Bill Simmons has "written" three columns in the past three weeks. I have accused him of being out of quality column ideas and it seems like I am at least somewhat correct. He's leaning on this mailbag crutch a lot recently. I get that he likes doing mailbags, but it seems like he takes every opportunity possible to churn out a weekly mailbag rather than a weekly original column. It's his weekly column, he can do what he wants I guess. Prior to the NFC/AFC Conference Championship Bill did an all Manti Te'o mailbag and a regular mailbag. It's like at this point he would rather not write any more columns and just focus on how hilariously funny he can show everyone that he is. I'm going to cover the Manti Te'o mailbag only because I can't handle doing two mailbags where Bill and his readers pat him on the back for how clever he is. Bill's SimmonsClones love to email him whenever an sports-related event happens because they require his acceptance and approval in order to justify their existence in the world.
It was noted in the comments of the last Bill Simmons post that Bill probably tries to be smarter than his readers in answering their questions because he wants to make it seem like a back-and-forth conversation. This is probably true, but I am slightly more jaded and believe if Bill wanted this conversation he could have this back-and-forth conversation without attempting to improve on the idea submitted by his overly-loyal readers.
Belichick and Brady might be headed for their sixth Bowl.
Didn't happen. I guess with the Celtics struggling and the Red Sox in a difficult division Bill is going to have to ignore Boston sports for a few months or at least write a column about how these Boston sports teams are "boring" and that's why he hasn't written about them. I don't care if Bill writes about Boston sports or not, but anyone who pays attention can't help but notice he tends to stop writing about his favorite teams when they aren't contenders for that respective sport's championship.
The Falcons might give Atlanta its first asterisk-free championship ever.
Let's be honest: The 1995 baseball season was a flat-out atrocity.
It was a shortened season, but I don't get how that makes it an atrocity. But as a Braves fan I say "fuck you very much" anyway, Bill. Bill has recently become all about the "asterisk" championships in certain sports. Not coincidentally, he doesn't attach many asterisks to championships his favorite teams have won.
Ray Lewis might pull off a 60-tackle postseason just three months after
ripping his triceps while drawing no PED suspicion whatsoever.
Nice way of basically accusing Ray Lewis of using PEDs without actually doing it.
I could keep going and going … and that's why we can't waste a column
rehashing this admittedly transfixing Manti Te'o story. We're banging
out a Te'o-free NFL playoff mailbag
This is an All-Manti Te'o mailbag. Wouldn't a "Te'o-free NFL playoff mailbag" be a mailbag that contains zero mentions of Manti-Te'o?
As always, these are actual e-mails from actual readers.
As always, I somewhat sense this is a lie.
Q: I have no idea what to believe about Manti Te'o, but I am also not
ruling anything out. I believe that this is just the 3rd sports related
story to enter the Tyson Zone along with Kerrigan/Harding &
Thanksgiving with the Woods family. I know you are the best person to
confirm this list.
—Jordan, Springfield, OH
It's very cute how these readers remain so loyal to Bill and believe he is the ultimate person to answer any of their questions. Since Bill created the Tyson Zone he probably is the best person to answer this question, but we all know Jordan from Ohio probably emails Bill with questions about losing his virginity or Jordan emails Bill with how it would feel to have to live without his words and thoughts in his life...Bill just doesn't publish these emails. There is a difference in hero worship and just being creepy.
SG: You're right — I am the best person to confirm this list. I don't
know what that says about me, but you came to the right place.
Yes, you are in the right place. Bill is so full of shit, he can think of an answer to this question in a snap. Has Bill told you about his son and all the fun, quirky things that he does which every other child does as well? If you will hold on for 10 minutes let's allow Bill to go into a story about his son and all the awesome things his son says or does that is only tangentially related to sports.
For a news story to enter the Tyson Zone, that means the story became so insane that you'd believe any new wrinkle relating to that story.
Thanks for clearing up this rule that isn't really a rule since Bill made it up just right now.
Those are the five Tyson Zone stories that stand out for me pre-Manti. Quite a list.
A stellar list really. A list completely created and admired by Bill Simmons as a testament to his own genius and ability to make a subjective list that has absolutely no real world use or purpose, nor does it allow the reader to gain any additional knowledge about sports. I think Bill should have called himself "The Boston List Guy" when he started writing his AOL column a few years ago so it better fit his current persona. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20.
Q: Has the Te'o story already outdone the Tiger Woods story? Or
would we also have to find out Te'o was running an underground
fake-girlfriend ring for the schoolboys in South Bend?
—Sean, Portland
SG: Please don't forget how breathtakingly incredible that Tiger story was coming out of the gate.
Yeah, don't forget how incredible this story was. It made Bill's "Tyson Zone," so that should tell you something right there.
Put it this way: I still remember where I was when I first heard about
the car accident, then saying to my wife, "Hmmmmm … this one doesn't
sound right. My shit detector is going off,"
Bill knew ALL ALONG something wasn't right with Tiger's car accident. Sure, Bill didn't say anything publicly about the accident or something not seeming right, but Bill knew ALL ALONG this story was going to be in the Tyson Zone.
followed by her saying, "Mine, too," and it just spiraled out of control from there.
Wait, wait, wait. Bill's wife said, "Mine, too," and "it" just spiraled out of control from there. So Bill and his wife's conversation spiraled out of control from there? You know what, I don't want the answer to this question. More importantly, let me bring something to your attention. Tell me who this describes:
1. Person A has a girlfriend/spouse.
2. Only close friends and family have ever met this girlfriend/spouse.
3. Person A will often talk about his girlfriend/spouse and said girlfriend/spouse will often speak publicly, but in a way that makes it impossible to determine who actually is "speaking" for them. Whether this be through unverifiable written words or through an unverifiable conversation the girlfriend/spouse had with Person A. This girlfriend/spouse is often referenced by Person A in public, though no one outside of Person A's close circle has ever met her.
4. Preliminary digging (which I haven't done on the Internet) reveals no record of said girlfriend/spouse, but we take the person's word that she exists because of the many times Person A has referenced her as existing, while also relaying words or thoughts that she has said to Person A.
5. The relayed words or thoughts are always very impactful, whether they be funny or emotionally impactful to where this person seems very inspirational or clever. These funny or emotional words/thoughts can never be verified outside of Person A relaying these words or the girlfriend/spouse speaking publicly in a way that makes it impossible to determine who is really speaking though.
Sounds like Manti Te'o, right? Wrong. I was talking about Bill Simmons' wife, which you probably figured out at Point #1 above, but I am still pretending like I am surprising you. My question, does The Sports Gal exist? Did the man who created "The Tyson Zone" create it as a inside joke to himself about how crazy and unpredictable he can be? So there's my question, what if Bill Simmons has been Te'oing us all along?
Within 24 hours, I was password-protecting my BlackBerry and throwing out all my Ambien. Just kidding.
Just for the Sports Gal's own piece of mind, there are probably 20 men who would sleep with Bill Simmons before a single woman would. I state this based completely on the type of mail he answers from his readers. They are predominantly men and (how do I say this politely?), seem like they would be a 12-pack of Miller Lite away from taking their email worship to a more physical form of worship.
So for Manti's Catfish Hoax to surpass Tiger's Thanksgiving, we
definitely need a few more twists and turns. Am I ruling out a few more
twists and turns? NO!!!!!!! That's why this story entered the Tyson Zone
so quickly.
So this story is in the Tyson Zone because of the events that haven't happened yet? Doesn't this go against the idea of a story being in the Tyson Zone? The Tyson Zone is based on the idea events in a story have been so crazy that based on everything that has happened, nearly anything could happen. The Tyson Zone isn't based on the idea potential events could be so crazy based on events that haven't happened yet, is it? This Te'o story can't be in the Tyson Zone if the twists and turns that would put it in the Tyson Zone hasn't happened yet. My head hurts.
Can you remember anyone inadvertently benefiting from a sports scandal more than the guys from Catfish?
They parlayed a contrived indie movie (by the way, I enjoyed it) into
an even more contrived MTV series (by the way, I enjoy it),
Oh yes, this is a reminder that Bill Simmons still watches MTV. I'm pretty sure at this point even those people who work for MTV don't watch MTV.
Q: Is this the strangest sports story of all time?
—Trevin, Fort Worth, TX
SG: The short answer: No. If only because the whole saga was so
elaborately convoluted from start to finish that this was either (a) a
phenomenal hoax pulled off on someone who was phenomenally naive; (b) a
snowball-type story in which Te'o got catfished, found out in the
August-September range, then decided to keep embellishing the story and
making things worse over just coming clean; (c) the handiwork of one of
the greatest pathological liars who ever lived, and someone who was
involved in the hoax the whole time; or (d) the workings of a closeted
football star who invented a fake girlfriend to throw everyone off the
scent,
So Bill is speculating that Manti Te'o is gay and didn't think it would become such a big story. File that away for a minute.
never imagining that his career and team would take off, and that the
ensuing level of scrutiny ended up trapping him within this spiderweb of
lies that just kept getting worse and worse.
I vividly remember Te'o's recruitment to Notre Dame and how it was between Notre Dame and USC. Te'o was a huge recruit for the Irish, was the biggest "name" on this year's team even at the beginning of the year and every game Notre Dame plays appears on national television. I find it hard to believe Te'o would be surprised by the amount of scrutiny the story received, especially since he announced her death repeatedly on national television.
Q: If this turns out to be a cover up for Manti Te'o being gay,
wouldn't it become one of the defining stories of our generation? It
will show the pressure on the big man on campus to conform to rules put
on him by his school and his faith all to the potential detriment to his
professional career. If it plays out that way, hopefully his story
will be a rallying cry for all the people afraid to be who they are and
will go on inspire people from all walks of life to be comfortable in
themselves.
—Christian P., Rochester, NY
SG: Totally agree. I hate speculating on someone's sexuality,
Yes, Bill hates speculating on someone's sexuality. From the previous question:
or (d) the workings of a closeted football star who invented a fake
girlfriend to throw everyone off the scent, never imagining that his
career and team would take off, and that the ensuing level of scrutiny
ended up trapping him within this spiderweb of lies that just kept
getting worse and worse.
Yes, Bill hates commenting on someone's sexuality, which is why he did it without prompting in the previous question. There's nothing wrong with bringing up this question, but don't say you don't like speculating on a person's sexuality after previously speculating on a person's sexuality without prompting.
Only by admitting he's gay (if that were true) could everything that
just happened to Manti Te'o seem, for lack of a better word, a little
more normal. Most people would immediately feel terrible for him. Maybe
he'd still get skewered by some less tolerant folks, but he'd also
immediately become an icon in the gay community.
It wouldn't be any more normal if it turns out Manti Te'o was covering up for being gay. I think it would be less normal than just living his life and trying to keep his sexuality a secret. If anything, making a public showing of your dead girlfriend would only bring more scrutiny to Te'o's personal life, and therefore his sexuality. It would be more normal if Te'o tried to hide his sexuality by simply hiding it rather than creating an elaborate story to throw people off the trail of his sexuality. Not that everyone thinks logically like this of course.
I never thought of that wrinkle, though — Manti pretending he's
gay because it's his only way out of this scandal? How long would he
have to pretend? The rest of his life? Through the end of his playing
career? This has all the makings of becoming the single worst romantic
comedy ever made — it's like Jennifer Aniston lying about being engaged
to Jay Mohr in Picture Perfect crossed with Al Pacino in Cruising, only if you threw in a healthy dash of Rudy, too. By the way, my wife would totally watch this movie.
Yes, Bill. Your "wife" would certainly enjoy watching this movie...because she exists and all. Being a real human being with real human feelings and girl parts, she would love to watch this romantic comedy. Women, just like your real live wife is a woman, love movies about people feeling in love. This is totally a girl-thing to do and your wife would love it because (a) she is real and (b) she is a woman.
Q: This mind-blowing Manti Te'o revelation deserves to be
immortalized at the very least as an Urban Dictionary Entry. What about
the phrase "Lennay Kekua'ed" for "simply didn't exist?"
—Jake, Milwaukee
Good idea, Jake from Milwaukee. (Not shockingly) Bill has a slight improvement on your idea though.
SG: Or, you go with "Lennay Kekua" for any situation when a
friend/coworker/family member keeps talking about some significant other
that nobody has ever met, and after awhile, you end up whispering to
someone, "You getting a whiff of Lennay Kekua here or is it just me?"
With any luck this phrase won't catch on. So basically Bill took away the "'ed" at the end of "Kekua'ed" and tried to pass it off as a new idea. Really, Bill's suggestion is the exact same as Jake's suggestion. Bill is using the phrase in a different, much more hilarious and creative context and didn't just change the joke by 1%.
Q: Where does this Manti Te'o story go next?
—Alfredo, San Diego, CA
SG: Remember when Elton John remade the lyrics to "Candle in the Wind" for Princess Diana? Your move, Barry Manilow.
I hate to be the guy who points this out, but "Manti" doesn't sound like "Mandy." They are pronounced differently. Barry Manilow could still do the song, but the names don't rhyme.
Q: Has there ever been a better SportsCenter headline than
"BREAKING NEWS: MANTI TE'O'S GIRLFRIEND DID NOT EXIST"? The only other
one that comes to mind for me is when the anchors repeatedly had to say
"Purple Drank" and "sizzurp" during the Jamarcus Russell story. And how
does ESPN determine what gets the "Breaking News" tag? Why didn't we see
"Breaking News: Rex Ryan has a foot fetish" or "Breaking News: LaLa
Anthony might taste like Honey Nut Cheerios"? I think ESPN needs to put
you in charge of this.
—Nick, Atlanta
See, this is what Bill's readers are here for. They are here to pump up Bill's ego and tell him that he could do a better job than the current person doing that job. This is how Bill gets it in his head that he can be an NBA General Manager. Bill loves the idea he is smarter than everyone else, so to be told by his SimmonsClones he needs to be in charge of something at ESPN only strikes him as confirmation of what his ego already knew.
SG: Shouldn't we tweak that to something a little different, like "BREAKING WTF: MANTI TE'O'S GIRLFRIEND DID NOT EXIST"?
No, no, no, ESPN should not do this.
Q: You always joke about the best events that would have overwhelmed
social media had social media existed when the event originally happened
(i.e., Tonya Harding, OJ). Does the Te'o story make the top 5?
—Dave, Indianapolis
SG: Hell yeah. That's the first time we have ever watched a legitimately
bonkers sports scandal blow up on the Internet in real time.
We were preparing for our NBA pregame show on Wednesday when the story broke on Deadspin.
This serves as a little reminder that Bill does an NBA pregame show for ESPN, just in case you forgot that he did an NBA pregame show for ESPN, with Jalen Rose, Mike Wilbon and Magic Johnson. People know him and his books all smell of rich mahogany. Like I have said before when Bill names the celebrity he was watching a sporting event with, he can't simply say he was watching the sporting event because he has to name-drop to tell us exactly with who he was watching this event...even if this information isn't important to the story at all.
I had my BlackBerry on "vibrate" — within about 10 minutes, it started
to feel like I had inadvertently shoved a vibrator in my pocket.
Which Bill knows from first-hand experience?
Q: My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend
heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw
Manti Te'o's girlfriend pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's
pretty serious … How would you handle this Manti Te'o situation if you
were sports czar??? My solution: I think we should have an NFL franchise
for misfits only. The only condition being is that Tebow is the
starting QB. Oh wait, we already have the Jets.
—Mateo Q, Mayaguez, Puerto Rico
SG: Hands down, that's the funniest e-mail I've ever gotten from Mayaguez, Puerto Rico.
We all know Bill only published this email because it had a reference to him being "the sports czar." Bill can't fool me.
Q: You have established the Levels of Losing. This whole Manti Te'o
thing has got me thinking of the Levels of Indefensibly Defending Sports
Figures. There has to be a certain level to where you can't defend your
favorite stars without coming off as a pathetic, nonsensical fan.
—Joe, Syracuse
SG: Come on, you barely need any tweaking! You were right there! Fine,
I'll help. You should have gone with six levels (you missed one).
Step 1: Take a reader's idea and say it is good, but needs "improvement."
Step 2: Improve the reader's idea by 10%.
Step 3: The idea is now Bill Simmons' idea.
Step 4: He presents to us more stupid levels of something related to this idea.
Level 1: Reserved for harmless stuff — like Boston fans defending Kevin Garnett every time he acts like a bully or an a-hole
Level 2: A blown-out version of the first level — the stakes are a
little higher only because there's a little more of that
hits-too-close-to-home sensitivity.
You mean like when Celtics fans defend Kevin Garnett when he makes jokes about being a cancer patient to Charlie Villanueva? Or when Garnett yells at ball boys? How about Celtics fans defending him when he is well-known to hit other players in the crotch? Of course Celtics fan Bill Simmons thinks this is harmless stuff, but it seems like two of these three hit-too-close-to-home sensitivity and should be in Level 2.
Like how Ravens fans fly off the handle every time someone jokes about
Ray Lewis's incident from 2000. Yes, you could throw Kobe and the Lakers
fans in here. As well as Red Sox fans post-2004 right after any
steroids joke about Manny or Papi.
Bill puts defending steroid users as Level 5 on this list. I guess the difference he sees is the level of defending the steroid user.
Level 5: Anyone defending baseball cheaters (Bonds, Clemens,
McGwire, etc.) with the always hilarious "We don't know for sure"
defense or the equally hilarious "Come on, everyone was cheating, any
competitive person would have done what they did" defense. All PED
defenses go here.
All PED defenses go here, unless they go in Level 2. If they go in Level 2, then they aren't in Level 5. You may wonder what the difference in a Level 2 PED defense and a Level 5 PED defense...well, Bill is making this up as he goes along so just stop asking questions.
So does everyone defending Lance Armstrong's last two decades of
lying/cheating/bullying/threatening/intimidating because "he did some
real good, too."
There are those like me who can compartmentalize. I think Lance Armstrong the rider is a dipshit bully who deserves all the nasty shit coming to him. I think Lance Armstrong the cancer fighter did a lot of good for cancer research, but I do realize he was a dipshit.
Q: [What] would be the craziest possible ending to the Manti Te'o story?
—Greg, Philly
SG: Bill Belichick spending the past few years creating Manti's fake
dead girl, then hiring someone to play her on the phone, with the
ultimate intent of wounding Manti's draft stock enough that he'd fall to
the bottom of the first round of the 2013 draft … right to the New
England Patriots.
The craziest ending to this story would involve Te'o being a New England Patriot. Of course this is the craziest ending possible.
I do have to say this all-Te'o mailbag wasn't as bad as the Chuck Klosterman-Malcolm Gladwell email conversation about this story. I quit reading it after the first exchange. If the rest of the column is any indication, maybe they should have been lazy and let their readers write questions about Te'o to them in a mailbag.
Showing posts with label stupid levels of something. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stupid levels of something. Show all posts
Monday, January 28, 2013
Thursday, June 3, 2010
6 comments Bill Simmons Does a Great Parody of a Bill Simmons Mailbag
It appears that Bill Simmons is all retro-diaried out for the time being. He has decided to grace us all with a parody of his mailbags...or at least it like a parody. I am not concerned about not having a retro-diary in two weeks, I am pretty sure we will get enough retro-diaries and talk about the Celtics over the next two weeks to last us for at least a year. I do think Bill Simmons does a pretty good parody of a Bill Simmons mailbag. At least I think that's what this is. It has all the attributes of a Bill Simmons mailbag including readers who write like him, questions that may be written by Bill, and questions that are self-referential towards fake theories and corollaries that Bill has created to show everyone how clever he is.
Fine, fine, fine. Twist my arm. How 'bout a Mega Memorial Day Weekend Mailbag in honor of everyone who served our country or continues to protect it here and overseas?
That's just great. It's like honoring our men and women who serve the country by sending them Taylor Hicks to perform for them. It seems like an honor on initial thought, but in reality it is probably just torturing them. Actually, if a Bill Simmons mailbag has an effect on the servicemen and women of our country like it does me, they should be ready to fight about halfway through the mailbag.
As always these are fake emails made up by Bill.
As always, these are actual e-mails from actual readers.
Ok, well some of these readers may as well be mini-Bills...or as I call them SimmonsClones.
Q: Hearing the entire Staples Center shout "NO!" as Ron Artest is about to jack up an idiotic 3-pointer with 35 seconds left was topped only by the disbelief in the faces of everyone there as he made the game-winning shot. I think I'm going to start using the phrase "You just gotta play basketball" to defend every stupid decision I make in the future.
-- Scott Brand, Columbus, Ohio
SG: Say Queensbridge! You forgot to say Queensbridge! Anyway, I couldn't agree more -- it was an incredible night that created a new Level of Losing, the "Stomach Punch From A Complete Lunatic" defeat.
"Hey remember that super-clever and funny fake list I created, I am adding new levels to it to the point it becomes redundant now and impossible to decipher. Who gives a damn anymore, my readers will pretty much lap up whatever shit I feed them. I can do what I want, I'm Bill Simmons."
2. The Lakers have won their three biggest games of the past two years because nobody on Orlando's roster remembered to guard Derek Fisher on a game-tying 3, because Serge Ibaka forgot to box out Pau Gasol and because Jason Richardson forgot to box out Artest. Eventually, they're going to run into an equally good team that doesn't forget to do things. I just hope this happens before 2025.
So basically Bill is saying the defending champions got lucky in winning the title last year and got lucky this year to win the Western Conference Finals. This coming from a guy who has said on multiple occasions the Orlando Magic refused to play their best five men on the court at the same time. That was sort of lucky for the Celtics the Magic never figured that out. I am sure Nate Robinson pouring down double figures in a quarter wasn't any type of luck for the Celtics either.
Bill is so sad sometimes. He just can't admit the Lakers are a good team. The reason the Lakers can't run into an equally good team in the Western Conference that doesn't forget to do these things is because there isn't a team in the Western Conference that is an equally good team. Therein lies the problem.
I also found it funny we got 2-3 discussions in Bill's columns last year about how noble the Celtics were in defending their NBA Title, but strangely the Lakers didn't get any mentions like that this year. Maybe they don't cry about the officiating enough or don't get "injured" en---
Wait, hold on...is that Paul Pierce being taken off the court on a stretcher grimacing in pain? Holy crap, I hope he's ok...wait, he's back, it was just a bruise on his upper arm, he's good to go now.
I can't believe that happened! Kendrick Perkins just got another technical foul for acting like a five-year-old and stomping around after a call against him by the referees. The refs are SO against the Celtics. It's like they take the constant whining and complaining about the calls as something that is personally wrong with the officiating. It's not that, it is just the Celtics act like whiny babies when the officiating calls don't go in their favor and this means they are passionate.
Ok, we aren't even done with the first question and I am already writing a lot of paragraphs. I need an editor.
3. Fisher (22 points, totally unafraid) was quietly the key to Game 5, which is incredible, because three months ago if you had told any Lakers fans "The biggest conference playoff game you'll play this season will hinge on Derek Fisher," they would have locked out of the season.
Bill knows the Lakers fans would have reacted this way because he speaks for all the fans for every team in the NBA. He KNOWS what everyone is thinking because he is "The Sports Guy" and has a license to speak for everyone.
I am not sure how Derek Fisher (who has helped the Lakers win multiple NBA titles and has hit clutch shots for the Lakers in the past during the playoffs) performing well in an important game is any more shocking than Nate Robinson going off on the Magic in Game 6 or Rasheed Wallace deciding to start giving a shit.
(And by the way, I don't think the Suns are done yet. They can win Game 6 just like they won Games 3 and 4, and once you get to Game 7, the pilot turns on the "Who The Hell Knows?" sign.
I like how Bill is playing this both ways. He makes this statement and then says this on Twitter:
LA 28-3 in last 31 playoff home games. It's fair to doubt Phx, right? RT @McRaeberg: Keep doubting the Suns so they can shock the world!
Either way the series goes, Bill can be right!
Hell, Kobe has played out of his mind for this entire series and Phoenix nearly beat L.A. three straight. Don't count out the Suns. I'm telling you.)
But of course it was also fair to doubt the Suns in Bill's mind. So doubt the Suns, but don't count them out!
Q: If soccer was king in the U.S. and every kid grew up playing it, which current athlete would be the best soccer player?
--Szabi, Far Hills
I don't know if I believe a reader really asked this question of Bill for two reasons:
1. Bill is probably contractually obligated by ESPN to mention the World Cup in his columns, mailbags and nearly everywhere else. So this question was included to remind everyone the World Cup is coming up and it just so happens ESPN has the rights to broadcast the World Cup.
2. Bill just wants an opportunity to talk about how good Rajon Rondo is and make wonderful hypothetical statements about how good Rondo would be hypothetically at soccer.
SG: My old answer for this question was Allen Iverson. He's washed up now, but the reasons I always thought he would thrive on a soccer field still hold up: lower center of gravity, explosive speed, phenomenal coordination, leaping ability and a feistiness/toughness/arrogance that every great soccer player has. (FYI: The world's two best players right now are 5-foot-7 Lionel Messi and 5-10 Wayne Rooney.)
Before Bill gets to his list, let's remember that the three NBA players Bill lists here are fairly well over six-feet-tall and Bill just listed the two best players in the world as being under six-feet-tall. I feel like I had to mention this before we get too excited about his ideas for which athlete would be a good soccer player.
Deron Williams: Six-foot-3, great footwork, explosive, physical, strong, thinks like a playmaker. He'd be an unbelievable stopper in an alternate universe.
I love the assumption that success in one skill of a sport immediately means that skill will translate over to another sport. I am well aware that some NBA players like Hakeem Olajuwon played soccer growing up and Ndamukong Suh did as well. I think these players are the exception to the rule, rather than the rule. Hasheem Thabeet also played soccer before he became a basketball player (he sort of plays basketball, he is more like a tall statue), and his soccer skills certainly don't seem to have translated to the NBA basketball court.
Rajon Rondo: Can you think of a better position for a catlike 6-3 freakishly athletic guy with oversized hands than soccer goalie? I mean, other than point guard? Why do I feel as if we could teach Rondo the position in 10 days and he would instantly become the best goalie in the world?
I will let "Anonymous" take over from what he said in the comments for a previous post in regard to the answer to this question:
Anonymous: Uhh..because you are an idiot who does not know anything about soccer (but thinks he does because he once wrote a column on picking an EPL team to root for)? Goalkeeping is about more than athleticism, its about positioning, communication, knowing when to attack balls and when to stay in the net and distributing balls to start the attack.
That's what I think too.
Q: What are the odds of Tim Donaghy being the Jose Canseco of the 2010s?
--Ryan, Tempe, Ariz.
SG: It's worth noting that I received this e-mail during Game 5 of the Celtics-Magic series.
Before Game 5? That was before the Celtics had the entire officiating crew in that game turn against the Celtics and dare to make some bad calls against the Celtics. The officials helped the Magic injure three Celtics players, while continuing the officiating bias against the Celtics that the NBA has recently instituted in an effort to make the Celtics lose in the NBA Playoffs. The entire NBA officiating crew is against the Celtics now because a couple of bad calls went against them! Game 5 is proof of this!
I am sure the NBA was desperate to get a Lakers-Magic rematch in the NBA Finals over a Lakers-Celtics NBA Finals series. The NBA is always trying to prevent a re-hashing of the Lakers-Celtics rivalry.
And let's just say there was just cause; that game made me ashamed to be an NBA fan.
There were some bad calls and the NBA can't have officials deciding a series, which is why one of the technicals against Perkins got rescinded. You'd think there had never been another bad call in the history of the playoffs the way Bill is talking about the Game 5 officiating.
Q: Since you're a father, I know you will understand what I am about to write.
Fine, fine, fine. Twist my arm. How 'bout a Mega Memorial Day Weekend Mailbag in honor of everyone who served our country or continues to protect it here and overseas?
That's just great. It's like honoring our men and women who serve the country by sending them Taylor Hicks to perform for them. It seems like an honor on initial thought, but in reality it is probably just torturing them. Actually, if a Bill Simmons mailbag has an effect on the servicemen and women of our country like it does me, they should be ready to fight about halfway through the mailbag.
As always these are fake emails made up by Bill.
As always, these are actual e-mails from actual readers.
Ok, well some of these readers may as well be mini-Bills...or as I call them SimmonsClones.
Q: Hearing the entire Staples Center shout "NO!" as Ron Artest is about to jack up an idiotic 3-pointer with 35 seconds left was topped only by the disbelief in the faces of everyone there as he made the game-winning shot. I think I'm going to start using the phrase "You just gotta play basketball" to defend every stupid decision I make in the future.
-- Scott Brand, Columbus, Ohio
SG: Say Queensbridge! You forgot to say Queensbridge! Anyway, I couldn't agree more -- it was an incredible night that created a new Level of Losing, the "Stomach Punch From A Complete Lunatic" defeat.
"Hey remember that super-clever and funny fake list I created, I am adding new levels to it to the point it becomes redundant now and impossible to decipher. Who gives a damn anymore, my readers will pretty much lap up whatever shit I feed them. I can do what I want, I'm Bill Simmons."
2. The Lakers have won their three biggest games of the past two years because nobody on Orlando's roster remembered to guard Derek Fisher on a game-tying 3, because Serge Ibaka forgot to box out Pau Gasol and because Jason Richardson forgot to box out Artest. Eventually, they're going to run into an equally good team that doesn't forget to do things. I just hope this happens before 2025.
So basically Bill is saying the defending champions got lucky in winning the title last year and got lucky this year to win the Western Conference Finals. This coming from a guy who has said on multiple occasions the Orlando Magic refused to play their best five men on the court at the same time. That was sort of lucky for the Celtics the Magic never figured that out. I am sure Nate Robinson pouring down double figures in a quarter wasn't any type of luck for the Celtics either.
Bill is so sad sometimes. He just can't admit the Lakers are a good team. The reason the Lakers can't run into an equally good team in the Western Conference that doesn't forget to do these things is because there isn't a team in the Western Conference that is an equally good team. Therein lies the problem.
I also found it funny we got 2-3 discussions in Bill's columns last year about how noble the Celtics were in defending their NBA Title, but strangely the Lakers didn't get any mentions like that this year. Maybe they don't cry about the officiating enough or don't get "injured" en---
Wait, hold on...is that Paul Pierce being taken off the court on a stretcher grimacing in pain? Holy crap, I hope he's ok...wait, he's back, it was just a bruise on his upper arm, he's good to go now.
I can't believe that happened! Kendrick Perkins just got another technical foul for acting like a five-year-old and stomping around after a call against him by the referees. The refs are SO against the Celtics. It's like they take the constant whining and complaining about the calls as something that is personally wrong with the officiating. It's not that, it is just the Celtics act like whiny babies when the officiating calls don't go in their favor and this means they are passionate.
Ok, we aren't even done with the first question and I am already writing a lot of paragraphs. I need an editor.
3. Fisher (22 points, totally unafraid) was quietly the key to Game 5, which is incredible, because three months ago if you had told any Lakers fans "The biggest conference playoff game you'll play this season will hinge on Derek Fisher," they would have locked out of the season.
Bill knows the Lakers fans would have reacted this way because he speaks for all the fans for every team in the NBA. He KNOWS what everyone is thinking because he is "The Sports Guy" and has a license to speak for everyone.
I am not sure how Derek Fisher (who has helped the Lakers win multiple NBA titles and has hit clutch shots for the Lakers in the past during the playoffs) performing well in an important game is any more shocking than Nate Robinson going off on the Magic in Game 6 or Rasheed Wallace deciding to start giving a shit.
(And by the way, I don't think the Suns are done yet. They can win Game 6 just like they won Games 3 and 4, and once you get to Game 7, the pilot turns on the "Who The Hell Knows?" sign.
I like how Bill is playing this both ways. He makes this statement and then says this on Twitter:
LA 28-3 in last 31 playoff home games. It's fair to doubt Phx, right? RT @McRaeberg: Keep doubting the Suns so they can shock the world!
Either way the series goes, Bill can be right!
Hell, Kobe has played out of his mind for this entire series and Phoenix nearly beat L.A. three straight. Don't count out the Suns. I'm telling you.)
But of course it was also fair to doubt the Suns in Bill's mind. So doubt the Suns, but don't count them out!
Q: If soccer was king in the U.S. and every kid grew up playing it, which current athlete would be the best soccer player?
--Szabi, Far Hills
I don't know if I believe a reader really asked this question of Bill for two reasons:
1. Bill is probably contractually obligated by ESPN to mention the World Cup in his columns, mailbags and nearly everywhere else. So this question was included to remind everyone the World Cup is coming up and it just so happens ESPN has the rights to broadcast the World Cup.
2. Bill just wants an opportunity to talk about how good Rajon Rondo is and make wonderful hypothetical statements about how good Rondo would be hypothetically at soccer.
SG: My old answer for this question was Allen Iverson. He's washed up now, but the reasons I always thought he would thrive on a soccer field still hold up: lower center of gravity, explosive speed, phenomenal coordination, leaping ability and a feistiness/toughness/arrogance that every great soccer player has. (FYI: The world's two best players right now are 5-foot-7 Lionel Messi and 5-10 Wayne Rooney.)
Before Bill gets to his list, let's remember that the three NBA players Bill lists here are fairly well over six-feet-tall and Bill just listed the two best players in the world as being under six-feet-tall. I feel like I had to mention this before we get too excited about his ideas for which athlete would be a good soccer player.
Deron Williams: Six-foot-3, great footwork, explosive, physical, strong, thinks like a playmaker. He'd be an unbelievable stopper in an alternate universe.
I love the assumption that success in one skill of a sport immediately means that skill will translate over to another sport. I am well aware that some NBA players like Hakeem Olajuwon played soccer growing up and Ndamukong Suh did as well. I think these players are the exception to the rule, rather than the rule. Hasheem Thabeet also played soccer before he became a basketball player (he sort of plays basketball, he is more like a tall statue), and his soccer skills certainly don't seem to have translated to the NBA basketball court.
Rajon Rondo: Can you think of a better position for a catlike 6-3 freakishly athletic guy with oversized hands than soccer goalie? I mean, other than point guard? Why do I feel as if we could teach Rondo the position in 10 days and he would instantly become the best goalie in the world?
I will let "Anonymous" take over from what he said in the comments for a previous post in regard to the answer to this question:
Anonymous: Uhh..because you are an idiot who does not know anything about soccer (but thinks he does because he once wrote a column on picking an EPL team to root for)? Goalkeeping is about more than athleticism, its about positioning, communication, knowing when to attack balls and when to stay in the net and distributing balls to start the attack.
That's what I think too.
Q: What are the odds of Tim Donaghy being the Jose Canseco of the 2010s?
--Ryan, Tempe, Ariz.
SG: It's worth noting that I received this e-mail during Game 5 of the Celtics-Magic series.
Before Game 5? That was before the Celtics had the entire officiating crew in that game turn against the Celtics and dare to make some bad calls against the Celtics. The officials helped the Magic injure three Celtics players, while continuing the officiating bias against the Celtics that the NBA has recently instituted in an effort to make the Celtics lose in the NBA Playoffs. The entire NBA officiating crew is against the Celtics now because a couple of bad calls went against them! Game 5 is proof of this!
I am sure the NBA was desperate to get a Lakers-Magic rematch in the NBA Finals over a Lakers-Celtics NBA Finals series. The NBA is always trying to prevent a re-hashing of the Lakers-Celtics rivalry.
And let's just say there was just cause; that game made me ashamed to be an NBA fan.
There were some bad calls and the NBA can't have officials deciding a series, which is why one of the technicals against Perkins got rescinded. You'd think there had never been another bad call in the history of the playoffs the way Bill is talking about the Game 5 officiating.
Q: Since you're a father, I know you will understand what I am about to write.
Right now the nanny is taking care of the kids so Bill can answer this question about being a father. Apparently this person knows no other person in his life who is a father and can answer this question. Only Bill is Simmons is qualified to give an answer. Carry on...
You know how every time you go to clean out your car you find a cup under a seat or somewhere else? And when you take the cup inside to be washed out you pray that it will contain juice or water and not milk. But of course, it has stinking rotten spoiled milk in it. Instead of washing the cup you would rather throw it out. This is what Vince Carter is like.
Wow, it took a little bit of time to get to the actual point of this question. Since this guy writing to Bill apparently has no friends and can only ask questions related to being a father and loving sports to Bill Simmons, let's not subject ourselves to this overly-long analogy. We'll move on...
Now comes the part where Bill makes up an email from a female reader in an attempt to make it seem like he has female readers and increase his fan-base among females. It's like Bill wants to inspire women to write him as well:
(random female reads this email from a woman to Bill's mailbag) "Lauren from city-not-named likes Bill and writes into him? I finally feel comfortable writing to Bill!"
Bill makes constant references to pornography, is somewhat sexist in some of the ways he portrays women, he talks about sports (obviously), and discusses movies many women have no interest in watching...for how famous Bill Simmons is, he probably has a smaller percentage of female readers than many other sportswriters.
Q: Isn't the Eagles letting go of Donovan the ultimate "It's not you, it's me" scenario? Donovan has been dating the Eagles fans for years now. In the beginning it was exciting and risky. You never knew what he was going to do with the ball and he kept you on your toes. Like when my boyfriend liked to give me massages and surprise me with a card or have breakfast for me. Each encounter (insert mood music) is hot and fresh. Then after 12 years you've found yourself faking moaning and hoping things get moving so you can fit in your 40 minutes of DVR before bed. I know all his moves and when he's going to high-step it 2 yards short of the first down. I know when he's going to throw it at DeSean's ankles. K-squared may not be perfect, but at least his faults will surprise me. Donovan, it's been great. I loved the good times. But it's time to move on. It's not you, it's me.
-- Lauren
Come on...an overly-long analogy where the person doesn't actually say what he/she means, a comparison between a sports situation and a phrase used in relationships, and Lauren-from-a-city that isn't named? Either Lauren does a great Bill Simmons impression or she doesn't exist.
You know how every time you go to clean out your car you find a cup under a seat or somewhere else? And when you take the cup inside to be washed out you pray that it will contain juice or water and not milk. But of course, it has stinking rotten spoiled milk in it. Instead of washing the cup you would rather throw it out. This is what Vince Carter is like.
Wow, it took a little bit of time to get to the actual point of this question. Since this guy writing to Bill apparently has no friends and can only ask questions related to being a father and loving sports to Bill Simmons, let's not subject ourselves to this overly-long analogy. We'll move on...
Now comes the part where Bill makes up an email from a female reader in an attempt to make it seem like he has female readers and increase his fan-base among females. It's like Bill wants to inspire women to write him as well:
(random female reads this email from a woman to Bill's mailbag) "Lauren from city-not-named likes Bill and writes into him? I finally feel comfortable writing to Bill!"
Bill makes constant references to pornography, is somewhat sexist in some of the ways he portrays women, he talks about sports (obviously), and discusses movies many women have no interest in watching...for how famous Bill Simmons is, he probably has a smaller percentage of female readers than many other sportswriters.
Q: Isn't the Eagles letting go of Donovan the ultimate "It's not you, it's me" scenario? Donovan has been dating the Eagles fans for years now. In the beginning it was exciting and risky. You never knew what he was going to do with the ball and he kept you on your toes. Like when my boyfriend liked to give me massages and surprise me with a card or have breakfast for me. Each encounter (insert mood music) is hot and fresh. Then after 12 years you've found yourself faking moaning and hoping things get moving so you can fit in your 40 minutes of DVR before bed. I know all his moves and when he's going to high-step it 2 yards short of the first down. I know when he's going to throw it at DeSean's ankles. K-squared may not be perfect, but at least his faults will surprise me. Donovan, it's been great. I loved the good times. But it's time to move on. It's not you, it's me.
-- Lauren
Come on...an overly-long analogy where the person doesn't actually say what he/she means, a comparison between a sports situation and a phrase used in relationships, and Lauren-from-a-city that isn't named? Either Lauren does a great Bill Simmons impression or she doesn't exist.
SG: An iPhone app called "Who's That Celeb?" Works like Shazam -- if you think you see a celeb in your vicinity, you just point your iPhone at him or her and the iPhone takes a picture, runs it through a facial recognition scanner and tells you who it is. Invaluable for anyone who lives in New York or L.A.
Did you know Bill lives in Los Angeles and sees/knows a bunch of celebrities? I am not sure he has mentioned this specifically in this mailbag, so here's our reminder.
You know how every boxing undercard is horrible? Why hasn't a Vegas casino tried this idea: Instead of lousy undercard fights that nobody cares about, why not start with a headlining entertainer (say, Wayne Newton), then a headlining comedian (say, Frank Caliendo), then a stripped-down band (say, The Killers), and then just the main boxing event? Why not make it a real Vegas show?
Because it would be incredibly expensive to do this and the ticket prices would be even more outrageous than they currently are. Plus, you are assuming everyone wants to sit through all that crap to get to the boxing event they actually paid to watch.
Q: I can't stop laughing when you refer to your son as the CEO.
That's weird, I can't stop vomiting when Bill refers to his son with that moniker.
SG: You're not far off. I'm not even kidding. We're like two months from teaching him how to make coffee. By the way, the all-time funniest stage for any little kid is the "I Just Discovered My Penis" stage at 2½. For the past two months, the CEO has been walking around with his hands down his diaper like Al Bundy. It's been so bad that he actually gave himself a rash in a place where you'd never want a rash. He's like a 55-year-old man. I want to dress him in wifebeaters and dirty jogging pants and have him carry around scratch cards and cans of Schlitz. My son slays me. Whoops, I'm breaking my "Don't talk about your kids" column rule again.
Seriously, don't be Peter King and correspond about your family through a public forum if you don't want your family to be a part of the public forum. No one gives a shit about your kids. One or two mentions is perfectly fine every once in a while when they are relevant mentions, but no one cares what you call your child or what he does in the morning. Every 2 1/2 year old does the same shit with his penis. YOUR KID IS NOT SPECIAL!
I would try to tie my thought that Bill is somewhat sexist in with the fact he mentions his son all the time and never really talked about his daughter much in his columns when she was young...but I won't mention that.
SG: My favorite part of that e-mail was that Thabeet's tweets sound exactly like the ones my son would make if he had a Twitter account. His first tweet would be either "Late LUNCH before i go for a NAP!!! Mhmmmm Yummy" or "Pawed at my genitals incessantly today, got another rash, mom had to use triple paste again. HATE TRIPLE PASTE!" Dammit, I did it again. I swear, I'm done.
I have brought this up twice before. If you are a sportswriter and want to talk about your kids in a public forum, be prepared at some point to talk about your kids in a public forum in a fashion you won't enjoy.
SG: I thought it was funny. Unrelated: If you had to describe baseball's steroids era to someone under 12 years old but could go with only one picture, one link, one story, one book and one YouTube clip, which five would you pick? I would go with these:
It's an awesome reread. Honorable mention: SI's 2003 feature on Eric Gagne (written 74 saves into his record-setting 84-save streak) includes this explanation for why Gagne sucked as a starter but thrived as a closer: "The lower pitch counts in relief appearances have allowed him to speed up his fastball from the low 90s to the mid-90s." Oh, really? Is that what happened?
Yes, that is really what happened. Obviously Gagne used PEDs but there have been plenty of instances where converted starters throw harder as a closer because they don't have to pitch as many innings. Guess what else Bill? Pitchers also throw different pitches when they are a starter and a reliever for the same reason. Shocking I know. John Smoltz is a great example. He could hit mid-to-upper 90's consistently as a closer and threw his fastball and slider almost exclusively at times as a closer. Once he became a starter again, his fastball went down to 93 MPH and he used his split-finger pitch more than he did as a closer. So yes, Gagne cheated, but it is perfectly reasonable for a pitcher to throw faster in a closer role than a starter role because that player doesn't have to worry about pacing himself as much.
Q: Why do you hate Miami so much? You give us crap about absolutely everything -- we may be fair-weather fans (except for football) but we're the best fair-weather fans in sports. Plus with the beaches, bikinis, and other distractions, it's hard to act like Boston in winter or Chicago, where there is NOTHING. We have better things to do when our teams are losing. But when they're not, I'm down to skip the beach.
-- George, Caracas, Venezuela
The guy who wrote this is from Caracas, Venezuela? And he is defending Miami.......but why?
Q: I keep reading about the "disgruntled Albert Haynesworth." If I had a contract that was guaranteed to pay me $41 million, and could be worth up to $100 million, I would be the most gruntled employee ever seen. Am I alone in that thought?
--Ray Walton, Indianapolis
SG: Yes. More importantly, that's a great new word: "gruntled."
Bill Simmons is now officially stealing ideas from Gregg Easterbrook. That's just really, really sad to hear.
A quote from TMQ:
Disgruntled no more" -- that's how "SportsCenter" anchor Linda Cohn introduced the news that Jay Cutler had been traded. Cutler whined so much that "disgruntled Jay Cutler" practically became his name. Since he is no longer disgruntled, does that mean he is now gruntled? Yes! Little known dictionary fact: "gruntled" means "satisfied." From now on, the gentleman in question to TMQ will be "the gruntled Jay Cutler."
Two things:
1. It's never a good sign for creativity when one ESPN Page 2 columnist is stealing from another ESPN Page 2 columnist.
2. Rick Reilly is either really pissed he didn't steal it from Gregg Easterbrook first or he will have a list of the "Top 10 Most Gruntled Athletes" out for his new column next week.
Q: In your opinion, what is the one sporting event that happened at least 25 years ago that would have been looked at drastically different in today's age of 24-hour sports coverage, and the social networking craze? I'm not necessarily asking if the outcome would have been different (for example, could DiMaggio hit in 56 straight with today's sports media coverage?), but rather, what event that seems to fly under the radar only because there wasn't media coverage every hour of every day to drive what an unbelievable thing had just occurred?
-- Ryan B., Columbus, Ohio
1. Yankee teammates Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich switching wives and families in 1973. Such a crazy story, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are thinking about making a movie about it.
We all know Ben Affleck will only make a movie if the basis for the movie is a good story that is so crazy the public will just HAVE to see the movie...or he will make the movie if the producers pay Affleck in American currency.
(Affleck's agent) "Here are a couple of scripts I want you to read through. There's some good stuff in there."
(Ben Affleck) "Which one of these are willing to pay me the most, in cash, upfront to do the movie."
(Affleck's agent) "Well, this one (points to a script), but I am not sure how solvent the studio will be after the movie and the movie may never be released, which is why they are paying you up front in the hopes additional investors hear you are involved and want to get in on it. I would personally avoid this mov--."
(Affleck) "Yep, that's the one. I'm in. Tell them I want straight cash, upfront, before I film one scene."
Let's say the fact Ben Affleck is making a movie about an event doesn't impress me too much. Since the year 2000 he has been responsible for the following movies:
Reindeer Games
Pearl Harbor
Daddy and Them
Changing Lanes
Daredevil
Gigli
Paycheck
Surviving Christmas
Jersey Girl
(Sensing he wasn't doing too well, he cut down on the number of movies he did...then gave us:)
Man About Town (which has a solid 38% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes)
He's Just Not That Into You
So basically his solution to not be featured in movies that bomb was to quit making as many movies as he used to. Anyway, enough Ben Affleck bashing, I am just pointing out if he is making a film it's not like it is a great story.
The lesson, as always: You gotta love David Stern. Well, unless he's looking the other way as your team is getting completely railroaded in an Eastern Conference final playoff game.
As I said before, I am sure the NBA is desperately trying to ensure there wasn't a Boston-Los Angeles NBA Finals series. Why would the NBA want the most storied NBA rivalry, which just happens to involve two teams in major markets on both coasts, to happen this year in the NBA Finals? Obviously they would do anything to avoid this. Who wants the good ratings that will probably go along with this matchup?
Let's stop being melodramatic about this. The Celtics were the victim of bad calls in one playoff game and nobody wants the Eastern Conference Finals decided by the officiating, but to say one game of bad calls means the Celtics are being "railroaded" is just the type of "we are the victim" attitude Boston area fans have stereotypically loved and portrayed publicly.
Thanks for reflecting that "victim" stereotype Bill. It's so funny with Bill Simmons, if there is a couple bad calls against his team (in whatever sport) all of a sudden the whole fucking world is against his favorite team. Bad officiating sucks, but I am pretty sure one game of bad officiating doesn't mean the Celtics are getting screwed over or getting "railroaded."
Q: So I'm in the grocery store the other night buying ramen noodles 'cause that's literally the only thing I can afford to eat. Right after I had put the fourth huge case into my cart, a really cute girl approaches me and says, "Wow, that's a lot of ramen." For whatever reason, my immediate response is, "Yeah, I'm buying it for a local food drive for the homeless." Wouldn't you know it, but the girl finds this extremely sexy for some reason, and we continue to talk for a few minutes. Eventually, I ask her out, and we decide she will come to my place for dinner and a movie later on this week. What in the hell am I supposed to do? I have no money and a kitchen full of ramen noodles that are supposed to be for some mysterious food drive. Your thoughts?
-- Shane, Baltimore
My first suggestion would be to not email Bill Simmons about this problem. He isn't your daddy, go ask someone your own age or perhaps look in the mirror and realize the fact you ask a sportswriter (and I am using this term ever-so-loosely) this question is sort of sad. Bill isn't the best person to answer your major problems in life. Perhaps you could tell this girl you haven't given the noodles to the food drive quite yet or just cut your losses and tell her the truth.
I don't know if a woman would be turned on enough by a food drive to go to a guy's house for dinner, so maybe she actually likes you and doesn't know you are pathetic and ask sportswriters what to do in your personal life. Take advantage of her lack of knowledge about your dependency on Bill's opinion quickly. More importantly as my last piece of advice, I would not ask Bill Simmons the answer to any problems in your personal life. It's pathetic and makes it seem like you need more friends.
Did you know Bill lives in Los Angeles and sees/knows a bunch of celebrities? I am not sure he has mentioned this specifically in this mailbag, so here's our reminder.
You know how every boxing undercard is horrible? Why hasn't a Vegas casino tried this idea: Instead of lousy undercard fights that nobody cares about, why not start with a headlining entertainer (say, Wayne Newton), then a headlining comedian (say, Frank Caliendo), then a stripped-down band (say, The Killers), and then just the main boxing event? Why not make it a real Vegas show?
Because it would be incredibly expensive to do this and the ticket prices would be even more outrageous than they currently are. Plus, you are assuming everyone wants to sit through all that crap to get to the boxing event they actually paid to watch.
Q: I can't stop laughing when you refer to your son as the CEO.
That's weird, I can't stop vomiting when Bill refers to his son with that moniker.
SG: You're not far off. I'm not even kidding. We're like two months from teaching him how to make coffee. By the way, the all-time funniest stage for any little kid is the "I Just Discovered My Penis" stage at 2½. For the past two months, the CEO has been walking around with his hands down his diaper like Al Bundy. It's been so bad that he actually gave himself a rash in a place where you'd never want a rash. He's like a 55-year-old man. I want to dress him in wifebeaters and dirty jogging pants and have him carry around scratch cards and cans of Schlitz. My son slays me. Whoops, I'm breaking my "Don't talk about your kids" column rule again.
Seriously, don't be Peter King and correspond about your family through a public forum if you don't want your family to be a part of the public forum. No one gives a shit about your kids. One or two mentions is perfectly fine every once in a while when they are relevant mentions, but no one cares what you call your child or what he does in the morning. Every 2 1/2 year old does the same shit with his penis. YOUR KID IS NOT SPECIAL!
I would try to tie my thought that Bill is somewhat sexist in with the fact he mentions his son all the time and never really talked about his daughter much in his columns when she was young...but I won't mention that.
SG: My favorite part of that e-mail was that Thabeet's tweets sound exactly like the ones my son would make if he had a Twitter account. His first tweet would be either "Late LUNCH before i go for a NAP!!! Mhmmmm Yummy" or "Pawed at my genitals incessantly today, got another rash, mom had to use triple paste again. HATE TRIPLE PASTE!" Dammit, I did it again. I swear, I'm done.
I have brought this up twice before. If you are a sportswriter and want to talk about your kids in a public forum, be prepared at some point to talk about your kids in a public forum in a fashion you won't enjoy.
SG: I thought it was funny. Unrelated: If you had to describe baseball's steroids era to someone under 12 years old but could go with only one picture, one link, one story, one book and one YouTube clip, which five would you pick? I would go with these:
It's an awesome reread. Honorable mention: SI's 2003 feature on Eric Gagne (written 74 saves into his record-setting 84-save streak) includes this explanation for why Gagne sucked as a starter but thrived as a closer: "The lower pitch counts in relief appearances have allowed him to speed up his fastball from the low 90s to the mid-90s." Oh, really? Is that what happened?
Yes, that is really what happened. Obviously Gagne used PEDs but there have been plenty of instances where converted starters throw harder as a closer because they don't have to pitch as many innings. Guess what else Bill? Pitchers also throw different pitches when they are a starter and a reliever for the same reason. Shocking I know. John Smoltz is a great example. He could hit mid-to-upper 90's consistently as a closer and threw his fastball and slider almost exclusively at times as a closer. Once he became a starter again, his fastball went down to 93 MPH and he used his split-finger pitch more than he did as a closer. So yes, Gagne cheated, but it is perfectly reasonable for a pitcher to throw faster in a closer role than a starter role because that player doesn't have to worry about pacing himself as much.
Q: Why do you hate Miami so much? You give us crap about absolutely everything -- we may be fair-weather fans (except for football) but we're the best fair-weather fans in sports. Plus with the beaches, bikinis, and other distractions, it's hard to act like Boston in winter or Chicago, where there is NOTHING. We have better things to do when our teams are losing. But when they're not, I'm down to skip the beach.
-- George, Caracas, Venezuela
The guy who wrote this is from Caracas, Venezuela? And he is defending Miami.......but why?
Q: I keep reading about the "disgruntled Albert Haynesworth." If I had a contract that was guaranteed to pay me $41 million, and could be worth up to $100 million, I would be the most gruntled employee ever seen. Am I alone in that thought?
--Ray Walton, Indianapolis
SG: Yes. More importantly, that's a great new word: "gruntled."
Bill Simmons is now officially stealing ideas from Gregg Easterbrook. That's just really, really sad to hear.
A quote from TMQ:
Disgruntled no more" -- that's how "SportsCenter" anchor Linda Cohn introduced the news that Jay Cutler had been traded. Cutler whined so much that "disgruntled Jay Cutler" practically became his name. Since he is no longer disgruntled, does that mean he is now gruntled? Yes! Little known dictionary fact: "gruntled" means "satisfied." From now on, the gentleman in question to TMQ will be "the gruntled Jay Cutler."
Two things:
1. It's never a good sign for creativity when one ESPN Page 2 columnist is stealing from another ESPN Page 2 columnist.
2. Rick Reilly is either really pissed he didn't steal it from Gregg Easterbrook first or he will have a list of the "Top 10 Most Gruntled Athletes" out for his new column next week.
Q: In your opinion, what is the one sporting event that happened at least 25 years ago that would have been looked at drastically different in today's age of 24-hour sports coverage, and the social networking craze? I'm not necessarily asking if the outcome would have been different (for example, could DiMaggio hit in 56 straight with today's sports media coverage?), but rather, what event that seems to fly under the radar only because there wasn't media coverage every hour of every day to drive what an unbelievable thing had just occurred?
-- Ryan B., Columbus, Ohio
1. Yankee teammates Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich switching wives and families in 1973. Such a crazy story, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are thinking about making a movie about it.
We all know Ben Affleck will only make a movie if the basis for the movie is a good story that is so crazy the public will just HAVE to see the movie...or he will make the movie if the producers pay Affleck in American currency.
(Affleck's agent) "Here are a couple of scripts I want you to read through. There's some good stuff in there."
(Ben Affleck) "Which one of these are willing to pay me the most, in cash, upfront to do the movie."
(Affleck's agent) "Well, this one (points to a script), but I am not sure how solvent the studio will be after the movie and the movie may never be released, which is why they are paying you up front in the hopes additional investors hear you are involved and want to get in on it. I would personally avoid this mov--."
(Affleck) "Yep, that's the one. I'm in. Tell them I want straight cash, upfront, before I film one scene."
Let's say the fact Ben Affleck is making a movie about an event doesn't impress me too much. Since the year 2000 he has been responsible for the following movies:
Reindeer Games
Pearl Harbor
Daddy and Them
Changing Lanes
Daredevil
Gigli
Paycheck
Surviving Christmas
Jersey Girl
(Sensing he wasn't doing too well, he cut down on the number of movies he did...then gave us:)
Man About Town (which has a solid 38% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes)
He's Just Not That Into You
So basically his solution to not be featured in movies that bomb was to quit making as many movies as he used to. Anyway, enough Ben Affleck bashing, I am just pointing out if he is making a film it's not like it is a great story.
The lesson, as always: You gotta love David Stern. Well, unless he's looking the other way as your team is getting completely railroaded in an Eastern Conference final playoff game.
As I said before, I am sure the NBA is desperately trying to ensure there wasn't a Boston-Los Angeles NBA Finals series. Why would the NBA want the most storied NBA rivalry, which just happens to involve two teams in major markets on both coasts, to happen this year in the NBA Finals? Obviously they would do anything to avoid this. Who wants the good ratings that will probably go along with this matchup?
Let's stop being melodramatic about this. The Celtics were the victim of bad calls in one playoff game and nobody wants the Eastern Conference Finals decided by the officiating, but to say one game of bad calls means the Celtics are being "railroaded" is just the type of "we are the victim" attitude Boston area fans have stereotypically loved and portrayed publicly.
Thanks for reflecting that "victim" stereotype Bill. It's so funny with Bill Simmons, if there is a couple bad calls against his team (in whatever sport) all of a sudden the whole fucking world is against his favorite team. Bad officiating sucks, but I am pretty sure one game of bad officiating doesn't mean the Celtics are getting screwed over or getting "railroaded."
Q: So I'm in the grocery store the other night buying ramen noodles 'cause that's literally the only thing I can afford to eat. Right after I had put the fourth huge case into my cart, a really cute girl approaches me and says, "Wow, that's a lot of ramen." For whatever reason, my immediate response is, "Yeah, I'm buying it for a local food drive for the homeless." Wouldn't you know it, but the girl finds this extremely sexy for some reason, and we continue to talk for a few minutes. Eventually, I ask her out, and we decide she will come to my place for dinner and a movie later on this week. What in the hell am I supposed to do? I have no money and a kitchen full of ramen noodles that are supposed to be for some mysterious food drive. Your thoughts?
-- Shane, Baltimore
My first suggestion would be to not email Bill Simmons about this problem. He isn't your daddy, go ask someone your own age or perhaps look in the mirror and realize the fact you ask a sportswriter (and I am using this term ever-so-loosely) this question is sort of sad. Bill isn't the best person to answer your major problems in life. Perhaps you could tell this girl you haven't given the noodles to the food drive quite yet or just cut your losses and tell her the truth.
I don't know if a woman would be turned on enough by a food drive to go to a guy's house for dinner, so maybe she actually likes you and doesn't know you are pathetic and ask sportswriters what to do in your personal life. Take advantage of her lack of knowledge about your dependency on Bill's opinion quickly. More importantly as my last piece of advice, I would not ask Bill Simmons the answer to any problems in your personal life. It's pathetic and makes it seem like you need more friends.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
20 comments I Might As Well Tackle Simmons' Trade Value Column
I was reluctant to tackle Bill Simmons' trade value column because he has the time and the will to use the ESPN Trade Machine for hours, and to be honest, he knows his NBA stuff pretty well. Then I realized I sounded like a wimp and I changed my mind and decided to just go for it. I have been doing WED's (Writing Enhancing Drugs) for a few days now and feel like I can sufficiently take this on.
I had a few problems with last year's "trade value" column and this year is no exception. Here are Bill's rules that I will have to follow when arguing:
THE RULESI actually agree with these rules and think they make sense in the context of what Bill is trying to do. #4 does leave some room for differing opinions though.
A few weeks ago, a rumor spread that Minnesota offered Al Jefferson for Indiana's Danny Granger and got turned down. It didn't matter if the rumor was true. What mattered was the concept itself. Would you trade Al Jefferson straight up for Danny Granger? This was an old-school basketball trade, almost like two GMs flipping cards in a school yard. Trades are never this simple anymore.
I thought the rule was never trade height for a player of equal value who didn't have as much height? Basically, if Granger and Jefferson have equal value, which they don't in my mind, a team should never trade a player like Jefferson for Granger? I always thought that was the rule, so good job by Indiana to turn the trade down. Good job by Minnesota to try and actually improve their team.
These trades happen all the time now: Teams making lopsided deals to clear cap space so they can overpay other players. Last season, Detroit gave away Chauncey Billups so it could spend $95 million on two bench players. This season, Washington turned two of its top four and the No. 5 pick of the 2009 draft into a slew of expiring 2010 contracts.
This is one of my biggest problems with the NBA. I have talked about it before, but the trades are more about the salary cap and not about actually trading players of value to different teams. It is like GM's are far sighted enough to know they need to save money for better players in the future, but they are too stupid to actually be able to correctly spend the money on better players in the future.
The threat of a 2011 lockout hangs over everything. It's inevitable. It pretty much has to happen. The owners need to be saved from themselves; the players need to realize that they failed to deliver on too many mammoth, long-term contracts, and that one or two clunkers can destroy a franchise for half a decade or more.
This is what I love about the NFL. Mammoth, long-term contracts don't kill teams as frequently because contracts are completely guaranteed and teams can cut players and recoup some of the money. Ironically, this principle of non-guaranteed contracts is only present in the most violent and (in the present and future) body harming sport out of the major sports, the NFL. That's pretty ironic.
In the NFL, a team can get rid of bad contracts without a terrible salary cap hit. This helps in two ways. First, it prevents teams from being weighed down by their mistakes, and second, it lets the players know signing reasonable contracts makes sense if that players wants to play for a team long-term.
For a quick refresher of the "trade value" rules, check the sidebar. Here's a list of 2008-09 incumbents who couldn't crack this season's list or honorable mention:
Devin Harris (38) got sprayed by the Nets' skunk ...
I still think Devin Harris has trade value. I don't know if he is in the Top 40 of Bill's trade value column, but I would bet he has trade value.
Caron Butler (29) got salary dumped ...
So because Caron Butler got traded to a contender for expiring contracts, that means he doesn't have trade value? So the trade value column is useful for everyone as long as a player doesn't get traded? If he does get traded, then that causes his value to drop?
Not to mention, Bill just said in this column that Butler's contract wasn't so bad. From earlier in the column:
Strangely, Butler wasn't even much of a cap burden, making only $20.3 million through 2011. Washington was so desperate to break up the Arenas Era Wizards that it wasn't even rational;
I would include Butler on this list if only because he is a good player who has a good contract. I find it a little bit contradicting that Butler didn't make the list because he got traded for Josh Howard (who isn't terrible), when he has a good contract.
Of course the Mavericks were looking to unload Howard because of stuff like this.
and when we start calling Yao Ming (7) "Yao Ming's Expiring Contract" in five months, I'd like to spell it with Chinese letters.
Remember this statement.
Kevin Garnett (No. 11 last year): And probably untradable this year.
Garnett is having the worst year since his 2nd year in the NBA. I wouldn't say he is untradeable, just because there are teams that would like to have him, but it is pretty close.
Hasheem Thabeet: Just kidding.
Do NBA GM's even watch tape of college basketball player before they draft them? Most specifically, do the Grizzlies watch tape of college basketball players before they draft them? If a 7'3" center is getting his ass handed to him by an undersized, physical center on a consistent basis in college...how does this indicate this 7'3" center is worth a shit as an NBA player?
(As for the "least realistic about their own players" contest ... I think it's a battle to the death between two fan bases and two fan bases only. They know who they are.)
Let me guess. The Boston Celtics are not one of those teams that aren't realistic about their players? I am not asking, even though I ended that sentence with a question mark, I know the answer already. Bill most likely thinks Celtics fans are very reasonable about the skill level of their players.
Kevin Martin (30): My favorite possibly available trade piece -- great contract, proven scorer, high hoops IQ, someone who'd thrive on a veteran team that protected him defensively and ran plays for him.
THIS is why Yao Ming will not be known as "Yao Ming's expiring contract." I love Kevin Martin on the Rockets. I love Kevin Martin with Yao Ming on the team as well and Shane Battier just in the building with his mustache. So while Bill was write about Martin being a good trade piece, I have to say it looks like Yao may stick around longer in Houston if this arrangement works out.
Besides, maybe Yao will be more comfortable if the Rockets "arrange" things for him and give him less freedom. They should fucking TELL HIM he is re-signing with them at a reasonable price. He's from China, he is used to others dictating his personal affairs to him. I think this could work.
Joakim Noah: The new Laimbeer: Love him if he's on your team, hate him if he's playing against you.
Except Joakim Noah is more annoying than Bill Laimbeer and looks like he hasn't had a shower in a few months. Everyone hates Joakim Noah. Even baby Jesus.
Carlos Boozer: Gets a Trade Value DNP because he's a free agent-to-be. I can't tell if the Jazz would trade him, or if anyone wants him. You know what else this means? For the first time ever, no Blue Devils in the top 40! Woohoo! Suck it, Duke!
Boy, Bill really told them. It's not like he controls who makes the Top 40 of his trade value column or anything. I think sometimes Bill gets confused about whether he actually controls what he is writing or not. I think he believe what he writes is fact, not his opinion.
I kept looking and couldn't find any Holy Cross players either...that's weird. If you check the Bottom 40 players with trade value then maybe Duke would have a few candidates for this.
I can stand Duke-hating, but if you don't have a reason to hate Duke, other than you are a white guy who doesn't follow college basketball that closely and went to private school 800 miles from Durham, North Carolina, shut the hell up about it. Basically, Bill has no reason to hate Duke other than to feel cool that he hates Duke.
40. Ricky Rubio
If you have the No. 5 and No. 6 picks in what turned out to be a quality draft,
Let's step back for a minute. This was a quality draft? Do we get a big "I was really fucking wrong" from Bill Simmons? How about him saying, "I was a little down on the draft and it appears I was wrong?" In fact, the two best players from the draft Ricky Rubio and Blake Griffin haven't even played in the NBA this year and the 2009 draft is still looking like a good one.
Does he acknowledge he said the following in his draft diary last year? (I will give you a hint. No, he doesn't.) Here is what Bill said about the 2009 draft:
Here's the point: The 2009 NBA draft is the equivalent of that 10 minutes when I nearly talked myself into three Blu-Rays I didn't even want. I have seen "The Shining" 10 million katrillion times. I don't need to own it on Blu-Ray. But when it's sitting on the same shelf with "Along Came Polly" and "Ocean's 12"? It starts looking good by default. That's the problem with this year's draft class -- too many "Terminator 3" Blu-Rays, only everyone else is so bad, you start talking yourself into them.
Maybe he was just mincing words. What did he really think about the 2009 draft at the time?
Trust me: It's the worst draft class since the infamous Kenyon Martin Draft in 2000.
Bill, you are wrong and that is why we don't trust you. Stick to the NBA my buddy. You can't read 10 articles by Chad Ford, watch a little bit of the NCAA Tournament and try to pass yourself off as a college basketball genius. It just doesn't work that way. So I hope everyone remembers this when Bill starts to "analyze" this year's draft. Just when thinking about how to evaluate the 2009 draft, just remember the 2 best potential players of the draft haven't even played a minute in the NBA yet.
I am even being distracted by all this and losing focus on the fact Bill Simmons just ranked a player who hasn't ever stepped on an NBA court as the player with the 40th most trade value. Combine this with his draft miss and I am not sure this is a good way to start the column.
37. Al Jefferson
About 82.7 percent back from 2009's knee injury. The bigger issue: Residual damage from a 116-265 stretch (and counting) in Minnesota and Boston. At some point, all that losing can turn you into an actual loser. It's like a girl who keeps inadvertently dating jerks and eventually loses her self-esteem.
Which is why Kevin Garnett played on that same "loser" team and won an NBA Title immediately the next year. So you would think that would be impossible to do since Garnett played for a team of losers.
I am sure Bill would have an excuse about how he had help from Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, but those guys also had just come off teams that weren't consistently very good either. It's also how Jamal Crawford is having a good year on a successful team, considering he played for loser teams the previous 10 years of his career that never made the playoffs.
Wait, I am sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt Bill's paragraph of incorrectness as shown through an analogy that is in some ways sexist. (Actually he was done, I just wanted to mention that Bill always has a little sexism in his writing. He always likes to use the analogies involving women with low self-esteem or girls who date losers. It's all a little sexist sometimes.)
36. David Lee
I am not an NBA insider but I would bet every single team in the NBA would trade David Lee straight up for Al Jefferson to be on their team. These two should be switched.
35. Chauncey Billups
Thirty years from now, when the Pistons have finished their 30th straight losing season and officially switched places with the Lions in the Detroit landscape, someone will write a "Curse of Chauncey" book for which Joe Dumars will refuse to be interviewed.
Dan Shaughnessy just got his agent on the phone and said, "Hey, remember this idea for me. I think I may have a good book idea for 2020...What's that you ask? Hell yes it deals with fake curses!"
If I'm a Knicks fan, my Summer of 2010 Worst-Case Scenario is Amar'e and Rudy. That's taking me to a 6-seed every spring.
32. Stephen Curry
Even more sophisticated offensively than we hoped. Defensively ... ugh. But offensively? Wow. His January stats (15 games): 19-4-5, 48 percent FG, 48 percent 3FG, 89.2 percent FT. For the season, assuming he bumps his scoring to 17 PPG post-All-Star break and everything else stays the same, he'd finish with 16 PPG, 120-plus 3s and 42 percent shooting from 3. According to Vincent Masi of ESPN Stats & Information, no rookie came close to hitting those numbers except for Ben Gordon in 2004-05 (15.1 PPG, 134 3s, 40.5 percent).
Congratulations, IF you increase your scoring average you can hit the same numbers as a guy who is now the 6th man for a team that is 20-35. Sadly, that would be a slight step up for Curry in his current situation with the Warriors who are 16-39. I do find it interesting Bill projects Curry's numbers like this since he is assuming Curry manages to increase his scoring average and keep all his other numbers the same without hitting the "rookie wall." I would assume usually rookies will slow down more in the 2nd half of the season since they aren't used to playing 70+ games over a long season.
With that said, the Zombies could absolutely win a title some day with Durant as their No. 1 and Westbrook as No. 3. They just need a No. 2. Not to be confused with the No. 2 that Clay Bennett took on Seattle.
Just to remind everyone, Bill does not think Seattle is tortured enough, though he will keep referencing how bad the city has it in regard to the Sonics leaving for Oklahoma City because it is a running joke he likes.
26. Danny Granger
I don't think it is ever a good sign when a sportswriter makes up a fake title for himself that isn't true and then bases the name of it on a Jennifer Love Hewitt television show on CBS. That's never good.
23. Blake Griffin
I still feel guilty.
Don't you see Bill Simmons has the power to write down words and make those words true simply because they came from his mouth? It's his fault Blake Griffin got injured because he wrote about this happening. This power extends to everything...except the predicting the 2009 NBA Draft would be bad apparently. His powers can't make that come true.
I have a slight problem with Blake Griffin coming off surgery, never having stepped on the court in the NBA and having more trade value than guys like Joe Johnson and Kevin Love.
Semi-related note: This year's draft is head case-heavy, so it will be fascinating to see whether the recent successes of Smith and Z-Bo remove the "STAY AWAY!!!!" neon signs flashing on the foreheads of the 2010 draft class.
Here goes Bill talking about college basketball again. HEY! He has watched two games this year and has heard of these players so he knows how to properly evaluate them. Plus, he is a fucking genius and doesn't need to actually watch the players to see if they are good or not.
Hell, we might even see DeMarcus Cousins get drafted ahead of Evan Turner this June, which should never happen unless it's a draft for the likelihood of someone uttering the sentence, "Don't hang up, you're my only phone call!"
So this is the part where Bill Simmons sort of says DeMarcus Cousins has character issues or is a head case. Unfortunately this is not true. Other than this incident, Cousins has been a model player...or as much of a model as can be expected from a guy who would rather be in the NBA right now. There has been much more good than bad when it comes to him. He likes to interact with the fans during road games and get on their cases, but I don't know if this is a character flaw. He is not a head case, but now that Bill has stated he is, there are 500,000 white kids who follow Bill who think he is.
Let's look for some of these "head cases" in the upcoming NBA Draft, since Bill says there are so many. Let's just go down the NBADraft.net mock draft for 2010 and see who is a head case and who is not (I am skipping the foreigners since I don't know enough about them yet to talk about them):
John Wall- Entitled? Yes, but not a head case. He actually seems to have his shit together for all the hype that has surrounded him.
Evan Turner- No.
Wesley Johnson- He has moved around a lot, but is not a head case.
Al-Farouq Aminu- Is actually a great guy from the few accounts I have gotten.
DeMarcus Cousins- Not really a head case.
Derrick Favors- Not a head case. Pompous and full of himself? Yes, but not a head case.
Cole Aldrich- No.
Patrick Patterson- No.
Greg Monroe- No.
Damion James- No.
Stanley Robinson- I will give this one to Bill. He is a minor head case, though I don't think he is a Top 15 pick.
I am getting bored because there aren't a lot of head cases in the 1st round of the NBA Draft for this year. Sure, maybe a guy will get arrested before the draft this year, but the only guys in the 1st round (that I know of) which are potential head cases are Willie Warren and Stanley Robinson. Check it out if you think I am wrong.
I know Bill is mainly trying to infer things about Lance Stephenson and Renardo Sydney (though even saying he knows who they are may be giving him too much credit), but they are mostly projected 2nd round picks in most of the mock drafts I have seen and I don't think those two make the 2010 NBA Draft "heavy" with head cases. As he sometimes does, Bill just writes and doesn't give a lot of thought to whether he is completely accurate or not.
I've been tormenting my Lakers friends that Bynum is the new Joe Barry Carroll, someone who gives you a joyless, businesslike 18-10 with two blocks every game (assuming he's getting the playing time). There's a reason Peter Vecsey anointed Carroll "Joe Barely Cares" once upon a time,
Yes, because Peter Vescey is the place to go for accurate and impartial evaluations of NBA players.
17. Steve Nash
Better than ever, which really shouldn't be the case because, you know, he just turned 36...Not only does Nash make his teammates better, he orders for them. Anyway, I don't see him going downhill anytime soon.
No, not a 36 year old with a history of back problems. Those type players tend to just slowly fade away into the night rather than have a sudden injury caused by a lot of mileage and age. I give Nash two more years maximum because he is a great player, but he is also carrying a big load in Phoenix and he is a 36 year old point guard. He is having a great year but I personally see this season as a death rattle rather than a trend upwards.
16. Rajon Rondo
15. Tyreke Evans
I like Tyreke Evans but if a team has a couple other decent players on the team then Rondo has to be the choice over Evans. Tyreke Evans has to be the #1 scoring option on his team, at least it appears to be that way for the foreseeable future, but the key point is I don't know how far a team gets with him being the #1 scoring option. I would take Rondo over Evans personally for a team trying to win an NBA Title. Yes, Evans is the better player, so it really depends on what a team is looking for.
14. Brook Lopez
13. Tim Duncan
I hate to say it since I love Tim Duncan, but these should be flipped. What team wouldn't want 10 years of Brook Lopez for 3 more of Duncan? I think at this point, even the Spurs would say yes.
Before we hit the last two groups of players, I have a quick All-Star Weekend story for you
"Before I get back to writing, let me waste some space with me telling you how many celebrities I know and have interacted with. I am a little concerned no one thinks I am a douchebag."
Known as "Uncle Wes" to the players, he carries more weight within the league than basically anybody. Because he keeps such a low profile, I could never figure out why. Which is why I went out of my way to spend some time with him on Friday night.
"Went out of my way" being defined as "I hung out behind Worldwide Wes and his group far enough to where it wasn't obvious a white guy had been behind them for a solid hour and close enough to hear what he was saying so I could pretend I was actually closer to Wes than I was."
Back to Main Street: We're standing with a young player who wants the night to keep going. The young player pushes to find another bar even though the odds are against it. Uncle Wes makes a face. He's squashing this right now.
Uncle Wes had spoken. I am not exaggerating by saying it's a strangely profound moment. Within 15 seconds, our group splinters in three directions to look for cabs. I find one with my friend Connor. We climb in. We look at each other.
3. Kevin Durant
Let's leave out the historical possibilities this time around. (You know, like the fact that he's already at 5,000 career points, that no forward has ever averaged 30 points a game three times and he might do it 10 or 12, that he might have a 37 PPG or a 55-45-95 shooting percentage season lurking in him, etc.)
I like Durant, not as much as Bill Simmons like Durant, but I do like him. I don't like how Bill Simmons takes the players he likes, like Durant, and throws out "possible" and "maybe" numbers to distract the reader into believing what he is writing is accurate. Kevin Durant has averaged 30 points a full ZERO times in his career. He is currently at 29.7 points per game. Durant may do it 10 or 12 times, but considering he hasn't done it ONCE yet, perhaps we should hold back the Durant slobber before we start putting him at 37 ppg or 55-45-95. I am not saying Durant can't reach those levels, but let's allow him to reach the levels and then project a little bit more.
I know he is young, but his career totals in those three categories are 29.7 ppg and 48-42-88 and those weren't all in the same year. Bill is projecting a bit much for my tastes. Let's see Durant hit 30 points per game a few times and then maybe we can talk about the other stuff. Again, Bill is giving us Durant's ceiling so that his Oden v. Durant opinion will seem even more lopsided in favor of Durant.
Durant wins until further notice, but we don't need projected numbers to see that.
2. Dwight Howard
My take: He's too nice of a guy. It's both the best and worst thing about him. If you ever played basketball, you know there's one rule with big guys: Make sure they touch the ball enough.
Bill makes a good point with this, but the problem is the Magic have built this team with guys like Rashard Lewis and Vince Carter who love to shoot the ball. So as long as Vince and Rashard are getting their shots, Howard isn't going to get his touches. I also happen to think Dwight Howard isn't offensively proficient enough to demand touches every time down the court. That's just my opinion.
In Howard's case, nobody in Orlando has to worry about keeping him happy. He's always happy! He's a good soldier. In a roundabout way, he's avoiding the responsibility of carrying an offense every night.
That is exactly what Dwight Howard is doing. He doesn't want to be the alpha dog. He doesn't mind having Carter and Lewis jacking up shots because he can rebound them and get fouled or get a dunk. That's much more preferable than getting the ball in the low post and revealing that (oops) he has very limited offensive moves.
Really Bill and I criticize Howard for this, but he does stick to his strengths very well. He knows what he does well and he does it. So knowing what he does well can be a good thing. Of course, he could do so much more if he learned any kind of offensive moves that didn't involve dunking, but he hasn't had to do that at this point.
Howard should be above Durant, simply because he is tall...other than that, I would rather have Anthony, Durant, and Wade over him. It sounds crazy and it may be.
1. LeBron James
LeBron threw a party at Ghostbar in the W Hotel on Saturday night. The club stretched way back, farther than most people realized, so there was a second bar in the far back that wasn't too crowded. Next to the bar was a roped-off corner area of sofas and tables with bouncers and bottles ready to go. LeBron's section. Definitely. My friends and I carved out territory at the back bar partly for the extra room, partly for that moment when LeBron's crew arrived and it turned into a madhouse.
Bill Simmons is a celebrity stalker. There is no doubt in my mind. You know those people in the back of the picture when you see a photo of a celebrity in a club? That's the Bill Simmons-type person. Just close enough to Hollywood to get in, but he wants to get closer. He loves to tell us all about the clubs and bars where celebrities and athletes go. He also drives me crazy when he does this.
The number of people in the room quadrupled. We were hanging onto the bar counter like people holding onto trees and walls in a tidal wave. The people kept coming and coming. You couldn't hear anything. Everyone was dancing. In the middle of the tornado, we could see LeBron, his head bobbing up and down to the music, the once and future King. You could say he passed the Tornado Test.
Or you could say there is no such thing as a Tornado Test and Bill Simmons is trying to rip off another one of his own catch phrases so that his loyal lemming like followers will write him emails about other athletes or celebrities that pass the Tornado Test for his next mailbag. LeBron James is clearly #1 on this list but I can't help but I still can't help but be annoyed at Bill constantly trying to make up stuff like the Tornado Test, which is just a copy of his other "tests, corollaries, faces, or teams."
If I missed something egregious, please point it out to me.
I had a few problems with last year's "trade value" column and this year is no exception. Here are Bill's rules that I will have to follow when arguing:
THE RULESI actually agree with these rules and think they make sense in the context of what Bill is trying to do. #4 does leave some room for differing opinions though.
A few weeks ago, a rumor spread that Minnesota offered Al Jefferson for Indiana's Danny Granger and got turned down. It didn't matter if the rumor was true. What mattered was the concept itself. Would you trade Al Jefferson straight up for Danny Granger? This was an old-school basketball trade, almost like two GMs flipping cards in a school yard. Trades are never this simple anymore.
I thought the rule was never trade height for a player of equal value who didn't have as much height? Basically, if Granger and Jefferson have equal value, which they don't in my mind, a team should never trade a player like Jefferson for Granger? I always thought that was the rule, so good job by Indiana to turn the trade down. Good job by Minnesota to try and actually improve their team.
These trades happen all the time now: Teams making lopsided deals to clear cap space so they can overpay other players. Last season, Detroit gave away Chauncey Billups so it could spend $95 million on two bench players. This season, Washington turned two of its top four and the No. 5 pick of the 2009 draft into a slew of expiring 2010 contracts.
This is one of my biggest problems with the NBA. I have talked about it before, but the trades are more about the salary cap and not about actually trading players of value to different teams. It is like GM's are far sighted enough to know they need to save money for better players in the future, but they are too stupid to actually be able to correctly spend the money on better players in the future.
The threat of a 2011 lockout hangs over everything. It's inevitable. It pretty much has to happen. The owners need to be saved from themselves; the players need to realize that they failed to deliver on too many mammoth, long-term contracts, and that one or two clunkers can destroy a franchise for half a decade or more.
This is what I love about the NFL. Mammoth, long-term contracts don't kill teams as frequently because contracts are completely guaranteed and teams can cut players and recoup some of the money. Ironically, this principle of non-guaranteed contracts is only present in the most violent and (in the present and future) body harming sport out of the major sports, the NFL. That's pretty ironic.
In the NFL, a team can get rid of bad contracts without a terrible salary cap hit. This helps in two ways. First, it prevents teams from being weighed down by their mistakes, and second, it lets the players know signing reasonable contracts makes sense if that players wants to play for a team long-term.
For a quick refresher of the "trade value" rules, check the sidebar. Here's a list of 2008-09 incumbents who couldn't crack this season's list or honorable mention:
Devin Harris (38) got sprayed by the Nets' skunk ...
I still think Devin Harris has trade value. I don't know if he is in the Top 40 of Bill's trade value column, but I would bet he has trade value.
Caron Butler (29) got salary dumped ...
So because Caron Butler got traded to a contender for expiring contracts, that means he doesn't have trade value? So the trade value column is useful for everyone as long as a player doesn't get traded? If he does get traded, then that causes his value to drop?
Not to mention, Bill just said in this column that Butler's contract wasn't so bad. From earlier in the column:
Strangely, Butler wasn't even much of a cap burden, making only $20.3 million through 2011. Washington was so desperate to break up the Arenas Era Wizards that it wasn't even rational;
I would include Butler on this list if only because he is a good player who has a good contract. I find it a little bit contradicting that Butler didn't make the list because he got traded for Josh Howard (who isn't terrible), when he has a good contract.
Of course the Mavericks were looking to unload Howard because of stuff like this.
and when we start calling Yao Ming (7) "Yao Ming's Expiring Contract" in five months, I'd like to spell it with Chinese letters.
Remember this statement.
Kevin Garnett (No. 11 last year): And probably untradable this year.
Garnett is having the worst year since his 2nd year in the NBA. I wouldn't say he is untradeable, just because there are teams that would like to have him, but it is pretty close.
Hasheem Thabeet: Just kidding.
Do NBA GM's even watch tape of college basketball player before they draft them? Most specifically, do the Grizzlies watch tape of college basketball players before they draft them? If a 7'3" center is getting his ass handed to him by an undersized, physical center on a consistent basis in college...how does this indicate this 7'3" center is worth a shit as an NBA player?
(As for the "least realistic about their own players" contest ... I think it's a battle to the death between two fan bases and two fan bases only. They know who they are.)
Let me guess. The Boston Celtics are not one of those teams that aren't realistic about their players? I am not asking, even though I ended that sentence with a question mark, I know the answer already. Bill most likely thinks Celtics fans are very reasonable about the skill level of their players.
Kevin Martin (30): My favorite possibly available trade piece -- great contract, proven scorer, high hoops IQ, someone who'd thrive on a veteran team that protected him defensively and ran plays for him.
THIS is why Yao Ming will not be known as "Yao Ming's expiring contract." I love Kevin Martin on the Rockets. I love Kevin Martin with Yao Ming on the team as well and Shane Battier just in the building with his mustache. So while Bill was write about Martin being a good trade piece, I have to say it looks like Yao may stick around longer in Houston if this arrangement works out.
Besides, maybe Yao will be more comfortable if the Rockets "arrange" things for him and give him less freedom. They should fucking TELL HIM he is re-signing with them at a reasonable price. He's from China, he is used to others dictating his personal affairs to him. I think this could work.
Joakim Noah: The new Laimbeer: Love him if he's on your team, hate him if he's playing against you.
Except Joakim Noah is more annoying than Bill Laimbeer and looks like he hasn't had a shower in a few months. Everyone hates Joakim Noah. Even baby Jesus.
Carlos Boozer: Gets a Trade Value DNP because he's a free agent-to-be. I can't tell if the Jazz would trade him, or if anyone wants him. You know what else this means? For the first time ever, no Blue Devils in the top 40! Woohoo! Suck it, Duke!
Boy, Bill really told them. It's not like he controls who makes the Top 40 of his trade value column or anything. I think sometimes Bill gets confused about whether he actually controls what he is writing or not. I think he believe what he writes is fact, not his opinion.
I kept looking and couldn't find any Holy Cross players either...that's weird. If you check the Bottom 40 players with trade value then maybe Duke would have a few candidates for this.
I can stand Duke-hating, but if you don't have a reason to hate Duke, other than you are a white guy who doesn't follow college basketball that closely and went to private school 800 miles from Durham, North Carolina, shut the hell up about it. Basically, Bill has no reason to hate Duke other than to feel cool that he hates Duke.
40. Ricky Rubio
If you have the No. 5 and No. 6 picks in what turned out to be a quality draft,
Let's step back for a minute. This was a quality draft? Do we get a big "I was really fucking wrong" from Bill Simmons? How about him saying, "I was a little down on the draft and it appears I was wrong?" In fact, the two best players from the draft Ricky Rubio and Blake Griffin haven't even played in the NBA this year and the 2009 draft is still looking like a good one.
Does he acknowledge he said the following in his draft diary last year? (I will give you a hint. No, he doesn't.) Here is what Bill said about the 2009 draft:
Here's the point: The 2009 NBA draft is the equivalent of that 10 minutes when I nearly talked myself into three Blu-Rays I didn't even want. I have seen "The Shining" 10 million katrillion times. I don't need to own it on Blu-Ray. But when it's sitting on the same shelf with "Along Came Polly" and "Ocean's 12"? It starts looking good by default. That's the problem with this year's draft class -- too many "Terminator 3" Blu-Rays, only everyone else is so bad, you start talking yourself into them.
Maybe he was just mincing words. What did he really think about the 2009 draft at the time?
Trust me: It's the worst draft class since the infamous Kenyon Martin Draft in 2000.
Bill, you are wrong and that is why we don't trust you. Stick to the NBA my buddy. You can't read 10 articles by Chad Ford, watch a little bit of the NCAA Tournament and try to pass yourself off as a college basketball genius. It just doesn't work that way. So I hope everyone remembers this when Bill starts to "analyze" this year's draft. Just when thinking about how to evaluate the 2009 draft, just remember the 2 best potential players of the draft haven't even played a minute in the NBA yet.
I am even being distracted by all this and losing focus on the fact Bill Simmons just ranked a player who hasn't ever stepped on an NBA court as the player with the 40th most trade value. Combine this with his draft miss and I am not sure this is a good way to start the column.
37. Al Jefferson
About 82.7 percent back from 2009's knee injury. The bigger issue: Residual damage from a 116-265 stretch (and counting) in Minnesota and Boston. At some point, all that losing can turn you into an actual loser. It's like a girl who keeps inadvertently dating jerks and eventually loses her self-esteem.
Which is why Kevin Garnett played on that same "loser" team and won an NBA Title immediately the next year. So you would think that would be impossible to do since Garnett played for a team of losers.
I am sure Bill would have an excuse about how he had help from Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, but those guys also had just come off teams that weren't consistently very good either. It's also how Jamal Crawford is having a good year on a successful team, considering he played for loser teams the previous 10 years of his career that never made the playoffs.
Wait, I am sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt Bill's paragraph of incorrectness as shown through an analogy that is in some ways sexist. (Actually he was done, I just wanted to mention that Bill always has a little sexism in his writing. He always likes to use the analogies involving women with low self-esteem or girls who date losers. It's all a little sexist sometimes.)
36. David Lee
I am not an NBA insider but I would bet every single team in the NBA would trade David Lee straight up for Al Jefferson to be on their team. These two should be switched.
35. Chauncey Billups
Thirty years from now, when the Pistons have finished their 30th straight losing season and officially switched places with the Lions in the Detroit landscape, someone will write a "Curse of Chauncey" book for which Joe Dumars will refuse to be interviewed.
Dan Shaughnessy just got his agent on the phone and said, "Hey, remember this idea for me. I think I may have a good book idea for 2020...What's that you ask? Hell yes it deals with fake curses!"
If I'm a Knicks fan, my Summer of 2010 Worst-Case Scenario is Amar'e and Rudy. That's taking me to a 6-seed every spring.
(You know what's really sad? Every Knicks fan just said, "A 6-seed every spring? I'll take it!")
Of course Knicks fans just said that. They said that because Bill is the "Sports Whisperer" and knows Knicks fans are depressed and just want their team to make the playoffs. They don't have very high hopes and Bill knows this, because his friends all whine about how bad the Knicks are and Bill's friends pretty much encompass the thoughts of every sports fan on the planet. Celtics fans on the other hand? They are used to success so they would never accept a #6 seed in the playoffs. Only the finest trades that bring short-term success at the expense of building a good long-term roster are good enough for them.32. Stephen Curry
Even more sophisticated offensively than we hoped. Defensively ... ugh. But offensively? Wow. His January stats (15 games): 19-4-5, 48 percent FG, 48 percent 3FG, 89.2 percent FT. For the season, assuming he bumps his scoring to 17 PPG post-All-Star break and everything else stays the same, he'd finish with 16 PPG, 120-plus 3s and 42 percent shooting from 3. According to Vincent Masi of ESPN Stats & Information, no rookie came close to hitting those numbers except for Ben Gordon in 2004-05 (15.1 PPG, 134 3s, 40.5 percent).
Congratulations, IF you increase your scoring average you can hit the same numbers as a guy who is now the 6th man for a team that is 20-35. Sadly, that would be a slight step up for Curry in his current situation with the Warriors who are 16-39. I do find it interesting Bill projects Curry's numbers like this since he is assuming Curry manages to increase his scoring average and keep all his other numbers the same without hitting the "rookie wall." I would assume usually rookies will slow down more in the 2nd half of the season since they aren't used to playing 70+ games over a long season.
With that said, the Zombies could absolutely win a title some day with Durant as their No. 1 and Westbrook as No. 3. They just need a No. 2. Not to be confused with the No. 2 that Clay Bennett took on Seattle.
Just to remind everyone, Bill does not think Seattle is tortured enough, though he will keep referencing how bad the city has it in regard to the Sonics leaving for Oklahoma City because it is a running joke he likes.
26. Danny Granger
Starting to worry that he's a classic franchise player who looks great on your fantasy team, but if he's the No. 1 guy on your real team, you're going 32-50 and that's that.
(Cut to the last remaining 3,500 Pacers fans nodding impassively.)
Bill knows what Pacer fans are thinking because he is the Sports Whisperer everyone! He KNOWS Pacers fans agree with him.I don't think it is ever a good sign when a sportswriter makes up a fake title for himself that isn't true and then bases the name of it on a Jennifer Love Hewitt television show on CBS. That's never good.
23. Blake Griffin
I still feel guilty.
Don't you see Bill Simmons has the power to write down words and make those words true simply because they came from his mouth? It's his fault Blake Griffin got injured because he wrote about this happening. This power extends to everything...except the predicting the 2009 NBA Draft would be bad apparently. His powers can't make that come true.
I have a slight problem with Blake Griffin coming off surgery, never having stepped on the court in the NBA and having more trade value than guys like Joe Johnson and Kevin Love.
Semi-related note: This year's draft is head case-heavy, so it will be fascinating to see whether the recent successes of Smith and Z-Bo remove the "STAY AWAY!!!!" neon signs flashing on the foreheads of the 2010 draft class.
Here goes Bill talking about college basketball again. HEY! He has watched two games this year and has heard of these players so he knows how to properly evaluate them. Plus, he is a fucking genius and doesn't need to actually watch the players to see if they are good or not.
Hell, we might even see DeMarcus Cousins get drafted ahead of Evan Turner this June, which should never happen unless it's a draft for the likelihood of someone uttering the sentence, "Don't hang up, you're my only phone call!"
So this is the part where Bill Simmons sort of says DeMarcus Cousins has character issues or is a head case. Unfortunately this is not true. Other than this incident, Cousins has been a model player...or as much of a model as can be expected from a guy who would rather be in the NBA right now. There has been much more good than bad when it comes to him. He likes to interact with the fans during road games and get on their cases, but I don't know if this is a character flaw. He is not a head case, but now that Bill has stated he is, there are 500,000 white kids who follow Bill who think he is.
Let's look for some of these "head cases" in the upcoming NBA Draft, since Bill says there are so many. Let's just go down the NBADraft.net mock draft for 2010 and see who is a head case and who is not (I am skipping the foreigners since I don't know enough about them yet to talk about them):
John Wall- Entitled? Yes, but not a head case. He actually seems to have his shit together for all the hype that has surrounded him.
Evan Turner- No.
Wesley Johnson- He has moved around a lot, but is not a head case.
Al-Farouq Aminu- Is actually a great guy from the few accounts I have gotten.
DeMarcus Cousins- Not really a head case.
Derrick Favors- Not a head case. Pompous and full of himself? Yes, but not a head case.
Cole Aldrich- No.
Patrick Patterson- No.
Greg Monroe- No.
Damion James- No.
Stanley Robinson- I will give this one to Bill. He is a minor head case, though I don't think he is a Top 15 pick.
I am getting bored because there aren't a lot of head cases in the 1st round of the NBA Draft for this year. Sure, maybe a guy will get arrested before the draft this year, but the only guys in the 1st round (that I know of) which are potential head cases are Willie Warren and Stanley Robinson. Check it out if you think I am wrong.
I know Bill is mainly trying to infer things about Lance Stephenson and Renardo Sydney (though even saying he knows who they are may be giving him too much credit), but they are mostly projected 2nd round picks in most of the mock drafts I have seen and I don't think those two make the 2010 NBA Draft "heavy" with head cases. As he sometimes does, Bill just writes and doesn't give a lot of thought to whether he is completely accurate or not.
I've been tormenting my Lakers friends that Bynum is the new Joe Barry Carroll, someone who gives you a joyless, businesslike 18-10 with two blocks every game (assuming he's getting the playing time). There's a reason Peter Vecsey anointed Carroll "Joe Barely Cares" once upon a time,
Yes, because Peter Vescey is the place to go for accurate and impartial evaluations of NBA players.
17. Steve Nash
Better than ever, which really shouldn't be the case because, you know, he just turned 36...Not only does Nash make his teammates better, he orders for them. Anyway, I don't see him going downhill anytime soon.
No, not a 36 year old with a history of back problems. Those type players tend to just slowly fade away into the night rather than have a sudden injury caused by a lot of mileage and age. I give Nash two more years maximum because he is a great player, but he is also carrying a big load in Phoenix and he is a 36 year old point guard. He is having a great year but I personally see this season as a death rattle rather than a trend upwards.
16. Rajon Rondo
15. Tyreke Evans
I like Tyreke Evans but if a team has a couple other decent players on the team then Rondo has to be the choice over Evans. Tyreke Evans has to be the #1 scoring option on his team, at least it appears to be that way for the foreseeable future, but the key point is I don't know how far a team gets with him being the #1 scoring option. I would take Rondo over Evans personally for a team trying to win an NBA Title. Yes, Evans is the better player, so it really depends on what a team is looking for.
14. Brook Lopez
13. Tim Duncan
I hate to say it since I love Tim Duncan, but these should be flipped. What team wouldn't want 10 years of Brook Lopez for 3 more of Duncan? I think at this point, even the Spurs would say yes.
Before we hit the last two groups of players, I have a quick All-Star Weekend story for you
"Before I get back to writing, let me waste some space with me telling you how many celebrities I know and have interacted with. I am a little concerned no one thinks I am a douchebag."
Known as "Uncle Wes" to the players, he carries more weight within the league than basically anybody. Because he keeps such a low profile, I could never figure out why. Which is why I went out of my way to spend some time with him on Friday night.
"Went out of my way" being defined as "I hung out behind Worldwide Wes and his group far enough to where it wasn't obvious a white guy had been behind them for a solid hour and close enough to hear what he was saying so I could pretend I was actually closer to Wes than I was."
Back to Main Street: We're standing with a young player who wants the night to keep going. The young player pushes to find another bar even though the odds are against it. Uncle Wes makes a face. He's squashing this right now.
"Nothing good can happen at this point," Wes explains simply. "You can't chase the night. When the night is over, the night is over. That's just the way it is. You just gotta wake up tomorrow and hope for a better day."
Wow, that's really deep. More simply put this says, "The bars are closed and we can't have you getting arrested trying to find something to do. Go back to your hotel and find some groupies or road beef."Uncle Wes had spoken. I am not exaggerating by saying it's a strangely profound moment. Within 15 seconds, our group splinters in three directions to look for cabs. I find one with my friend Connor. We climb in. We look at each other.
"I will never be able to properly explain that story to anyone," Connor said.
No, Bill is exaggerating by calling this a strangely profound moment. Also, have you noticed that Bill insists on giving his readers the names of his friends? He doesn't have to say his friend's name, but for some reason he feels like we give a shit enough about him and his friends to know their names. Connor can be called "my friend" for all I care. It won't affect the story in any fashion. Don't be a celebrity chaser and tell your readers about it. It makes you sound like a douche.3. Kevin Durant
Let's leave out the historical possibilities this time around. (You know, like the fact that he's already at 5,000 career points, that no forward has ever averaged 30 points a game three times and he might do it 10 or 12, that he might have a 37 PPG or a 55-45-95 shooting percentage season lurking in him, etc.)
I like Durant, not as much as Bill Simmons like Durant, but I do like him. I don't like how Bill Simmons takes the players he likes, like Durant, and throws out "possible" and "maybe" numbers to distract the reader into believing what he is writing is accurate. Kevin Durant has averaged 30 points a full ZERO times in his career. He is currently at 29.7 points per game. Durant may do it 10 or 12 times, but considering he hasn't done it ONCE yet, perhaps we should hold back the Durant slobber before we start putting him at 37 ppg or 55-45-95. I am not saying Durant can't reach those levels, but let's allow him to reach the levels and then project a little bit more.
I know he is young, but his career totals in those three categories are 29.7 ppg and 48-42-88 and those weren't all in the same year. Bill is projecting a bit much for my tastes. Let's see Durant hit 30 points per game a few times and then maybe we can talk about the other stuff. Again, Bill is giving us Durant's ceiling so that his Oden v. Durant opinion will seem even more lopsided in favor of Durant.
Durant wins until further notice, but we don't need projected numbers to see that.
2. Dwight Howard
My take: He's too nice of a guy. It's both the best and worst thing about him. If you ever played basketball, you know there's one rule with big guys: Make sure they touch the ball enough.
Bill makes a good point with this, but the problem is the Magic have built this team with guys like Rashard Lewis and Vince Carter who love to shoot the ball. So as long as Vince and Rashard are getting their shots, Howard isn't going to get his touches. I also happen to think Dwight Howard isn't offensively proficient enough to demand touches every time down the court. That's just my opinion.
In Howard's case, nobody in Orlando has to worry about keeping him happy. He's always happy! He's a good soldier. In a roundabout way, he's avoiding the responsibility of carrying an offense every night.
That is exactly what Dwight Howard is doing. He doesn't want to be the alpha dog. He doesn't mind having Carter and Lewis jacking up shots because he can rebound them and get fouled or get a dunk. That's much more preferable than getting the ball in the low post and revealing that (oops) he has very limited offensive moves.
Really Bill and I criticize Howard for this, but he does stick to his strengths very well. He knows what he does well and he does it. So knowing what he does well can be a good thing. Of course, he could do so much more if he learned any kind of offensive moves that didn't involve dunking, but he hasn't had to do that at this point.
Howard should be above Durant, simply because he is tall...other than that, I would rather have Anthony, Durant, and Wade over him. It sounds crazy and it may be.
1. LeBron James
LeBron threw a party at Ghostbar in the W Hotel on Saturday night. The club stretched way back, farther than most people realized, so there was a second bar in the far back that wasn't too crowded. Next to the bar was a roped-off corner area of sofas and tables with bouncers and bottles ready to go. LeBron's section. Definitely. My friends and I carved out territory at the back bar partly for the extra room, partly for that moment when LeBron's crew arrived and it turned into a madhouse.
Bill Simmons is a celebrity stalker. There is no doubt in my mind. You know those people in the back of the picture when you see a photo of a celebrity in a club? That's the Bill Simmons-type person. Just close enough to Hollywood to get in, but he wants to get closer. He loves to tell us all about the clubs and bars where celebrities and athletes go. He also drives me crazy when he does this.
The number of people in the room quadrupled. We were hanging onto the bar counter like people holding onto trees and walls in a tidal wave. The people kept coming and coming. You couldn't hear anything. Everyone was dancing. In the middle of the tornado, we could see LeBron, his head bobbing up and down to the music, the once and future King. You could say he passed the Tornado Test.
Or you could say there is no such thing as a Tornado Test and Bill Simmons is trying to rip off another one of his own catch phrases so that his loyal lemming like followers will write him emails about other athletes or celebrities that pass the Tornado Test for his next mailbag. LeBron James is clearly #1 on this list but I can't help but I still can't help but be annoyed at Bill constantly trying to make up stuff like the Tornado Test, which is just a copy of his other "tests, corollaries, faces, or teams."
If I missed something egregious, please point it out to me.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
25 comments Bill Simmons Examines Sports Suffering, Ironically Forcing Audience To Suffer Through Sports Column
I have laid off Bill Simmons for the past couple of weeks (months?). Mostly, the reason for this is that he hasn't written too many bad columns in that time span. It's hard to criticize something that isn't too bad. Well, as many had mentioned in the comments to the Friday post, Bill is adding to his "Levels of Losing" and makes some interesting choices in ranking the most tortured franchises. It's not the most tortured CITIES, but in some cases Bill talks about the overall sports city to see how tortured that city truly is. Enough explaining by me, let's let him explain.
A few weeks ago, I was trapped at home on a Friday night. My wife and daughter were away. My son was asleep.
Let me guess. Someone called repeatedly and asked if you had checked on your child lately and it later turned out it was someone INSIDE THE HOUSE...but then it just turned out to be J-Bug and House playing an absolutely hilarious practical joke based on an idea Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla had thought of?
(Speaking of Jimmy Kimmel, I like how he inserted himself into the Conan-Jay Leno-Letterman fight. It's like he had this one chance to remind everyone he still had a show on ABC and needed to do the most annoying things to remind people of this to boost ratings. If Bill wasn't up Kimmel's ass he would have given him an award for "Inserting yourself into someone else's argument to benefit your self" at some point in one of his columns. Kimmel said/did some funny stuff, but he needs to butt out. The big boys were fighting and he really had nothing to do with it. It's like when the small-time East Coast and West Coast rappers were backing either Biggie or Tupac in the mid-90's during "the feud," it wasn't really to take sides, it was just to remind everyone they DID exist as rappers and their album could be purchased at stores. )
The Celtics had just blown a winnable game in Atlanta. I was flipping channels and thinking about things like, "I wish we had gone for Jamal Crawford over Rasheed Wallace" and "I wish Rasheed Wallace didn't have bigger breasts than Rashida Jones." And as I was thinking about breasts, I stumbled across Jennifer Love Hewitt -- someone who, as far as I can tell, has made an entire career off her chest.
Hold on guys for a quick detour, Bill has to meet his word limit so he can still brag about how much he writes each week.
She was starring in "Ghost Whisperer," one of those network shows that remains on the air forever even though nobody has ever seen it. In this episode,...
Bill will be back, right after he sums up the entire episode that had absolutely nothing to do with "Levels of Losing," sports or Rasheed Wallace's breasts in general. It's pretty much an episode synopsis to tell his reading audience that Jennifer Love Hewitt ended the episode in a tight nightgown. I am pretty sure Bill is 40 years old.
I was thinking about her three Mondays later, after the NFC Championship Game, when I was sifting through e-mails from devastated Vikings fans, and I realized that, for some readers, I apparently have turned into the "Sports Whisperer." They channel me as an outlet for their pain.
Hey look, Bill just tried to make himself more important than he truly is by giving himself a nickname. Remember "the Sports Czar" and the "VP of Common Sense?" No one is as good at giving himself nicknames and fake sports jobs better than Bill Simmons. If he didn't have a job, giving himself fake jobs would be his job.
He spent 5 years of his column-writing life whining about the Red Sox, then whined about not being able to whine about the Red Sox after they had won the 2004 World Series, then whined about the Celtics when they don't get Greg Oden, whined about how people treat the Patriots after Spygate, then whined about losing the Super Bowl, and finally because his teams are all good at their respective sports he has to finally start whining about how bad NBA General Managers and officials are.
My point is that if there is ever a guy who would expect to hear complaining about their team's difficulties, it's Bill Simmons. I would think that a guy who bases his career partly on speaking and writing from a fan's point of view could understand before this point in his career how fans might write to him about their sports pain. Apparently the only job description Bill doesn't seem to want is the actual job description he currently has, which is to write like the average fan.
Why me? Because I have a column and an e-mail address. Because, as a Red Sox fan, I suffered through a lifetime of losing lowlighted by two of the worst defeats in sports history.
Bill is so tortured everyone! There have been 2 GAMES that Bill's team should have won, but did not, in sports history. Just as a note, Bill's three favorite teams (Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics) have won 9 championships in their respective sports since 1980. Many other people would love to be as tortured and deal with the lowlights Bill has had to go through.
I know Bill would never realize this, but there are other people in this world without a sports column on ESPN.com who hear about the pain of a team's loss from that team's fans. Of course Bill believes he is special in this respect, but he really isn't. It's sort of what people do. They vent to other people. In fact, I am writing this post to people I have never met about Bill Simmons' column because I want to vent about it or at least discuss it.
Because I once wrote the "Levels of Losing" as a way to quantify sports pain. Because things worked out for me; the Red Sox eventually won titles in 2004 and 2007. If any stranger could understand your anguish after a heartwrenching loss, it's me.
Or perhaps anyone else who cheers for a sports team that has suffered a tough loss could understand the pain of these fans who write in. Another name for these people who could understand is "anyone who follows sports." These people are also qualified to understand your anguish.
Let's mock some emails from Vikings fans:
I'm watching the Vikings-Saints game. So are the guys in the apartment next to me, only my TV is running 10 seconds slower than theirs. I just heard Favre's pick before it happened. And now they're going to OT, where the Saints are sure as hell gonna win the toss. The girl I love won't talk to me. Please give me a reason not to kill myself.
-- Nick, Minneapolis
You just wrote into Bill Simmons telling him all of this. There is no real reason not to kill yourself at this point.
As a lifelong Vikings fan, son of a lifelong Vikings fan, and grandson of a Vikings fan the day the team came into existence, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that tonight's game would end the way it did. Eight months ago I had my tonsils removed. Two percent of people have issues with the incision bleeding when they have a tonsillectomy. Again, as a Vikings fan I knew without a doubt that it would happen to me. It did.-- Peter D., St. Paul
Perhaps this is just God's way of punishing whiners. If I were Bill I would do whatever I could to stop propping up these people who feel so badly about their lives they have to write Bill Simmons about their sports problems. At one point, Bill got it. That was my favorite Bill Simmons. He doesn't get it anymore because his favorite teams won 6 titles during the 2000's and I think he is trying to be more of a brand at this point.
To make it a little easier, of the possible 30 seasons in the 2000's to win a championship in MLB, the NBA, and the NFL, Bill's favorite teams won the championship 20% of the time. So let's say he shouldn't really be feeling anyone's pain for a few more years. Bill made part of his career on complaining about how bad his teams were or at least sharing his pain with the world, but it's just not true anymore, and hasn't been for nearly a decade now.
I don't know where this falls on your levels of losing rankings, but I can tell you I'd feel a lot better if somebody had just punched me in the stomach. I definitely feel it in my stomach, but it feels more like a virus, like a big, painful empty hole in the pit of my stomach, accompanied by throwing up, irritable bowels, shaking ... I just feel like curling up in a dark bathroom for the next 48 hours. I've been a Vikings fan my entire life, and I find myself questioning why. I'm not a religious man, but I imagine this is what a crisis of faith feels like.
-- Ryan K., Bloomington, Minn.
Oh my God, grow a pair or find a psychologist. It was a tough loss, but what the hell did you expect when your favorite team signed Brett Favre? He specializes in tough losses in the playoffs. The loss was tough, but being overly descriptive and feeling even sorrier for yourself by writing a guy whose favorite teams are all winners isn't the solution.
That was just half of the self pitying emails from his readers Bill Simmons received. The others were along the same lines as these.
Collectively, hundreds of those anguished Vikings e-mails made me wonder: Did I make a mistake with the top level of the Levels of Losing? Am I not channeling other people's pain well enough?
As I have mentioned several times already, Bill's teams won 6 titles in the 2000's, so he probably was not channeling other people's pain that well. It's hard to feel empathy when you are on top of the sports world.
Originally, I named Level 1 "That Game," a Guillotine/Stomach Punch combination that happened only one time: Game 6 of the '86 World Series. After all, no effed-up franchise ever came closer to winning a title without actually winning it, and no franchise ever blew that same chance in such agonizing fashion.
I hate to break this to everyone, but there was a Game 7 of the 1986 World Series. The series wasn't over when the ball went through Buckner's legs. Even though it may have felt like the series was over, it really wasn't. So while I am respectful of how difficult that loss was for Red Sox fans everywhere, it wasn't like Bill Buckner's error directly and at that moment lost the World Series for the Red Sox. The Red Sox still had a chance to win the 1986 World Series. The pathetic showing in Game 7 lost the World Series for the Red Sox. Of course Bill has to have his team's losses be the most difficult losses in the history of sports, but other teams have lost difficult, important games as well.
See, Game 6 might have been the most powerful Level 1 example, but it wasn't the only example. The Bartman Game, Byner Fumble, Pedro/Grady Game, Gary Anderson Game, No Goal Game, Darrin Nelson Game and Jose Mesa Game all were Guillotine/Stomach Punch combos for effed-up franchises.
I have a few problems with this list. For the Bartman Game, I don't think fans can bitch and moan about being cursed or stomach punched when it is one of their own idiots fans who screwed up a game. Second, the Pedro/Grady game was just poor managing. Granted there was a ton of people who knew to pull Pedro from the game and the Red Sox fans were hurt by this, but this was about poor managing and not anything close to Bill Buckner's error. The Red Sox won the freaking World Series the year after that happened, so it didn't hurt them too badly in the long haul. Also, Darrin Nelson dropped the ball, but it was tipped. Plus it was a tough catch anyway. I know it hurt the Vikings but I can't buy that a Level 1 example of Bill's stupid list can be something like a tough catch wasn't made or a manager made a bad pitching move. I just don't see it that way.
It's Bill's dumbass list, so I let him make the rules, but it doesn't mean I won't argue with them.
Limiting Level 1 to the Red Sox was purely an only-child, everything-revolves-around-me decision. I mean, Steve Bartman had to leave the country. That wasn't a Level 1 defeat?
I don't think it was a Level 1 defeat but probably a Level 1 fan screw up. I don't know why I keep arguing with Bill over his own criteria, it feels pointless, yet I keep doing it.
The Norwood Game seems like a Level 1 loss in retrospect, but Bills fans weren't fully tortured yet. Only AFTER the agony of that defeat did they become Level 1 eligible. Same for Browns fans after The Drive paved the way for the Byner Fumble a year later. The key is "fully tortured." You can't be a little tortured or pretty much tortured. You have to be fully tortured. Haunted, even.
Which makes me wonder how the Pedro/Grady game can make Bill's list since the Red Sox won the World Series the year after that incident. So if Bill is going to take in account what happened to the Browns after The Drive, shouldn't he discount the Grady/Pedro incident? That incident pretty much was the end of the Red Sox Curse, it was the final nail in the coffin before the turnaround the next year. I just think even though the Red Sox fans were "fully tortured" (mostly by some of their fan's need to feel tortured in my mind), if Bill looks into what happened the year after Norwood's kick and The Drive, he has to look at what happened to the Red Sox after Pedro/Grady. It was a tough game given the history of the franchise, but I don't think the game in itself should be ranked this high on Bill's list.
Here I go arguing the criteria for his list again instead of making fun of his choices.
1. You need at least a 35-year drought without a title.
So that means in 2030 I can be a tortured Panthers fan? This just seems stupid to me.
Just look at the difference in desperation between Mets fans (last title: 1986) and Knicks fans (last title: 1973). Starting with Dwight Gooden's positive coke test in 1987, Mets fans have suffered as much as any fan base in sports over the past 23 years: the Scioscia homer, the fall of Doc and Darryl, the Bobby Bo era, the Kenny Rogers Game, the 2000 Subway Series, Yadier Molina's homer and the Collapse of 2007.
Every franchise has tough losses, I don't get why Bill has to collect all of a franchise's tough losses and then try to get their fan base to feel sorry for themselves. It's like he is the spokesperson for complaining about your team. Some teams win and some teams lose, but that shouldn't give you permission to excessively cry about how bad you have it.
I think we are broadening the list a little bit for a Mets fan to feel tortured. I know Mets fans may disagree but the Bobby Bo era involved bad signings by the front office (I have a hard time counting an entire era as a time when the fan's were tortured. It's too broad of a timespan to me), the Subway Series is where the Mets got their ass kicked by the Yankees and the Braves blew a couple leads in the Kenny Rogers game, so it's not like the Mets were dominating. Put down the tissues and just deal with it. Fans shouldn't feel tortured because their team makes bad personnel decisions, get their ass kicked in the World Series, and can't put away a team on the road.
We just entered our sixth straight decade without the Royals/Kings franchise making an NBA Finals. But the Kings moved to Sacramento in 1984, making them ineligible for Level 1 because anyone who cares about them could start caring only 26 years ago.
Bill is an idiot. There is no way a Royals fan could still like the team now that it is in Sacramento?
What kind of sense does this make? Did Brooklyn Dodgers fans not cheer for the team when they went out to Los Angeles? I would be many did.
3. During that 35-plus years without a title, it's not enough to lose. You need to have your guts wrenched a few times.
A great example: Heading into 2005, the White Sox hadn't won a World Series since 1917 and the Cubs hadn't won since 1908, but only Cubs fans were considered "tortured." And with reason. Maybe White Sox fans hadn't won anything, but they didn't have a ton of scars, either.
So it's fine to feel tortured if your team has been good enough to make the playoffs on several occasions but it's not fine to feel tortured if your team has never been good enough to make the playoffs enough to blow a few of them. So in Bill's world, good teams have more cause to whine than bad teams can. How is a person who follows a successful team "less tortured" than a person who follows a team that hasn't been as successful? Has Bill ever had to sit through his team missing the playoffs a few years in a row? I know he has, so he should know this is a dumb rule.
4. Only teams in cold-weather cities are eligible for Level 1 unless the situation is so cruel/unusual/unforgiving that it's practically unprecedented.
Rule #7 (for next year) "The team has to have played in Boston at some point."
Suns fans are a good example. On paper? Level 1 eligible. Forty-one seasons, no titles. Lost the Kareem/Neil Walk coin flip. Lost the famous triple-overtime game in 1976. Lost three agonizing games in the 1993 NBA Finals, as well as Mario Elie's "Kiss of Death" 3-pointer that ended their season in '94. Their Nash era stretch from 2004 to '07 was basically one long liver punch. And yet, how could Suns fans be truly tortured? They live in Arizona! They have things to do!
It's Bill's list, it's Bill's list, it's Bill's list, it's Bill's list. (Bengoodfella trying to hold it back)
THE WEATHER IN AN AREA IS RETARDED REASONING FOR A FAN BASE NOT BEING TORTURED!
And maybe being a Saints fan (as I wrote last week) hasn't been a barrel of laughs, but there's a spiritual optimism around that team -- something tied to the festiveness of Bourbon Street, Mardi Gras and the city in general -- that was beaten out of Jets/Bills/Vikes/Browns/Eagles fans a long time ago.
Of course this spiritual optimism is held back by the massive hurricanes, general poverty of some sections of New Orleans and the fact few teams from New Orleans have ever succeeded over the past 30 years. Let's just face it, Bill think Northern teams have it worse than Southern/Western teams because Southern/Western teams don't have writers like Bill writing for ESPN telling everyone how tortured they are.
On Wednesday's podcast, I asked my buddy Geoff (die-hard Vikes fan) whether he actually thought Minnesota was going to win on the final drive of regulation. This is someone who started rooting for the Vikes at age 6, the year of the Hail Mary play, and spent the next 35 years getting kicked in the teeth. What was his answer?
So when that brutalization kicks into motion again, even casual fans with no real interest instinctively start rooting for that team to NOT get brutalized. It cannot be up for debate. There are no degrees. It's like how we should figure out prospective Hall of Famers -- either you know or you don't.
Absolutely, the Hall of Fame should be decided on whether the voters KNOW a player should be in the Hall of Fame or not. No statistical evidence or any other type of evidential proof, just a gut feeling.
Actually I think that is how it is decided now, at least in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Possible factors that could negatively affect this empathetic assessment: success of other teams in the same city (for instance, nobody is feeling bad for Boston Bruins fans after the other three Boston teams won a combined six titles this past decade)
Yet, Bill has two Red Sox moments in his new Level 1. I guess he just assumes everyone still feels bad for the fan base.
lack of media attention;
You know I have a problem with this. How the holy fuck could a team be knocked down a level on anything (real or made up) because of a lack of media attention? So basically the teams the media follows the most are the most eligible for Bill's fake list. This is the epitome of stupid.
and steady losing devoid of playoff nightmares (like the Lions or Saints).
I still don't get how a team that has been so bad as to never make the playoffs but loses in a tough fashion when they do, is less tortured than a team that loses tough in the playoffs but overall has a history of having good teams. I just don't get this. A constantly bad franchise is just as torturous for a fan base.
(This is why I don't cover Bill Simmons columns, halfway through I always feel like I am speaking in tongues and can't remember what I had written before. He has an effect on me that way.)
14-15. Seattle Mariners/Seahawks
They have never won a title. Ever. The Mariners won 100+ games one year and then got their ass kicked by the Yankees, lost Randy Johnson, Alex Rodriguez, and Ken Griffey Jr. and they have to deal with a ton of depressing rain. The Seahawks had never made a Super Bowl and then they finally were able to and the officiating was cruddy. The next year the franchise back (Shawn Alexander) decided he wanted a contract extension AND wanted to pick that season to be washed up/get injured. In later years the quarterback for the team (Matt Hasselbeck) aged 20 years in one season and now they just hired Pete Carroll as the head coach. These two franchises have suffered more than a #14/#15 should just based on the entire Seattle area's suffering.
Additional Thoughts: Had to be included after the repeated failures of the Griffey/Ichiro Mariners, Super Bowl XL and the Sonics hijacking. Only a title can snap the city out of it. The good news: They listen to the right kind of music to get through this. "Black hole sun ... won't you come ... and wash away the rainnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn."
Yes, because it is 1994 and everyone is still listening to grunge in Seattle. Keep believing this.
13. Portland Trailblazers
Last Title: 1977.
Um...I thought there was a "35 years without a championship" rule among the 6 that Bill just listed? I guess Bill is just going to arbitrarily not follow the own damn rules that he set. THIS is why I can criticize Bill's rules because even he doesn't follow them.
Additional Thoughts: Even though they shouldn't be eligible until 2012, I'm including them because of the many Drexler Era meltdowns, the 2000 collapse, the Bowie and Oden decisions, and the team's "only child" status in Portland.
Why make a list of anything if you can't even stick to your own criteria in making the list? Why even make the rules if you can't follow them? Why have rules for choosing the teams at all? Bill is going to choose the teams he wants to choose anyway, he should just not have rules for his tortured franchises and say he is going to choose whoever the hell he wants. He's doing that anyway.
12. Philadelphia Eagles
Last Truly Devastating Defeat: 2008 NFC title game (to Arizona).
I don't know if this was a devastating defeat or not. I know we have some Eagles fans out there...was this a devastating defeat? I wouldn't see how this loss would be any worse than the other NFC Championship Game losses at home or losing to the Cowboys this year in the playoffs.
This is the kind of thing that happens when Bill Simmons thinks he can speak for fan bases of sports teams all across the nation. That kind of thing is him irritating me by actually believing he knows which games left these fans the most tortured.
Mitigating Factor: The Phillies' 2008 title knocked the Eagles down a few spots. At least the people of Philly know God isn't against their city now. Or, they're reasonably sure.
So a championship in the same city with a different team in a different sport is a mitigating factor? Let's remember this.
Switch McNabb for Favre this past Sunday, and Eagles fans absolutely would have been waiting for that interception to be thrown. To rope them into a Level 1 loss would take a Herculean choke.
So because the Eagles fans don't have any hope and never think their team can win that makes them less tortured? Shouldn't it be the opposite? See, Bill's rules (when he follows them) don't make sense.
11. New York Jets
So the Eagles got mitigated because the Phillies won a World Series title, but the Jets are mitigated even though the Rangers, Giants, Islanders and Yankees have won titles? I like lists, lists can be fun, but they have to be logical and make sense. It doesn't make sense to mitigate one team because of championships in the same city with different teams in different sports and not mitigate the ranking for every team on the list due to another team in the city winning a championship. Like Joe Morgan says, I need some consistency.
8. New York Knickerbockers
Last Title: 1973.
Like I wrote with the Jets, shouldn't the Knicks spot be mitigated in some way by the fact the Yankees, Giants, Islanders and Rangers have all been good? (Yes, I realize all Knicks fans aren't fans of those other New York teams) Not to mention the fact the Knicks haven't even been any good for the last 10 years, so it's not like the fan base has had any recent disappointments. Shouldn't a team have to be good during the 35 year period or does having Isiah involved with the team count as torture?
I know the fan base is tortured, but somewhere in that fan base there are also fans of the teams that have won championships and I would think this would mitigate the pain some. Not to mention, New York has so many damn sports teams, the torture of the Knicks stinks for their fans, but there are other teams in the area that can take a fan's focus away from a team like the Knicks. Basically, a Knicks fan doesn't have to dwell on the Knicks losses and can move to the Yankees or Giants if they need to make themselves feel better. Of course Knicks/Mets/Jets fans are just shit out of luck.
6. San Francisco Giants
Last Title: Never (unless you count 1954, when the team was in New York).
Of course that shouldn't count because the team relocated and there are no fans of the New York Giants who became fans of the San Francisco Giants according to Bill Simmons retarded "relocation rule."
I think I am getting hung up on other teams in the area being mitigating factors, but San Francisco has 2 major sports teams and the 49ers won 5 Super Bowls between 1981-1994, have seen two of the greatest quarterbacks of all-time play for their team and it is a sunny and warm weather city. What happened to Bill's rule about sunny and warm weather cities? It goes out the window because he wants to ignore that rule right now.
Additional Thoughts: You'd think a 66-year title drought, the Bonds/BALCO fallout, a borderline Level 1 loss in 2002 and having its first World Series home game in 27 years postponed by a devastating earthquake
The Bonds/BALCO fallout isn't really a reason for Giants fans to be tortured. Let me explain. The fans of Bonds/Giants were pretty complicit in the whole thing. San Francisco Giants fans defended Bonds a lot when there were rumors that he used steroids and even after there was proof. They stood by their man, at least many of the fans did. There is nothing wrong with this, but I think we have to take this into account into whether the BALCO/Bonds issue tortured them or not.
Some of the Giants fan base would only believe Bonds used steroids if somebody snapped a picture of him with a syringe and a hooker...even then some Giants fans would probably believe the hooker set him up. So either they don't care or don't believe it, but either way I am not sure we can throw a pity party for Giants fans because of BALCO, simply due to the fact they supported Bonds a ton during that time.
I think the most impressive part of these additional thoughts is that Bill can predict the future. He said the Giants have a 66 year title drought. They last won a title in 1954. I am no math major but I think that is a 56 year title drought, not 66 years. So Bill knows the Giants won't win a World Series until at least 2020 or he can't do math and neither can his editor.
5. Cleveland Indians
Last Truly Devastating Defeat: With apologies to the 1999 Indians (shut out by an injured Pedro Martinez coming out of the bullpen in a wild Game 5) and 2007 Indians (blew a 3-1 series lead to Boston), the answer is still Game 7 of the 1997 World Series. Every bit as devastating as the 1986 Red Sox collapse at Shea, but without the fanfare because of residual bitterness from the 1994 lockout.
I don't think it was so much the residual bitterness from the 1994 lockout that caused the lack of fanfare of the Indians collapse compared to the 1986 Red Sox collapse, but a lack of media coverage (Dan Shaughnessy, East Coast media, etc.) between the two collapses. I hate to sound like a bitter "I hate the East Coast" person (because I really don't) but the reason the Game 6 collapse is so well known is because it involved a team from Boston and a team from New York. Nevermind the Red Sox could have won Game 7, so the Buckner error didn't end the series, yet that game is still seen as a greater collapse than other Game 7 collapses.
Meanwhile, when the Indians blew Game 7 of the 1997 World Series, they didn't have another game to try and win. Meanwhile, I don't think the 1997 World Series collapse got as much fanfare because it involved a team from Cleveland and a near-expansion team from Florida. Those aren't exactly sexy teams.
Rock Bottom: Two recent Cleveland aces (Cliff Lee and CC Sabathia) starting Game 1 of the 2009 World Series ... but not for Cleveland.
I will not argue with the Indians at #5. Heck, maybe they should be #2 or #3 because of the eternal sucking of the Browns and Cavaliers.
Additional Thoughts: Lost some "tortured" street cred because "Major League" and "Major League 2" have been on cable so often that 30.9 percent of Americans now mistakenly believe that Charlie Sheen was the 1994 World Series MVP.
Two words for Bill Simmons when he talks about street cred and Hollywood movies in regard to MLB teams..."Fever Pitch."
3. Buffalo Bills
Rock Bottom: Let's go with this one -- a while back, I wrote that Buffalo had lost three straight Super Bowls, and my editor corrected me that it was actually four. But still, the Bills lost so many Super Bowls in a row that someone who writes about sports for a living couldn't remember the exact number. We'll never see anything like that again.
Three things that shock me about this passage:
1. Bill thinks rock bottom for the Bills was when he personally couldn't remember how many Super Bowls the team lost in a row. He thinks the franchise's rock bottom revolved around something he personally couldn't recall. How self-involved can you be? I think he truly believes the world in some ways revolves around him and what he does. It may be "only child syndrome," if there is such a thing.
2. An ESPN editor corrected something? I don't believe this. This may be the 1st time I have ever heard of this happening.
3. The same guy who writes about (Boston) sports for a living also just thought 54 + 66 = 2010...let's just say Bill seems to have trouble with basic math, so I wouldn't have high hopes for his memories of the early 90's. No to mention, and I am fine with admitting his strengths (the NBA, getting people to read his column, he's fairly creative, and can write good columns when he wants to), but knowing much about other NFL franchises outside of the Patriots isn't a Bill Simmons strength.
2. Minnesota Vikings
Every 10 years or so, they rip the intestines out of their fans. Happened in 1975 (the Hail Mary), 1988 (Darren Nelson), 1998 (Gary Anderson) and 2009 (12 men). ... By the way, none of those were the four lost Super Bowls. Not even the Red Sox annihilated their fans at such a consistently efficient pace.
I'm going to go ahead and say I think the Vikings should be #1 on this list. Losing 4 Super Bowls, these 4 things Bill just listed here that didn't happen in the Super Bowl, having the Timberwolves in the same city, and having the millionaire of the Twins act like he has to shop at Dollar Tree so they can't keep a good team together when free agency comes for their star players all potentially add up to this conclusion. Of course the Twins have won championships (1987 and 1991---damn that Kirby Puckett) and really aren't an overall unlucky team. I would be very close to putting Minnesota #1 on this list despite these two championships...especially compared to #1.
I really think Seattle should be ranked higher overall.
1. Chicago Cubs
Last Truly Devastating Defeat: Bartman.
I still question whether it can be devastating if the fans themselves are the ones doing the devastating.
Additional Thoughts: Cold weather, a 102-year title drought, a checkered history, a Level 1 loss that happened recently, self-loathing fans, a nagging sense that it can never turn around ...
Again, when it comes to other teams in the area being able to mitigate the fact a franchise hasn't won a World Series...the Bulls won 6 NBA Titles and clearly God doesn't hate Chicago because the White Sox won a World Series. So I think Chicago, as disappointed as the fans are that they haven't won a World Series since 1908, has had some of the disappointment mitigated by the fact they got to witness the best basketball player of all-time win 6 NBA Titles. Of course Chicago did have to deal with Jay Mariotti writing for its city paper for many years, so I should factor that in I guess.
They get my "fan base that's wired the most tightly" vote for this reason: Remember Game 1 of the 2008 playoffs at Wrigley, when the Dodgers jumped out to an early lead and the crowd died immediately? No faith at all. It has been beaten out of the fans.
I am telling everyone, and I mean this as no offense to Cubs fans, but once the Cubs win a World Series title they will easily be the most annoying fan base in the United States. For anyone who thought Red Sox Nation was bad, just wait until the Cubs win a World Series. The bandwagon will all of a sudden get many, many, many more people.
I can accept the Cubs being #1 on Bill's list if he had not used the Phillies World Series victory to lessen how tortured Eagles fans were, but he didn't do that. I think the Cubs are #2 on the list, but the success of other teams in Chicago wouldn't make them #1 in my mind. Of course I can't expect Bill to fully stick to his own rules, so I really have no point.
You'll shed some blood and tears. You might need a miracle to turn momentum around, and you might even need to sell the soul of one of your kids. But it has been done. Hell, I was there for one of those karma swings: Oct. 17, 2004, Fenway Park, Dave Roberts sprinting for second right in front of me, my whole life about to change ... and I had no idea.
(the sound of Bengoodfella banging his head against his desk for no good reason)
I am a 17-year-old senior at Averill Park High School in upstate New York, the only Vikings fan amidst the swam of Pats and Giants fans. I inherited the Vikings from my dad, and my first sports memory is watching the Gary Anderson game. For the past decade, I have suffered with the Vikings, watching everyone else celebrate the Giants' and the Pats' Super Bowls, while my Vikes continued to lose in ever escalating horrible ways.
Hey buddy, try being a Lions fan. I am sure they don't have a lot of sympathy for Vikings fans right now.
But I kept coming back every year, as they found new ways to torture me, because sports are what I live for. Then came the NFC Championship, and once again, I was caused excruciating pain by the thing I love most. I'm finding it hard to commit myself again, as after each year I suffer more and more. Being a Red Sox fan, you have experienced this same pain, but ultimately, you got your redemption. All I ask for is something to remind me that the misery and despair are worth it all, and that being a sports fan isn't just masochism with commercials.
-- Patrick, Albany, N.Y.
Patrick, with all due respect, you are 17 years old and having a typical "my life is over" teenage breakdown. Be glad you aren't the fan of a team that has stunk for the past decade and get over the Vikings loss. Writing Bill Simmons to help make you feel better is pathetic. Sports are fun, but they are not life, quit acting like they are.
All this drama is a bit much.
Maybe I can't contact ghosts, and maybe I don't have spectacular breasts, but I can feel your pain, Patrick. No, being a sports fan isn't just masochism with commercials. Yes, the misery and despair will be worth it some day. Keep the faith.
Bill COULD feel his pain. He no longer feels the pain of a fan who follows a team which is tortured, I would hope the 2 World Series titles have eased that pain a little bit. Maybe I should create a "Levels of Bad Sportswriting" pyramid or something to be ironic...or would that be too Simmons-like?
A few weeks ago, I was trapped at home on a Friday night. My wife and daughter were away. My son was asleep.
Let me guess. Someone called repeatedly and asked if you had checked on your child lately and it later turned out it was someone INSIDE THE HOUSE...but then it just turned out to be J-Bug and House playing an absolutely hilarious practical joke based on an idea Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla had thought of?
(Speaking of Jimmy Kimmel, I like how he inserted himself into the Conan-Jay Leno-Letterman fight. It's like he had this one chance to remind everyone he still had a show on ABC and needed to do the most annoying things to remind people of this to boost ratings. If Bill wasn't up Kimmel's ass he would have given him an award for "Inserting yourself into someone else's argument to benefit your self" at some point in one of his columns. Kimmel said/did some funny stuff, but he needs to butt out. The big boys were fighting and he really had nothing to do with it. It's like when the small-time East Coast and West Coast rappers were backing either Biggie or Tupac in the mid-90's during "the feud," it wasn't really to take sides, it was just to remind everyone they DID exist as rappers and their album could be purchased at stores. )
The Celtics had just blown a winnable game in Atlanta. I was flipping channels and thinking about things like, "I wish we had gone for Jamal Crawford over Rasheed Wallace" and "I wish Rasheed Wallace didn't have bigger breasts than Rashida Jones." And as I was thinking about breasts, I stumbled across Jennifer Love Hewitt -- someone who, as far as I can tell, has made an entire career off her chest.
Hold on guys for a quick detour, Bill has to meet his word limit so he can still brag about how much he writes each week.
She was starring in "Ghost Whisperer," one of those network shows that remains on the air forever even though nobody has ever seen it. In this episode,...
Bill will be back, right after he sums up the entire episode that had absolutely nothing to do with "Levels of Losing," sports or Rasheed Wallace's breasts in general. It's pretty much an episode synopsis to tell his reading audience that Jennifer Love Hewitt ended the episode in a tight nightgown. I am pretty sure Bill is 40 years old.
I was thinking about her three Mondays later, after the NFC Championship Game, when I was sifting through e-mails from devastated Vikings fans, and I realized that, for some readers, I apparently have turned into the "Sports Whisperer." They channel me as an outlet for their pain.
Hey look, Bill just tried to make himself more important than he truly is by giving himself a nickname. Remember "the Sports Czar" and the "VP of Common Sense?" No one is as good at giving himself nicknames and fake sports jobs better than Bill Simmons. If he didn't have a job, giving himself fake jobs would be his job.
He spent 5 years of his column-writing life whining about the Red Sox, then whined about not being able to whine about the Red Sox after they had won the 2004 World Series, then whined about the Celtics when they don't get Greg Oden, whined about how people treat the Patriots after Spygate, then whined about losing the Super Bowl, and finally because his teams are all good at their respective sports he has to finally start whining about how bad NBA General Managers and officials are.
My point is that if there is ever a guy who would expect to hear complaining about their team's difficulties, it's Bill Simmons. I would think that a guy who bases his career partly on speaking and writing from a fan's point of view could understand before this point in his career how fans might write to him about their sports pain. Apparently the only job description Bill doesn't seem to want is the actual job description he currently has, which is to write like the average fan.
Why me? Because I have a column and an e-mail address. Because, as a Red Sox fan, I suffered through a lifetime of losing lowlighted by two of the worst defeats in sports history.
Bill is so tortured everyone! There have been 2 GAMES that Bill's team should have won, but did not, in sports history. Just as a note, Bill's three favorite teams (Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics) have won 9 championships in their respective sports since 1980. Many other people would love to be as tortured and deal with the lowlights Bill has had to go through.
I know Bill would never realize this, but there are other people in this world without a sports column on ESPN.com who hear about the pain of a team's loss from that team's fans. Of course Bill believes he is special in this respect, but he really isn't. It's sort of what people do. They vent to other people. In fact, I am writing this post to people I have never met about Bill Simmons' column because I want to vent about it or at least discuss it.
Because I once wrote the "Levels of Losing" as a way to quantify sports pain. Because things worked out for me; the Red Sox eventually won titles in 2004 and 2007. If any stranger could understand your anguish after a heartwrenching loss, it's me.
Or perhaps anyone else who cheers for a sports team that has suffered a tough loss could understand the pain of these fans who write in. Another name for these people who could understand is "anyone who follows sports." These people are also qualified to understand your anguish.
Let's mock some emails from Vikings fans:
I'm watching the Vikings-Saints game. So are the guys in the apartment next to me, only my TV is running 10 seconds slower than theirs. I just heard Favre's pick before it happened. And now they're going to OT, where the Saints are sure as hell gonna win the toss. The girl I love won't talk to me. Please give me a reason not to kill myself.
-- Nick, Minneapolis
You just wrote into Bill Simmons telling him all of this. There is no real reason not to kill yourself at this point.
As a lifelong Vikings fan, son of a lifelong Vikings fan, and grandson of a Vikings fan the day the team came into existence, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that tonight's game would end the way it did. Eight months ago I had my tonsils removed. Two percent of people have issues with the incision bleeding when they have a tonsillectomy. Again, as a Vikings fan I knew without a doubt that it would happen to me. It did.-- Peter D., St. Paul
Perhaps this is just God's way of punishing whiners. If I were Bill I would do whatever I could to stop propping up these people who feel so badly about their lives they have to write Bill Simmons about their sports problems. At one point, Bill got it. That was my favorite Bill Simmons. He doesn't get it anymore because his favorite teams won 6 titles during the 2000's and I think he is trying to be more of a brand at this point.
To make it a little easier, of the possible 30 seasons in the 2000's to win a championship in MLB, the NBA, and the NFL, Bill's favorite teams won the championship 20% of the time. So let's say he shouldn't really be feeling anyone's pain for a few more years. Bill made part of his career on complaining about how bad his teams were or at least sharing his pain with the world, but it's just not true anymore, and hasn't been for nearly a decade now.
I don't know where this falls on your levels of losing rankings, but I can tell you I'd feel a lot better if somebody had just punched me in the stomach. I definitely feel it in my stomach, but it feels more like a virus, like a big, painful empty hole in the pit of my stomach, accompanied by throwing up, irritable bowels, shaking ... I just feel like curling up in a dark bathroom for the next 48 hours. I've been a Vikings fan my entire life, and I find myself questioning why. I'm not a religious man, but I imagine this is what a crisis of faith feels like.
-- Ryan K., Bloomington, Minn.
Oh my God, grow a pair or find a psychologist. It was a tough loss, but what the hell did you expect when your favorite team signed Brett Favre? He specializes in tough losses in the playoffs. The loss was tough, but being overly descriptive and feeling even sorrier for yourself by writing a guy whose favorite teams are all winners isn't the solution.
That was just half of the self pitying emails from his readers Bill Simmons received. The others were along the same lines as these.
Collectively, hundreds of those anguished Vikings e-mails made me wonder: Did I make a mistake with the top level of the Levels of Losing? Am I not channeling other people's pain well enough?
As I have mentioned several times already, Bill's teams won 6 titles in the 2000's, so he probably was not channeling other people's pain that well. It's hard to feel empathy when you are on top of the sports world.
Originally, I named Level 1 "That Game," a Guillotine/Stomach Punch combination that happened only one time: Game 6 of the '86 World Series. After all, no effed-up franchise ever came closer to winning a title without actually winning it, and no franchise ever blew that same chance in such agonizing fashion.
I hate to break this to everyone, but there was a Game 7 of the 1986 World Series. The series wasn't over when the ball went through Buckner's legs. Even though it may have felt like the series was over, it really wasn't. So while I am respectful of how difficult that loss was for Red Sox fans everywhere, it wasn't like Bill Buckner's error directly and at that moment lost the World Series for the Red Sox. The Red Sox still had a chance to win the 1986 World Series. The pathetic showing in Game 7 lost the World Series for the Red Sox. Of course Bill has to have his team's losses be the most difficult losses in the history of sports, but other teams have lost difficult, important games as well.
See, Game 6 might have been the most powerful Level 1 example, but it wasn't the only example. The Bartman Game, Byner Fumble, Pedro/Grady Game, Gary Anderson Game, No Goal Game, Darrin Nelson Game and Jose Mesa Game all were Guillotine/Stomach Punch combos for effed-up franchises.
I have a few problems with this list. For the Bartman Game, I don't think fans can bitch and moan about being cursed or stomach punched when it is one of their own idiots fans who screwed up a game. Second, the Pedro/Grady game was just poor managing. Granted there was a ton of people who knew to pull Pedro from the game and the Red Sox fans were hurt by this, but this was about poor managing and not anything close to Bill Buckner's error. The Red Sox won the freaking World Series the year after that happened, so it didn't hurt them too badly in the long haul. Also, Darrin Nelson dropped the ball, but it was tipped. Plus it was a tough catch anyway. I know it hurt the Vikings but I can't buy that a Level 1 example of Bill's stupid list can be something like a tough catch wasn't made or a manager made a bad pitching move. I just don't see it that way.
It's Bill's dumbass list, so I let him make the rules, but it doesn't mean I won't argue with them.
Limiting Level 1 to the Red Sox was purely an only-child, everything-revolves-around-me decision. I mean, Steve Bartman had to leave the country. That wasn't a Level 1 defeat?
I don't think it was a Level 1 defeat but probably a Level 1 fan screw up. I don't know why I keep arguing with Bill over his own criteria, it feels pointless, yet I keep doing it.
The Norwood Game seems like a Level 1 loss in retrospect, but Bills fans weren't fully tortured yet. Only AFTER the agony of that defeat did they become Level 1 eligible. Same for Browns fans after The Drive paved the way for the Byner Fumble a year later. The key is "fully tortured." You can't be a little tortured or pretty much tortured. You have to be fully tortured. Haunted, even.
Which makes me wonder how the Pedro/Grady game can make Bill's list since the Red Sox won the World Series the year after that incident. So if Bill is going to take in account what happened to the Browns after The Drive, shouldn't he discount the Grady/Pedro incident? That incident pretty much was the end of the Red Sox Curse, it was the final nail in the coffin before the turnaround the next year. I just think even though the Red Sox fans were "fully tortured" (mostly by some of their fan's need to feel tortured in my mind), if Bill looks into what happened the year after Norwood's kick and The Drive, he has to look at what happened to the Red Sox after Pedro/Grady. It was a tough game given the history of the franchise, but I don't think the game in itself should be ranked this high on Bill's list.
Here I go arguing the criteria for his list again instead of making fun of his choices.
1. You need at least a 35-year drought without a title.
So that means in 2030 I can be a tortured Panthers fan? This just seems stupid to me.
Just look at the difference in desperation between Mets fans (last title: 1986) and Knicks fans (last title: 1973). Starting with Dwight Gooden's positive coke test in 1987, Mets fans have suffered as much as any fan base in sports over the past 23 years: the Scioscia homer, the fall of Doc and Darryl, the Bobby Bo era, the Kenny Rogers Game, the 2000 Subway Series, Yadier Molina's homer and the Collapse of 2007.
Every franchise has tough losses, I don't get why Bill has to collect all of a franchise's tough losses and then try to get their fan base to feel sorry for themselves. It's like he is the spokesperson for complaining about your team. Some teams win and some teams lose, but that shouldn't give you permission to excessively cry about how bad you have it.
I think we are broadening the list a little bit for a Mets fan to feel tortured. I know Mets fans may disagree but the Bobby Bo era involved bad signings by the front office (I have a hard time counting an entire era as a time when the fan's were tortured. It's too broad of a timespan to me), the Subway Series is where the Mets got their ass kicked by the Yankees and the Braves blew a couple leads in the Kenny Rogers game, so it's not like the Mets were dominating. Put down the tissues and just deal with it. Fans shouldn't feel tortured because their team makes bad personnel decisions, get their ass kicked in the World Series, and can't put away a team on the road.
We just entered our sixth straight decade without the Royals/Kings franchise making an NBA Finals. But the Kings moved to Sacramento in 1984, making them ineligible for Level 1 because anyone who cares about them could start caring only 26 years ago.
Bill is an idiot. There is no way a Royals fan could still like the team now that it is in Sacramento?
What kind of sense does this make? Did Brooklyn Dodgers fans not cheer for the team when they went out to Los Angeles? I would be many did.
3. During that 35-plus years without a title, it's not enough to lose. You need to have your guts wrenched a few times.
A great example: Heading into 2005, the White Sox hadn't won a World Series since 1917 and the Cubs hadn't won since 1908, but only Cubs fans were considered "tortured." And with reason. Maybe White Sox fans hadn't won anything, but they didn't have a ton of scars, either.
So it's fine to feel tortured if your team has been good enough to make the playoffs on several occasions but it's not fine to feel tortured if your team has never been good enough to make the playoffs enough to blow a few of them. So in Bill's world, good teams have more cause to whine than bad teams can. How is a person who follows a successful team "less tortured" than a person who follows a team that hasn't been as successful? Has Bill ever had to sit through his team missing the playoffs a few years in a row? I know he has, so he should know this is a dumb rule.
4. Only teams in cold-weather cities are eligible for Level 1 unless the situation is so cruel/unusual/unforgiving that it's practically unprecedented.
Rule #7 (for next year) "The team has to have played in Boston at some point."
Suns fans are a good example. On paper? Level 1 eligible. Forty-one seasons, no titles. Lost the Kareem/Neil Walk coin flip. Lost the famous triple-overtime game in 1976. Lost three agonizing games in the 1993 NBA Finals, as well as Mario Elie's "Kiss of Death" 3-pointer that ended their season in '94. Their Nash era stretch from 2004 to '07 was basically one long liver punch. And yet, how could Suns fans be truly tortured? They live in Arizona! They have things to do!
It's Bill's list, it's Bill's list, it's Bill's list, it's Bill's list. (Bengoodfella trying to hold it back)
THE WEATHER IN AN AREA IS RETARDED REASONING FOR A FAN BASE NOT BEING TORTURED!
And maybe being a Saints fan (as I wrote last week) hasn't been a barrel of laughs, but there's a spiritual optimism around that team -- something tied to the festiveness of Bourbon Street, Mardi Gras and the city in general -- that was beaten out of Jets/Bills/Vikes/Browns/Eagles fans a long time ago.
Of course this spiritual optimism is held back by the massive hurricanes, general poverty of some sections of New Orleans and the fact few teams from New Orleans have ever succeeded over the past 30 years. Let's just face it, Bill think Northern teams have it worse than Southern/Western teams because Southern/Western teams don't have writers like Bill writing for ESPN telling everyone how tortured they are.
On Wednesday's podcast, I asked my buddy Geoff (die-hard Vikes fan) whether he actually thought Minnesota was going to win on the final drive of regulation. This is someone who started rooting for the Vikes at age 6, the year of the Hail Mary play, and spent the next 35 years getting kicked in the teeth. What was his answer?
YES!
How dare he have some optimism about sports! Doesn't he know that you don't get any sympathy and no one is going to write about how you are long suffering if you don't spend at least 2 days feeling pity for yourself and telling everyone how bad you have it? How will his teams ever get attention for being so special as to suffer? Doesn't he want to be self-pitying and loathing?So when that brutalization kicks into motion again, even casual fans with no real interest instinctively start rooting for that team to NOT get brutalized. It cannot be up for debate. There are no degrees. It's like how we should figure out prospective Hall of Famers -- either you know or you don't.
Absolutely, the Hall of Fame should be decided on whether the voters KNOW a player should be in the Hall of Fame or not. No statistical evidence or any other type of evidential proof, just a gut feeling.
Actually I think that is how it is decided now, at least in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Possible factors that could negatively affect this empathetic assessment: success of other teams in the same city (for instance, nobody is feeling bad for Boston Bruins fans after the other three Boston teams won a combined six titles this past decade)
Yet, Bill has two Red Sox moments in his new Level 1. I guess he just assumes everyone still feels bad for the fan base.
lack of media attention;
You know I have a problem with this. How the holy fuck could a team be knocked down a level on anything (real or made up) because of a lack of media attention? So basically the teams the media follows the most are the most eligible for Bill's fake list. This is the epitome of stupid.
and steady losing devoid of playoff nightmares (like the Lions or Saints).
I still don't get how a team that has been so bad as to never make the playoffs but loses in a tough fashion when they do, is less tortured than a team that loses tough in the playoffs but overall has a history of having good teams. I just don't get this. A constantly bad franchise is just as torturous for a fan base.
(This is why I don't cover Bill Simmons columns, halfway through I always feel like I am speaking in tongues and can't remember what I had written before. He has an effect on me that way.)
14-15. Seattle Mariners/Seahawks
They have never won a title. Ever. The Mariners won 100+ games one year and then got their ass kicked by the Yankees, lost Randy Johnson, Alex Rodriguez, and Ken Griffey Jr. and they have to deal with a ton of depressing rain. The Seahawks had never made a Super Bowl and then they finally were able to and the officiating was cruddy. The next year the franchise back (Shawn Alexander) decided he wanted a contract extension AND wanted to pick that season to be washed up/get injured. In later years the quarterback for the team (Matt Hasselbeck) aged 20 years in one season and now they just hired Pete Carroll as the head coach. These two franchises have suffered more than a #14/#15 should just based on the entire Seattle area's suffering.
Additional Thoughts: Had to be included after the repeated failures of the Griffey/Ichiro Mariners, Super Bowl XL and the Sonics hijacking. Only a title can snap the city out of it. The good news: They listen to the right kind of music to get through this. "Black hole sun ... won't you come ... and wash away the rainnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn."
Yes, because it is 1994 and everyone is still listening to grunge in Seattle. Keep believing this.
13. Portland Trailblazers
Last Title: 1977.
Um...I thought there was a "35 years without a championship" rule among the 6 that Bill just listed? I guess Bill is just going to arbitrarily not follow the own damn rules that he set. THIS is why I can criticize Bill's rules because even he doesn't follow them.
Additional Thoughts: Even though they shouldn't be eligible until 2012, I'm including them because of the many Drexler Era meltdowns, the 2000 collapse, the Bowie and Oden decisions, and the team's "only child" status in Portland.
Why make a list of anything if you can't even stick to your own criteria in making the list? Why even make the rules if you can't follow them? Why have rules for choosing the teams at all? Bill is going to choose the teams he wants to choose anyway, he should just not have rules for his tortured franchises and say he is going to choose whoever the hell he wants. He's doing that anyway.
12. Philadelphia Eagles
Last Truly Devastating Defeat: 2008 NFC title game (to Arizona).
I don't know if this was a devastating defeat or not. I know we have some Eagles fans out there...was this a devastating defeat? I wouldn't see how this loss would be any worse than the other NFC Championship Game losses at home or losing to the Cowboys this year in the playoffs.
This is the kind of thing that happens when Bill Simmons thinks he can speak for fan bases of sports teams all across the nation. That kind of thing is him irritating me by actually believing he knows which games left these fans the most tortured.
Mitigating Factor: The Phillies' 2008 title knocked the Eagles down a few spots. At least the people of Philly know God isn't against their city now. Or, they're reasonably sure.
So a championship in the same city with a different team in a different sport is a mitigating factor? Let's remember this.
Switch McNabb for Favre this past Sunday, and Eagles fans absolutely would have been waiting for that interception to be thrown. To rope them into a Level 1 loss would take a Herculean choke.
So because the Eagles fans don't have any hope and never think their team can win that makes them less tortured? Shouldn't it be the opposite? See, Bill's rules (when he follows them) don't make sense.
11. New York Jets
So the Eagles got mitigated because the Phillies won a World Series title, but the Jets are mitigated even though the Rangers, Giants, Islanders and Yankees have won titles? I like lists, lists can be fun, but they have to be logical and make sense. It doesn't make sense to mitigate one team because of championships in the same city with different teams in different sports and not mitigate the ranking for every team on the list due to another team in the city winning a championship. Like Joe Morgan says, I need some consistency.
8. New York Knickerbockers
Last Title: 1973.
Like I wrote with the Jets, shouldn't the Knicks spot be mitigated in some way by the fact the Yankees, Giants, Islanders and Rangers have all been good? (Yes, I realize all Knicks fans aren't fans of those other New York teams) Not to mention the fact the Knicks haven't even been any good for the last 10 years, so it's not like the fan base has had any recent disappointments. Shouldn't a team have to be good during the 35 year period or does having Isiah involved with the team count as torture?
I know the fan base is tortured, but somewhere in that fan base there are also fans of the teams that have won championships and I would think this would mitigate the pain some. Not to mention, New York has so many damn sports teams, the torture of the Knicks stinks for their fans, but there are other teams in the area that can take a fan's focus away from a team like the Knicks. Basically, a Knicks fan doesn't have to dwell on the Knicks losses and can move to the Yankees or Giants if they need to make themselves feel better. Of course Knicks/Mets/Jets fans are just shit out of luck.
6. San Francisco Giants
Last Title: Never (unless you count 1954, when the team was in New York).
Of course that shouldn't count because the team relocated and there are no fans of the New York Giants who became fans of the San Francisco Giants according to Bill Simmons retarded "relocation rule."
I think I am getting hung up on other teams in the area being mitigating factors, but San Francisco has 2 major sports teams and the 49ers won 5 Super Bowls between 1981-1994, have seen two of the greatest quarterbacks of all-time play for their team and it is a sunny and warm weather city. What happened to Bill's rule about sunny and warm weather cities? It goes out the window because he wants to ignore that rule right now.
Additional Thoughts: You'd think a 66-year title drought, the Bonds/BALCO fallout, a borderline Level 1 loss in 2002 and having its first World Series home game in 27 years postponed by a devastating earthquake
The Bonds/BALCO fallout isn't really a reason for Giants fans to be tortured. Let me explain. The fans of Bonds/Giants were pretty complicit in the whole thing. San Francisco Giants fans defended Bonds a lot when there were rumors that he used steroids and even after there was proof. They stood by their man, at least many of the fans did. There is nothing wrong with this, but I think we have to take this into account into whether the BALCO/Bonds issue tortured them or not.
Some of the Giants fan base would only believe Bonds used steroids if somebody snapped a picture of him with a syringe and a hooker...even then some Giants fans would probably believe the hooker set him up. So either they don't care or don't believe it, but either way I am not sure we can throw a pity party for Giants fans because of BALCO, simply due to the fact they supported Bonds a ton during that time.
I think the most impressive part of these additional thoughts is that Bill can predict the future. He said the Giants have a 66 year title drought. They last won a title in 1954. I am no math major but I think that is a 56 year title drought, not 66 years. So Bill knows the Giants won't win a World Series until at least 2020 or he can't do math and neither can his editor.
5. Cleveland Indians
Last Truly Devastating Defeat: With apologies to the 1999 Indians (shut out by an injured Pedro Martinez coming out of the bullpen in a wild Game 5) and 2007 Indians (blew a 3-1 series lead to Boston), the answer is still Game 7 of the 1997 World Series. Every bit as devastating as the 1986 Red Sox collapse at Shea, but without the fanfare because of residual bitterness from the 1994 lockout.
I don't think it was so much the residual bitterness from the 1994 lockout that caused the lack of fanfare of the Indians collapse compared to the 1986 Red Sox collapse, but a lack of media coverage (Dan Shaughnessy, East Coast media, etc.) between the two collapses. I hate to sound like a bitter "I hate the East Coast" person (because I really don't) but the reason the Game 6 collapse is so well known is because it involved a team from Boston and a team from New York. Nevermind the Red Sox could have won Game 7, so the Buckner error didn't end the series, yet that game is still seen as a greater collapse than other Game 7 collapses.
Meanwhile, when the Indians blew Game 7 of the 1997 World Series, they didn't have another game to try and win. Meanwhile, I don't think the 1997 World Series collapse got as much fanfare because it involved a team from Cleveland and a near-expansion team from Florida. Those aren't exactly sexy teams.
Rock Bottom: Two recent Cleveland aces (Cliff Lee and CC Sabathia) starting Game 1 of the 2009 World Series ... but not for Cleveland.
I will not argue with the Indians at #5. Heck, maybe they should be #2 or #3 because of the eternal sucking of the Browns and Cavaliers.
Additional Thoughts: Lost some "tortured" street cred because "Major League" and "Major League 2" have been on cable so often that 30.9 percent of Americans now mistakenly believe that Charlie Sheen was the 1994 World Series MVP.
Two words for Bill Simmons when he talks about street cred and Hollywood movies in regard to MLB teams..."Fever Pitch."
3. Buffalo Bills
Rock Bottom: Let's go with this one -- a while back, I wrote that Buffalo had lost three straight Super Bowls, and my editor corrected me that it was actually four. But still, the Bills lost so many Super Bowls in a row that someone who writes about sports for a living couldn't remember the exact number. We'll never see anything like that again.
Three things that shock me about this passage:
1. Bill thinks rock bottom for the Bills was when he personally couldn't remember how many Super Bowls the team lost in a row. He thinks the franchise's rock bottom revolved around something he personally couldn't recall. How self-involved can you be? I think he truly believes the world in some ways revolves around him and what he does. It may be "only child syndrome," if there is such a thing.
2. An ESPN editor corrected something? I don't believe this. This may be the 1st time I have ever heard of this happening.
3. The same guy who writes about (Boston) sports for a living also just thought 54 + 66 = 2010...let's just say Bill seems to have trouble with basic math, so I wouldn't have high hopes for his memories of the early 90's. No to mention, and I am fine with admitting his strengths (the NBA, getting people to read his column, he's fairly creative, and can write good columns when he wants to), but knowing much about other NFL franchises outside of the Patriots isn't a Bill Simmons strength.
2. Minnesota Vikings
Every 10 years or so, they rip the intestines out of their fans. Happened in 1975 (the Hail Mary), 1988 (Darren Nelson), 1998 (Gary Anderson) and 2009 (12 men). ... By the way, none of those were the four lost Super Bowls. Not even the Red Sox annihilated their fans at such a consistently efficient pace.
I'm going to go ahead and say I think the Vikings should be #1 on this list. Losing 4 Super Bowls, these 4 things Bill just listed here that didn't happen in the Super Bowl, having the Timberwolves in the same city, and having the millionaire of the Twins act like he has to shop at Dollar Tree so they can't keep a good team together when free agency comes for their star players all potentially add up to this conclusion. Of course the Twins have won championships (1987 and 1991---damn that Kirby Puckett) and really aren't an overall unlucky team. I would be very close to putting Minnesota #1 on this list despite these two championships...especially compared to #1.
I really think Seattle should be ranked higher overall.
1. Chicago Cubs
Last Truly Devastating Defeat: Bartman.
I still question whether it can be devastating if the fans themselves are the ones doing the devastating.
Additional Thoughts: Cold weather, a 102-year title drought, a checkered history, a Level 1 loss that happened recently, self-loathing fans, a nagging sense that it can never turn around ...
Again, when it comes to other teams in the area being able to mitigate the fact a franchise hasn't won a World Series...the Bulls won 6 NBA Titles and clearly God doesn't hate Chicago because the White Sox won a World Series. So I think Chicago, as disappointed as the fans are that they haven't won a World Series since 1908, has had some of the disappointment mitigated by the fact they got to witness the best basketball player of all-time win 6 NBA Titles. Of course Chicago did have to deal with Jay Mariotti writing for its city paper for many years, so I should factor that in I guess.
They get my "fan base that's wired the most tightly" vote for this reason: Remember Game 1 of the 2008 playoffs at Wrigley, when the Dodgers jumped out to an early lead and the crowd died immediately? No faith at all. It has been beaten out of the fans.
I am telling everyone, and I mean this as no offense to Cubs fans, but once the Cubs win a World Series title they will easily be the most annoying fan base in the United States. For anyone who thought Red Sox Nation was bad, just wait until the Cubs win a World Series. The bandwagon will all of a sudden get many, many, many more people.
I can accept the Cubs being #1 on Bill's list if he had not used the Phillies World Series victory to lessen how tortured Eagles fans were, but he didn't do that. I think the Cubs are #2 on the list, but the success of other teams in Chicago wouldn't make them #1 in my mind. Of course I can't expect Bill to fully stick to his own rules, so I really have no point.
You'll shed some blood and tears. You might need a miracle to turn momentum around, and you might even need to sell the soul of one of your kids. But it has been done. Hell, I was there for one of those karma swings: Oct. 17, 2004, Fenway Park, Dave Roberts sprinting for second right in front of me, my whole life about to change ... and I had no idea.
(the sound of Bengoodfella banging his head against his desk for no good reason)
I am a 17-year-old senior at Averill Park High School in upstate New York, the only Vikings fan amidst the swam of Pats and Giants fans. I inherited the Vikings from my dad, and my first sports memory is watching the Gary Anderson game. For the past decade, I have suffered with the Vikings, watching everyone else celebrate the Giants' and the Pats' Super Bowls, while my Vikes continued to lose in ever escalating horrible ways.
Hey buddy, try being a Lions fan. I am sure they don't have a lot of sympathy for Vikings fans right now.
But I kept coming back every year, as they found new ways to torture me, because sports are what I live for. Then came the NFC Championship, and once again, I was caused excruciating pain by the thing I love most. I'm finding it hard to commit myself again, as after each year I suffer more and more. Being a Red Sox fan, you have experienced this same pain, but ultimately, you got your redemption. All I ask for is something to remind me that the misery and despair are worth it all, and that being a sports fan isn't just masochism with commercials.
-- Patrick, Albany, N.Y.
Patrick, with all due respect, you are 17 years old and having a typical "my life is over" teenage breakdown. Be glad you aren't the fan of a team that has stunk for the past decade and get over the Vikings loss. Writing Bill Simmons to help make you feel better is pathetic. Sports are fun, but they are not life, quit acting like they are.
All this drama is a bit much.
Maybe I can't contact ghosts, and maybe I don't have spectacular breasts, but I can feel your pain, Patrick. No, being a sports fan isn't just masochism with commercials. Yes, the misery and despair will be worth it some day. Keep the faith.
Bill COULD feel his pain. He no longer feels the pain of a fan who follows a team which is tortured, I would hope the 2 World Series titles have eased that pain a little bit. Maybe I should create a "Levels of Bad Sportswriting" pyramid or something to be ironic...or would that be too Simmons-like?
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