bill simmons IS bill simmons IN the book of BASKETBALL

...the movie

who's gonna dunk this tome with me over the next few weeks? i love simmons on hoops even when he's challopsy or even just wrong but i think this book might be amazing

sitting in the package on my desk right now to start after cavs/celts when i get home-- thanking u amazon

speaking of this guy, anyone watching that 30 for 30 series
http://30for30.espn.com/

a 30 for 30 thread

i kinda want to read this - i h8 this guys whole steez but sort of love his basketball writing - o jeez i just dont know - ive never read a sports book before this is weird for me

i started it last night and the prologue is a big sloppy bj for larry bird of course, but its supposed to be a more personal intro before the nitty gritty starts up. i think its tolerable even if yr not a celtics fan and there's lots of good stuff. the footnotes are really funny!

i think there's going to be tons of quality kareem bashing too, which is a big plus in my book

you should read it ice cr*m, i think if you like his bball writing theres going to be too much fun stuff in here to ignore-- i learned that dave cowens took off a third of a season to DRIVE A CAB

i missed the colts band 30 for 30 but the other two so far have been great-- thought berg's gretzky one was actually a great film, very cool and affecting, outstanding style

I don't think I could read an entire book of Simmons' writing.

i think i totally could - i just def dont have the time atm

to echo those above, though, it would have to be abt hoops

yeah i'm not sure i'll have time for this until like the holidays

freedarko book vs book of basketball

freedarko i have a hard time reading 2 paragraphs - srsly learn writing guys!

freedarko is awful and dumb imo

i don't really want to read either of them!

good thing it's a free country, am0n!

freedarko book has been sitting on my dresser since the day it dropped, i love those guys tho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jpk_zOfxkhc

I think Simmons is definitely at his best when he's doing straight NBA analysis, so I'm enjoying this so far (roughly 100pp in). The Isiah/Vegas chapter is really great.

One criticism I have is that weird semantic thing he does sometimes when he's discussing race in sports; for instance, in the Bird chapter he chalks part of Bird's career decline up to "a wave of athletic black forwards that were slowly making the Kelly Tripuckas and Kiki Vandeweghes obsolete."

I don't think anybody who's read Simmons for a while is at risk of misreading that, but I'm kinda surprised they left it in, y'know?

The black is a better athlete to begin with because he's been bred to be that way — because of his high thighs and big thighs that goes up into his back, and they can jump higher and run faster because of their bigger thighs. This goes back all the way to the Civil War when during the slave trading, the owner — the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman so that he could have a big black kid.

I was a big Jimmy the Greek fan as a little kid and was bummed when they fired him. :/

this is a little off topic, but I can't stand the way he speaks on podcasts and stuff - sounds like I'm listening to a college sophomore with a bunch of flattened KEYSTONE LIGHT boxes taped to his wall

he's on colbert tonight, should be coming on pretty soon...

this is a little off topic, but I can't stand the way he speaks on podcasts and stuff - sounds like I'm listening to a college sophomore with a bunch of flattened KEYSTONE LIGHT boxes taped to his wall

― 囧 (dyao), Thursday, October 29, 2009 11:25 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i always liked this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQbcVnsK9g8

Well, if you look at who he's talking about that replaced Bird, Vandeweigh, and Tripuka, et al., he's not wrong. There were a bunch of really good, athletic power forwards who could run, rebound and dunk over a city bus, who happened to be black. The phrasing is awkward, and makes him seem to be placing the race thing a little high in the analysis.

I am looking forward to this book - his knowledge of NBA stuff is pretty amazing, and he tends to do some pretty inventive statistical analysis.

And yes, this dude was totally a douchebag in college.

the first real chapter ("the secret") is pretty good. simmon's tim duncan reclamation project is almost working on me. ive always found him the most boring superstar and basically hated him for wiping out the fun-n-suns year after year but always respected him as a player and think he's probably a great guy.

putting him in stark contrast now with shaq: four rings on the same team, cycled through good roleplayers that he made great (both did this), still in title contention with that same team, while shaq is now basically a big media presence journeyman...i think i'm convinced that timmy is the best of the era ending right about now.

duncan as the best of his generation is pretty indisputable imo

Duncan = not of Kobe's era?

B/c -

Four rings with same team
Cycled through journeymen and made them better
Still in title contention with same team

Could also describe Kobe.

buddy sry kobe is not better than duncan - also shaq was the best player on 3/4 of those teams

1 duncan
2 shaq
then kobe garnett et al

says the celts, fan get outta here

anyway duncan and kobe are apples n oranges

lol "celts fan, get"

as afar as know neither duncan or shaq are or have ever been on the celtics

fan, get as afar as know

In school, Duncan was a bright pupil and dreamt of becoming an Olympic-level swimmer like his sister, Tricia.[5][6] His parents were very supportive and Duncan excelled at swimming, becoming a teenage standout in the 50, 100 and 400 meters freestyle and aiming to make the 1992 Olympic Games as a member of the United States Team.[5]

When Hurricane Hugo destroyed the island's only Olympic-sized swimming pool in 1989, forcing Duncan to swim in the ocean, he soon lost enthusiasm because of his fear of sharks.[4]

this is why he's #1

also spurs teams with duncan on them have never won fewer than 53 games (lockout season excepted)

buddy sry kobe is not better than duncan

http://hillbilly10commandments.com/images/moses3.bmp

huh, i never really think about kobe v duncan.

like kobe used to get compared to his contemporaries like pierce, ray allen, carter, mcgrady, but now that it's clear that none of them are as good as he is, he tends to get compared to jordan and maybe lebron.

they're definitely the best of the nba players who emerged in the late '90s, and both of them started out on teams that were immediately successful, but in terms of position and temperament they're completely different.

yah its a tough comparison but i think if kobe goes on a run the next few years with a ring or two and consistent finals appearances before he starts to decline, we'll end up looking at the 08 lakers/celts series as the start of the post-timmy era...esp if TD doesn't get another ring before he retires. i tend to think that kobe's first three rings dont count quite as much *for him* in this kind of discussion because he wasn't the undisputed leader of those teams. even more so than points, stats, etc i think thats what simmons convinced me about-- even on the 99 team with robinson, it was absolutely td's team.

bought this book today iirc. chapter one was great--plenty of lols and good writing.

bill simmons is sitting in with the commentators @ celtics/bulls rite now

not a good voice

never heard him before colbert, if anything douchier than advertised

haha ive heard him like 100x via podcasts and such, but yeah as much as i like dude he gets frattier every element of him you discover writing -> voice -> irl

yeah i don't mind reading him actually, lets you know where he stands and puts teeth into it. entertaining as far as it goes

i remember when he was on colbert a while back, he got booed when he made fun of clinton for throwing like a girl

yah its a tough comparison but i think if kobe goes on a run the next few years with a ring or two and consistent finals appearances before he starts to decline, we'll end up looking at the 08 lakers/celts series as the start of the post-timmy era...esp if TD doesn't get another ring before he retires. i tend to think that kobe's first three rings dont count quite as much *for him* in this kind of discussion because he wasn't the undisputed leader of those teams. even more so than points, stats, etc i think thats what simmons convinced me about-- even on the 99 team with robinson, it was absolutely td's team.

This is what is going to make the Western Conf. so interesting this year. They both have good teams and something to prove.

I can't imagine "something to prove" matters as much to Tim as it does to Kobes. I'm not trying to argue Duncan isn't driven or whatever, I just don't think he cares as much about what people think about him. (Tbf, he also doesn't have as much negativity to cope with.)

Yeah. That's probably a pretty fair assessment on both of them.

Have purchased. Have read the first 100 or so pages. Have learned a lot about Boston basketball. Woo, this guy is a HOMER.

http://www.chicagobreakingsports.com/2009/11/espns-simmons-says-86-celtics-better-than-96-bulls.html

What else would you expect from Bill Simmons? ESPN's "The Sports Guy" was in town on Monday promoting his lastest book, "The Book of Basketball," and told the Tribune's Luis Arroyave that it's no contest, the 1986 Celtics were better than the '96 Bulls.

"When Bill Wennington and Luc Longley are your two centers, you're instantly eliminated from being the best team ever," Simmons said.

No contest Robert Parish was a better center than Longley and Wennington. But using that logic, a Bulls fan could counter, no team with Danny Ainge as its shooting guard should ever be mentioned in the argument, since his Bulls counterpart was Michael Jordan.

Plus, Wennington was a backup. Does that mean Bulls fans can bring up Celtics backups Jerry Sichting and Greg Kite, whom the Boston Globe's Bob Ryan once called "the least talented player in the NBA."

Then again Jack Haley was on the '96 Bulls roster.

96 bulls greater than the sum of their parts imo. also 72 wins, gotdamn, ur move simmons.

I'm still pissed they got double-digit losses.they lost against at least one garbage team right near the end.

mj made $290K more than kukoc that season 0_o
their last 2 losses were against raptors (21-61) and hornets (41-41)

yeah jordan was like paid peanuts save for those last 2 years which were like 30 mil a year or something, right?

man do i wish he'd gone through with calling this book "tell me how my book tastes"

Xpost^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Either that title or "Black Men Can Jump." It would have been funny.

Now, look...I'm not a Boston fan. I wasn't when I didn't live in LA, and now I really hate them.

But Ainge back in the day? He was SO fast and really pesky as fuck on defense. I can't take away from him as a player. He wasn't MJ, of course, but the degrees of difference b/t him and MJ and Longley/Wennington v. Parish? No damn contest.

http://deadspin.com/5403430/you-are-not-the-cosmos-a-review-of-bill-simmons-book-of-basketball

i like pierce but there's a lot of bullshit in that review

he comes off with a serious case of U MAD? in that review imo

i've been entangled in a long email back & forth with my friend about simmons as sparked by that piece

pretty much hate this guy but i would like him more if he cut the pop culture/bro shit b/c he can make some interesting points. and sometimes i feel like reading his pieces is like reading [nabisco] on sports.

obv it's a takedown of simmons in the guise of a book review, but he is pretty accurate. dude is so in love with his own hit-or-miss shtick that the worthwhile content sometimes gets buired (xpost: ie what omar said)

altho i don't hate him, i kinda read around it

years of training have left me v. adept at ignoring the pop culture/bro shit.

it's pretty fucking funny for charles pierce to not recognize shtick as such since you know EXACTLY WHAT YOU'RE GETTING when you read both him and simmons.

^^those 2 posts are exactly my response too

yeah i mean, everyone holds up simmons & vegas as like What is Wrong With Simmons (pretty proud of myself here) but shit, if you open that column you know what you're getting. same thing for his fantasy draft columns.

& i don't see why he shouldn't be in love with his own schtick, seeing as it's made him pretty damn popular and has endeared him to a huge fucking audience. and like cad says, it's pretty easy to skip his 580th teen wolf tangent

yeah i mean as a person who has no desire to go to vegas i actually find the vegas columns pretty entertaining as insight into something i will never do. a lot of the crit of simmons seems to be along the lines of "he only writes for people who are like him" which is only true if you just kind of reject a certain strain of dude lifestyle totally out of hand.

basically i say that he's the apatow movies of sportswriting - yeah other writers may make you think more or may be more impressive, but when it comes to big budget bang for your buck entertainment, it's hard to beat simmons

yeah i mean as a person who has no desire to go to vegas i actually find the vegas columns pretty entertaining as insight into something i will never do. a lot of the crit of simmons seems to be along the lines of "he only writes for people who are like him" which is only true if you just kind of reject a certain strain of dude lifestyle totally out of hand.
--omaha deserved 311 (call all destroyer)

yeah this

sort of shocked that a book abt basketball could be a #1 best seller

btw http://intothemusic.ca/images/uploads/covers/Bell_Chris_-_I_Am_The_Cosmos.jpg

<3 that album

TBH, I kind of treat Simmons as a guilty pleasure, and get a little embarassed when he comes up in conversations. I guess its because the Bill we see, who I doubt is what the real Bill Simmons is like regardless of how much he talks about his wife or his family, is one that is cultivated to attract people to read his discussions about sports.

His knowledge of sports, and in particular pro basketball, is pretty impressive, and he makes some interesting arguments and analyses of certain sports topics, but its all delivered with the pop culture references and bro-down stories that his core readership thrives on.

These are, of course, the same people who recite movie lines as jokes, and expect to therefore be regarded as funny.

he comes off with a serious case of U MAD? in that review imo

― house of flying jaggers (J0rdan S.), Friday, November 13, 2009 1:43 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i liked when i got to the end and see his credits that basically say I AM A BITTER RAGEFUL SPORTSWRITER

anyway re: this book - i love simmons when he talks basketball (and basically ignore him when he talks about anything else) so this seems like a great idea to me - i'll deffo read it someday - and honestly, i can probably count on one hand the number of sportswriters i consider better than him (nb. this is more an indictment of sportswriting than an endorsement of simmons)

I ended up really liking this, and the race stuff I mentioned upthread got put into context almost immediately after I posted that, and it made way more sense by the time I finished. Overall the time he spent writing about race + discrimination issues wound up being one of the most thoughtful parts of the book.

For some reason I thought the pyramid would turn out to be a total Ronald Thomas Clontle routine, but Simmons spends a lot of time trying to articulate a bigger point: that basketball fans have short memories, sure, but also that a lot of the measures of greatness in this sport rely more on subjective analysis and intangibles - since not only is the sport constantly evolving and changing its own rules in a way that, say, baseball isn't, but that the markers of greatness often manifest themselves in things that aren't obvious if you only rely on box scores and highlights to analyze performance. (Cf. "The Secret," etc, but the stuff about the ABA's struggle to get TV coverage and its subsequent effect on how ABA players were perceived relative to their NBA peers is really fascinating.)

I realize that all sounds kinda corny, but Simmons is very good at writing this kind of sports pop science, and while this book definitely didn't need to be 700+ pages, it's surprising how much of what he threw out there sticks.

Also it made me wish somebody with his exact level of access/obsession would write a similar book about NCAA basketball.

wishing Michael Lewis would write a book about basketball

His Battier piece was pretty good but I don't know if he could sustain an entire book without just rewriting Moneyball.

love the book, but ranking paul pierce and parish that high is some pretty serious homerism. and in the whole list of 96 there's no room for any of the '04 pistons? there's room for big shot rob but no finals mvp chauncey billups? they were only the best/most consisten team in the east this decade.

the human beans story otoh makes me pretty happy

I am absolutely LOVING this book, and I'm not even much of a basketball fan! Simmons makes me laugh.

It was hit or miss with me, until he started describing the hall of fame inductees. I stayed up WAY past my bed time last night reading it. Really good.

Simmons was banned from twitter for two weeks by ESPN because he talked shit about some Boston radio station.

lol know what i might say to espn had i the #1 bestseller

First ESPN totally assrapes Simmons by not letting Obama onto his podcast, and now this. Assholes.

I read this whole thing. I love how he rates The Answer.

i read this over thanksgiving break. i don't know anything about basketball so i can't dispute his knowledge there. he's an entertaining writer and occasionally very funny (his section on great basketball players who made shitty announcers/commentators made me LOL). this may be an obvious thing to say about a 700-pg book but he needs better editing, it got really repetitive by the end (making the same points and jokes over and over) and was just too long in general. also a lot of his pop culture references are so dumb and/or wrong. i enjoyed the book though.

^^kinda sums up how i feel about his writing, in general. i am not a sports guy (lol) and rarely ever know who he's talking about or why it ought to be funny, but sometimes a lot of his jokes work without that, which i think is a credit. or i'm just easy, and the kind of person who laughs if someone gets the delivery and misses the punchline

oddly his pop culture analogy that made me the most mad was comparing the development of basketball to the development of comedy, saying if you listen to woody allen and bob newhart routines they won't make you LOL because comedy wasn't as advanced as in the '80s. i was like "nah brah" but then again i am weird and old-fashioned about comedy i guess, i love old woody allen and newhart stuff :/

if there is def one thing bill simmons is consistently wrong about, it's other people's comedy. in that, i think a lot of the comedic pop cultural stuff he mentions off-hand in his columns is sort of milquetoast or outright bad, though he himself can make a good joke

then again, i couldn't possibly think of a specific example of this, so i might be making it up.

i just picture him laughing his ass off at some current standup while i look disgusted

he probably rates dane cook as G.O.A.T.

nah I wouldn't go that far. i'd put my money on will ferrell. def agree with gbx on this tho.

yeah i think even he knows that dane cook blows. or even just that everyone THINKS he blows (ie - some of his readers). but i am sure that he will at some point in his career right some will ferrell GOAT hagiography

assuming he hasn't already

i think he creates cognitive dissonance within some people, such as in the writer of the "u mad" article linked to above. "this dude makes me laugh, i wouldn't mind hanging out with him and shooting the shit...but wait, he's all about bro'ing down with his crew--all of whom go by nicknames--in Vegas. I need to go overboard criticizing his negative aspects so I can totally dismiss dude."

If I were one of his buddies, I would DEMAND that he refer to me by a nickname. He makes way too many references to activities that, while I certainly don't condemn him for engaging in, employers would probably have a problem with.

I have to say that his statistical arguments mesh pretty well with his "You have to get it to get it" over-arching theme. If anything, this book serves as a compendium of references for other places to go look for basketball knowledge. It also has motivated me to pay more attention to sporting events for those special moments. I may not be as encyclopedic as he is with what games I've seen and who played in them, but I want to get to the point where I can have more specific and detailed recall of key plays. An anecdote that goes "Yeah, remember when that one guy did that thing with Barkley? The no-look pass from...shit, was it the right or left side of the lane..." does little to spark more conversation/reminiscing.

the membership of this book club is kinda http://nymag.com/arts/books/bookclub/book-of-basketball

http://i46.tinypic.com/28lywxj.jpg

ha yes i felt exactly this was abt fortress of solitude

lethem's response is baffling and over-written. is there a joke i'm not getting?

love how everyones all i read this 700 page book in 30 hours and i feel kinda icky now, yes hello welcome to the sports guy

The NY Mag thing made me feel bad that I have been reading Simmons all decade and basically don't even pay attention to the sexist stuff anymore. Although I do not know if a chauvinist (or feminist) perspective would really influence one's thoughts on the NBA at all.

Between this book (esp. the epilogue) and whichever blog collected the finest Bill Walton goofy hyperboles a few months back, though, Walton is now like my favorite dude ever. Like, just kicking it with Big Red in his tepee watching a terrible NBA game and asking him questions about John Wooden would basically make my entire life complete.

one time saw him on tv riding bikes w/jerry X)

his bike was LOL HUEG

saw him on haight st asking darius miles if he knew who jimi hendrix was

he did not

saw him on haight st asking darius miles if he knew who jimi hendrix was

he did not

A+++++ So jealous

lol it was on tv

I am stupid

it was still pretty good tho

SIMMONS

It reminds me of the time those three guys came up to you in a restaurant in Chicago and told you that they were reading "The Tipping Point" in their book club and were big fans.

GLADWELL

How could I forget?

SIMMONS

Baron Davis, Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes.

GLADWELL

Greatest moment of my life.

lol

Tiger's comeback tougher than Ali's

Note to ESPN’s Bill Simmons: Tiger Woods is not Muhammad Ali

lol @

There was a famous story about two of the Dream Team IIers--definitely Shaq and someone else, I can't remember the second guy--pulling the players together before a key Olympic game and Dumars thinking, "Great, they're finally going to take this seriously." Then the two guys started singing a rap song they had written for the game.

That Bill Simmons Woods/Ali column is unbelievably moronic even for Bill Simmons.

lol tweeting about freddie gibbs today

called him the savior of gangsta rap

i should send him some gucci

i got pretty grossed out by some of the joeks by the end of this book frankly. a sprinkling of the frattier stuff goes a long way, the occasional vegas column is fine but it kind of wore me down

the footnote about the all-dong team was just massively hilarious tho

yeah the strip club/boob size analogies are pretty awful

How has Simmons not become the Godfather of bros icing bros?

too old

Thus the Godfather. Like Neil Young and grunge.

I really enjoyed the book despite the length and Simmons' crutches that prop up huge sections of it. Though the end made me realize I want "Bill & Bill" as the followup. Walton's insights made Simmons a better writer; it freed him from his persona.

this is a really bad paragraph

Digging deeper: 2012 will be the first time since 1992 that we had this many mega-stars in their primes or near-primes -- LeBron, Wade, Howard, Durant, Paul, Williams, Carmelo Anthony -- all of whom will also be battling for NBA titles in 2011 and 2012 (throw Kobe in there as well). Can they shut off that competitive switch and come together on short notice? What if Durant fully supplants LeBron and Kobe as America's basketball darling by that time? What if Miami just battled Oklahoma City in a NBA Finals bloodbath? In 1992, the pecking order was pretty established: Jordan and Pippen were the champs/alpha dogs, Bird and Magic were the washed-up leaders, Barkley was the unstoppable wild card, and everyone else fell into place behind them. There will be no established pecking order in 2012. If anything, there might be multiple stars who believe in a pecking order that's different from what the other stars believe. Verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry interesting. Hold this thought for 22 months.

jordan, did you transcribe that

yeah considering the calling card of this generation of talent is that they all get along and they're all unselfish i don't think this is really anything worth thinking about for the next 22 mos.

is bill simmons to the nba what pitchfork reviews reviews is to pitchfork

nah that doesn't really work as an analogy tho i'm not sure why right now

bill is still soooo stuck in this idea of "alpha dogs" & all that crap and you would think that after this summer he would've dropped that idea, but yet here it is again -- i think all of these guys have proven that they like each other a lot and want to win when they play each other -- i mean dwayne wade came off the bench in the last olympics ffs, i don't think any of those dudes are gonna be back stabbing each other in 2012 -- i think this has been demonstrated at various, various times in the past 2-3 years -- bill has spent a lot of time lamenting this fact, but he still can't get it through his head

jordan, did you transcribe that

― ice cr?m, Monday, September 13, 2010 8:50 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

no he posted a column today

gonna think abt all this for the next 22 months, brb

enjoy nepal

this is good tho

One of the frustrating things about this tournament: Iguodala has been a revelation as a fourth banana/swing defender/energy guy/uber-athlete, which really should have been his NBA destiny -- mega-glue guy on a great team, like a much more devastating version of Trevor Ariza on the 2008-09 Lakers -- only we don't have nearly enough quality players to fill 30 NBA teams, so instead he's forced to carry a lottery team, take terrible shots, play with inferior teammates and do everything that the Basketball Gods never meant for him to do. He's like Roger Sterling in "Mad Men" -- you don't want him carrying the show, but in short doses, harnessed correctly, he can be a weapon. I had given up on Iguodala as a meaningful basketball player; now I think he'll be reincarnated on a contender within the next two seasons. He's one trade away.

enjoy nepal

― banaka socka flame (J0rdan S.), Monday, September 13, 2010 9:56 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

loll

bill simmons isn't really pitchfork reviews reviews he's just pitchfork

I don't know who's taking the crunch-time shots on the 2010-11 Miami Heat

this discussion makes me want to steal a car and drive it into a lake

looool

in miami heats, there is no crunch time, only time 4 crunching opponents with superior basketball talent

I think I'm gonna appropriate that as my disapproval card in all irl conversations from nwo on

2:35: As Billups hits two free throws (USA by 10), the announcers discuss how physical the game has been compared to NBA games. "You got the feeling that both teams were trying to work one another before the game," Kestecher said. "There was a lot of staring, no smiling, trying to intimidate each other." Not sure how this fits into our new world order in which NBA superstars take the easy way out and choose to team up over beating each other. I'm a little discombobulated.

here i will explain it to you -- lots of players in the nba are friends and when they play basketball they don't hate each other and stare at each other in a fabricated attempt to intimidate -- but when they're playing on the same team in an international competition against an unlikable team from eastern europe, they might grill some dudes

not that discombobulating

"He's accepted his role as a garbageman on that second unit," Fraschilla says of Gay. Pretty expensive garbageman: He just re-signed with Memphis for $80 million. I love the world championships.

otm tho

I don't know who's taking the crunch-time shots on the 2010-11 Miami Heat

btw they're going to lose a playoff game and this will be a valid discussion

but he is way too into it as a concept

yes he is

the problem with the "crunch-time shots" discussion is that in modern nba all that means is "who is gonna take the crunch-time drives to the basket in an attempt to get fouled" and with bron AND wade on the same team, i don't think it's gonna manifest itself in a negative way

think you're oversimplifying it a bit; the cavs lost that series to the magic two years ago because 4 dudes stood around and waited for bron to do something. it will be an interesting discussion, at some point--i don't think it's gonna manifest itself as a conflict or problem but maybe more as a strategic challenge.

but basically, does the play start with bron having the ball or wade having the ball--that is going to matter, and it is going to mean something

lwade is gonna take the crunch time shots ok, next question

hehe

wade's a little bit crunchtime, bron's a lil bit pick n roll

anyway re: this book - i love simmons when he talks basketball (and basically ignore him when he talks about anything else) so this seems like a great idea to me - i'll deffo read it someday - and honestly, i can probably count on one hand the number of sportswriters i consider better than him (nb. this is more an indictment of sportswriting than an endorsement of simmons)

― NEW YORK DESERVED 9-11 (cankles), Friday, November 13, 2009 6:39 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark

btw i read this book and it sucked and he sucks

simmons note: do i rc that he was a comedy writer? how is this possible? i have never laughed at a single thing he's ever written.

simmons gets way too much mileage out of the "this situation is like some obscure pop culture reference, let me break it down for you with x's and o's"

thing is it's never that obscure, it's like 80s/90s bargain bin bullshit, but yeah he does do that thing u just said

he wrote for kimmel's late night show when it was starting out, after he was already espn famous. why he moved to l.a. iirc.

i have not read simmons in probably a year but have always felt that if the world needed one person like bill simmons we could do a lot worse than bill simmons, if you feel me

i always felt his clowning of doc rivers for using ubuntu was a little o_O and i'm kinda hoping during one of his vegas jaunts he gets lost and walks right into a wnba team.

haha

still think there's a lot of good stuff in tbob--the pyramid, especially, is really fun to read

it's also kind of pissing me off that he's moving into broadcasting. he blows chunks on PTI and I heard he was gonna broadcast some game? I mean granted, reggie miller sets the bar pretty low but I don't need a dude with the voice of some pimply faced fratboy feebly trying to channel excitement after a great dunk

i always felt his clowning of doc rivers for using ubuntu was a little o_O

― omar little, Sunday, December 12, 2010 11:09 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

eh feel like his arguments in favor of debian were pretty strong tbh

i thought he was pretty decent doing the heat-warriors game -- i mean he made a lot of the same points/jokes from his column, but he was as good as anyone on that network outside of jvg

wow that surprises me

content is not the only thing that counts in the booth - you gotta have a vocalic presence, bill simmons has about as much vocalic presence as the boom goes the dynamite kid

yeah i was amazed by how bad he was on PTI... kornheiser was so much more natural and likable

it's not a podcast it's a nationally televised nba game ffs

like dayo says, the bar is set low -- if i had no idea who simmons was & i just flipped on the game i would've thought he was just another announcer, albeit one that was a bit more zingy to the bad players

esp for his second game ever (he did some college game a few years ago) i thought he was totally serviceable, sometimes even funny

anyway, on tbob - its solid, its just wayyyyyyy too long. i went into it liking his schtick and finished it not being able to stand him. too much simmons, too much pyramid, too much everything. im warming up to him again but his style's really unsuited to something that big.

yeah idk i guess i'm just used to his voice? idk

i don't really give a shit about your voice as much as i do about what you say

i don't think i actually finished tbob--it should've ended with the pyramid--but it lends itself well to going back into certain sections and re-reading them

i could see that book being like youre plowing through it cause its readable then like 2/3 through you realize you hate this guy and why am i reading this

if im gonna listen to a nigga for 3 hours i better like your voice... thats why jon miller owns and bryant gumbel doesnt

i could see that book being like youre plowing through it cause its readable then like 2/3 through you realize you hate this guy and why am i reading this

― ice cr?m, Sunday, December 12, 2010 11:22 PM (3 seconds ago) Bookmark

haha that was my exact experience

I think broadcasting voices are pretty important - just try to imagine if bill simmons was in the booth when bobby thomson hit that homer

well great calls are great but this was a west coast time reg season nba game--no one's saying he should call the super bowl

if im gonna listen to a nigga for 3 hours i better like your voice... thats why jon miller owns and bryant gumbel doesnt

― Princess TamTam, Sunday, December 12, 2010 10:22 PM (36 seconds ago) Bookmark

well, i agree with this, but i think it matters A LOT less for color guys than it does for play by play -- simmons might get a bit obnoxious if he was doing two games a week, but it was a nice change up at times to have a dude making cracks about dampier not being able to make lay ups & shit

okay everyone stop comparing play by play guys to color guys

cut him off at the roots tbh

that's one of my problems with him, his way of life seems completely foreign to my experience in life, like his actual adherence to played out LOL WOMEN kinda shit, he's the sort of dude that if i met i'd move away from. i get the same feeling reading his column that PTT had reading his book.

i mean if your benchmark is one of the most famous moments in sports history...

voice is meaningful for sure but i feel like the canned deep announcer style is some v strange shit that were all just used to

i didnt actually hear the game btw, but i will say that i'd rather listen to a billion simmons-called games than one more by reggie miller or mark jackson

I'm just saying nobody should encourage him to spend more time in the broadcast booth, is all

should replace all espn announcers with mexican soccer announcers anyway

what is this about

sportsguy33 Bill Simmons
Hey CPP: took you out of TBOB cuz you trashed it without ever mentioning that you used to email me all the time until I told you to eff off.

sportsguy33 Bill Simmons
I just thought it was dishonest. You came off like a spurned lover in that piece. But seriously, good luck with your red-hot career.

who is cpp?

Charles Pierce

http://deadspin.com/5712872/

ah

the deej n whiney of b-ball

lol

wow does he come off like a whiny bitch there. i mean if you release a book for everyone to read i think people have the right to critique it.

I do enjoy reading Simmons, but he really is coming off more and more like a douche lately; plus he's clearly nowhere near as funny as he used to be. I think he goes above and beyond to try to be "quotable", which results in a lot of stupidity

http://a.espncdn.com/media/pdf/101210/simmons_book.pdf

wow thats pretty bitchy to edit a guy out, feel liek he should prob release the emails in question at this point so we can all have closure

lol is that an unprotected copy of the book up on the espn content delivery network

That PDF isn't working for me anymore for some reason.

he also, uh, edited out a mention of free darko for some reason

http://freedarko.blogspot.com/2010/12/highlights-for-children.html

what is this about

sportsguy33 Bill Simmons
Hey CPP: took you out of TBOB cuz you trashed it without ever mentioning that you used to email me all the time until I told you to eff off.

sportsguy33 Bill Simmons
I just thought it was dishonest. You came off like a spurned lover in that piece. But seriously, good luck with your red-hot career.

― ad hom alone (J0rdan S.), Monday, December 13, 2010 3:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is so lol! no one seems to grasp that the only people simmons hates are other journalists.

he reads blogs but he wishes he lived in a world where they didnt exist, even tho he is basically the proto sports blogger, its tuff

He was fine with them existing when he published the first edition though. What did FD do since then?

apparently they didn't like the book

http://img.freebase.com/api/trans/image_thumb/en/larry_bird?pad=1&errorid=%2Ffreebase%2Fno_image_png&maxheight=64&mode=fillcropmid&maxwidth=64 "fuck you, bill"

Who is the most embarrassing of Bill Simmons' sycophantic friends (non-celebrity division): Joe House, Cousin Sal, "reality TV czar" Dave Jacoby, or JackO?

u mean theyre not all the same person?

joe house, easily

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlla/files/2010/12/BillSimmons.jpg

the celebrity division isn't even a contest because of klosterman, right?

yup!

http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2009/0904/pg2_group_300.jpg
http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2009/0904/pg2_group2_300.jpg

plaid shorts: check
flip flops: check
not pictured: strip club handjobs

not pictured: strip club handjobs

and thank fuck for that

the celebrity division isn't even a contest because of klosterman, right?

― Clay, Wednesday, December 15, 2010 8:14 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

gladwell

^^ I was gonna say

I always thought it was funny that Simmons friends all have the most typical/predictable names. Not the ppl listed by poly but just random "buddies" he'll bring up in a column

http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/2010/12/17/the-book-of-basketball-and-staggering-casual-sexism/

lol this is what i was talking about upthread re the names of simmons' friends

I flew to San Fran to hang out with my buddies Bish, Mikey and Hopper

seriously who the fuck has friends ACTUALLY named "bish" & "hopper" -- sounds like something from "porky's" or some shit

Jeez, man. Jeez. I didn’t realize guys like this had friends; I assumed they were all rapey basement loners. We reviewers and commenters seem to be in agreement that it’s not cool—so who’s out there egging him on? Am I misjudging the sleaziness of the American male?

yes

yeah i was gonna say. as gross as simmons' stuff can be, i have heard much, much worse from dudes who would otherwise consider themselves to be "normal guys" and "not misogynists." these aren't people i spend time with, i should add, but there are TONS of guys who partition their lives along gender lines. guys are for being friends with, women are for fucking (or for ~relationships~ if you're a pussy). gross thought it may be, it's not rapey basement loner talk, it's five dudes getting a pitcher at the bar talk

those passages are foul, tbqf, shit like that is exactly what makes me avoid reading his columns now. i'm gonna guess he was raised in a manner that caused him to view women as either childbearers or strippers.

ha, his column today is rife w/ all types of shit like that

Question: So my buddies and I came up with a new move we call "The Art Modell." It's where you meet a girl and go home with her that night. Then after she's fallen asleep, and under the cover of night, you move out of there as fast as you can. Use it with my compliments, OK?
-- Brian, Chicago

Answer: Or, you could pull the "Clay Bennett": Repeatedly tell her you're not going to leave, then leave while she's still awake and looking at you saying, "Where are you going?" as David Stern nods approvingly from 1,500 miles away.

i hope his wife leaves him for sheryl swoopes

loll

ugh

xps

bish is such a nasty name

i also found his life advice to tiger woods pretty dbaggy though i don't recall the specifics at the moment.

the wnba digs always niggled at me the most, it just seems unnecessarily cruel. i mean i dont watch the stuff either, but i dont understand the hunger to marginalize it - crosses the line between lunkheaded insensitivity and outright bullying imo

everything else i can understand being turned off by too, but i hear (and say) stuff so much worse when im broing down (not in mixed company mind u~) that im pretty desensitized to it i guess

i think it's not so much the digs as the all encompassing worldview he seems to have, like this casual everyday attitude that women can't be your friends and are just *~~such hilarious creatures loool~~*

fwiw, i've definitely hung out with women who share an equally segregated view of the world---guys can't be your friends, and are such hilarious creatures, and ryde but boys will be boys, right girls??

it's alien to me, but it's out there you know

i guess it's all part of being the broiest bro, but i don't really see why you would write about watching hours of porn/buddies' nicknames for dick moves etc. at all. let alone as a sports columnist. let alone in a published book about basketball.

the 'executive decision' with his wife (and then crowing about it!) is pretty fucking astonishing.

i dont understand how he made an "executive decision" not to use birth control

i mean he implies he did it in secret?

but like... did she not notice he wasnt using a condom?

also isnt that essentially rape

right, it's a bullshit anecdote imo

true dat, and even though i tend to think it *feels* a little nastier coming from the dudes, either way it's just weird but still totally common. xxxxp

pretty much

i'm assuming that the birth control thing is just a really terrible joke

he just wanted to "coin" "pulling the goalie"

horribly formed joeks

it's kind of a fucked up mind that would think that joke is a good one to tell imo

it's all part of being the broiest bro

yup. he and his buds are getting immortalized in his columns as just the funniest, rowdiest, best buds ever. i mean, "the hangover" was basically a simmons column taken to its logical conclusions, with simmons' character spending the night on the roof

h8 this guys compulsive need to validate his worldview more than his worldview tbh, funny how bro culture is all abt being on the same page at all times, not exactly traditional masculinity

i think the 'segregated world view' is a red herring, idk - i dont think it means anything if u only wanna be friends w/dudes, i know plenty of people like that who manage to not publish a hardcover book containing a joke about raping your wife and then giving it a nickname like it's a wrestling move

his columns have always been littered with his pet neologisms and Rules and Theories and w/e. i know plenty of ppl that fucking LOVE coming up with shit like that, making up yr own in-crowd funny-guy cant that, in simmons' case, he seems to eagerly hope will enter the popular lexicon.

i mean i don't follow sports, and haven't read a sports guy column in years, but the Ewing Theory is permanently etched into my brain as 'conventional wisdom' now

xps

funny how bro culture is all abt being on the same page at all times, not exactly traditional masculinity

― ice cr?m, Friday, December 17, 2010 1:11 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

word

and it's not just about only wanting to be friends with dudes, its that being friends with women is impossible and sort of unthinkable. that blog that was just linked made an excellent point, that i think is totally fundamental to how he operates: he just assumes that women could never in a million years be a part of his sports-y world. like women can be sports fans, but they can't be Sports Fans. his wife being the Sports Gal is just an honorific---she's married to the Sports Guy! who else could she be!

funny how bro culture is all abt being on the same page at all times, not exactly traditional masculinity

― ice cr?m, Friday, December 17, 2010 2:11 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is kinda bullshit, i mean its 'bro' culture not rugged individualist culture - its about celebrating bonds w/likeminded dudes, there's no deception there

yeah i mean i've got friends w/segregated world views and they're not particularly mean about it. iirc some of them have even been to wnba games so w/e

xp well it's not that bullshit, in that these guys seem to couch their conceptions of masculinity almost entirely in broing down. if yr just going off simmons' worldview, 'rugged individualism' is something for the greats in the Pantheon, not regular men.

funny how bro culture is all abt being on the same page at all times, not exactly traditional masculinity

― ice cr?m, Friday, December 17, 2010 2:11 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is kinda bullshit, i mean its 'bro' culture not rugged individualist culture - its about celebrating bonds w/likeminded dudes, there's no deception there

― Pussy v. Sperguson (Princess TamTam), Friday, December 17, 2010 2:19 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permal

i wasnt saying hes trying to represent something other than bro culture just that i dont vibe it

btw i love the term 'bro culture'

ugggh that executive decision anecdote

loooool is simmons really against the idea of playing fantasy sports with a female

also lol at bill simmons employing "some of my best friends are black" argument

Sometimes I like just hanging out with my guy friends. My wife likes hanging out with her friends.

it was too bad, feel like I could have been tricked into reading this book, no longer

he really should carve out the pyramid and sell an aggressively edited 100 pg novella size version of it every other year after the finals- like how sedaris sells those same three stories as holidays on ice every effing xmas-- would read and would cut out nearly all the unnecessary "cool story bro" trash

should build a pyramid, blog from inside

"i also found his life advice to tiger woods pretty dbaggy though i don't recall the specifics at the moment."

I mostly recall his insane bit comparing Woods comeback to Ali's comeback.

his understanding of gender and women and possibly life rises to the level of a bud light ad

replicate? bud light?

HERE WE GO!

sportsguy33 Bill Simmons
Come on, UConn women! One half to go! #espnforcedmetotypethistheyareholdingaguntomyheadrightnowhelppleasesendhelp
1 minute ago

he has a daughter, right?

good luck 2 her

is that your comedy hash tag or did he really write that - if the latter that's pretty O_o

no he really wrote that

man, are there any non-shitty sportswriters at all? like who write intersting and are not douche bags?

i like brian philips but i'm guessing you mean someone from the MSM

joe posnanski

i'll take any1 at this point

roger angell is still alive

bob ryan seems like a decent guy from what I've heard of him on PTI, never read his stuff tho

In May 2003, Ryan appeared on Sports Final, a local sports talk show airing on WBZ-TV. At that time, Ryan said that Joumana Kidd, then-wife of then-New Jersey Nets guard Jason Kidd needed someone to "smack" her for taking her son T.J., then 4 years old, to NBA play-off night games where they could be taunted.[22] He accused Joumana of being an exhibitionist and using the child as a prop to get television time.

was gonna say, old ass writer gonna have some baggage

O_o thought he was a dece liberal new england dude

well he is but he said something dumb on tv, whatcha gonna do

i will h8 him 4 eternity, dont know bout u

I dunno, I see the UConn thing as more along the lines of a story that ESPN has overhyped beyond its own importance (i.e. his previous "I wish ESPN.com users could block any beaten into the ground stories. I'd block "Sterger," "concussions," "lockout" + "cell phone dongs.", or "FYI: NOBODY cares how Minny's roof collapse affects Favre's streak. We care about fantasy/gambling/playoffs + if game will be shown on TV.").

I have been reading Simmons for so long that his schticky stuff rolls right off me now, though, so maybe I don't even notice the more "women be shoppin'/bad at sports" stuff anymore. The only time I really got annoyed was after the 2007 Patriots-Colts game when he wrote some insane diatribe about how the officiating was so clearly biased and that the world was out to get the Patriots. I guess I like him when he is calling out non-story stories, and dislike him when he is making his own non-story stories.

guarantee w/zero doubt that if it was a men's team and the hype was high, simmons would either be breaking down whatever team it was with references to the nicolas colasanto seasons of 'cheers' or saying nothing negative at all.

Oh no doubt, but I honestly think if a modern men's team was about to win 89 straight, it would really be a MUCH bigger achievement. Women's basketball is super top-heavy (right now #11 Kentucky is beating Arkansas-Pine Bluff 85-21, and #7 West Virginia already beat UNC-Charlotte 71-39), and three straight undefeated seasons while presumably multiple players would be bailing to the NBA every year would be a coaching miracle. UConn's streak really is just having much better players than almost everyone they play.

yeah but it's fucking 89 games

its like saying, well wilt scoring 100 pts and averaging like 20 re wasnt as big a deal because competition back then was shit but then you have to think...fuck thats 100 goddamn points, how is there even time for that

yeah for real, and let's not pretend simmons' inevitable clowning of this achievement comes from his rather shall we say interesting views on women.

comes from anything other than

ok yeah but game to game the streak is a complete bore. 2 of those games have been decided by < 10 points. 2!!!!

^^^not a simmons defense, but the espn coverage is ridic

It's probably gonna be like 100-150 or something by the end of it. Except for the 1 point win over Baylor they've beaten everybody by like 20 at least. (They also apparently beat Simmons's alma mater by 80!). I know nothing about WCBB, but aside from a few games away at ranked opponents (Stanford and West Virginia and some other Big East schools) they're probably clear until the tournament.

I think if Women's basketball had more exciting games he could gamble on, he'd shut up, also.

The solution is clearly to have Gus Johnson announce more Women's College Basketball games.

there are probably plenty of exciting wnba and wcbb games, he's just...well, the evidence speaks for itself imo.

women's basketball is great to watch, it's a lot more 'fundamental' and there's a lot less showboating. teams get by on teamwork

when did you turn 60?

I'll watch a quality women's bball game over the fuckin bobcats vs. the nets any day

ok sure, you are saying "i would rather watch a good game than a bad game"

which is why i have no interest in watching uconn blow out yet another hapless opponent

yeah but also saying that just cause it's women's bball doesn't mean it's by default a bad game

no of course it doesn't--but uconn demonstrates that the competitive imbalance in women's bball is pretty wacky imo

i mean full disclosure i think most men's college ball is pretty bad too; everyone just struggles so much to score

yeah but I dunno good hoops isn't just about scoring

I think the overall lesson we can all take away from this is never pay attention to sports journalism

womens basketball is horrible and in no way more fundamentally sound than mens, they really just dont play v well in comparison, clowning them a lil is reasonable, simmons vendetta is kinda strange tho

xp you can't possibly think that everyone in college is just playing fabulous team defense

nah but they bring way more hustle to the defense on every play than the pros

bleh

I was gonna try to make a point about the generally superior athleticism of NBA basketball, but I am watching Dallas-Orlando and Hedo Turkoglu fell down awkwardly trying to dunk like five minutes ago. Dude ruins everything.

Dude got pushed in the back by Dirk. Not his fault. This time.

hedo dunk fail was a total lol

On the subject of betting, I gotta think it's good fun to bet on women's basketball because there's so much less traffic. Probably easier to find bad lines.

Everything feels like a cliché at this point: Friends overreacting in a crowded room every time CBS throws it to New York for a highlight; aging media guys awkwardly throwing out fantasy jokes to seem hip (so annoying, especially when the mainstream media treated fantasy with such contempt once upon a time); Hollywood typically botching the boom with FX's show about an eight-team league (seriously, do you know ANYONE in an eight-team league???); and, of course, more and more women playing fantasy football and, in some cases, integrating all-male leagues.

I hate the last trend for about 656 reasons, but mainly this one: If you asked any guy in 2000 what stereotypical things were unique to us -- things we had for ourselves, partly because we liked them and partly because guys just need to do things with other guys sometimes, and that's just the way it is -- they may have mentioned sports, fantasy, strip joints, Vegas, bad action movies, golf trips, urinals and/or long car trips in which one person keeps farting and bumming out everyone else in the car while laughing hysterically. That was the top-eight "Just F---ing Let Us Be Cavemen For Old Times' Sake" list in some order.

Well, this turned out to be the decade when we lost Vegas -- you're just as likely to see flocks of female friends moving in packs now, only they're drunker, louder and clumsier -- and lost exclusivity over the fantasy domain as well. Pretty soon, we're only going to have golf, farting and urinals. (Note: That easily could have been the title for Adam Carolla's upcoming book; he went with "In Fifty Years, We'll All Be Chicks" instead.) I just wish we had better delineation. If women want to play fantasy football, fine. Just start your own leagues. Give us that one day or night when we sit around a table for five hours, fart, burp, drink, eat gross food, bust balls and say inappropriate things. Let us give our teams names like "Premature Pitinos" without wondering if we might offend you. Give us four months of e-mail chains in which we rip on each other -- and occasionally flip out and get pissed off -- without worrying about offending the opposite sex. I swear, we don't ask for much. And don't turn it into a freaking discrimination thing. This isn't discrimination. Not letting you play at Augusta -- that's discrimination. Nobody said you couldn't start your own league. Knock yourselves out. But let us breathe. Let us bond. Let us have our all-male leagues without giving us crap about it. For the love of God. Or else in 50 years we WILL all be chicks.

lol sad dude

man, are there any non-shitty sportswriters at all? like who write intersting and are not douche bags?

― wiz kelefa sanneh claus (m bison), Tuesday, December 21, 2010 8:15 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

ken davidoff's been writing his ass off lately

i dont even understand at ALL what hes talking about in that fantasy thing - is there some ruling body that's forcibly integrating male and female leagues???? its not like you need to be sanctioned to have a fantasy league!! and its not like you need to invite anybody who you dont want to be in it

Fantasy Title IX, iirc

Let us bond. Let us have our all-male leagues without giving us crap about it. For the love of God. Or else in 50 years we WILL all be chicks.

someone clearly needs to beat the shit out of him. it'll be masculine, like hockey, he'll love it

its funny because all this needy bro bonding is pretty you know feminine

"we don't ask for much."

it also seems like bill simmons knows a bunch of lame women

and while we're on the subject of misogyny and fantasy sports

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSfDPkIq1oY

it's just incredibly sad and pathetically in-character that the one thing that really steams this guy up is fucking women playing fantasy sports.

I mean, in what way is this not a good thing, dude! Now your wife and her friends might get less eye-rolly when you want to talk about it incessantly! Win-win IMO.

I just hate this guy more and more every day.

also, isn't a woman who shares your interests more attractive? no -- they're just for the other stuff, like bearing not-necessarily-wanted babies

Yeah that's sorta what I was getting at but didn't phrase it correctly. Women aren't allowed to taint the purity of homosocial guy stuff or we will literally become women.

because guys just need to do things with other guys sometimes

*pause*

man, are there any non-shitty sportswriters at all? like who write intersting and are not douche bags?

― wiz kelefa sanneh claus (m bison), Tuesday, December 21, 2010 8:15 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

Gregg Easterbrook?

lol you trolling

yes i am : )

I imagine his frat boy fanbase might email him some reasons why they aren't - entirely - against hoards of drunk girls in las vegas

What I find to be offensive about his constantly recurring refrain is that he seems like he's going to DIE if he doesn't have dude time that is separate and apart from time with women, and women who don't respect that just don't know their place.

Single-sex outings are not just for dudes. And he's a douchebag for implying it. And yeah, if you want to have an all-male fantasy football league, have an all-male fantasy football league. Its just like if you want to go hang out with your buddies and not your wife/gf, go do it. Don't act like its something you are entitled to and/or must necessarily have in order to be a complete human being.

well right. that it's something to be aggrieved about is what's so o_O about his whole ish. i am all for dude time for dudes to be dudes (ffs i am scheduling a second-annual boys only no girls allowed ski trip w/bros right now), but wouldn't pretend for a second that if/when some wives/girlfriends show up that they are anything but completely welcome.

honestly can't understand how his wife puts up with it, esp when he's airing out his insecurities in a column read by millions(?) of ppl

This reminds me of the Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd relaysh in knocked up. "you wanna go to India? Go to India. Go to India." and when he's caught going to his fantasy baseball league and confesses that he leaves home to do shit by himself. And she's all I like spiderman. Like women wanna do shit by themselves sometimes too but they aren't so selfish (ime) to feel entitled and whine about it.

Also lol @ simmons' basically advocating for separate but equal fantasy leagues. Need some espn v board of education shit right herre.

honestly can't understand how his wife puts up with it, esp when he's airing out his insecurities in a column read by millions(?) of ppl

― kanellos (gbx), Monday, December 27, 2010 12:11 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the millions of dollars prob help

and the fact that its clearly shtick

His wife's sidebar columns for ESPN confirmed for me that he is married to a woman who validates his worldview.

Yeah. She's probably not too pissed when they get the royalty checks. Fair point.

i feel like we are almost at the point of nick picking bill simmons where i come to his defense, ehhh

His dad seems like a cool dude.

i know it's different people posting, but the difference between this thread and the adam carolla thread is sort of amazing to me.

yeah i would never set foot in an adam carolla thread

haha ditto

more like ball semens

carolla thread is for true g's only, u scrubs wouldnt be welcome anyway

dont want to alarm u all but simmons has a column up comparing brady/manning to biggie/tupac

the comparison is basically pointless but the football content of the column is good

lol whats up w/him making up fake nicknames for pats/colts games

I really liked it, especially the Mo Cheeks coda at the end, and all of the stuff where Brady is unconcerned about where things match up on the mythical lists of greatness. Like the whole point of the article other than Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are good at quarterbacking is that the amount of column inches and sports talk radio/TV hours spent engaged in the discussion are basically just unnecessary entertainments unrelated to the actual games and those involved. He spends all this time discussing EPIC RIVALRY and then Brady is like "Yeah Peyty's a good dude, I'm just tryna do me"

simmons comes this close to owning up to being a fabulist then backs off w/thats what its all abt vegas baby!

typical

whats a fabulist

like, the best list ever, obviously! Duh.

http://grab.by/8fJO

check out this sweet chrome plugin i have

nice to see he hasn't lost his touch for absurd statistical prediction allowing manning to smash every cumulative record including favre's game streak

cf. his utterly ridiculous prediction of durant's stats from before last year where his reasoning was basically "he improved every stat 30%, that should continue indefinitely with no leveling off"

u couldnt have just said 'liar'?

tbh at first i thought u were implying he was a homo

haha

I liked that article but homie needs an editor.

lol tamtam

actually a good summary of most of his brady articles would be 'mancrush but no homo lol'

http://deadspin.com/5733157/police-called-to-bill-simmonss-home-for-burglary-only-to-find-mighty-mighty-bosstone-in-socks

sports guy bros down w/dickie barrett in l.a. *boston explodes*

inventor of ska breaks into sports writers house

yeah, i still get really excited about the trade value column

its a great feature 4 sure

lol "empty calories all-star team"

37. Serge Ibaka
Think how much better he's gotten just in the past 12 months … then think about the fact that he's only 21 … then remember that, by the time he turned 20, he had already survived a violent civil war in the Congo, been separated from his 18 siblings, survived on his own in Spain and Oklahoma City, learned his third and fourth languages and morphed into a playoff contender's key shot-blocker/rebounder despite the fact that he started playing organized basketball only five years ago. I'm not betting against Sergeballu LaMu Sayonga Loom Walahas Jonas Hugo Ibaka.

i like this argument

4. Derrick Rose
I still have him as the MVP. If you disagree, go look at the standings, try to find me 10 games in which Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah played together, then watch Keith Bogans play for 10 minutes. Derrick Rose did more for that team through the first 50 games than anyone else did for their team; doesn't make him the best player, just the most valuable. At least so far. Of course, we can't sleep on this scenario, courtesy of Tim in Troy:

"I think we could have a Hakeem Olajuwon/David Robinson situation brewing with the 2011 MVP: What if Rose gets presented with the trophy in front of LeBron before a Bulls-Heat Round 2 playoff game? I picture a standard LeBron Eff You game (40, 10 and 10, five mean dunks, sits for the fourth quarter) making Hakeem's shakedown of The Admiral look like a birthday present."

Great call. Yet here's the difference between Rose and Robinson: Rose would get ticked off by the Eff You performance, try to match it … and then it would be on like Donkey Kong. Have I mentioned how excited I am for the 2011 playoffs? I've mentioned that, right? We're definitely getting Boston-Chicago, Boston-Miami or Chicago-Miami in Round 2. Round 2!!!! Any one of those three matchups will be old-school, '80s-style, no-handshaking bloodbaths. I can't wait for the refs to get overprotective and screw it up.

ok this enrages me for a number of reasons a. the mvp is not necessarily the best nba player inane self serving media fallacy b. the bulls are winning w/defense (1st in defensive efficiency, 17th in O) and rose is not a good defender c. if rose gets exposed in the playoffs its not going to be by someone who plays a dif position scoring a lot of points its gonna be by a team baiting him into taking bad shots making turnovers and exposing his defense d. the ever present kobe bryant memorial spectacularness premium, rose is not playing nearly as good as the same old real mvp candidate guys, but he looks really good doing it

rose is not playing nearly as good as the same old real mvp candidate guys, but he looks really good doing it

interesting point

i still think mvp = dirk, if not bron bron

bron is so much better than everyone, its boring, w/e i kind of feel like all the nba awards are so constantly unjustly distributed they should just do away w/them

true for every sport?

yeah prob i dont follow the other sports closely enough to make an accurate comparison tho

well it feels like there's far less inconsistency year-to-year for individual bball players than like baseball or football. once you hit your peak production, you can spend several years there as long as you put in the work.

tru

i'm too lazy to link to the article showing how Rose has developed into an above avg defender this year.

damn man, he can develop into and above avg defender and you can't link to a gd article?

they really should just rename it the Most Outstanding Player award. I don't think Rose has been that.

Bill Simmons’ new site will be entertaining, well-written, funny and provocative. Its development is driven by Bill’s vision to provide fans a place to spend time, read, and think.

* The graphic style of the site, designed by renowned magazine designer Walter Bernard, will be simple and elegant, in order to set it apart from the daily rush of sports news.
* The site will host Bill’s columns and podcasts, but unlike Page 2, it will not be based on the sports events of the day or the current sports calendar.
* In addition to Bill’s works, the site will include columns and essays about sports and pop culture from leading journalists.
* Bill is building a team of lesser-known, talented young writers and editors to capture new voices and commentary on sports and pop culture.
* We anticipate some edgy topics and writing, but such content will remain the exception.
* About 70 percent sports, 30 percent pop culture, with less video than other ESPN sites.
* Bill sees the site functioning with limited fan interaction, including a selection of about 300 fans with exclusive access to comment on the site and interact with contributors.

'exclusive commenters' is kinda an interesting idea, its another tier of writers for people to get to know

* The site will host Bill’s columns and podcasts, but unlike Page 2, it will not be based on the sports events of the day or the current sports calendar.

this seems p unrealistic

i assumed that was referring to the rest of the content more than bill's stuff.

and i'm v. glad the site will not be commenter free for all

the two confirmed hires are klosterman and katie baker btw

and this guy

williamfleitch Will Leitch
Two great great hires in a week. RT @LaneBrown Exclusive! Today is my last day at Vulture. I'm joining Bill Simmons' new site
56 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply

huh--he is just some blogger i guess?

http://nymag.com/author/lane%20brown/

"deputy entertainment editor"--i guess he will be the main pop-culture person or something

the pop culture part of this site is going to be painful as will the aspiration toward a literary sports writing ideal, predictions

klosterman's sports essays are usually p. good, really liked the football one in his new book, basically in favor of anything that lets him do some more sportswriting

not in favor of anything that lets simmons write more pop culture stuff, his dedication to survivor and road rules is mind-boggling

another writer for his new site http://thisrecording.com/today/2011/3/4/in-which-we-sound-the-airhorn-for-mollys-very-last-this-reco.html

interesting considering how strange he can be abt women in his writing that he hired a woman who is often overtly feminist in hers, good on him http://thisrecording.com/today/2011/2/22/in-which-we-teach-you-how-to-be-a-woman-in-any-boys-club.html

let's hope they don't have to be in the same office, let alone the same fantasy football league

yeah, guessing she'll be in "culture" section, not simmons' man-cave

the new site is called "grantland" and a couple of preview pieces has been posted via his twitter

named after Grantland Rice, "a legend in the sports journalism world"

Anyone read anything by Grantland Rice? I'm not familiar.

no i had no idea who he was

a 6k word molly lambert piece published by espn.com = the definition of http://fourfour.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b8c369e2014e5f4860df970c-800wi

u don't like molly?

anyway i'm excited for this -- i don't really care about a lot of the big names but chris ryan, bill barnwell, katie baker & tommy craggs (assuming he stays on) are all A++

xp her writing style, not really no

in doses

omg this katie baker piece is a monster too.

good thing i am stuck in this classroom.

yeah that thing is long as hell

I rate players on the Larry Bird scale. How close are they to Larry Bird. Magic Johnson was 97% Larry Bird, and Lebron is 93% Larry. Eric Dampier and Brendan Haywood are separated by about 73 MicroLarries, mostly because Haywood brings more presence.

The biggest question when determining how Larry someone is: does he have that "it"? Larry bird had "it." That presence that made the fans in the stand know that any minute, you could hit that big shot. I came up with this talking to my friend Dwayne at the Celtics versus Bulls in 1988. It was pretty cold February evening, and the Cs were down by 2 with 5 seconds left on the clock. If they didn't hit this shot, it would be a long, cold walk back to my car. Bird got the ball at the elbow on an inbounds, and I turned to Dwayne and said, "Bird's going to hit it. I can feel it." As the shot went in, I knew I was on to something.

Back then it was tough to get by as a sports journalist. Povitch, Kornheiser, and a few other dominated the columns. I would sell some columns to the Globe occasionally, but it was mostly local papers. None of them, of course, covered travel or tickets. I would suck dicks in times square at $5 a pop so I could buy a ticket to the Garden, which was what we called MSG at the time since TD hadn't been built yet, to cover the Cs at the Knicks. Tickets were $22.75, but I wasn't about to charge $2.75 for that fifth dick. Besides, I wanted a soda, usually Sprite. One time this guy hit me right between the eyes with his cum. It was amazing. "You've got Bird accuracy, man." I told him. He paused for a second before he zipped up. "Yeah, uh, sure," he said before he walked away. I was hoping he recognized me from my columns but then remembered none of them had printed my picture next to them yet. My big break would be five years and two Celtics championships away

I turned to my buddy Weasel and asked "Hey Weez, what do you think Paul Pierce's dick looks like?" He was like "Oh for sure it's gotta be wicked huge. Do you think Bill Russell had a bigger dick? Which one would you rather suck?" I told him that Russel probably had a bigger dick, but it would get uncomfortable with his hands on the back of your head since he had all those championship rings.

I got into the office and asked Cheryl, the intern, what she thought. Anyway, I've been suspended and my column will be back on ESPN.com at a date to be determined.

think abt "it"

he said in his 'the wire'/playoffs column today that he or GMs (or whoever) never thought that z-bo would have a sense of 'the moment' like he did when he went off at the end of game 5 vs the spurs & it struck me as such a dumb thing to say -- z-bo taking over the end of a game when he's clearly been the best player in the series doesn't mean he had any sense greater than common sense

lol ade

Whenever you put together a circlejerk, you've got to follow my formula. Five megasplashers aren't going to get the job done, because they all bring the same thing to the table. It's like five Daniel-sans all trying to crane kick one Billy Zabka. That's too many cooks in the kitchen, which is something that's just going to spill, something I learned when cooking chicken wings with too many guys in Jimmy Kimmel's kitchen, and we lost a bunch on the floor to my dog Dooze.

Anyway, what you want is a real jizzmaker, someone like Peter North, who is the Larry Bird of cum. Then you want a quiet leader type, your Parrish/Bill Russell types, someone like Sean Michaels. Then want a playmaker, someone willing to do it all himself, your Ray Allen/Seymour Butts. Finally, you round it out with two character guys willing to cum off the bench, the kind of guys who'll do the face drip from above or maybe let out a YAAAAAHHH that gets the crowd going.

Without it, you're the Heat, and you're not going to win according to my formula, which I wrote here in 1999 and updated here in 2001, and here, here, here and here, after last year's finals. But this will always work.

haha it makes sense that youre a goon

at least that wire piece had the upside of being the last straw with me ever reading this guy again. been waiting on that one for a few years.

the funny thing is that i found the durant/westbrook = avon/stringer analogy from months ago to be acceptable, but this was a bit much

wondering if z-bo or jamal crawford has had the bad guy gone good story this playoffs

jamal crawford's an extremely good guy! just not a Proven Winner or w/e

yeah def! he's been a fave of mine for years, z-bo too. and one day ya'll are gonna come around on j.r. smith too

so is this grantland thing gonna fail horribly or what, seems like classic overreach

The best thing Simmons can do is just let the folks he hired run the thing, because he did hire a lot of worthwhile people.

Still, "Grantland"?

I'm picturing a fansite devoted to brian grant, run by bill simmons

thatd be a site i could really get into

i like some of the writers but i dont think theyll necessarily have wide appeal particularly to the espn demo - the whole high minded long form anti news cycle concept is not exactly a proven page view generator - and simmons has p much lost his fastball and seems uninterested in writing, he at least used to be v readable now its just like v sludgy

poor brian grant has Parkinson's :(

!!!! whaaaaa

damn guy is only like 40

yeah he lives in Portland now and does some work with the team. There's a big Parkinson's dinner at the RG every year that he hosts (my gf worked it and served Michael J Fox last year!) but every time he speaks during halftime during a fundraiser or whatever it's super heartbreaking :(

he at least used to be v readable now its just like v sludgy

yeah there are some people who could keep cranking out good columns while also doing hours of podcasts and managing a new website and having a family and whatever else, but he is not one of those people.

kinda doubt family takes up much of his time tbh

ill probably drop in on this site just to see what a few of the writers (and klosterman- he's a great sports almost-troll) are doing but yeah...even the name seems off.

and agreed that wire/playoffs column was just so much overworked gimmick. like a four hour epic film based on a mad lib.

"Grantland" is such a stupid name.

is he feuding with olbermann just because olbermann thought a jfk joke was offensive?

yep.

christ olbermann

Not the first time they've been mad at each other.

http://www.mrdestructo.com/2011/05/bill-simmons-and-grantland.html

Bill Simmons is to Grantland Rice what Tucker Max is to Hunter Thompson.

that was... very hardbody

pretty sure that blog post was longer than the entire output of grantland to date

his opinions about music are really cool and original tho: http://www.mrdestructo.com/2009/11/av-clubs-50-best-albums-of-decade-are_9501.html

take it to ilm pal

I feel like Barkley's walking back his comments re: gay players on this Simmons/Klosterman podcast.

my friend started reading big book of basketball and describes it like this: "it was like what a homosexual blowjob to a straight guy who passed out reads like"

wait. does the straight guy pass out before he gets the blow job or after?

probably a better thread for this but.. gonna be away from the computer for a few weeks and also lookin to step down from the post-season without going cold turkey. anyone got any rec's for a good hoops read? not sure what kind of thing i'm lookin for here, maybe not a memoir? something sort of broad-ish? some good play analysis ish in there maybe? last decade would be a plus. dunno, thinking out loud i guess but wld be psyched for a suggestion or two. thx ilh bros

breaks of the game (1979) and seven seconds or less are both pretty great and entertaining. the last shot, about high school players in coney island featuring a cameo from a super-douchey sophomore stephon marbury, also gets pretty epic.

awesome, thanks dude. was figuring on just grabbing a handful, so if I can find em in town, I'm in. McCallum one looks great.

yeah, it's really fun. eddie house and alvin gentry each have tons of hilarious quotes iirc

was going to recommend seven seconds or less myself, curious how it would read with some hindsight on the dantoni suns. also I thoroughly recommend The Last Shot which is a great investigation into coney island basketball culture in the 90s and how inner city kids are manipulated by recruiters. sounds a bit grimmer than it is, though it's pretty grim. main profile is of a 15 year old stephon marbury's high school squad!

oh lol didn't see symsym also recommends last shot! sorta skipped over it after seeing 7 secs or less.

yeah def gonna shoot for both of those

the breaks of the game is fascinating too, especially if you enjoy david halberstam's patented way way too much detail style...there's twenty pages devoted to every benchwarmer's life story, but he still somehow makes it both compelling and relates each life to the path of the blazers and the state of the nba as a whole. ilh's numerous blazers fans can rep for it, right?

the 2nd best nba book ever (after the book of basketball obv)

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51K0G4Q4JEL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Ds0Jf00SL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/417vJWhKwIL._SS500_.jpg

http://books.google.com/books?id=4kLJkLerSaAC&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=1&l=220

feat. "fuck you, bill."

It was a sultry afternoon, and midway through the game, we went inside to the Dugout Club to cool off and talk. Simmons sounded as if he was having some regrets about Grantland. “It hasn’t been as much as fun as I had thought,” he told me. “I’m not sure I would do it again.” Too much of his time was being spent in the office, dealing with administrative tasks, which was encroaching on his column.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/magazine/can-bill-simmons-win-the-big-one.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

“Come on, you’ve won two titles in a row!” Simmons said. He went on to compare Kay to a guy who picks up women at a bar for two weeks straight, “and then strikes out once and complains about it.”

we really need to start a rolling thread of eye rolling bill simmons analogies

no we dont

“I printed out those 6,000-word columns and took them to the bathroom just like everybody else,” says A. J. Daulerio, the 37-year-old editor in chief of Deadspin, Gawker’s sports blog.

jeez I didn't know you felt so strongly about this!

i hope grantland is good, but we'll see

A version of this article appeared in print on June 5, 2011, on page MM41 of the Sunday Magazine with the headline: CAN BILL SIMMONS BIG ONE?.

wow that article is the most effective argument i've ever read for simmons being a legit douchebag

"40 year old fratboy" is generally nagl as a way to live your life

yeah i feel like bill usually demonstrates one redeeming quality or another but nope not in that piece

gawker

ESPN regular-guy superstar sports blogger writer blah etc. Bill Simmons is starting his own boutique sports site, Grantland, in the very near future. Is he excited? "It hasn't been as much as fun as I had thought," he tells the NYT magazine. "I'm not sure I would do it again." Pretty encouraging words, from the boss! Your staff is prepared to follow you to the ends of the earth and beyond, Bill Simmons!

lol

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/06/05/magazine/05simmons1/mag-05Simmons-t_CA1-articleInline.jpg

smh

Simmons is a funny, intelligent and original writer. He comes up with surprising angles and conceits — in a column last month, he applied quotes from “The Wire” to moments in the N.B.A. playoffs — that may not always work but certainly prevent him from becoming predictable.

loll waht writing a wire themed nba column is prob the most predictable thing he couldve done

i guess it's novel if youve never read him--author claims he's a fan so it's one of those nyt things where they take the reader's hand and lead them around

yo bill: less tweeting and website starting and podcasting; more column writing. thx

Reeling at the idea of Hipster Runoff, Humblebrag, and Bill Simmons in business together.

You guys need to listen to his podcast from today. Simmons talks to the guy who wrote the ESPN oral history book and he goes into a tangent about how he shouldn't have talked to him because he comes across like an asshole.

I turned it off after five minutes because it was so awkward.

yeah really the only podcasts he does that are worth it are the nba guys (stein/bucher/etc), his random wizards fan friend who seems pretty funny and they mostly stick to actually talking about basketball, and a few of the one-shot guests when he knows enough to mostly shut up and get out of the way like when jackie macmullen showed up a month or so ago

This one is utterly embarrassing. He mentions that he thought he came across a little rough, then they have to talk about, and then he brings it up again later, and ends with another mention because the guy is going to add some stuff and remove others when it comes out in paperback.

Confirms all the insecurities of the NYTimes piece.

that photo is so weird -- i think the concept is fine but his expression is bizarre

it's so photoshopped, also since when did bill simmons look like alec baldwin

haha i was just thinking, he's looking sorta distinguished (meaning old) lately

Glenn beck imo

You guys need to listen to his podcast from today. Simmons talks to the guy who wrote the ESPN oral history book and he goes into a tangent about how he shouldn't have talked to him because he comes across like an asshole.

― EZ Snappin, Thursday, June 2, 2011 5:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

listening now; this is really lol. miller is handling it well.

He handles it like a pro, even though he's obviously perplexed. I would have loved to see Miller's face as Bill whines and complains.

i am feeling this kind of aghast anticipation for learning what exactly the overlap is of the aesthetics of bill simmons and carles

carles on grantland is gonna be so ridiculous & unintentionally hilarious

that is really one of those ideas that everyone should've been excited about for 10 mins after it was pitched before slowly realizing that it's an awful, awful idea

http://hoosieraccess.com/files/2010/01/snl_really.jpg

carles is gonna be on grantland?!?!

*pumps fist*

he was listed among the "contributors"

we all know what hes gonna write abt

hipster jay cutler

knowing that bill simmons reads carles is an unfortunate colliding of the worlds in my head

I would have been much more comfortable knowing that simmons was unaware of carles's existence

I could give a fuck about Carles, only name on the contributors list that matters is KEN TREMENDOUS.

(I also like Katie Bakes a lot, and Simmons himself. But seriously this could be like 99% garbage plus twice-yearly Mike Schur writing about sports/anything and it would give me something to read at least twice a year.)

knowing that bill simmons reads carles is an unfortunate colliding of the worlds in my head

I would have been much more comfortable knowing that simmons was unaware of carles's existence

― dayo, Monday, June 6, 2011 8:24 PM (1 hour ago)

i was just thinking about this

I skimmed the NYTMag piece, only lol was "baseball stat fetishization." Proof that sportswriters are the lowest form of life (ie God bless Barry Bonds).

19 hours until Grantland!!!!

http://www.babynametrain.com/name-graph2.php?_jpg_csimd=1&name_var=grantland&gender=boy

welp http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6635763/welcome-grantland

ball semens

http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmhb7goxVB1qa9bmvo1_400.png

http://s0.2mdn.net/3159010/Subway_Grantland_SponsorByLogo_Pages.png

the design of the site really really looks like a free wordpress theme

totally!

omg it seems that simmons only created this site so he could post his columns on a layout that has a permanent footnote column

Why is the top third of the page so horrible? Do they not have any designers at all over there?

design critique 4 u bill smins

http://grab.by/cB0Z

Eight and a half years have passed. I can't remember how Jimmy answered, just what his face looked like. You wouldn't call it nervous, you wouldn't call it overwhelmed, you wouldn't call it anything … he didn't fucking know.

going for that "hard pg-13" i guess

Thank god they have someone covering the AL east!

it looks like yard work! which was when, 2005?

omg yard work! I miss that.

I love the defensive descriptions of the coming soon sites on the last. SEE, WE COULD'VE CALLED IT "FOXBORO" BUT WE DIDN'T!!

on the left, rather.

Wow, this site has no content. What happened to the Katie Bakes story?

the links to the second page of the articles are fucked up--they open the piece in a single page but kick you back to the beginning.

haha this totally looks like someone using a wordpress theme in like late 2006 to try to emulate mcsweeneys or arts and letters daily

"presented by klondike"

also footnotes basically suck, it's like extra tldr

you're a professional, professionally put that shit into the body as a point you're trying to make or leave it out, you're not citing academic journals or something

footnote: they are hilarious when used properly

the klosterman story was a fun read!

re footnotes it maybe has something to do w/the strange phenomenon of dfw becoming an avatar for hack writers harboring pretensions everywhere

Grantland is ugly, but it's a shit ton easier to read/look at than Gawker Media's current format.

Yeah the design is amateurish but I'm not gonna say that bothers me in the least. As long as the articles are easy to read, right? But I agree with the "hard PG-13" comment above, it's like he knew he could use one "fuck" in his column and was just debating where to put it

it looks like yard work! which was when, 2005?

tbh if grantland had rotating banners (including, naturally, BIG BEAR) all would be a-ok here

Willing to bet that Klosterman, not Simmons, is the one that pushed for Carles.

going out on a limb with that