Luther Campbell, yes THAT Luther Campbell, for some reason gets the opportunity to write for the "Miami New Times." I've never heard of this paper, and I have covered Luther here a couple of times before, but he seems like he covers a mix of sports and social issues in his writing. One sports issue that Luther felt like tackling was that of David West opting-out of his contract with the Pacers in order to take a lot less money and join the Spurs. West wants to win an NBA title. That's fairly clear. West isn't the first athlete to take less money to chase a championship, but Luther thinks he needs a psychologist for making this decision. Nevermind a few Heat players took less money than they could make on the free agent market to join the LeBron/Bosh/Wade chase for titles (including some of those three players taking small pay cuts to team up). That doesn't really seem to faze Luther Campbell because these players didn't pass up as much money as David West did. Somehow, Campbell also blames Gregg Popovich for West choosing the Spurs and seems to think Popovich should have acted in West's best interests and refused to sign West. It's all confusing. I think maybe Luther Campbell needs the psychologist.
Veteran NBA forward David West has lost his mind.
And it's Luther Campbell's job to help West get his mind back.
The 34-year-old former All-Star just pulled off the craziest free agent
move in sports history by taking a gargantuan pay cut to play for the
San Antonio Spurs.
David West has earned $87 million in his career so far. I know everything is about money, but it's not entirely crazy for West to take a pay cut in order to try and win a championship. Plus, there are worse things than being coached by Gregg Popovich. It would have been crazy if West were still in the prime of his career and decided to take a huge pay cut while signing a long-term contract in order to win a title. West is 34 years old and wants to win a title. He's earned $87 million in his career. Crazy, this is not. Yearning to win a title after he has made his millions? Yes.
West opted out of the last year of his contract with the Indiana Pacers,
leaving $12.2 million on the table. Believing the Spurs give him the
best chance to win the NBA title that has eluded him for 12 years, West
signed with San Antonio for the veteran’s minimum of $1.5 million.
West is only making $1.5 million this year. That's it! How will he afford to feed his family on that type of money, assuming he has blown every other dime he has made in his NBA career of course? I don't know David West's finances, but I'm assuming a guy who chooses to forgo more money to win a title is probably pretty good with managing his money as well and isn't poor.
“At this point in my career, I just want to win,” West told Indianapolis TV station WTHR.
Absolutely insane.
Most of the reaction from the sports media has been positive, praising West for putting competition above compensation.
This praise comes from the fact that West has earned his money already. He wants a ring. I don't know if I would take less money to win a title, but I also haven't come as close as West has to making the NBA Finals without actually making it.
He’s really being a fool.
If only West was a grown-ass man who was capable of making his own decisions and didn't need ex-rappers to question his sanity.
This is not the same as Ray Allen, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade taking pay
cuts to win a title together. Sure, they took reductions, but nothing
out of this world like West.
West took a $12 million pay cut according to Luther Campbell. It doesn't appear Campbell is too good with the math. The Pacers were offering $12 million and West took $1.4-1.5 million to play for the Spurs. He took a $10.5 million pay cut to play for the Spurs. Ray Allen took a $7 million pay cut to play for the Heat. Not that I expect Luther to spend his precious time doing research, but Ray Allen took a large pay cut to play for the Heat, so what West did was very close to being the same as what Allen did. I know Luther Campbell would prefer not to deal with reality, but what West did is like what Allen did.
The NBA Player’s Association needs to step in and investigate how the Spurs pulled off the steal of the free-agency period.
Actually, I think I could do some investigation into this topic to see what malfeasance has been going on. (Bengoodfella takes five seconds to copy and paste a comment from David West)
Oh, now I see how the Spurs pulled this off. Here is the evidence on how the Spurs did this. I warn you, it is salacious. Here we go...
“At this point in my career, I just want to win,” West told Indianapolis TV station WTHR.
OH MY GOD, SAY IT'S NOT TRUE! The Spurs pulled this off by convincing David West he wanted to win an NBA title. I'm sure Adam Silver wouldn't have the balls to investigate the Spurs for this, but he should. Silver will just protect the favored members of the NBA fraternity like Gregg Popovich and Tim Duncan, but the Spurs should be punished harshly for using mind control to convince West he wants to win an NBA title.
San Antonio’s head coach Gregg Popovich, a former player who knows how
grueling an NBA season can be, should be ashamed of himself for allowing
West to make such a ridiculous decision.
How dare Popovich allow a grown man who is also a millionaire make a decision for himself! It's intriguing to me how Luther Campbell has somehow managed to turn a decision made by an NBA player into the coach of an NBA team manipulating that player. West states why he took less money, yet that's not good enough for Campbell. Why would Popovich be ashamed of himself for putting together the best team he is able to? He's supposed to apologize for being a great head coach and the result being that veteran players want to play for him?
He took advantage of West’s emotions.
Yes, Popovich took advantage of West's emotions by convincing him that he wanted to win an NBA title and accept less money to do so. It sounds like Popovich and the Spurs didn't have to do much except make the contract offer. The idea the Spurs took advantage of West is just hilarious to me. NBA players are capable of making their own decisions about where they want to play the sport of basketball and it's not like West will play for free. He's still getting paid for his services.
After taxes, West will probably clear around $600,000. And he still has to pay for the cost of living in two places.
Well, I don't believe there are any state taxes in Texas, so that helps.
It’s not like he’s just going to sell his house in Indiana in one day.
Luther Campbell is simply concerned about the real estate market in Indiana. How can West get the money he put into the home back? David West needs a psychologist because he expects to sell his house in this Indiana real estate market!
Also, as I detailed earlier, David West has made $87 million in his career. Who the hell says he is moving away from Indiana? Why would he have to move to play in San Antonio? Couldn't he just rent an apartment during the season? Somehow Campbell's argument for West being crazy is starting to lean more towards Campbell being the one who needs a psychologist. Why does it matter if West can sell his house?
Has anyone ever seen an NFL, NBA, or MLB owner cut into their profits to
give breaks to poor people who can’t afford to attend games? No.
Yes, but David West could not have joined the Spurs if he had not taken a pay cut. This wasn't a move driven by the Spurs ownership wanting David West at whatever cost, but a move driven by David West to take a pay cut. The Spurs don't really get a break by having David West take the veteran minimum because they weren't going to be able to spend the $12 million it would take to sign West at market value. So this isn't like owners cutting into profits to give a break to poor people who can't attend games, because the Spurs weren't spending money on West if he didn't sign for close the veteran minimum.
West needs a psychological evaluation. When an athlete kisses $11
million good-bye without thinking about his future is a prime example of
why he will end up broke.
Man, that's a bit harsh. So Luther Campbell is arguing (relatively incoherently by the way) that David West, who has earned $87 million in his career, is going to go broke because he's "only" playing for $1.5 million this season. Other than evidence he needs a psychological evaluation, couldn't this be proof that West has thought about his future and has saved up enough money to where he CAN go play for the Spurs for $1.5 million? Maybe this isn't a sign he will go broke, but a sign he isn't going to go broke.
When West retires, he is not going to find another job that pays hims more than ten million dollars a year.
Unlike all of those other athletes who retire and immediately find jobs that pay them as much as they earned during their playing career? What planet does Luther Campbell live on? What, Bimbo Coles retires and then finds a job that pays him $2.2 million per year? This is something Campbell really thinks happens?
I don't know how Campbell has earned the opportunity to write anything down in a newspaper and be taken seriously, but "Player takes pay cut to win a title" isn't even close to being correlated to "Player goes broke because he spends too much money."
That’s when he will regret it.
Maybe he can pawn his championship ring for cash at that point.
Showing posts with label nba free agency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nba free agency. Show all posts
Saturday, August 8, 2015
Thursday, July 17, 2014
15 comments Bill Simmons Confirms that God Does Indeed Love Cleveland
Remember when Bill Simmons threw a very minor hissy fit on the NBA Countdown set about the Cleveland Cavaliers getting their third #1 overall draft pick in four years? Bill didn't think the Cavaliers deserved another #1 overall pick for mismanaging their team. It turns out he doesn't like that Cleveland gets the #1 overall pick again, but he's perfectly fine with the Cavs signing the NBA's best player. Because after all, he needs to be liked and he can only rail against the Cavs so much before he could start alienating and losing the audience he used to work so hard to get. So while Bill manages to think the Cavs don't deserve another #1 overall pick, he's fine with the team getting LeBron James. Why? Because Bill issues the final proclamation that God loves Cleveland. Bill uses the word "God" loosely because he doesn't want to offend anyone or contradict many of his Simmonsites' idea that he himself is indeed God.
Yeah, I read LeBron James’s classy letter in Sports Illustrated. I believe him.
Rest easy now, LeBron! Bill Simmons believes you. I know this is a load off your conscience.
In the summer of 2010, LeBron handled everything wrong. He knows that now. His hometown turned on him. His former owner excoriated him. Everyone else hated what he did.
No, "everyone" didn't hate what he did. I didn't hate what he did. He chose his team and did it in a poor fashion, but I'm pretty sure Miami Heat fans didn't hate it.
We turned him into a wrestling heel, pushed him to a dark place, affected his personality, planted seeds of doubt that blossomed like a black rose during the 2011 Finals.
"WE" did this. Not the media, not Bill, but "WE" did this. I hope we are proud of ourselves.
But he never forgot what happened, and deep down, he probably always wanted to atone. When the time arrived this summer, he flipped the script on us.
"US" got the script flipped on us. We did. Consider the script to have been flipped. Hope you can read backwards, planet Earth!
Those four Miami seasons made me sure of one thing: He’s one of the greatest NBA players ever.
Write it down on a tablet, because it's now official. Congratulations on getting your very own chapter in the "Book of Basketball Part 2," LeBron James. You have moved up in Bill's arbitrary rankings.
Add everything up and it’s the best possible story. He’s the conquering hero who came home, and, hopefully, will conquer again.
It’s also not entirely accurate. I think LeBron would have stayed in Miami — for at least one or two more years — if he truly believed he had a chance to keep winning there.
So what about the story isn't accurate? LeBron came home, he stated he wanted to come home and so he did. In fact, Bill said this a couple of paragraphs earlier in this column:
I think he wanted to come home. I think he always wanted to come home.
It turns out now that Bill's own statement isn't entirely accurate. You know what that means, right? WE are wrong about LeBron wanting to come home.
If you think of him like a genius, it makes more sense.
Here's the part where Bill Simmons writes thousands of more words than he has to in order to push out a column and overcomplicate an issue. Simply stating that LeBron chose where he thought he could win doesn't make for a great column, so Bill has to go off on a long tangent about how LeBron is a genius and that's why he chose the Cavaliers over the Heat. Sure, this whole part of the column could be summed up by writing, "LeBron didn't think he had a chance to win long-term in Miami, so he chose to go back to Cleveland," but that doesn't make Bill feel like he's smart and overcomplicate an issue in order to kill space.
He’s smarter about basketball than you and me, and, really, anyone else. He sees things that we can’t see. During that last Miami season, I don’t think he liked what he saw from his teammates. LeBron James wanted to come back to Cleveland, but he also wanted to flee Miami.
I think anyone who saw the NBA Finals understood Wade wasn't exactly at the peak of his career and Bosh is still a very good NBA player, but the Heat had to do better at putting a supporting cast around LeBron. It didn't take a genius to see this. So LeBron is much smarter about basketball than Bill and me, but what I saw from LeBron's teammates were that he had to work hard to carry the team at times. Anyone watching the games could see it wasn't sustainable.
And his brain works like very few brains — not just now, but ever.
Bill is really, really overcomplicating things here. Cleveland had a good, young core on their rookie contracts, while Miami was getting older. LeBron chose to take a step back rather than ride out his time in Miami and hope they could put a good team around him.
Do you think Michael Jordan was a genius?”
I asked Doug Collins that question during the 2014 NBA Finals, on the afternoon of Game 3, hours before San Antonio transformed into some crazy hybrid of Russell’s Celtics, Walton’s Blazers and Bradley’s Knicks. We were eating lunch at our hotel’s pool, flanked by the radiantly blue ocean off Brickell Key, talking hoops, because that’s what you do when you’re around Doug.
Ah yes, it is the "Stories about the NBA Countdown Crew" section of Bill's column. It has become a staple along with "Throw up a YouTube video to kill space" and "Here's a Half-Assed Theory" whenever Bill writes a column.
The man has enough stories for three books, but too much respect for the game, and for the relationships he has cultivated over the years, to ever actually write one.
Meanwhile Bill doesn't give a shit about the game or his relationships, he just wants money and fame, which is why he was going to write a book with Steve Nash about his time in the NBA. I'm not blaming him. Money is great. Just pointing this out.
Fourteen years later, he started coaching Michael Jordan — someone who collected more ripped-out hearts than anyone. Do you think Michael Jordan was a genius? I barely got the words out of my mouth.
And Bill had not spoken for a full ten minutes, so he was really pissed off Doug Collins barely let him finish the sentence.
“Oh yes,” Collins said. “There’s no question.”
What did Bill expect Collins to say? "No, Jordan was a dumbass"?
If he sensed that a particular teammate would fail him, he’d gesture to Collins to remove that person from the game. All these years later, Collins delights in imitating how Jordan did it — by making eye contact with his coach, glancing toward the offending teammate, then unleashing one of those “Get him the F out of here” grimaces. Almost always, his instincts were right.
Of course prior to Michael Jordan being the super-winner that he ended up being, teammates found this behavior annoying and there was a book called "The Jordan Rules" by Sam Smith that detailed how Jordan would often try to fight and mentally tear down his teammates. So while Jordan's instincts were right, he wasn't quite the genius under Doug Collins he is played up to be.
Michael Jordan was an excellent basketball player who had a feel for how to play the game and was a genius in terms of understanding basketball. He had the experience, instincts and the knowledge required to be considered a genius in his field of sport. Great basketball players (or anyone who is an expert in his respective field) are geniuses compared to others who play the game of basketball that aren't professionals (or an expert in his/her respective field).
Of course, the greatest sequence of Jordan’s career didn’t involve teammates: Game 6 of the 1998 Finals, 41.9 seconds remaining, Chicago trailing by three. Pippen inbounded the ball at half court, and after that, nobody on Chicago touched it again. Jordan ripped through Utah’s defense for a floating layup, swiped the ball from Karl Malone like he was snatching a purse, then drained the title-winning jumper in Bryon Russell’s mug. It wasn’t just the storybook ending that made it so unforgettable, or even Jordan’s incomparable brilliance, but how premeditated everything seemed. There was something genuinely spooky about it.
It's like Jordan was intentionally trying to score points in order to win the game and he was attempting to score these points as quickly as possible because there was less than a minute left in the contest. It's eerie how Jordan knew the Bulls were losing and his team had to score points at a faster pace. Was Jordan's ability to score points based on the premeditated decision to win the game or is there something innate in him that encourages him to win games during the NBA Finals?
I watched Jordan play in person, many times, at various stages of his career.
But never from the makeshift NBA Countdown set with the small television, so Bill never really WATCHED Jordan play in person.
when the Bulls occasionally rolled through Boston and eviscerated the carcass of Celtic Pride. One particular night, we turned on the locals and started cheering what we were watching. It didn’t happen because we were selling out, but because we had witnessed a special kind of greatness during the Bird Era. We knew what it meant. We knew how fragile it was. We missed seeing it.
Hey, it's a story about the Celtics and their fans. Remember when this column was about LeBron James coming back to Cleveland? As usual, every Bill Simmons column about the NBA is really about the Boston Celtics and their fans. In this case, it's not that the Celtics fans were selling out, it's just they are so much smarter than any other NBA fans only they could appreciate the greatness that was Michael Jordan. No other fans understood what it meant to see greatness because they didn't go through the Bird Era. Could Bill be more insufferable?
Pippen moved like Michael, saw the court like Michael, jumped passing lanes like Michael and blended with Michael’s game like a non-identical twin. It was crazy. I will never forget watching it for the rest of my life. Bird and Magic were genuises, too, but shit, they never figured out how to replicate themselves.
Yes, but shit, Bird and Magic didn't replicate themselves like Jordan did. Probably because there aren't too many 6'9" point guards out there nor are there basketball players with the high basketball IQ that Bird had. But Pippen was a replicant of Michael Jordan. The same thing, no differences, as long as you don't count all the differences between them.
For that reason and many others, I am never seeing a better basketball player than Michael Jordan.
I mean, shit, he replicated himself and all. That's some high-end science stuff right there.
“I was there,” Doug Collins will tell you. “We need to stop comparing people to Michael. We are NEVER seeing that again.”
Bill Simmons will now indeed start comparing LeBron to Jordan by stating they are both geniuses. Not basketball geniuses, but just geniuses overall.
From December 1990 through the 1998 Finals, not including his baseball sabbatical, the Chicago Bulls never lost three straight games with Jordan. Given the unforgiving NBA schedule, nonstop travel and general wear and tear, that’s basically impossible. But it happened. The man hated losing THAT much. Either he brought the best out of a teammate or he dumped that teammate like a showrunner killing off a struggling character.
This doesn't make him a genius. It makes him a very good basketball player who brought out the best in his teammates. Intelligence doesn't translate to winning games or else the Ivy League would have won quite a few NCAA Tournament titles over the last 20 years.
Still, that was an exclusive genius — Jordan couldn’t transfer those gifts to others, with Pippen the lone exception.
Yeah, but Jordan replicated himself through Pippen. It wasn't a direct translation of skills but a replication of skills. It's a totally different scientific process.
Bird and Magic went the other way — if they made their teammates better, it gave them a better chance to win. Like Jordan, they were basketball savants who possessed a supernatural feel for what should happen collectively on every play, as if they had already studied the play’s blueprint and come up with a plan of attack.
Yeah, Larry Bird was great. Unfortunately this article is about LeBron James, so maybe we should either write about LeBron James or get to the fucking point quickly. Sound good?
Bird’s first Celtics coach, Bill Fitch, affectionately nicknamed Bird “Kodak,” explaining to a writer that Bird’s “mind is constantly taking pictures of the whole court.” You could have said that about Magic, too. That’s what made them such devastating passers; they always knew where every teammate would be.
Yep, Bird and Magic were great. Of course it's easy to trust your teammates and make them better when you have teammates you can trust to be in the right spot at the right time. Kareem, Robert Parish, Kevin McHale, James Worthy, Danny Ainge, Dennis Johnson, Bill Walton, Michael Cooper, and Mychal Thompson could be counted on to be on the right spot at the right time. Luc Longley, Will Perdue, and Craig Hodges? Not quite as much. It's almost like there are different methods to achieve the goal of winning, but that can't be true, can it? How could Bill waste space if his point was capable of being made in just a few sentences?
Bird learned how to fully harness “it” during the 1984-85 season; for Magic, “it” didn’t happen until two seasons later. And here’s what “it” is. Each guy could assess any basketball game — in the moment, on the fly — and determine exactly what his team needed.
It's halfway through this article and Bill still hasn't gotten to the point about LeBron James and why God loves Cleveland. He is so out of ideas that even when he is inspired to write a column, he is only inspired to write a short column and has to fill the rest of the column in with rambling around about topics ancillary to his intended topic.
That seems simple, right? It’s impossible.
You need to understand every strength and weakness of your teammates.
You need to realize that you can’t dominate every game, that your teammates have to shine occasionally — if only because it enables them and allows you to count on them later. You can make that concession because you know, deep down, that you can take over whenever you want.
You need to be so good, so talented, so ridiculously dominant, that you don’t even think about it anymore. It’s almost like breathing.
And you need to embrace the performance aspects of what you’re doing.
You’re not just playing basketball anymore. You’re an artist. You’re creating something that you want people to remember. Every arena is filled with people who may not have seen you before. On the road, you love silence. That’s your favorite sound. You want to hear cheering and yelling, you want to hear the panic, and then, you want nothing. Just a sound vacuum other than your teammates yelling and screaming. You want them dejectedly filing out of their arena, feeling like someone just hit them with a wrecking ball. You want them muttering that you’re the best player they ever saw, and that they have absolutely no idea how to stop you. That’s your goal on the road.
I include this portion of the column because I want you, the reader of this blog, to know what I have to wade through when covering a Bill Simmons column. If you are not reading the column I link, then you are probably a smart person. That's my point. This is just a bunch of space killer.
Collins told me a fantastic Bird story once.
I ask this despite the fact this column should obviously be about Larry Bird since it is about Larry Bird, but has Doug Collins ever told you a fantastic LeBron James story? If so, I think it would fit in this column supposedly about why God loves Cleveland in regard to LeBron James signing with the Cavaliers as a free agent.
In Chicago, Bird was feeling ornery because the Bulls had screwed up his complimentary tickets. He noticed Collins on the sideline, complained about the tickets and asked him what the “house record” was. Then he vowed to break it. Uh-oh.
I'm guessing Bill models his childish temper tantrums over fairly irrelevant matters after Larry Bird as well.
You don’t get the nickname “Larry Legend” because of Game 7s, you get it because you brought it on those random November nights in Chicago because someone messed up your tickets. That’s a very specific kind of art, a genius crafting his performance with anger and competitive drive. That’s the final level of basketball. And when you get there, it’s not just about titles anymore.
(Falls asleep at the keyboard realizing it's over halfway through this column and Bill is still introducing the topic)
So what about this? What if LeBron James cared about making everything right in Ohio … but he also cared about protecting his ceiling as an artist? He couldn’t create what he wanted to create in Miami.
The replication machine that Michael Jordan used to replicate himself is only available in the Midwest, so obviously LeBron had to go back to Cleveland to take advantage of this. LeBron is an artist and the only cure for improving his portraits was finding more talented brushes.
This had quietly become 2009 and 2010 all over again — LeBron stuck on the wrong team, with the wrong teammates, being asked to do too much like he has been throughout his career.
This had not quietly happened. In fact, Bill wrote article (after the season was over, granted) about how Wade was declining and Bosh was becoming Sam Perkins. I think anyone who viewed the NBA Finals saw the burden being placed on LeBron. If he didn't perform well, the Heat struggled.
During Game 5 of the 2014 Finals, something happened that few people noticed because San Antonio played so wonderfully. Trailing by seven after halftime, LeBron came out for the third quarter and wouldn’t shoot. Every pass was sent with a little extra zip, as if he were telling Micky Arison and Pat Riley, here’s the team you stuck me with.
I'm going to need a chart explaining when it is fine for LeBron James to start giving up on his team. When he was with the Cavaliers and mailed in a playoff game then he was a bad person who only cared about himself, but when he's mailing it in while playing for the Heat, he's just sending a message to management that he needs better teammates...despite the fact he went to Miami from Cleveland originally for the reason that he would have better teammates. So please, I need the chart showing when LeBron is being an asshole by not playing up to his ability or when he is justified to not play up to his ability in order to prove a point.
Watching it in person, you could tell he was tired and pissed, but you couldn’t tell if it was because the season was slipping away … or because of something deeper.
I love this "watching it in person" crap Bill throws in now that he is on NBA Countdown. Funny how he sees things that no one else can see because he's watching the game in person. Of course, this doesn't mean his observations about the NBA, as seen through the television over his previous 40 years are any less insightful of course. He's still preaching the truthful gospel when he can't attend a game, but he wants his readers to give extra weight to the observations he makes while watching a game in person. Because, he's there.
Midway through the fourth quarter, trailing by 18, he missed a 3 and didn’t even run back on defense. The man was totally spent, mentally and physically. He had given everything he could give.
If LeBron didn't run back on defense when he was with Cleveland then he was a quitter who had given up on his teammates. In this situation with the Heat, he was completely justified. He was just spent, not being an asshole.
When he signed with Miami in 2010, I wrote that LeBron copped out, that he joined forces with Wade over doing the honorable thing and trying to defeat him. But the more I watched LeBron and the more stories I read about him, the more I wondered if something more organic had driven that decision.
You are going to love this. Rather than just write, "I was wrong" like any normal, non-ego driven writer who can't stand the thought of being wrong would do, Bill throws another half-assed theory out there to cover up for his original half-assed theory that was eventually proven incorrect. Bill wasn't wrong, he just wasn't as right as he is now.
What if LeBron was a genius like Bird and Magic?
What if he KNEW he was a genius?
I never thought about that, mostly because I don't make things up and then believe I discovered something deeper than I really have in overcomplicating an issue, but I didn't think of this. What if LeBron James knew he was a genius? What if he had never told anyone this, but he KNEW he was one of the great NBA players of all-time. How did "we" not see that LeBron James is good at basketball?
What if he was searching for some basketball version of the Holy Grail, some higher state of being, a level of basketball that he couldn’t find in Cleveland?
You mean like win an NBA Title? That's exactly why LeBron left Cleveland, to win an NBA Title. So there is no "what if" in this situation. It was pretty standard knowledge that LeBron left to find something he didn't think he could find in Cleveland. As usual, Bill overcomplicates an issue in order to confuse his lemming-like readers into believing he is saying something of substance that has any originality.
What if those nights during that first season when Wade (still at the peak of his powers) and LeBron (hitting his prime of primes) would take off after a rebound and unleash the most devastating two-on-one fast breaks we’ve ever seen in our lives … what if THAT was what LeBron really cared about, just playing hoops with someone who saw the game the way he did?
Oh my gentle Jesus. This is exactly why LeBron left Cleveland. He left to play with talented players who he believed could win him the NBA Title he so desperately wanted to win. He played with Bosh and Wade on the Olympic team and thought they would be a good fit together.
I think Bill Simmons truly believes he is spitting out some sort of knowledge here, but he's simply summarizing in more hyperbolic words why LeBron left Cleveland to go to Miami in the first place. He wanted to play with guys who saw the game the way he did so they could complement each other. I mean, this is really, really basic information, no matter how much Bill tries to pretend it isn't.
We never talk about his brain enough. Somehow we talk about everything else, but not that.
Maybe "we" should talk about his brain more while "we" are on national television talking about LeBron James. I know "we" always forget.
Bill's use of "us," "we", and any other term used to lump a large group of people together is annoying. There's no way getting around it. Stop using words in the plural in order to throw an entire group of people together like they all have the same thought that you do.
He’s the most criticized basketball star since Wilt Chamberlain, blessed and cursed by his immense physical advantages. Maybe that’s what happens when you blend the best of Magic, Mailman and Scottie into one frightening 270-pound package, only if that human had an unstoppable motor and Bird’s DNA.
There is no Scottie Pippen, just the replicant clone of Michael Jordan. Remember?
But you know what he can’t do? Play basketball at an insanely high level without the right teammates.
He has this in common with EVERY OTHER NBA PLAYER FROM THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE.
At this point, his résumé is unassailable: He could retire tomorrow as one of the best seven players ever.
I can't wait for the 5000 word essay from Bill on where LeBron is on his Pyramid of Basketball or whatever the hell that thing was in his "Book of Basketball."
I'm kidding of course. I can wait.
We always point to his physical gifts, but none other than Paul George recently called him the league’s smartest player. Think about THAT for a second.
You are going to have to give me a few hours. I have a small brain that hasn't watched an NBA game with the NBA Countdown crew, so I can't process information as quickly as you can.
Then Bill re-writes the LeBron "I'm Coming Home" magazine article with the "I'm a genius" bullshit and it's as bad as you can imagine. In fact, it ends like this:
I want to use all of my skills. I am Magic and Larry and Barkley and Malone in the same body. I am an artist. That’s what I am.
Apparently LeBron writes like he's Popeye.
I have caught LeBron in person maybe 50 times.
(Bengoodfella dies, his life now complete knowing how many times Bill has caught LeBron in person)
My favorite night happened in Game 4 of this year’s Eastern Conference finals against Indiana, right after Lance Stephenson stupidly challenged him. LeBron said he didn’t take Lance’s buffoonery personally, only we knew that he did.
Oh, "we" totally knew.
His numbers weren’t mind-blowing: just 29 points and nine rebounds through three quarters. But he dominated the proceedings in every conceivable way. You never forgot he was out there, not for a second. He made the correct basketball decision every time, even something as simple as “I should push the pace right here” or “I’m just gonna assume that Norris Cole is in the left corner even if I can’t see him, so I’m going to throw a 50-foot pass over my head to that spot and hope he catches it.”
LeBron had two turnovers so it seems he didn't make the correct basketball decision every time. Sorry, hyperbole on...
During the third quarter, I texted a friend that “this was an all-time non-signature signature game, he’s made like 13 incredible plays.” Almost on cue, the man made two more, including an insane full-court push that finished with a reverse dunk in traffic.
Because Bill KNEW LeBron was having a non-signature signature game. This anecdotal evidence proves it as true. What an all-time non-signature signature observation by Bill Simmons.
LeBron loves playing at home — loves seeing the arena covered in white,
If LeBron likes to see white in his home arena, he should have signed with Boston then.
He’s been great at basketball for years and years, but now he’d figured out the sport itself. He reached that final level. This was art. This was genius plus performance.
It seems Bill has been hitting those hyperbole classes at ESPN hard lately. This column is the most hyperbolic column I have ever read in my entire life and probably the most hyperbolic column ever written. It's like Bill has reached that final level. His hyperbole is art now. This is bullshit plus space filler.
In an underrated movie called Six Degrees of Separation, Will Smith plays a scam artist who infiltrates the lives of four different wealthy families in Manhattan.
Since this movie is underrated, what is the proper rating for this movie? I'm just wondering. It's based on a Pulitzer Prize winning play, Stockard Channing was nominated for an Oscar for her performance, and it has a 88% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I would just like to know how it was underrated or the criteria Bill has used to come to this conclusion.
But as long as LeBron could keep cooking those Will Smith meals, Miami would be fine. Or so we thought. His Game 4 meal was a thing of beauty. He brought out the Magic course, the Jordan course and the Pippen course, even throwing in Bird and Barkley appetizers for good measure.
Charles Barkley doesn't do appetizers. Come on Bill, you know that about Charles. I would think you spend so much time looking up at him and TNT in the NBA pregame show ratings you would have studied Barkley enough to know he does buffets, not appetizers.
Who could have guessed that LeBron had only seven Miami games left?
There were a few people who guessed.
I thought they were headed for a three-peat. I thought LeBron was never leaving Miami. I couldn’t see the things that he saw.
Well, he is a genius, so...
I watched Game 4 from our NBA Countdown set, sitting on the metal steps, and at one point, I emailed an NBA Entertainment friend asking if their photographer could snap a picture. I thought it could be a cool photo — me wearing a blue suit, surrounded by happy Heat fans dressed in white, the Celtics fan trapped in enemy territory, all of us watching someone at the peak of their powers. I just wanted to have it for 30 years from now. I know that sounds sappy, but that’s how I felt.
The truth is, I didn’t know when this would be happening again. And I still don’t.
Based on this column, it seems this will be happening again this very upcoming 14/15 NBA season. After all, LeBron has:
He’s been great at basketball for years and years, but now he’d figured out the sport itself. He reached that final level. This was art. This was genius plus performance.
LeBron has figured out basketball, so this upcoming season Bill can watch LeBron in Cleveland while he is at the peak of his powers. I mean, right? Isn't that the point of this column? LeBron is a genius and he's figured basketball out. He isn't retiring and isn't on the wrong side of 30, so he still is at the peak of his powers for a few more years. So when NBA Countdown inevitably comes to Cleveland for a playoff game, this moment can happen again.
Magic and Bird were done before I graduated college. Jordan came and went before I turned 30. Duncan, Kobe, Hakeem and Shaq never quite got there — all of them were great, but they were never GREAT.
Oh man, I'm not even touching this right now other than to say I completely disagree in every way possible. Wasn't it just a few weeks ago that Bill stated if any NBA player could have another player's career that it would be Duncan's career? Now Bill states that Duncan wasn't GREAT. As for Kobe and Shaq, Bill must not remember the late 1990's and early 2000's. Shaq was the dominant force in the NBA.
After him, you’re looking at Anthony Davis — someone with an infinitely better chance of becoming the next Duncan than a basketball genius — and there’s nobody on the immediate horizon. This might be it for a while.
It also helps the Bill Simmons is completely making this "basketball genius" shit up based on subjective criteria that he determines. So it's hard to argue with him too much without turning into a crazy person.
So yeah, I wanted a picture. Shoot me. I was there for Larry. I was there for Magic. I was there for Michael. And I was there for LeBron James. Now he’s bringing his genius back to Cleveland.
And "we" had no idea that LeBron was a basketball genius!
It’s the right move at the right time for the right guy. This will be fun.
So in summary, the Cavaliers don't deserve the #1 overall pick three out of four years because they have mismanaged their roster in Bill's opinion, but they totally deserve to sign the best active NBA player and one of the four basketball geniuses that have ever played in the NBA. It's almost like he makes this stuff up as he goes along.
Yeah, I read LeBron James’s classy letter in Sports Illustrated. I believe him.
Rest easy now, LeBron! Bill Simmons believes you. I know this is a load off your conscience.
In the summer of 2010, LeBron handled everything wrong. He knows that now. His hometown turned on him. His former owner excoriated him. Everyone else hated what he did.
No, "everyone" didn't hate what he did. I didn't hate what he did. He chose his team and did it in a poor fashion, but I'm pretty sure Miami Heat fans didn't hate it.
We turned him into a wrestling heel, pushed him to a dark place, affected his personality, planted seeds of doubt that blossomed like a black rose during the 2011 Finals.
"WE" did this. Not the media, not Bill, but "WE" did this. I hope we are proud of ourselves.
But he never forgot what happened, and deep down, he probably always wanted to atone. When the time arrived this summer, he flipped the script on us.
"US" got the script flipped on us. We did. Consider the script to have been flipped. Hope you can read backwards, planet Earth!
Those four Miami seasons made me sure of one thing: He’s one of the greatest NBA players ever.
Write it down on a tablet, because it's now official. Congratulations on getting your very own chapter in the "Book of Basketball Part 2," LeBron James. You have moved up in Bill's arbitrary rankings.
Add everything up and it’s the best possible story. He’s the conquering hero who came home, and, hopefully, will conquer again.
It’s also not entirely accurate. I think LeBron would have stayed in Miami — for at least one or two more years — if he truly believed he had a chance to keep winning there.
So what about the story isn't accurate? LeBron came home, he stated he wanted to come home and so he did. In fact, Bill said this a couple of paragraphs earlier in this column:
I think he wanted to come home. I think he always wanted to come home.
It turns out now that Bill's own statement isn't entirely accurate. You know what that means, right? WE are wrong about LeBron wanting to come home.
If you think of him like a genius, it makes more sense.
Here's the part where Bill Simmons writes thousands of more words than he has to in order to push out a column and overcomplicate an issue. Simply stating that LeBron chose where he thought he could win doesn't make for a great column, so Bill has to go off on a long tangent about how LeBron is a genius and that's why he chose the Cavaliers over the Heat. Sure, this whole part of the column could be summed up by writing, "LeBron didn't think he had a chance to win long-term in Miami, so he chose to go back to Cleveland," but that doesn't make Bill feel like he's smart and overcomplicate an issue in order to kill space.
He’s smarter about basketball than you and me, and, really, anyone else. He sees things that we can’t see. During that last Miami season, I don’t think he liked what he saw from his teammates. LeBron James wanted to come back to Cleveland, but he also wanted to flee Miami.
I think anyone who saw the NBA Finals understood Wade wasn't exactly at the peak of his career and Bosh is still a very good NBA player, but the Heat had to do better at putting a supporting cast around LeBron. It didn't take a genius to see this. So LeBron is much smarter about basketball than Bill and me, but what I saw from LeBron's teammates were that he had to work hard to carry the team at times. Anyone watching the games could see it wasn't sustainable.
And his brain works like very few brains — not just now, but ever.
Bill is really, really overcomplicating things here. Cleveland had a good, young core on their rookie contracts, while Miami was getting older. LeBron chose to take a step back rather than ride out his time in Miami and hope they could put a good team around him.
Do you think Michael Jordan was a genius?”
I asked Doug Collins that question during the 2014 NBA Finals, on the afternoon of Game 3, hours before San Antonio transformed into some crazy hybrid of Russell’s Celtics, Walton’s Blazers and Bradley’s Knicks. We were eating lunch at our hotel’s pool, flanked by the radiantly blue ocean off Brickell Key, talking hoops, because that’s what you do when you’re around Doug.
Ah yes, it is the "Stories about the NBA Countdown Crew" section of Bill's column. It has become a staple along with "Throw up a YouTube video to kill space" and "Here's a Half-Assed Theory" whenever Bill writes a column.
The man has enough stories for three books, but too much respect for the game, and for the relationships he has cultivated over the years, to ever actually write one.
Meanwhile Bill doesn't give a shit about the game or his relationships, he just wants money and fame, which is why he was going to write a book with Steve Nash about his time in the NBA. I'm not blaming him. Money is great. Just pointing this out.
Fourteen years later, he started coaching Michael Jordan — someone who collected more ripped-out hearts than anyone. Do you think Michael Jordan was a genius? I barely got the words out of my mouth.
And Bill had not spoken for a full ten minutes, so he was really pissed off Doug Collins barely let him finish the sentence.
“Oh yes,” Collins said. “There’s no question.”
What did Bill expect Collins to say? "No, Jordan was a dumbass"?
If he sensed that a particular teammate would fail him, he’d gesture to Collins to remove that person from the game. All these years later, Collins delights in imitating how Jordan did it — by making eye contact with his coach, glancing toward the offending teammate, then unleashing one of those “Get him the F out of here” grimaces. Almost always, his instincts were right.
Of course prior to Michael Jordan being the super-winner that he ended up being, teammates found this behavior annoying and there was a book called "The Jordan Rules" by Sam Smith that detailed how Jordan would often try to fight and mentally tear down his teammates. So while Jordan's instincts were right, he wasn't quite the genius under Doug Collins he is played up to be.
Michael Jordan was an excellent basketball player who had a feel for how to play the game and was a genius in terms of understanding basketball. He had the experience, instincts and the knowledge required to be considered a genius in his field of sport. Great basketball players (or anyone who is an expert in his respective field) are geniuses compared to others who play the game of basketball that aren't professionals (or an expert in his/her respective field).
Of course, the greatest sequence of Jordan’s career didn’t involve teammates: Game 6 of the 1998 Finals, 41.9 seconds remaining, Chicago trailing by three. Pippen inbounded the ball at half court, and after that, nobody on Chicago touched it again. Jordan ripped through Utah’s defense for a floating layup, swiped the ball from Karl Malone like he was snatching a purse, then drained the title-winning jumper in Bryon Russell’s mug. It wasn’t just the storybook ending that made it so unforgettable, or even Jordan’s incomparable brilliance, but how premeditated everything seemed. There was something genuinely spooky about it.
It's like Jordan was intentionally trying to score points in order to win the game and he was attempting to score these points as quickly as possible because there was less than a minute left in the contest. It's eerie how Jordan knew the Bulls were losing and his team had to score points at a faster pace. Was Jordan's ability to score points based on the premeditated decision to win the game or is there something innate in him that encourages him to win games during the NBA Finals?
I watched Jordan play in person, many times, at various stages of his career.
But never from the makeshift NBA Countdown set with the small television, so Bill never really WATCHED Jordan play in person.
when the Bulls occasionally rolled through Boston and eviscerated the carcass of Celtic Pride. One particular night, we turned on the locals and started cheering what we were watching. It didn’t happen because we were selling out, but because we had witnessed a special kind of greatness during the Bird Era. We knew what it meant. We knew how fragile it was. We missed seeing it.
Hey, it's a story about the Celtics and their fans. Remember when this column was about LeBron James coming back to Cleveland? As usual, every Bill Simmons column about the NBA is really about the Boston Celtics and their fans. In this case, it's not that the Celtics fans were selling out, it's just they are so much smarter than any other NBA fans only they could appreciate the greatness that was Michael Jordan. No other fans understood what it meant to see greatness because they didn't go through the Bird Era. Could Bill be more insufferable?
Pippen moved like Michael, saw the court like Michael, jumped passing lanes like Michael and blended with Michael’s game like a non-identical twin. It was crazy. I will never forget watching it for the rest of my life. Bird and Magic were genuises, too, but shit, they never figured out how to replicate themselves.
Yes, but shit, Bird and Magic didn't replicate themselves like Jordan did. Probably because there aren't too many 6'9" point guards out there nor are there basketball players with the high basketball IQ that Bird had. But Pippen was a replicant of Michael Jordan. The same thing, no differences, as long as you don't count all the differences between them.
For that reason and many others, I am never seeing a better basketball player than Michael Jordan.
I mean, shit, he replicated himself and all. That's some high-end science stuff right there.
“I was there,” Doug Collins will tell you. “We need to stop comparing people to Michael. We are NEVER seeing that again.”
Bill Simmons will now indeed start comparing LeBron to Jordan by stating they are both geniuses. Not basketball geniuses, but just geniuses overall.
From December 1990 through the 1998 Finals, not including his baseball sabbatical, the Chicago Bulls never lost three straight games with Jordan. Given the unforgiving NBA schedule, nonstop travel and general wear and tear, that’s basically impossible. But it happened. The man hated losing THAT much. Either he brought the best out of a teammate or he dumped that teammate like a showrunner killing off a struggling character.
This doesn't make him a genius. It makes him a very good basketball player who brought out the best in his teammates. Intelligence doesn't translate to winning games or else the Ivy League would have won quite a few NCAA Tournament titles over the last 20 years.
Still, that was an exclusive genius — Jordan couldn’t transfer those gifts to others, with Pippen the lone exception.
Yeah, but Jordan replicated himself through Pippen. It wasn't a direct translation of skills but a replication of skills. It's a totally different scientific process.
Bird and Magic went the other way — if they made their teammates better, it gave them a better chance to win. Like Jordan, they were basketball savants who possessed a supernatural feel for what should happen collectively on every play, as if they had already studied the play’s blueprint and come up with a plan of attack.
Yeah, Larry Bird was great. Unfortunately this article is about LeBron James, so maybe we should either write about LeBron James or get to the fucking point quickly. Sound good?
Bird’s first Celtics coach, Bill Fitch, affectionately nicknamed Bird “Kodak,” explaining to a writer that Bird’s “mind is constantly taking pictures of the whole court.” You could have said that about Magic, too. That’s what made them such devastating passers; they always knew where every teammate would be.
Yep, Bird and Magic were great. Of course it's easy to trust your teammates and make them better when you have teammates you can trust to be in the right spot at the right time. Kareem, Robert Parish, Kevin McHale, James Worthy, Danny Ainge, Dennis Johnson, Bill Walton, Michael Cooper, and Mychal Thompson could be counted on to be on the right spot at the right time. Luc Longley, Will Perdue, and Craig Hodges? Not quite as much. It's almost like there are different methods to achieve the goal of winning, but that can't be true, can it? How could Bill waste space if his point was capable of being made in just a few sentences?
Bird learned how to fully harness “it” during the 1984-85 season; for Magic, “it” didn’t happen until two seasons later. And here’s what “it” is. Each guy could assess any basketball game — in the moment, on the fly — and determine exactly what his team needed.
It's halfway through this article and Bill still hasn't gotten to the point about LeBron James and why God loves Cleveland. He is so out of ideas that even when he is inspired to write a column, he is only inspired to write a short column and has to fill the rest of the column in with rambling around about topics ancillary to his intended topic.
That seems simple, right? It’s impossible.
You need to understand every strength and weakness of your teammates.
You need to realize that you can’t dominate every game, that your teammates have to shine occasionally — if only because it enables them and allows you to count on them later. You can make that concession because you know, deep down, that you can take over whenever you want.
You need to be so good, so talented, so ridiculously dominant, that you don’t even think about it anymore. It’s almost like breathing.
And you need to embrace the performance aspects of what you’re doing.
You’re not just playing basketball anymore. You’re an artist. You’re creating something that you want people to remember. Every arena is filled with people who may not have seen you before. On the road, you love silence. That’s your favorite sound. You want to hear cheering and yelling, you want to hear the panic, and then, you want nothing. Just a sound vacuum other than your teammates yelling and screaming. You want them dejectedly filing out of their arena, feeling like someone just hit them with a wrecking ball. You want them muttering that you’re the best player they ever saw, and that they have absolutely no idea how to stop you. That’s your goal on the road.
I include this portion of the column because I want you, the reader of this blog, to know what I have to wade through when covering a Bill Simmons column. If you are not reading the column I link, then you are probably a smart person. That's my point. This is just a bunch of space killer.
Collins told me a fantastic Bird story once.
I ask this despite the fact this column should obviously be about Larry Bird since it is about Larry Bird, but has Doug Collins ever told you a fantastic LeBron James story? If so, I think it would fit in this column supposedly about why God loves Cleveland in regard to LeBron James signing with the Cavaliers as a free agent.
In Chicago, Bird was feeling ornery because the Bulls had screwed up his complimentary tickets. He noticed Collins on the sideline, complained about the tickets and asked him what the “house record” was. Then he vowed to break it. Uh-oh.
I'm guessing Bill models his childish temper tantrums over fairly irrelevant matters after Larry Bird as well.
You don’t get the nickname “Larry Legend” because of Game 7s, you get it because you brought it on those random November nights in Chicago because someone messed up your tickets. That’s a very specific kind of art, a genius crafting his performance with anger and competitive drive. That’s the final level of basketball. And when you get there, it’s not just about titles anymore.
(Falls asleep at the keyboard realizing it's over halfway through this column and Bill is still introducing the topic)
So what about this? What if LeBron James cared about making everything right in Ohio … but he also cared about protecting his ceiling as an artist? He couldn’t create what he wanted to create in Miami.
The replication machine that Michael Jordan used to replicate himself is only available in the Midwest, so obviously LeBron had to go back to Cleveland to take advantage of this. LeBron is an artist and the only cure for improving his portraits was finding more talented brushes.
This had quietly become 2009 and 2010 all over again — LeBron stuck on the wrong team, with the wrong teammates, being asked to do too much like he has been throughout his career.
This had not quietly happened. In fact, Bill wrote article (after the season was over, granted) about how Wade was declining and Bosh was becoming Sam Perkins. I think anyone who viewed the NBA Finals saw the burden being placed on LeBron. If he didn't perform well, the Heat struggled.
During Game 5 of the 2014 Finals, something happened that few people noticed because San Antonio played so wonderfully. Trailing by seven after halftime, LeBron came out for the third quarter and wouldn’t shoot. Every pass was sent with a little extra zip, as if he were telling Micky Arison and Pat Riley, here’s the team you stuck me with.
I'm going to need a chart explaining when it is fine for LeBron James to start giving up on his team. When he was with the Cavaliers and mailed in a playoff game then he was a bad person who only cared about himself, but when he's mailing it in while playing for the Heat, he's just sending a message to management that he needs better teammates...despite the fact he went to Miami from Cleveland originally for the reason that he would have better teammates. So please, I need the chart showing when LeBron is being an asshole by not playing up to his ability or when he is justified to not play up to his ability in order to prove a point.
Watching it in person, you could tell he was tired and pissed, but you couldn’t tell if it was because the season was slipping away … or because of something deeper.
I love this "watching it in person" crap Bill throws in now that he is on NBA Countdown. Funny how he sees things that no one else can see because he's watching the game in person. Of course, this doesn't mean his observations about the NBA, as seen through the television over his previous 40 years are any less insightful of course. He's still preaching the truthful gospel when he can't attend a game, but he wants his readers to give extra weight to the observations he makes while watching a game in person. Because, he's there.
Midway through the fourth quarter, trailing by 18, he missed a 3 and didn’t even run back on defense. The man was totally spent, mentally and physically. He had given everything he could give.
If LeBron didn't run back on defense when he was with Cleveland then he was a quitter who had given up on his teammates. In this situation with the Heat, he was completely justified. He was just spent, not being an asshole.
When he signed with Miami in 2010, I wrote that LeBron copped out, that he joined forces with Wade over doing the honorable thing and trying to defeat him. But the more I watched LeBron and the more stories I read about him, the more I wondered if something more organic had driven that decision.
You are going to love this. Rather than just write, "I was wrong" like any normal, non-ego driven writer who can't stand the thought of being wrong would do, Bill throws another half-assed theory out there to cover up for his original half-assed theory that was eventually proven incorrect. Bill wasn't wrong, he just wasn't as right as he is now.
What if LeBron was a genius like Bird and Magic?
What if he KNEW he was a genius?
I never thought about that, mostly because I don't make things up and then believe I discovered something deeper than I really have in overcomplicating an issue, but I didn't think of this. What if LeBron James knew he was a genius? What if he had never told anyone this, but he KNEW he was one of the great NBA players of all-time. How did "we" not see that LeBron James is good at basketball?
What if he was searching for some basketball version of the Holy Grail, some higher state of being, a level of basketball that he couldn’t find in Cleveland?
You mean like win an NBA Title? That's exactly why LeBron left Cleveland, to win an NBA Title. So there is no "what if" in this situation. It was pretty standard knowledge that LeBron left to find something he didn't think he could find in Cleveland. As usual, Bill overcomplicates an issue in order to confuse his lemming-like readers into believing he is saying something of substance that has any originality.
What if those nights during that first season when Wade (still at the peak of his powers) and LeBron (hitting his prime of primes) would take off after a rebound and unleash the most devastating two-on-one fast breaks we’ve ever seen in our lives … what if THAT was what LeBron really cared about, just playing hoops with someone who saw the game the way he did?
Oh my gentle Jesus. This is exactly why LeBron left Cleveland. He left to play with talented players who he believed could win him the NBA Title he so desperately wanted to win. He played with Bosh and Wade on the Olympic team and thought they would be a good fit together.
I think Bill Simmons truly believes he is spitting out some sort of knowledge here, but he's simply summarizing in more hyperbolic words why LeBron left Cleveland to go to Miami in the first place. He wanted to play with guys who saw the game the way he did so they could complement each other. I mean, this is really, really basic information, no matter how much Bill tries to pretend it isn't.
We never talk about his brain enough. Somehow we talk about everything else, but not that.
Maybe "we" should talk about his brain more while "we" are on national television talking about LeBron James. I know "we" always forget.
Bill's use of "us," "we", and any other term used to lump a large group of people together is annoying. There's no way getting around it. Stop using words in the plural in order to throw an entire group of people together like they all have the same thought that you do.
He’s the most criticized basketball star since Wilt Chamberlain, blessed and cursed by his immense physical advantages. Maybe that’s what happens when you blend the best of Magic, Mailman and Scottie into one frightening 270-pound package, only if that human had an unstoppable motor and Bird’s DNA.
There is no Scottie Pippen, just the replicant clone of Michael Jordan. Remember?
But you know what he can’t do? Play basketball at an insanely high level without the right teammates.
He has this in common with EVERY OTHER NBA PLAYER FROM THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE.
At this point, his résumé is unassailable: He could retire tomorrow as one of the best seven players ever.
I can't wait for the 5000 word essay from Bill on where LeBron is on his Pyramid of Basketball or whatever the hell that thing was in his "Book of Basketball."
I'm kidding of course. I can wait.
We always point to his physical gifts, but none other than Paul George recently called him the league’s smartest player. Think about THAT for a second.
You are going to have to give me a few hours. I have a small brain that hasn't watched an NBA game with the NBA Countdown crew, so I can't process information as quickly as you can.
Then Bill re-writes the LeBron "I'm Coming Home" magazine article with the "I'm a genius" bullshit and it's as bad as you can imagine. In fact, it ends like this:
I want to use all of my skills. I am Magic and Larry and Barkley and Malone in the same body. I am an artist. That’s what I am.
Apparently LeBron writes like he's Popeye.
I have caught LeBron in person maybe 50 times.
(Bengoodfella dies, his life now complete knowing how many times Bill has caught LeBron in person)
My favorite night happened in Game 4 of this year’s Eastern Conference finals against Indiana, right after Lance Stephenson stupidly challenged him. LeBron said he didn’t take Lance’s buffoonery personally, only we knew that he did.
Oh, "we" totally knew.
His numbers weren’t mind-blowing: just 29 points and nine rebounds through three quarters. But he dominated the proceedings in every conceivable way. You never forgot he was out there, not for a second. He made the correct basketball decision every time, even something as simple as “I should push the pace right here” or “I’m just gonna assume that Norris Cole is in the left corner even if I can’t see him, so I’m going to throw a 50-foot pass over my head to that spot and hope he catches it.”
LeBron had two turnovers so it seems he didn't make the correct basketball decision every time. Sorry, hyperbole on...
During the third quarter, I texted a friend that “this was an all-time non-signature signature game, he’s made like 13 incredible plays.” Almost on cue, the man made two more, including an insane full-court push that finished with a reverse dunk in traffic.
Because Bill KNEW LeBron was having a non-signature signature game. This anecdotal evidence proves it as true. What an all-time non-signature signature observation by Bill Simmons.
LeBron loves playing at home — loves seeing the arena covered in white,
If LeBron likes to see white in his home arena, he should have signed with Boston then.
He’s been great at basketball for years and years, but now he’d figured out the sport itself. He reached that final level. This was art. This was genius plus performance.
It seems Bill has been hitting those hyperbole classes at ESPN hard lately. This column is the most hyperbolic column I have ever read in my entire life and probably the most hyperbolic column ever written. It's like Bill has reached that final level. His hyperbole is art now. This is bullshit plus space filler.
In an underrated movie called Six Degrees of Separation, Will Smith plays a scam artist who infiltrates the lives of four different wealthy families in Manhattan.
Since this movie is underrated, what is the proper rating for this movie? I'm just wondering. It's based on a Pulitzer Prize winning play, Stockard Channing was nominated for an Oscar for her performance, and it has a 88% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I would just like to know how it was underrated or the criteria Bill has used to come to this conclusion.
But as long as LeBron could keep cooking those Will Smith meals, Miami would be fine. Or so we thought. His Game 4 meal was a thing of beauty. He brought out the Magic course, the Jordan course and the Pippen course, even throwing in Bird and Barkley appetizers for good measure.
Charles Barkley doesn't do appetizers. Come on Bill, you know that about Charles. I would think you spend so much time looking up at him and TNT in the NBA pregame show ratings you would have studied Barkley enough to know he does buffets, not appetizers.
Who could have guessed that LeBron had only seven Miami games left?
There were a few people who guessed.
I thought they were headed for a three-peat. I thought LeBron was never leaving Miami. I couldn’t see the things that he saw.
Well, he is a genius, so...
I watched Game 4 from our NBA Countdown set, sitting on the metal steps, and at one point, I emailed an NBA Entertainment friend asking if their photographer could snap a picture. I thought it could be a cool photo — me wearing a blue suit, surrounded by happy Heat fans dressed in white, the Celtics fan trapped in enemy territory, all of us watching someone at the peak of their powers. I just wanted to have it for 30 years from now. I know that sounds sappy, but that’s how I felt.
The truth is, I didn’t know when this would be happening again. And I still don’t.
Based on this column, it seems this will be happening again this very upcoming 14/15 NBA season. After all, LeBron has:
He’s been great at basketball for years and years, but now he’d figured out the sport itself. He reached that final level. This was art. This was genius plus performance.
LeBron has figured out basketball, so this upcoming season Bill can watch LeBron in Cleveland while he is at the peak of his powers. I mean, right? Isn't that the point of this column? LeBron is a genius and he's figured basketball out. He isn't retiring and isn't on the wrong side of 30, so he still is at the peak of his powers for a few more years. So when NBA Countdown inevitably comes to Cleveland for a playoff game, this moment can happen again.
Magic and Bird were done before I graduated college. Jordan came and went before I turned 30. Duncan, Kobe, Hakeem and Shaq never quite got there — all of them were great, but they were never GREAT.
Oh man, I'm not even touching this right now other than to say I completely disagree in every way possible. Wasn't it just a few weeks ago that Bill stated if any NBA player could have another player's career that it would be Duncan's career? Now Bill states that Duncan wasn't GREAT. As for Kobe and Shaq, Bill must not remember the late 1990's and early 2000's. Shaq was the dominant force in the NBA.
After him, you’re looking at Anthony Davis — someone with an infinitely better chance of becoming the next Duncan than a basketball genius — and there’s nobody on the immediate horizon. This might be it for a while.
It also helps the Bill Simmons is completely making this "basketball genius" shit up based on subjective criteria that he determines. So it's hard to argue with him too much without turning into a crazy person.
So yeah, I wanted a picture. Shoot me. I was there for Larry. I was there for Magic. I was there for Michael. And I was there for LeBron James. Now he’s bringing his genius back to Cleveland.
And "we" had no idea that LeBron was a basketball genius!
It’s the right move at the right time for the right guy. This will be fun.
So in summary, the Cavaliers don't deserve the #1 overall pick three out of four years because they have mismanaged their roster in Bill's opinion, but they totally deserve to sign the best active NBA player and one of the four basketball geniuses that have ever played in the NBA. It's almost like he makes this stuff up as he goes along.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
4 comments Bruce Jenkins Smells a Conspiracy Surrounding Jason Collins
I kind of figured this was going to happen when Jason Collins came out of the closet back in May. He's currently not employed by an NBA team. His statistics from last season were 1.1 ppg, 1.6 rpg, 0.2 apg, 2.2 fouls per game in 10 mpg. That's right, if Collins played a full 48 minute game he would be on pace for just below 10.5 fouls per game. Also, Collins is 34 years old and will be 35 in December. He's old and unproductive, which isn't a great combination when it comes to wanting to continue an NBA career. Jason Collins is currently unsigned and is a free agent. Bruce Jenkins suggests Collins is unsigned because he is gay. There's no way to know for sure why Collins isn't signed, but even if he had not come out as gay then I would imagine he would have difficulty finding a job in the NBA given his statistics for the 12-13 season.
There was a similar issue recently in the NFL concerning Kerry Rhodes (who has not come out as being gay and it doesn't matter if he is gay...the perception is out there so there will be those who assume he isn't under contract with an NFL team because he is gay) and how he isn't signed by an NFL team. Jason Lisk of the Big Lead did a great job debunking this conspiracy. Rhodes is older, had certain salary demands and Quintin Mikell (a younger and more productive safety) wasn't signed until September. These are three explanations that don't require a lot of reaching to explain Rhodes being a free agent. I think the case with Jason Collins is easier. He's older and unproductive. That's it. Of course Bruce Jenkins sees more than that.
As teams prepare for the opening of training camp next month, time is running out on Jason Collins' chance to become the NBA's first openly gay active player.
If this historic milestone is bypassed, there will be no accountability, no villains, just an opportunity shamefully missed.
I'm torn on this issue. While I understand the importance behind an actively gay player on the court and playing against his fellow NBA players, I also have to wonder if the opportunity hasn't been missed in other ways outside of Jason Collins being on the court. What's wrong with the NBA hiring Jason Collins in a position they can create to foster awareness and help to break down stereotypes about gay athletes? Wouldn't this be beneficial like having Collins on the court as an active player? The NBA would be making a statement by hiring Collins and he could create awareness among all NBA teams as opposed to just creating awareness among the players on his current team and whichever opponent that team is playing on a nightly basis.
So I don't think the opportunity has to be missed. The NBA would have to step in (and we all know the NBA and David Stern has shown itself to be hands-on in the past) and say, "If no one will make Collins an active gay NBA player, then we will hire him." So I don't completely blame NBA teams for the opportunity being missed. It's on the NBA as well. But of course, David Stern is perfect and doesn't make mistakes so I'm completely wrong.
It was widely assumed he'd land somewhere as an unrestricted free agent to continue his career.
Not really. He is old and unproductive. He is excellent at committing fouls though.
Four months later, the wait drags on. The league faces unflattering introspection and a public-relations disaster if Collins goes unsigned. The gay community will not hide its extreme disappointment.
Bruce, I know. Those "gays." Always getting extremely disappointed and going off to cry like gay people do. It's not like any social movement has helped turn a setback into a way to further call attention to the movement's cause and successfully turned a negative into a positive.
And the worst of it is, we won't know exactly why.
Without question, homophobia will be at the core of some teams' rejection.
Yeah, maybe. It could also be the fact Collins is 34 years old and not a very good NBA player. Look at the current free agent list in the NBA. There are younger, more productive centers that haven't been signed by a team yet, so the idea a 34 year old center who averaged just over a point per game last year remains unsigned isn't too shocking. Look at the list and count how many players, even centers, you would take over signing Jason Collins. Professionalism in the locker room can only go so far.
So the idea of an unproductive center still remaining a free agent isn't unheard of. Ask DeSagana Diop. Possibly part of it is a team doesn't want all the publicity they will receive to sign the 11th or 12th man off the bench. Maybe it would be a smart PR move to sign Jason Collins, but it would also bring attention (the fear of the excessive attention is the issue, not the reason behind the attention) for a team to sign a player who will play sparingly. It's possibly not homophobia, but the fear of unwanted attention that could cause NBA teams to shy away from Jason Collins...assuming they would like to sign him as opposed to the other younger, more productive centers on the free agent market.
This is much of the same reason Tim Tebow remains unsigned by an NFL team. It's not because NFL teams don't like him as a person, but it's too much drama around him to justify signing him to be the backup or third-string quarterback.
Fear and prejudice remain evil partners in every aspect of American society, leaving Collins as that brave individual who dares become a pioneer.
This is usually how this type of writing goes. The writer wants to reach a conclusion in order to explain an issue. Unfortunately, that conclusion is one of many possibilities or explanations for that issue, but the writer chooses to go ahead and ignore the other possibilities and then runs off at the keyboard pretending his conclusion is the only real possibility. That's what Bruce Jenkins is doing here. Sure, Collins remaining a free agent could be explained by his lack of productivity and age, but that explanation certainly doesn't help Bruce Jenkins write a column.
It's possible, however, that NBA teams are making judgments based strictly on talent and/or financial restrictions. The league's increasingly oppressive luxury-tax constraints have become a major issue, and because the 34-year-old Collins is of limited value - a defense-and-rebounding presence off the very end of the bench - teams have legitimately addressed their concerns with younger, cheaper, more valuable players.
One thing I love about modern sportswriters are those sportswriters who will write down, in an eloquent and convincing fashion, the opposing point of view. Then the sportswriter will absolutely ignore this opposing point of view and how this point of view is very convincing, while being completely unable to counter this point of view. It's as if Bruce Jenkins thinks because he acknowledges that Collins is expensive and non-productive then his mere mention of these facts is the counter to these facts being the real reason no NBA team has signed Collins. This isn't how it works. To create a strong counter-argument as a writer you actually have to counter the argument you are attempting to refute. Mentioning the opposing point of view and then just moving on only goes to show how weak your argument may be.
The Bay Area is a haven for tolerance and understanding, and team president Rick Welts, one of the league's most respected executives, is the highest-ranking openly gay man in American sports.
The fact that Rick Welts wouldn't sign Jason Collins I think speaks to the real reason Collins hasn't been signed by an NBA team. Sure, Welts would love to support a cause he believes in, but he isn't going to support the cause if it doesn't improve his team.
It's not known how coach Mark Jackson truly felt about adding Collins, given his less-than-jubilant reaction to Collins' announcement: "We live in a country that allows you to be whoever you want to be. As a Christian man, I have beliefs of what's right and what's wrong. That being said, I know Jason Collins. I know his family. And certainly I'm praying for them at this time."
It's absolutely outrageous that Mark Jackson's point of view may not be the same point of view of Bruce Jenkins. How dare Mark Jackson have an opinion that Bruce Jenkins doesn't find to be socially acceptable!
I doubt if Jackson would have blocked the path to progress if it meant improvement on the court.
And herein might lie the answer as to why Jason Collins doesn't have an NBA job. It may not be bigotry or the fear of a homosexual in the locker room, but it very well could be based entirely on performance (or lack thereof).
There's an element of blatant desperation on the big-man front, considering that Miami gambled on Greg Oden - who hasn't played since 2010 in the wake of five major knee surgeries -
Comparing the risk the Heat took on Greg Oden to Jason Collin is very misleading. Greg Oden has the skill set to be a starting center in the NBA and the Heat only took a one year risk on Oden. There is desperation on the big man front, but Oden has a high ceiling if he is able to stay healthy that Jason Collins simply does not have. That's why the Heat signed Oden, because if he is healthy from his knee injuries he provides skills that Jason Collins doesn't possess.
and Houston signed 39-year-old Marcus Camby.
In nearly the same amount of minutes per game, Camby had superior statistics over Jason Collins in nearly ever category. It's close, but Camby was better.
Assuming Collins is in shape - he's been working out regularly in Los Angeles, while avoiding interviews - there's no reason he couldn't help a contending team, and he has long been known as a strong, much-admired presence in the locker room.
I'd love to know from Bruce Jenkins which contending team should sign Jason Collins and would like to know which player this contending team signed instead. I've already established Greg Oden is a much better player than Collins when healthy and Marcus Camby is a slight step-up from Collins for the Rockets. Of course, we don't get an idea from Bruce on which contending team should sign Collins, but he knows one contending should sign him.
But as Collins' Atlanta Hawks went up against Orlando in the first round of the 2011 Eastern Conference playoffs, Collins' work on Dwight Howard was a major story line.
That was almost three years ago when Collins guarded Dwight Howard in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Committing fouls at a rate of 10.5 for every 48 minutes means Jason Collins isn't exactly built to stop Dwight Howard at this present time.
"The key was not just that he limited Howard's points and periodically got him out of the game entirely with his penchant for drawing charging fouls," wrote John Hollinger on ESPN.com, "but that his single coverage took away Orlando's three-point game." Stan Van Gundy, the Magic's coach at the time, called it "the best defense on Howard all year. He didn't even get good shots. Collins is big, he's physical, and he doesn't give Dwight anything easy."
I'm not saying an NBA team should not sign Jason Collins, but stating Collins should be signed by an NBA team because nearly three years ago he played 85 minutes in a six game playoff against Dwight Howard and "held" Howard to 27 ppg and 15 rpg is ridiculous. After all of the positive comments that flowed from Van Gundy and Hollinger about Collins' play during that series, the fact remains that Howard shot almost 15 free throws per game and put up 27 points and 15 rebounds per game in the series. So I'm sure Collins played Howard physically but he in no way shut Howard down.
(Atlanta won the series in six games.)
All because of Jason Collins and that's why three years later it is mystifying no NBA team has signed him?
It seems imperative that Collins sign before the start of the season, as a full-time roster member. Teams signing him to a 10-day, midseason contract would only become vulnerable to nasty speculation if the arrangement didn't work out. And it certainly doesn't help that a couple of teams (Detroit and New Jersey) were interested, according to published reports, only to back off.
It's not just on NBA teams to sign Collins, the NBA could offer him a position within the NBA if they chose to do that. Maybe the NBA has done this, I don't know, but there are other ways for an openly gay player to make an impact on athletics despite not being an active player. I don't know why Jason Collins isn't signed, but his performance on the court certainly gives an indication part (or all) of the reason is performance-based.
This is David Stern's final season, certain to be all about his legacy and contributions to the game. Employing an openly gay man would mark a signature stroke, never to lose its impact.
Then David Stern should offer Jason Collins a job with the NBA. Help foster awareness and make sure there is an openly gay NBA employee if there can't be an openly gay NBA player.
There's no way of knowing if there is a conspiracy to keep Jason Collins off an NBA roster as an active player, but taking a look at Collins' statistics and age certainly gives a good indication as to why teams may not be banging down the door to sign him.
There was a similar issue recently in the NFL concerning Kerry Rhodes (who has not come out as being gay and it doesn't matter if he is gay...the perception is out there so there will be those who assume he isn't under contract with an NFL team because he is gay) and how he isn't signed by an NFL team. Jason Lisk of the Big Lead did a great job debunking this conspiracy. Rhodes is older, had certain salary demands and Quintin Mikell (a younger and more productive safety) wasn't signed until September. These are three explanations that don't require a lot of reaching to explain Rhodes being a free agent. I think the case with Jason Collins is easier. He's older and unproductive. That's it. Of course Bruce Jenkins sees more than that.
As teams prepare for the opening of training camp next month, time is running out on Jason Collins' chance to become the NBA's first openly gay active player.
If this historic milestone is bypassed, there will be no accountability, no villains, just an opportunity shamefully missed.
I'm torn on this issue. While I understand the importance behind an actively gay player on the court and playing against his fellow NBA players, I also have to wonder if the opportunity hasn't been missed in other ways outside of Jason Collins being on the court. What's wrong with the NBA hiring Jason Collins in a position they can create to foster awareness and help to break down stereotypes about gay athletes? Wouldn't this be beneficial like having Collins on the court as an active player? The NBA would be making a statement by hiring Collins and he could create awareness among all NBA teams as opposed to just creating awareness among the players on his current team and whichever opponent that team is playing on a nightly basis.
So I don't think the opportunity has to be missed. The NBA would have to step in (and we all know the NBA and David Stern has shown itself to be hands-on in the past) and say, "If no one will make Collins an active gay NBA player, then we will hire him." So I don't completely blame NBA teams for the opportunity being missed. It's on the NBA as well. But of course, David Stern is perfect and doesn't make mistakes so I'm completely wrong.
It was widely assumed he'd land somewhere as an unrestricted free agent to continue his career.
Not really. He is old and unproductive. He is excellent at committing fouls though.
Four months later, the wait drags on. The league faces unflattering introspection and a public-relations disaster if Collins goes unsigned. The gay community will not hide its extreme disappointment.
Bruce, I know. Those "gays." Always getting extremely disappointed and going off to cry like gay people do. It's not like any social movement has helped turn a setback into a way to further call attention to the movement's cause and successfully turned a negative into a positive.
And the worst of it is, we won't know exactly why.
Without question, homophobia will be at the core of some teams' rejection.
Yeah, maybe. It could also be the fact Collins is 34 years old and not a very good NBA player. Look at the current free agent list in the NBA. There are younger, more productive centers that haven't been signed by a team yet, so the idea a 34 year old center who averaged just over a point per game last year remains unsigned isn't too shocking. Look at the list and count how many players, even centers, you would take over signing Jason Collins. Professionalism in the locker room can only go so far.
So the idea of an unproductive center still remaining a free agent isn't unheard of. Ask DeSagana Diop. Possibly part of it is a team doesn't want all the publicity they will receive to sign the 11th or 12th man off the bench. Maybe it would be a smart PR move to sign Jason Collins, but it would also bring attention (the fear of the excessive attention is the issue, not the reason behind the attention) for a team to sign a player who will play sparingly. It's possibly not homophobia, but the fear of unwanted attention that could cause NBA teams to shy away from Jason Collins...assuming they would like to sign him as opposed to the other younger, more productive centers on the free agent market.
This is much of the same reason Tim Tebow remains unsigned by an NFL team. It's not because NFL teams don't like him as a person, but it's too much drama around him to justify signing him to be the backup or third-string quarterback.
Fear and prejudice remain evil partners in every aspect of American society, leaving Collins as that brave individual who dares become a pioneer.
This is usually how this type of writing goes. The writer wants to reach a conclusion in order to explain an issue. Unfortunately, that conclusion is one of many possibilities or explanations for that issue, but the writer chooses to go ahead and ignore the other possibilities and then runs off at the keyboard pretending his conclusion is the only real possibility. That's what Bruce Jenkins is doing here. Sure, Collins remaining a free agent could be explained by his lack of productivity and age, but that explanation certainly doesn't help Bruce Jenkins write a column.
It's possible, however, that NBA teams are making judgments based strictly on talent and/or financial restrictions. The league's increasingly oppressive luxury-tax constraints have become a major issue, and because the 34-year-old Collins is of limited value - a defense-and-rebounding presence off the very end of the bench - teams have legitimately addressed their concerns with younger, cheaper, more valuable players.
One thing I love about modern sportswriters are those sportswriters who will write down, in an eloquent and convincing fashion, the opposing point of view. Then the sportswriter will absolutely ignore this opposing point of view and how this point of view is very convincing, while being completely unable to counter this point of view. It's as if Bruce Jenkins thinks because he acknowledges that Collins is expensive and non-productive then his mere mention of these facts is the counter to these facts being the real reason no NBA team has signed Collins. This isn't how it works. To create a strong counter-argument as a writer you actually have to counter the argument you are attempting to refute. Mentioning the opposing point of view and then just moving on only goes to show how weak your argument may be.
The Bay Area is a haven for tolerance and understanding, and team president Rick Welts, one of the league's most respected executives, is the highest-ranking openly gay man in American sports.
The fact that Rick Welts wouldn't sign Jason Collins I think speaks to the real reason Collins hasn't been signed by an NBA team. Sure, Welts would love to support a cause he believes in, but he isn't going to support the cause if it doesn't improve his team.
It's not known how coach Mark Jackson truly felt about adding Collins, given his less-than-jubilant reaction to Collins' announcement: "We live in a country that allows you to be whoever you want to be. As a Christian man, I have beliefs of what's right and what's wrong. That being said, I know Jason Collins. I know his family. And certainly I'm praying for them at this time."
It's absolutely outrageous that Mark Jackson's point of view may not be the same point of view of Bruce Jenkins. How dare Mark Jackson have an opinion that Bruce Jenkins doesn't find to be socially acceptable!
I doubt if Jackson would have blocked the path to progress if it meant improvement on the court.
And herein might lie the answer as to why Jason Collins doesn't have an NBA job. It may not be bigotry or the fear of a homosexual in the locker room, but it very well could be based entirely on performance (or lack thereof).
There's an element of blatant desperation on the big-man front, considering that Miami gambled on Greg Oden - who hasn't played since 2010 in the wake of five major knee surgeries -
Comparing the risk the Heat took on Greg Oden to Jason Collin is very misleading. Greg Oden has the skill set to be a starting center in the NBA and the Heat only took a one year risk on Oden. There is desperation on the big man front, but Oden has a high ceiling if he is able to stay healthy that Jason Collins simply does not have. That's why the Heat signed Oden, because if he is healthy from his knee injuries he provides skills that Jason Collins doesn't possess.
and Houston signed 39-year-old Marcus Camby.
In nearly the same amount of minutes per game, Camby had superior statistics over Jason Collins in nearly ever category. It's close, but Camby was better.
Assuming Collins is in shape - he's been working out regularly in Los Angeles, while avoiding interviews - there's no reason he couldn't help a contending team, and he has long been known as a strong, much-admired presence in the locker room.
I'd love to know from Bruce Jenkins which contending team should sign Jason Collins and would like to know which player this contending team signed instead. I've already established Greg Oden is a much better player than Collins when healthy and Marcus Camby is a slight step-up from Collins for the Rockets. Of course, we don't get an idea from Bruce on which contending team should sign Collins, but he knows one contending should sign him.
But as Collins' Atlanta Hawks went up against Orlando in the first round of the 2011 Eastern Conference playoffs, Collins' work on Dwight Howard was a major story line.
That was almost three years ago when Collins guarded Dwight Howard in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Committing fouls at a rate of 10.5 for every 48 minutes means Jason Collins isn't exactly built to stop Dwight Howard at this present time.
"The key was not just that he limited Howard's points and periodically got him out of the game entirely with his penchant for drawing charging fouls," wrote John Hollinger on ESPN.com, "but that his single coverage took away Orlando's three-point game." Stan Van Gundy, the Magic's coach at the time, called it "the best defense on Howard all year. He didn't even get good shots. Collins is big, he's physical, and he doesn't give Dwight anything easy."
I'm not saying an NBA team should not sign Jason Collins, but stating Collins should be signed by an NBA team because nearly three years ago he played 85 minutes in a six game playoff against Dwight Howard and "held" Howard to 27 ppg and 15 rpg is ridiculous. After all of the positive comments that flowed from Van Gundy and Hollinger about Collins' play during that series, the fact remains that Howard shot almost 15 free throws per game and put up 27 points and 15 rebounds per game in the series. So I'm sure Collins played Howard physically but he in no way shut Howard down.
(Atlanta won the series in six games.)
All because of Jason Collins and that's why three years later it is mystifying no NBA team has signed him?
It seems imperative that Collins sign before the start of the season, as a full-time roster member. Teams signing him to a 10-day, midseason contract would only become vulnerable to nasty speculation if the arrangement didn't work out. And it certainly doesn't help that a couple of teams (Detroit and New Jersey) were interested, according to published reports, only to back off.
It's not just on NBA teams to sign Collins, the NBA could offer him a position within the NBA if they chose to do that. Maybe the NBA has done this, I don't know, but there are other ways for an openly gay player to make an impact on athletics despite not being an active player. I don't know why Jason Collins isn't signed, but his performance on the court certainly gives an indication part (or all) of the reason is performance-based.
This is David Stern's final season, certain to be all about his legacy and contributions to the game. Employing an openly gay man would mark a signature stroke, never to lose its impact.
Then David Stern should offer Jason Collins a job with the NBA. Help foster awareness and make sure there is an openly gay NBA employee if there can't be an openly gay NBA player.
There's no way of knowing if there is a conspiracy to keep Jason Collins off an NBA roster as an active player, but taking a look at Collins' statistics and age certainly gives a good indication as to why teams may not be banging down the door to sign him.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
2 comments James Harden Probably Needs a Conservatorship
So I write this post and then James Harden goes to a strip club and "makes it rain." This doesn't change my position, though I am sure this gives Jenni Carlson more ammunition to condescend to James Harden. It is still pretty innocent for a wealthy athlete to go to a strip club and throw money around.
Jenni Carlson of The Oklahoman has decided to condescend to James Harden. She thinks because he likes to party, as exhibited by the one party he threw on a boat, he should probably stay out of a big city once he hits free agency or he will be drawn into the party lifestyle only to realize the error of his ways and change just in time to win the NBA Championship and win over his love interest. Sorry, I may have just outlined the plot of a movie, I'm not completely sure. Jenni thinks the best way to keep Harden in Oklahoma City is to point out to him that he should be treated like a child who can't control his own behavior, so it may be best to play in sleepy little Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (population: 591,967) for the rest of his career. I'm not sure the plan of saying Harden "needs" Oklahoma City is an effective one.
When doing research on Harden and what I had written about him in the past I stumbled across something very interesting. I stumbled on Bill Simmons' 2009 Draft Diary. We all know Bill Simmons loves to tell us when he is right about a player (see: Durant v. Oden), but he isn't so interested in pointing out when he misses on a player. Here's what he had to say about James Harden when he was drafted by the Thunder in 2009:
I like Harden as a glue-character guy and he definitely has a good porn name. But considering the Zombies have to worry about Durant fleeing in a couple of years, wasn't it in their best interests to find him an unselfish guard who's immensely fun to play with and was put on the earth to get Durant easy baskets? Big mistake.
This is what I am often lecturing Simmons about. He doesn't watch enough college basketball to claim to be an expert on Harden. What is James Harden in the NBA? He is an unselfish guard who is fun to play with and can get to the basket to help Durant get easy baskets. He was stuck in a bad offense for his talents at Arizona State. I said so at the time in response to Bill's comment:
Ouch. Bill's lack of college basketball knowledge comes back to bite him in the ass here. James Harden is a great passer and a wonderful teammate. That is actually a weakness that he has, scouts think he is too unselfish and should look for his own shot more. He averaged 4 assists this year and the number would have been higher if Herb Sendek ran an offense that was even halfway amenable to getting good recruits who could make shots. Let's just say if Kevin Durant is Michael Jordan, James Harden is a wonderful Scottie Pippen. The Thunder drafted a shooting guard who is unselfish and immensely fun to play with and will get Durant easy baskets. Harden is no Ricky Rubio, but if you draft Rubio then that pushed Westbrook to the 2 spot, which is not going to work out well. Harden is going to fit in well here.
Then you can read me defending Harden in the comments when an anonymous (I know! Someone who stays anonymous ripped me!) commenter got all sarcastic and shit. I wonder if Bill continues to believe taking Harden over Rubio was a big mistake? I don't think the answer as to which player is a better fit for the Thunder is still up in the air. I think Harden is still a better fit for the Thunder. I also can't judge whether Harden or Rubio are better players in the long run since Rubio has only been in the NBA for one year. I am wrong about a lot of things and I try not to pretend I am smarter than I really am. This was a situation where Bill Simmons was wrong about a player because he watched Harden in the NCAA Tournament and wasn't impressed with him, so he wrote Harden off thinking he knew all he needed to know to make a fair evaluation of Harden's talent.
Anyway, onto Jenni Carlson and her article. I hope this wasn't her intent, but this column seems tone-deaf and makes it seem like James Harden needs someone to watch over him and help him live his life.
Everyone thinks Oklahoma City needs James Harden.
Jenni Carlson of The Oklahoman has decided to condescend to James Harden. She thinks because he likes to party, as exhibited by the one party he threw on a boat, he should probably stay out of a big city once he hits free agency or he will be drawn into the party lifestyle only to realize the error of his ways and change just in time to win the NBA Championship and win over his love interest. Sorry, I may have just outlined the plot of a movie, I'm not completely sure. Jenni thinks the best way to keep Harden in Oklahoma City is to point out to him that he should be treated like a child who can't control his own behavior, so it may be best to play in sleepy little Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (population: 591,967) for the rest of his career. I'm not sure the plan of saying Harden "needs" Oklahoma City is an effective one.
When doing research on Harden and what I had written about him in the past I stumbled across something very interesting. I stumbled on Bill Simmons' 2009 Draft Diary. We all know Bill Simmons loves to tell us when he is right about a player (see: Durant v. Oden), but he isn't so interested in pointing out when he misses on a player. Here's what he had to say about James Harden when he was drafted by the Thunder in 2009:
I like Harden as a glue-character guy and he definitely has a good porn name. But considering the Zombies have to worry about Durant fleeing in a couple of years, wasn't it in their best interests to find him an unselfish guard who's immensely fun to play with and was put on the earth to get Durant easy baskets? Big mistake.
This is what I am often lecturing Simmons about. He doesn't watch enough college basketball to claim to be an expert on Harden. What is James Harden in the NBA? He is an unselfish guard who is fun to play with and can get to the basket to help Durant get easy baskets. He was stuck in a bad offense for his talents at Arizona State. I said so at the time in response to Bill's comment:
Ouch. Bill's lack of college basketball knowledge comes back to bite him in the ass here. James Harden is a great passer and a wonderful teammate. That is actually a weakness that he has, scouts think he is too unselfish and should look for his own shot more. He averaged 4 assists this year and the number would have been higher if Herb Sendek ran an offense that was even halfway amenable to getting good recruits who could make shots. Let's just say if Kevin Durant is Michael Jordan, James Harden is a wonderful Scottie Pippen. The Thunder drafted a shooting guard who is unselfish and immensely fun to play with and will get Durant easy baskets. Harden is no Ricky Rubio, but if you draft Rubio then that pushed Westbrook to the 2 spot, which is not going to work out well. Harden is going to fit in well here.
Then you can read me defending Harden in the comments when an anonymous (I know! Someone who stays anonymous ripped me!) commenter got all sarcastic and shit. I wonder if Bill continues to believe taking Harden over Rubio was a big mistake? I don't think the answer as to which player is a better fit for the Thunder is still up in the air. I think Harden is still a better fit for the Thunder. I also can't judge whether Harden or Rubio are better players in the long run since Rubio has only been in the NBA for one year. I am wrong about a lot of things and I try not to pretend I am smarter than I really am. This was a situation where Bill Simmons was wrong about a player because he watched Harden in the NCAA Tournament and wasn't impressed with him, so he wrote Harden off thinking he knew all he needed to know to make a fair evaluation of Harden's talent.
Anyway, onto Jenni Carlson and her article. I hope this wasn't her intent, but this column seems tone-deaf and makes it seem like James Harden needs someone to watch over him and help him live his life.
Everyone thinks Oklahoma City needs James Harden.
Turns out, it might be the other way around.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
8 comments Quotes from Movies/TV Shows...Bill Simmons...Sports...You Know the Drill by Now, Part 2
Yesterday, in Part 2 of Bill Simmons "Game of Thrones"-NBA postseason article we learned that David Stern made the right move by blocking the Chris Paul-Lakers trade, even if the end didn't justify the means, even though Bill seemed to have no issue with the end in this situation. So the end didn't justify the means, but Bill had no problem with the means or the end. I'm just confused.
In Part 2 Bill comes up with further theories and keeps poking at Mark Cuban out of spite.
After Neil Olshey left for Portland, in classic Don Sterling fashion, the Clips decided against hiring a new general manager — something that, you know, every other team has —
But why don't all NBA teams have a VP of Common Sense? Who says "no" to this?
Fact: The 2012-13 Clippers are better, on paper, then the 2011-12 Clippers.
Even without hiring a VP of Common Sense? I will remember that Bill Simmons said the 12-13 Clippers were better on paper than the 11-12 Clippers in mid-August when the Clippers jack ticket prices up 25% and Bill writes an entire column describing what a shitty organization the Clippers are and always have been.
One day after Griffin signed his monster extension — $35 million more than Donald Sterling has ever guaranteed anybody — he tore his meniscus during a Team USA practice. Supposedly, he'll be ready for the season. Supposedly. This could only happen to the Clippers.
They're so cursed! Has Bill mentioned how incompetent and cursed the Clippers are yet? Even if they jacked up ticket prices, I would bet Bill has no problem with renewing his Clippers season tickets and keeping them around as his backup NBA team in case the Celtics have a bad season and decides to stop writing fawning columns about them every March. It helps for Bill to pick out a backup team in a certain sport. I feel like it has gotten to the point Bill only follows a certain sport when his favorite team is in contention for a title. If only Bill had picked a backup MLB team he could write articles about baseball while the Red Sox are not in the hunt for a division title. I guess this is what happens when you only have so much knowledge about one team in a given sport, yet sell yourself to the world as "The Sports Guy."
And by the way, pulling Grant Hill from the sanctity of Phoenix's training staff to the tortured Clippers and their underwhelming medical staff is like some sort of sick science experiment. I'm patently terrified about this. Let's just move on before I panic and put my 2012-13 season tickets on eBay.
Because Bill be damned if he is going to cheer for a sports team that doesn't have at least a good chance of making the playoffs.
Important note: I didn't mind the logic behind Minnesota's offer sheet for Batum when you remember this formula: "Cold weather + small market + years of incompetence = you're not signing free agents unless you overpay for them."
Or the formula could be shortened, which I do realize would make Bill Simmons look less creative and smart, into calculating years of incompetence = you're not signing free agents unless you overpay for them.
I think cold weather and a small market do matter, but not nearly as much as an organization that has shown themselves to be incompetent over a long period of time.
Over the next four years, I'd rather pay Batum $46 million than Roy Hibbert $58 million.
Of course Bill would, though this may not make sense for Bill to say this. Using Bill's annual trade value column principles, if the Blazers were offered Batum for Hibbert (even including the contracts in the trade, which I know Bill doesn't even do), do you think the Blazers would accept this trade? I do. I could be wrong, but I would rather pay Hibbert $58 million over paying Batum $46 million and I think most NBA teams would agree.
Batum brings three things to the table that the 2012 Finals proved everyone needs going forward: athleticism, perimeter defense and 3-point shooting.
I feel like Bill using the 2012 NBA Finals as a template for every NBA Finals from here on out. I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. I believe Bill is being influenced too much by the 2012 Finals. So while Batum does bring these things to the table, Hibbert brings the fact he's really tall and doesn't fall over his own shoelaces to the table as well. This important to have in a center. I feel like Hibbert's skill set is more difficult to find than Batum's skill set. Either way, I probably wouldn't pay that much for either player.
I can't beat Miami or Oklahoma City with Hibbert — as the Heat proved in the last three games of their comeback against Indiana, when they basically ran Hibbert off the floor — but Batum would be valuable against either team.
So would the Thunder be able to run Hibbert off the floor with Perkins at center? I'm not so sure. It's not like the Pacers biggest flaw against the Heat or Thunder is Hibbert, so it is unfair to single him out as if he is the reason they lost to the Heat. Not to mention, while Batum would be valuable against these teams, I don't think the Pacers would have beaten the Heat with Batum on their roster. So Batum would fix an issue concerning defending the Heat, but Hibbert put up 11-11-3 (blocks) in the playoffs at the center position. Regardless of how valuable Batum would be, those are valuable statistics from the center position.
Remember the 48 hours after Game 3 of the Miami-Indiana series, when it seemed like the frisky Pacers were on the verge of (a) killing the LeBron/Wade era, and (b) sneaking into the Finals? That was fun.
If only they had Nicholas Batum...then the Pacers could have beaten the Heat. Who cares if Hibbert had a monster Game 3 and averaged 12.3-11.5-2.5 in that series?
Now they're building around three overpaid starters — Danny Granger (two years, $27.1 million), Hibbert (four years, $58 million), George Hill (five years, $40 million) — a bunch of overpaid role players ($21 million next year for David West, Ian Mahinmi, D.J. Augustin and Gerald Green???) and one possible blue-chipper (Paul George, who absolutely stunk in the 2012 playoffs). Does Hallmark make "Congrats on locking down the no. 6 seed for the next few years" cards?
Ah yes, we are using Bill Simmons logic here. Even if the Pacers had beaten the Heat they still would have been building around three overpaid starters and a bunch of overpaid role players. The only difference is they would have beaten the Heat. I guess there would be more positivity around the Heat because they had proven they could beat the Heat, but the Pacers circumstances wouldn't have changed. So they were building around most of these players regardless of whether they beat the Heat or not.
Quick tangent to celebrate Lannister — if you don't watch Thrones, he's the diabolical, perverted, entitled, sarcastic, strategic genius of a little person played by Peter Dinklage who rips off classic line after classic line.. Where does he rank among the greatest TV characters ever? I can't see how he falls out of the top 10. I just can't.
This really isn't that notable for the simple reason that Bill is the one making up this list.
"Where does Steve Smith rank on the list of greatest wide receivers in the history of the NFL? I can't see how he falls out of the Top 20. Of course, I am biased and happen to be the one making the list, so I am essentially using my opinion as the sole reason for the ranking of Smith as one of the top 20 wide receivers of all-time and then am remarking on this as of I am not the one creating the question, the list, and giving the final answer."
If there were sabermetrics for television, his KLPE ("Killer lines per episode") rate would probably be the highest ever. Anyway …
On a related note, if there were sabermetrics for sportswriters, Bill's BMUTPHOPAT (Bullshit made up to prove his own point as true) would be the second-highest among sportswriters. Gregg Easterbrook would easily outpace everyone else. He's the God of BMUTPHOPAT.
The Mavericks tossed aside last year's title defense by letting Tyson Chandler leave and placing their dragon eggs in the 2012 Howard/Williams free agency basket … which, of course, blew up in their faces...They tried to regroup by turning the Jasons (Terry and Kidd), Ian Mahinmi and Brendan Haywood (via the amnesty clause) into a multiyear deal for O.J. Mayo (a valuable regular-season player who's been atrocious in the playoffs)
Good thing the playoffs aren't a small sample size or anything...or else I could call this comment by Bill pretty stupid and lacking meaning.
That leaves them enough 2013 cap flexibility for a Dwight Howard run … you know, assuming he'd want to play with the "Dirk and a Bunch of Solid Dudes" roster they just assembled. Hold on, we're not done.
You mean sort of like the 2011 NBA Title team? The team that had Dirk, a red-hot Jason Terry and a bunch of solid dudes?
If I were a Mavs fan, Jason Kidd's comment after picking the Knicks over the Mavericks would worry me: "I looked at the (Mavericks) roster and I felt I could go quietly and retire, or I felt like I can compete and help a team win. So I saw the pieces of the Knicks, and I thought that I could help them out." Translation: If I'm gonna keep playing, I want to be on a team with a chance to win the title. That's not Dallas. You could almost hear the sound of Dirk's second title window slamming shut.
There's no point in the Mavericks even playing out the 12-13 NBA season. Jason Kidd's comments pretty much assure the Mavericks aren't going to contend for the NBA title this upcoming season. This is the same Jason Kidd who is going to backup Raymond Felton this year by the way. It's not exactly like Kidd is in his prime. This comment smells of a player who got more money to play in New York with the Knicks and is upset the Mavericks didn't make him a better offer. This comment does not sound like a player who is neutrally assessing the Mavericks roster.
Then Bill acknowledges his Twitter bitch-fight with Mark Cuban and says he likes it when he gets criticized on Twitter like that by sports figures. Of course Bill likes it, he gets attention out of it.
What a bummer. Right now, there's a steep drop from Miami to the next five Eastern playoff contenders (Boston, Chicago, New York, Brooklyn and Indiana). It's just a fact.
This is actually Bill's opinion, which contrary to his own belief, does not constitute this as a fact. A widely held popular belief is still not a fact. This is a small truth it seems Bill has momentarily lost grasp of.
In a million years, did you ever think Mayor Carcetti from The Wire would be reincarnated as a calculating, horny whorehouse owner named "Littlefinger" in a raunchy, over-the-top medieval sci-fi drama … and totally crush that role?
Yes, I did think this. Clearly, Bill hasn't seen Aidan Gillian's work over the years. He also crushed his role on "Queer as Folk" and pretty much does a great job in whatever his role requires. He's great at being a douchebag on the small screen mostly and that is what Lord Baelish pretty much is.
Isn't it more fun to binge-watch great TV shows than to watch them once a week? We finished 20 episodes in less than three weeks. I love binge-watching.
Yes, watching television shows immediately, without having to wait 8 months for new episodes, is better than having to watch 10-13 episodes of a show and then wait for a new season to start. More obvious words have rarely been spoken.
Next up for me: Breaking Bad. After that: Justified.
Or as I will call it, "The part where Bill Simmons annoys me by watching my favorite television shows and then commenting on things I watched two years ago."
If you think there isn't going to be a "Breaking Bad" quote column in a year, then you just don't know Bill Simmons. He's going to fall in love with Walter White, all the while pretending he hasn't been four years late to the party.
Just warning you: Picasso does NOT have a lot to work with this season. There's Corey Maggette's Expiring Contract, Jose Calderon's Expiring Contract, maybe Kevin Martin's Expiring Contract … and that's about it. This sucks. I hate the amnesty clause.
So does this mean there will be less of Bill Simmons proposing fake trades followed by him saying, "Who says no?'" to the trade offer that he just proposed and makes sense only on paper and not in real life? If so, I love the amnesty clause.
Then Bill starts (and don't pass out in shock when I write this) defending the Celtics offseason moves. Anytime you can get rid of a Hall of Fame player with world-class conditioning (Ray Allen) to get a guy who prefers to come off the bench (Jason Terry) even though depending on the starter's health he could end up starting AND you are adding Jason Collins, you have to do it.
Putting that contract in the context of a bigger picture, it makes more sense — the Celtics extended their relevance for three years by bringing back their nucleus (Rondo, Pierce, Garnett, Bass and Bradley),
I love it. One good year out of Bass and Bradley and they are now part of a "nucleus" in Boston. Meanwhile Danny Granger, Roy Hibbert, and David West are overpaid.
flipping Allen for Terry (a smart move because Terry thrives off the bench),
So what happens when Avery Bradley can't make it back until at the least mid-December and Terry has to start? Possibly nothing, but Bill acts as if Bradley having more surgery on his shoulder is no big deal.
and adding two rookie bigs (Sullinger and Melo).
Fab Melo is a stiff. Don't let anyone tell you differently. He's Jason Collins without the offensive game of Jason Collins.
We hosted Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals, with a chance to go to the Finals, and it didn't happen because one of the best 12 or 13 players submitted one of the single most spectacular playoff performances in the history of the league.
Besides, what was the alternative … "creating" cap space to make a run at a free agent who never would have actually signed with us? Come on. If you're close enough to sniff the trophy, you keep going for it. Period.
This is true. Of course there is a line of teams in sport who have thought themselves close enough to sniff the trophy and it turned into them not knowing when their window is shut. I would include the early 90's Celtics in this discussion.
The rest was history. And guess what? I actually loved the Joe Johnson trade for the Nets! Was there a more brilliant chess move this summer? Yeah, he's overpaid to the point that it's almost startling. But what do the Nets care? Other than Wade and Kobe, he's the most reliable 2-guard in basketball.
Unfortunately, Joe Johnson isn't going to be the most reliable 2-guard in basketball for the entirety of his contract. So the Nets essentially made a win-now move for a team that isn't ready to win-now. What could go wrong?
For the three seasons after that, they're paying him a jaw-dropping and unequivocally ludicrous $69 million, nearly twice what he will actually be worth, but guess what? He'll still be a valuable piece for them.
Everybody back up, Bill is predicting the future again. He knows Johnson will still be a valuable piece in three years. Fine, let's pretend Johnson will be a valuable piece, but a $23 million valuable piece? I don't get how the hell the same person who calls Danny Granger overpaid at $13.5 million can defend the Joe Johnson acquisition on the basis of money. Sure, the Nets owner has a ton of money, but Johnson's contract is still terrible. How is it fine for the Nets to overpay by double for Johnson in order to grab the 5th seed in the East, but Danny Granger or Roy Hibbert being overpaid to grab the 5th seed in the East shows just how stupid the Pacers front office is? Bill needs to at least use consistent reasoning. Indiana slightly overpays for players, Bill criticizes them because their owner isn't rich. The Nets overpay for players and this isn't an issue because the Nets owner is rich. It is fine for an owner to overspend in the pursuit of the 5th seed in the East as long as that owner is rich. Apparently a team gets additional wins for an owner's net worth.
If Brooklyn's front office said to him, "We had a chance to improve our team, but the money scared us off," now that would infuriate him.
And then there's this: The Johnson trade single-handedly convinced Deron Williams to spurn Dallas and stay in Brooklyn. (Williams even admitted as much.)
I thought Deron Williams spurned Dallas because Mark Cuban was too busy to be there for Williams' free agent visit because he taping "The Shark Tank?" Isn't that what Bill told us in the first part of this opus? So why criticize Cuban for not being there during Williams' free agency visit if his absence had nothing to do with Williams choosing New Jersey over Dallas?...besides the fact Bill wanted to passively-aggressively rip Cuban of course.
What's funny is that Williams (next five years: $100 million) might be almost as overpaid as Johnson (next four years: $89 million).
But hey, at least the Nets owner is really fucking rich. That counts for something, right?
So now Bill has admitted the Nets (a team who only added Joe Johnson to the core of a team that didn't make the playoffs last year) could have widely overpaid for the players on their team (and this doesn't count Brook Lopez), but he LOVES what they did. The Pacers (a playoff team by the way) slightly overpay some of their nucleus and Bill thinks they suck as an organization, awards them no points and may God have mercy on their soul. If you can figure it out, please tell, because I'm confused.
King did guarantee $61 million to Brook Lopez, a 7-footer who averaged 6.0 rebounds per game — no, really, SIX — during the 2010-11 season, then broke the same foot twice last season. That didn't stop Billy from guaranteeing Lopez a million more than the Saints guaranteed Drew Brees. Throw in the comical Kris Humphries extension (two years, $24 million) and Brooklyn is paying close to $73 million for a 2012-13 starting five that might not be able to defend anyone. Will anyone ever pay more for a less charismatic nucleus? None of them have nicknames, YouTube mixes, distinguishable quirks about their game … it's just five quiet, hardworking professionals who play hard and don't stand out in any real way.
But the owner of the Nets has a ton of money he can spend on non-charismatic, poor on defense, underperforming players. Bill seems to believe this is a good thing.
Ray helped win the 2008 title, played all 48 minutes in one of the best Celtics comebacks ever (Game 4 of the Finals), crossed over Vujacic on the defining play AND made that annoying bastard practically cry!!! His 2009 performance against the Bulls was one for the ages. I still think we would win the title in 2010 if Ron Artest didn't give him a charley horse in Game 3. He played in real pain this spring and gave everything he had for three straight playoff series. He was a true Celtic.
Anyone who uses the term "True X" needs to be immediately be kicked in the crotch and then beheaded. There are other annoying phrases fan bases use to pump up the importance of their team, but this one is right near the top. It's truly annoying.
Following Boston sports for nearly four decades, I can't remember being more confident in anything than Ray Allen with the game in his hands.
Somewhere Larry Bird, if he even gave a shit what Bill Simmons thought of him, is upset and asking Bill to take this back.
Just know that I enjoyed the Ray Allen era. Better than advertised. And we'll always have 2008.
Ray Allen was better than advertised. He was a Hall of Fame shooter who came to Boston and continued to be a Hall of Fame shooter. What else did he do in Boston that he had not done previously in Seattle? I'm sure Bill thinks it was the passionate Boston fans who made Ray Allen better than he knew he could be. I don't see how Ray Allen was better than advertised. He was as-advertised.
In Part 2 Bill comes up with further theories and keeps poking at Mark Cuban out of spite.
After Neil Olshey left for Portland, in classic Don Sterling fashion, the Clips decided against hiring a new general manager — something that, you know, every other team has —
But why don't all NBA teams have a VP of Common Sense? Who says "no" to this?
Fact: The 2012-13 Clippers are better, on paper, then the 2011-12 Clippers.
Even without hiring a VP of Common Sense? I will remember that Bill Simmons said the 12-13 Clippers were better on paper than the 11-12 Clippers in mid-August when the Clippers jack ticket prices up 25% and Bill writes an entire column describing what a shitty organization the Clippers are and always have been.
One day after Griffin signed his monster extension — $35 million more than Donald Sterling has ever guaranteed anybody — he tore his meniscus during a Team USA practice. Supposedly, he'll be ready for the season. Supposedly. This could only happen to the Clippers.
They're so cursed! Has Bill mentioned how incompetent and cursed the Clippers are yet? Even if they jacked up ticket prices, I would bet Bill has no problem with renewing his Clippers season tickets and keeping them around as his backup NBA team in case the Celtics have a bad season and decides to stop writing fawning columns about them every March. It helps for Bill to pick out a backup team in a certain sport. I feel like it has gotten to the point Bill only follows a certain sport when his favorite team is in contention for a title. If only Bill had picked a backup MLB team he could write articles about baseball while the Red Sox are not in the hunt for a division title. I guess this is what happens when you only have so much knowledge about one team in a given sport, yet sell yourself to the world as "The Sports Guy."
And by the way, pulling Grant Hill from the sanctity of Phoenix's training staff to the tortured Clippers and their underwhelming medical staff is like some sort of sick science experiment. I'm patently terrified about this. Let's just move on before I panic and put my 2012-13 season tickets on eBay.
Because Bill be damned if he is going to cheer for a sports team that doesn't have at least a good chance of making the playoffs.
Important note: I didn't mind the logic behind Minnesota's offer sheet for Batum when you remember this formula: "Cold weather + small market + years of incompetence = you're not signing free agents unless you overpay for them."
Or the formula could be shortened, which I do realize would make Bill Simmons look less creative and smart, into calculating years of incompetence = you're not signing free agents unless you overpay for them.
I think cold weather and a small market do matter, but not nearly as much as an organization that has shown themselves to be incompetent over a long period of time.
Over the next four years, I'd rather pay Batum $46 million than Roy Hibbert $58 million.
Of course Bill would, though this may not make sense for Bill to say this. Using Bill's annual trade value column principles, if the Blazers were offered Batum for Hibbert (even including the contracts in the trade, which I know Bill doesn't even do), do you think the Blazers would accept this trade? I do. I could be wrong, but I would rather pay Hibbert $58 million over paying Batum $46 million and I think most NBA teams would agree.
Batum brings three things to the table that the 2012 Finals proved everyone needs going forward: athleticism, perimeter defense and 3-point shooting.
I feel like Bill using the 2012 NBA Finals as a template for every NBA Finals from here on out. I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. I believe Bill is being influenced too much by the 2012 Finals. So while Batum does bring these things to the table, Hibbert brings the fact he's really tall and doesn't fall over his own shoelaces to the table as well. This important to have in a center. I feel like Hibbert's skill set is more difficult to find than Batum's skill set. Either way, I probably wouldn't pay that much for either player.
I can't beat Miami or Oklahoma City with Hibbert — as the Heat proved in the last three games of their comeback against Indiana, when they basically ran Hibbert off the floor — but Batum would be valuable against either team.
So would the Thunder be able to run Hibbert off the floor with Perkins at center? I'm not so sure. It's not like the Pacers biggest flaw against the Heat or Thunder is Hibbert, so it is unfair to single him out as if he is the reason they lost to the Heat. Not to mention, while Batum would be valuable against these teams, I don't think the Pacers would have beaten the Heat with Batum on their roster. So Batum would fix an issue concerning defending the Heat, but Hibbert put up 11-11-3 (blocks) in the playoffs at the center position. Regardless of how valuable Batum would be, those are valuable statistics from the center position.
Remember the 48 hours after Game 3 of the Miami-Indiana series, when it seemed like the frisky Pacers were on the verge of (a) killing the LeBron/Wade era, and (b) sneaking into the Finals? That was fun.
If only they had Nicholas Batum...then the Pacers could have beaten the Heat. Who cares if Hibbert had a monster Game 3 and averaged 12.3-11.5-2.5 in that series?
Now they're building around three overpaid starters — Danny Granger (two years, $27.1 million), Hibbert (four years, $58 million), George Hill (five years, $40 million) — a bunch of overpaid role players ($21 million next year for David West, Ian Mahinmi, D.J. Augustin and Gerald Green???) and one possible blue-chipper (Paul George, who absolutely stunk in the 2012 playoffs). Does Hallmark make "Congrats on locking down the no. 6 seed for the next few years" cards?
Ah yes, we are using Bill Simmons logic here. Even if the Pacers had beaten the Heat they still would have been building around three overpaid starters and a bunch of overpaid role players. The only difference is they would have beaten the Heat. I guess there would be more positivity around the Heat because they had proven they could beat the Heat, but the Pacers circumstances wouldn't have changed. So they were building around most of these players regardless of whether they beat the Heat or not.
Quick tangent to celebrate Lannister — if you don't watch Thrones, he's the diabolical, perverted, entitled, sarcastic, strategic genius of a little person played by Peter Dinklage who rips off classic line after classic line.. Where does he rank among the greatest TV characters ever? I can't see how he falls out of the top 10. I just can't.
This really isn't that notable for the simple reason that Bill is the one making up this list.
"Where does Steve Smith rank on the list of greatest wide receivers in the history of the NFL? I can't see how he falls out of the Top 20. Of course, I am biased and happen to be the one making the list, so I am essentially using my opinion as the sole reason for the ranking of Smith as one of the top 20 wide receivers of all-time and then am remarking on this as of I am not the one creating the question, the list, and giving the final answer."
If there were sabermetrics for television, his KLPE ("Killer lines per episode") rate would probably be the highest ever. Anyway …
On a related note, if there were sabermetrics for sportswriters, Bill's BMUTPHOPAT (Bullshit made up to prove his own point as true) would be the second-highest among sportswriters. Gregg Easterbrook would easily outpace everyone else. He's the God of BMUTPHOPAT.
The Mavericks tossed aside last year's title defense by letting Tyson Chandler leave and placing their dragon eggs in the 2012 Howard/Williams free agency basket … which, of course, blew up in their faces...They tried to regroup by turning the Jasons (Terry and Kidd), Ian Mahinmi and Brendan Haywood (via the amnesty clause) into a multiyear deal for O.J. Mayo (a valuable regular-season player who's been atrocious in the playoffs)
Good thing the playoffs aren't a small sample size or anything...or else I could call this comment by Bill pretty stupid and lacking meaning.
That leaves them enough 2013 cap flexibility for a Dwight Howard run … you know, assuming he'd want to play with the "Dirk and a Bunch of Solid Dudes" roster they just assembled. Hold on, we're not done.
You mean sort of like the 2011 NBA Title team? The team that had Dirk, a red-hot Jason Terry and a bunch of solid dudes?
If I were a Mavs fan, Jason Kidd's comment after picking the Knicks over the Mavericks would worry me: "I looked at the (Mavericks) roster and I felt I could go quietly and retire, or I felt like I can compete and help a team win. So I saw the pieces of the Knicks, and I thought that I could help them out." Translation: If I'm gonna keep playing, I want to be on a team with a chance to win the title. That's not Dallas. You could almost hear the sound of Dirk's second title window slamming shut.
There's no point in the Mavericks even playing out the 12-13 NBA season. Jason Kidd's comments pretty much assure the Mavericks aren't going to contend for the NBA title this upcoming season. This is the same Jason Kidd who is going to backup Raymond Felton this year by the way. It's not exactly like Kidd is in his prime. This comment smells of a player who got more money to play in New York with the Knicks and is upset the Mavericks didn't make him a better offer. This comment does not sound like a player who is neutrally assessing the Mavericks roster.
Then Bill acknowledges his Twitter bitch-fight with Mark Cuban and says he likes it when he gets criticized on Twitter like that by sports figures. Of course Bill likes it, he gets attention out of it.
What a bummer. Right now, there's a steep drop from Miami to the next five Eastern playoff contenders (Boston, Chicago, New York, Brooklyn and Indiana). It's just a fact.
This is actually Bill's opinion, which contrary to his own belief, does not constitute this as a fact. A widely held popular belief is still not a fact. This is a small truth it seems Bill has momentarily lost grasp of.
In a million years, did you ever think Mayor Carcetti from The Wire would be reincarnated as a calculating, horny whorehouse owner named "Littlefinger" in a raunchy, over-the-top medieval sci-fi drama … and totally crush that role?
Yes, I did think this. Clearly, Bill hasn't seen Aidan Gillian's work over the years. He also crushed his role on "Queer as Folk" and pretty much does a great job in whatever his role requires. He's great at being a douchebag on the small screen mostly and that is what Lord Baelish pretty much is.
Isn't it more fun to binge-watch great TV shows than to watch them once a week? We finished 20 episodes in less than three weeks. I love binge-watching.
Yes, watching television shows immediately, without having to wait 8 months for new episodes, is better than having to watch 10-13 episodes of a show and then wait for a new season to start. More obvious words have rarely been spoken.
Next up for me: Breaking Bad. After that: Justified.
Or as I will call it, "The part where Bill Simmons annoys me by watching my favorite television shows and then commenting on things I watched two years ago."
If you think there isn't going to be a "Breaking Bad" quote column in a year, then you just don't know Bill Simmons. He's going to fall in love with Walter White, all the while pretending he hasn't been four years late to the party.
Just warning you: Picasso does NOT have a lot to work with this season. There's Corey Maggette's Expiring Contract, Jose Calderon's Expiring Contract, maybe Kevin Martin's Expiring Contract … and that's about it. This sucks. I hate the amnesty clause.
So does this mean there will be less of Bill Simmons proposing fake trades followed by him saying, "Who says no?'" to the trade offer that he just proposed and makes sense only on paper and not in real life? If so, I love the amnesty clause.
Then Bill starts (and don't pass out in shock when I write this) defending the Celtics offseason moves. Anytime you can get rid of a Hall of Fame player with world-class conditioning (Ray Allen) to get a guy who prefers to come off the bench (Jason Terry) even though depending on the starter's health he could end up starting AND you are adding Jason Collins, you have to do it.
Putting that contract in the context of a bigger picture, it makes more sense — the Celtics extended their relevance for three years by bringing back their nucleus (Rondo, Pierce, Garnett, Bass and Bradley),
I love it. One good year out of Bass and Bradley and they are now part of a "nucleus" in Boston. Meanwhile Danny Granger, Roy Hibbert, and David West are overpaid.
flipping Allen for Terry (a smart move because Terry thrives off the bench),
So what happens when Avery Bradley can't make it back until at the least mid-December and Terry has to start? Possibly nothing, but Bill acts as if Bradley having more surgery on his shoulder is no big deal.
and adding two rookie bigs (Sullinger and Melo).
Fab Melo is a stiff. Don't let anyone tell you differently. He's Jason Collins without the offensive game of Jason Collins.
We hosted Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals, with a chance to go to the Finals, and it didn't happen because one of the best 12 or 13 players submitted one of the single most spectacular playoff performances in the history of the league.
Besides, what was the alternative … "creating" cap space to make a run at a free agent who never would have actually signed with us? Come on. If you're close enough to sniff the trophy, you keep going for it. Period.
This is true. Of course there is a line of teams in sport who have thought themselves close enough to sniff the trophy and it turned into them not knowing when their window is shut. I would include the early 90's Celtics in this discussion.
The rest was history. And guess what? I actually loved the Joe Johnson trade for the Nets! Was there a more brilliant chess move this summer? Yeah, he's overpaid to the point that it's almost startling. But what do the Nets care? Other than Wade and Kobe, he's the most reliable 2-guard in basketball.
Unfortunately, Joe Johnson isn't going to be the most reliable 2-guard in basketball for the entirety of his contract. So the Nets essentially made a win-now move for a team that isn't ready to win-now. What could go wrong?
For the three seasons after that, they're paying him a jaw-dropping and unequivocally ludicrous $69 million, nearly twice what he will actually be worth, but guess what? He'll still be a valuable piece for them.
Everybody back up, Bill is predicting the future again. He knows Johnson will still be a valuable piece in three years. Fine, let's pretend Johnson will be a valuable piece, but a $23 million valuable piece? I don't get how the hell the same person who calls Danny Granger overpaid at $13.5 million can defend the Joe Johnson acquisition on the basis of money. Sure, the Nets owner has a ton of money, but Johnson's contract is still terrible. How is it fine for the Nets to overpay by double for Johnson in order to grab the 5th seed in the East, but Danny Granger or Roy Hibbert being overpaid to grab the 5th seed in the East shows just how stupid the Pacers front office is? Bill needs to at least use consistent reasoning. Indiana slightly overpays for players, Bill criticizes them because their owner isn't rich. The Nets overpay for players and this isn't an issue because the Nets owner is rich. It is fine for an owner to overspend in the pursuit of the 5th seed in the East as long as that owner is rich. Apparently a team gets additional wins for an owner's net worth.
If Brooklyn's front office said to him, "We had a chance to improve our team, but the money scared us off," now that would infuriate him.
And then there's this: The Johnson trade single-handedly convinced Deron Williams to spurn Dallas and stay in Brooklyn. (Williams even admitted as much.)
I thought Deron Williams spurned Dallas because Mark Cuban was too busy to be there for Williams' free agent visit because he taping "The Shark Tank?" Isn't that what Bill told us in the first part of this opus? So why criticize Cuban for not being there during Williams' free agency visit if his absence had nothing to do with Williams choosing New Jersey over Dallas?...besides the fact Bill wanted to passively-aggressively rip Cuban of course.
What's funny is that Williams (next five years: $100 million) might be almost as overpaid as Johnson (next four years: $89 million).
But hey, at least the Nets owner is really fucking rich. That counts for something, right?
So now Bill has admitted the Nets (a team who only added Joe Johnson to the core of a team that didn't make the playoffs last year) could have widely overpaid for the players on their team (and this doesn't count Brook Lopez), but he LOVES what they did. The Pacers (a playoff team by the way) slightly overpay some of their nucleus and Bill thinks they suck as an organization, awards them no points and may God have mercy on their soul. If you can figure it out, please tell, because I'm confused.
King did guarantee $61 million to Brook Lopez, a 7-footer who averaged 6.0 rebounds per game — no, really, SIX — during the 2010-11 season, then broke the same foot twice last season. That didn't stop Billy from guaranteeing Lopez a million more than the Saints guaranteed Drew Brees. Throw in the comical Kris Humphries extension (two years, $24 million) and Brooklyn is paying close to $73 million for a 2012-13 starting five that might not be able to defend anyone. Will anyone ever pay more for a less charismatic nucleus? None of them have nicknames, YouTube mixes, distinguishable quirks about their game … it's just five quiet, hardworking professionals who play hard and don't stand out in any real way.
But the owner of the Nets has a ton of money he can spend on non-charismatic, poor on defense, underperforming players. Bill seems to believe this is a good thing.
Ray helped win the 2008 title, played all 48 minutes in one of the best Celtics comebacks ever (Game 4 of the Finals), crossed over Vujacic on the defining play AND made that annoying bastard practically cry!!! His 2009 performance against the Bulls was one for the ages. I still think we would win the title in 2010 if Ron Artest didn't give him a charley horse in Game 3. He played in real pain this spring and gave everything he had for three straight playoff series. He was a true Celtic.
Anyone who uses the term "True X" needs to be immediately be kicked in the crotch and then beheaded. There are other annoying phrases fan bases use to pump up the importance of their team, but this one is right near the top. It's truly annoying.
Following Boston sports for nearly four decades, I can't remember being more confident in anything than Ray Allen with the game in his hands.
Somewhere Larry Bird, if he even gave a shit what Bill Simmons thought of him, is upset and asking Bill to take this back.
Just know that I enjoyed the Ray Allen era. Better than advertised. And we'll always have 2008.
Ray Allen was better than advertised. He was a Hall of Fame shooter who came to Boston and continued to be a Hall of Fame shooter. What else did he do in Boston that he had not done previously in Seattle? I'm sure Bill thinks it was the passionate Boston fans who made Ray Allen better than he knew he could be. I don't see how Ray Allen was better than advertised. He was as-advertised.
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