) doesn't mean Tiger has it worse than Muhammad Ali.

Hole No. 8 (par 3)
When Ali returned from his Vietnam-related exile, he had two massive groups of people pulling for him: Black America and the anti-war movement.

This is probably a little true, but Bill can't ignore what Ali had to put up with during the period of 1967-1969 before the anti-war movement caught on. Ali was gone from boxing so long the anti-war movement had grown by the time Ali was reinstated and Black America was finally seen as something more than a nuisance by anti-Civil Rights people.

Muhammad Ali was denied his right to box because he refused to be drafted. These days athletes don't even have to worry about being drafted, but when Ali was drafted it was seen as a duty by American citizens to go fight for their country when they are called to do so. Ali refused, which was seen by many people as, (a) a famous Black American being disrespectful to the United States, (b) his actual duty as an American that he shouldn't try to avoid, and (c) trying to change the country for the worse, which was much of the fear would happen when schools became integrated and minorities were given equal rights. At the time, Muhammad Ali was EXACTLY what many people in society at the time had feared. He was a strong, outspoken, disobedient, war-hating Muslim African-American.

When Ali returned to boxing, he returned in a completely different political and social climate than when he left boxing. Bill shouldn't completely ignore what Ali went through during the years of 1967-1969 simply because he had more support at the end.

Tiger isn't part of anything. Where will he draw that extra strength from if the fans don't come through for him?

The same place he drew that extra strength from his entire career. His will to win and be better than anyone else playing golf. It's not going to be easy for him to comeback and get back to the level he was before, but that doesn't make what he is going through any harder than what Muhammad Ali had to go through.

Hole No. 9 (par 5)
The biggest wrinkle nobody is mentioning: What if this starts out badly? What if Tiger plays a couple of tournaments and just stinks? What if he can't get anything going? What if the dominant story becomes, "Will Tiger Woods ever get it back?"

I absolutely hate it when sportswriters say, "here is what no one else is talking about..." You usually know at that point they are going to bring up a point that EVERYONE is talking about. For a wrinkle that no one is mentioning, it sure seems like I hear a lot of people wondering if Tiger Woods will ever be as good as he was before. I think that is the crux of this story Bill is trying to write. Few sports fan really cares if Tiger stays with his wife or cheated on her, most sports fans know athletes cheat and get caught. Sports fans want to know how this affects Tiger Woods when it comes to playing golf at a high level again.

Isn't that what this entire Ali v. Tiger comparison is about? Ali got back to a high level through his adversity and Bill wonders if Tiger can do the same?

What if he's dealing with that question constantly, day after day, week after week, city after city, over and over and over again, and that doubt seeps into his head? Ali fought only every few months and had the luxury of picking cream-puff opponents if need be.

But there was a three year period where Muhammad Ali could not fight AT ALL! He wasn't allowed to. We should not be comparing what Ali had to deal with from 1970 to the present, but how he dealt with the shit he dealt with from 1967-1970. This is how Bill Simmons is going to try and prove his point correct, by changing the timeline, but I don't let him do it.

How did Ali deal with the constant questions about whether he would fight again and how people would take him from 1967-1970? Was that harder than what Tiger Woods had to deal with from November 2009-present. I say no. Bill says yes because in the mid-70's Ali didn't have trouble boxing well and society accepted him. He's changing the timeline.

On October 26, 1970 when Ali stepped in the ring against Jerry Quarry, was everything he had dealt with to that point harder to get through than what Tiger Woods will face on "date to be determined" when he finally plays golf again? That's the question. By the mid-70's Ali was back already by fighting in 17 fights as of October 30, 1974, so it shouldn't have anything to do with this discussion.

At gunpoint, if I could wager on any conceivable scenario, I would wager on Tiger coming back in severe Eff You Mode, like a seething MJ in Game 1 of the 1992 Finals. The greatest ones have a way of channeling negativity and fueling it toward whatever makes them great.

Here goes Bill Simmons hedging so he can say if Tiger succeeds he knew it would happen and if Tiger fails he can just link this article. Bill is completely hedging here. You know, he just wants to be right.

So it remains to be seen whether Tiger has Severe Eff You DNA. But if you were him, would you have rather had this saga happen in 1970 or 2010?

1970. There's no question because the media wouldn't have been in such a frenzy, but again, that's not the issue. The issue is whether in attempting a comeback to his sport an athlete would rather be:

1. A world-class golfer in 2010 who cheated on his wife and was found to have multiple affairs and then took a self-imposed exile for a yet-to-be-determined period before attempting a comeback at the age of 34.

Or:

2. A world-class boxer in 1970 who had refused to go to Vietnam to fight in a war when this wasn't a popular decision and was arrested for this, had his boxing license revoked from the age of 25-28, was an outspoken Muslim African-American during the Civil Rights Era and then could only be licensed to fight in one state (with the help of a State Senator) until his case was decided by the Supreme Court.

I am wanting to be the golfer, because regardless of the support Ali had from Black America and anti-war protesters, these weren't the people in charge of boxing nor responsible for shaping public opinion at the time. The tide was turning against the war, but simply because Ali had some support didn't mean he had an easier time coming back. Hell, Tiger Woods has the support of the PGA and major corporations, which in the year 2010 are able to influence public opinion as well as anything can.

Unlike Tiger, Ali loved the limelight and remains the greatest natural resource the sports media ever encountered.

So because he loved being in the spotlight this made it easier for him to battle racial injustice and the United States arresting him being a conscientious objector? I don't think being outspoken and in the spotlight helped Ali any more than it hurt him because the government used him as an example in prosecuting him and claiming he didn't fit the criteria for a conscientious objector.

His biggest issue was a suspension by Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad -- a rift that healed only because Ali became a cash cow postexile, so of course the Nation of Islam quickly made amends -- that briefly worried his camp about his safety.

So having to worry about Ali's safety wasn't anything to overcome either I guess.

But the pressures of Ali's exile (especially in the first two years) shouldn't be confused with the pressure of his actual comeback (which wasn't nearly as daunting as you would think).

Even if I could accept this as fact...the actual comeback of Ali shouldn't be confused with the fact Tiger Woods hasn't even come back yet. His exile hasn't been completed, so just like we can't judge Ali's comeback with the pressures of his exile, Bill can't confuse the current pressures of Tiger's exile with how hard it may be for him to comeback.

America is a forgiving country. I don't know if Tiger is going to have as hard of a time coming back as Bill wants to believe he will have. The hardest part for Tiger will be the exile, just like it was for Ali. Bill is trying to get his readers to focus off Ali's exile and his actual comeback to boxing, as if the pressure of his exile would just disappear when he came back to boxing and these are two separate things, but wants us to focus only on Tiger's exile and comeback as if they are one singular thing that is pressured filled.

Ali was out of boxing for 3 years. Tiger Woods has been out of golfing for 4 months. If Tiger left golf for 3 years his comeback would be incredibly easy because the world would be salivating to see him play again. Tiger's shorter timeline puts more pressure on him and that's why it is wrong to compare the two. Ali's longer exile is what made it harder on him since he couldn't fight professionally in any way, but it also gave the political and social climate time to change. The same thing would happen for Tiger Woods if he waited until November 2012 to comeback.

By the fall of 1970, Ali wasn't getting hounded by paparazzi or picked apart by an obsessive media. If anything, he lost a little fame as the exile dragged along, and he fell out of public consciousness to some degree.

Because he had been banned from his sport for three years! This is something that makes a comeback pretty difficult. The same thing would happen to Tiger Woods if he stayed away from golf for 3 years. The difference is that Muhammad Ali was under threat of being put in prison and COULDN'T rejoin his sport if he wanted to, while Tiger Woods can craftily make up his image and try to move on pretty much any time he wants.

"A substantial portion of the American public disliked him, and worse, they were getting tired of hearing what he was about. But the exile turned that around. It showed people that Ali was sincere. It made him an underdog. … And traveling around the country, speaking on college campuses, Ali was able to bring his message to tens of thousands of young men and women.

So Bill's basic argument is that Muhammad Ali's comeback was easier because he was persecuted by his sport for a longer period of time and prevented from participating in his sport. During this time, he became an underdog and got people to rally behind him. While in his opinion Tiger Woods has a more difficult road because while he has the support of Nike and the PGA Tour, but people don't like him and he hasn't stayed away long enough to where now the increased attention is going to cause him to golf poorly.

I don't know if I buy this argument.

When Ali finally returned to the ring for real, a considerable number of Americans were rooting for him -- not "everyone," as I stupidly overstated in the chat, but a sizable chunk -- and the event itself captured the revolutionary spirit of that era.

A "sizable chunk" is just as non-specific and difficult to prove as just saying "everyone."

But I skimmed through my collection of Ali books, read the old Sports Illustrateds and even sifted through the New York Times articles from that year, and at no point in the fall of 1970 did anyone wonder whether Ali might fold from the pressure of that comeback.

Partially because he had been away from the sport for three years, Ali's comeback seemed easier, but I don't think the fact his comeback seemed easy means it was. How does Bill Simmons not see the fact Ali was away so long made the comeback happen more smoothly, but doesn't actually mean it was less rough than what Tiger Woods will go through?

Sure, there were concerns for his safety in such a violent era -- in fact, policemen and security guards blanketed Atlanta for the exhibition and for the real fight -- but those concerns proved to be unfounded. Nothing happened.

"Sure people wanted to kill him, but they didn't."

I like how Bill uses what we know now, that Ali didn't get injured by a crazy person, as proof it was an easy comeback for Ali. Unless Ali or his supporters were able to predict the future they couldn't have known for sure there wouldn't be violence. Just because we know nothing happened in 1970 before this boxing match in terms of violence while living in the year 2010 doesn't mean this was an easy situation for Ali to deal with.

Add them together, and it's no contest. When Ali actually returned in September 1970, it was a cakewalk compared with what Tiger will face this month or next month or whenever he actually returns.

No comparison? I just can't buy this argument for so many reasons. It took Muhammad Ali 3 years to make it back to his sport and Tiger Woods is going to be able to return whenever he pleases. That alone makes Tiger's comeback easier in my mind. Sure, the press will be everywhere for Tiger but he doesn't have to worry about people trying to commit physical violence against him and Tiger has resources that Muhammad Ali never access to. There was no corporate partner willing to remake Ali's image, he had to wait it out along with the court decision. Tiger has that PR firm and corporate partner and I think he is going to have more support than Bill Simmons thinks.

The mere fact Bill had to quote several sources who wrote that nothing happened unusual or abnormal before, during, or after Ali's first fight back shows there was uncertainty in how Ali's comeback would go. Because if there isn't uncertainty, then why would anyone need to write an article saying nothing happened unusual, if that was expected to happen?

They are the same person. And if you claim that you can predict exactly how that person will emerge from this twisted mess … you are lying.

No one claims they can predict how Tiger will emerge from this mess, but if Bill Simmons can claim anyone knew how Muhammad Ali's fight career would go after 1970...they both would also be lying. I found this to be a terrible comparison.