bill simmons IS bill simmons IN the book of BASKETBALL

yeah true idk this is the net tho its crazy

I'm p positive grant lands entire budget (outside simmons pay and his fancy set for the TV show) is basically a rounding error for the worldwide leader

But yeah it's good that he's got a mix of writers some of them are terrible (barnwell Jesus can they get one football writer who doesnt literally put everyone to sleep by the second paragraph) some of them are great (Jonathan Abrams features uniformly incredible, zach Lowe is basically an ilh-er, lambert, Wes Morris is really the only good pop culture guy)

Lagoon correctly diagnosed remberts problems he is a young guy who writes for the Internet the way the Internet writes already, could grow tho

I might be the only person who likes Steven hyden i think he's a solid writer and his affection for basic hard rock and metal is sweet. Also occasionally funny

Did not expect this thread to blow up over night.

bad and good canceling each other out is prob grantland's biggest issue, like in the NBA writing corner for every lowe there's another writer who obsesses over the soap opera aspect of the sport and finds ways to like, heap faux-ebullient pass/agg ironic praise on the nick youngs of the world, shit like that, each topic they cover basically has one good writer and one shitty one

in the good corner like amos barshad does really good profiles, generally, molly lambert is great, greenwald is good when he's reviewing a show like a normal critic (the americans pieces are always dope) and awful when trying to make Big Statements About How We Watch Television, etc. hyden is a harmless dork, rembert browne basically is as well except the fact that he's really into the idea of being an internet writer and also way into hyperbole is grating

simmons is firmly what he is at this point, and his schtick can be super annoying but, uh, a dude like drew magary, of all fuckin people, calling someone out for being schticky and self-referential is fucking hysterical

i think mcgray is right to call out simmons name dropping, i mean the whole point of simmons is that he was an everyman just talkin about sports, he was like not supposed to have access, that was a key element of his schtick, now he braggin abt how he studied at the feet of magic johnson while his understanding of basketball seems to be if anything worse than ever

oh wesley morris is another reason grantland can stay for the moment unless he finds a better offer, genuinely great movie critic

simmons obvs like does not try very hard at the writing anymore, which is understandable w all his other responsibilities, but of course the only reason he gets to do all those other things is because espn wants to keep him around for his writing, its funny

I agree with the reason magary is calling him out more or less, but I can't help but roll my eyes about a writer with an equally awful type of schtick being the one to do the calling out (magary is uncomfortable internety beta-macho rage predicated on the idea that profanity is inherently funny and/or biting, simmons is smarmy insidery sanctimoniousness)

the actual column in question is goofy but not really that bad, he just sounds like someone who's really excited that he's gotten to talk about basketball with a bunch of pros. the argument he's advancing (that pros may be willing to put up with stuff that drives fan viewers nuts) is actually interesting.

nothing simmons does these days is actually that bad aside from the writing being meh or legit bad with relative frequency, like it is what it is and expecting it to be otherwise is like that arrested development scene where michael opens a bag that reads DEAD DOVE on it as if he won't find the dead dove in there. the idea that it could offend a person'a sense of writerly ethics, in the world of sportswriting, is laughable and mind-boggling - unless you're drew magary and you have a column due and a preexisting hard-on for really laying the hammer down on macho cornballs tangential to the sports world while having turned into, uh, a (faux, which is almost worse) macho cornball tangential to the sports world

lollll while on the subject, chuck barkley on the BS report is a thing no one should listen to

simmons obvs like does not try very hard at the writing anymore, which is understandable w all his other responsibilities, but of course the only reason he gets to do all those other things is because espn wants to keep him around for his writing, its funny

― lag∞n

yeah i remember him talking about kornheiser telling him at some point that the writing just goes and he's not gonna want to do it anymore and he's mentioned this a few times. i think now it's definitely more a thing that drives traffic to his site and that facilitates him doing the other things he wants to do. whereas twelve fifteen years ago he was cranking out ten thousand words five days a week cuz he had that weird narcissism and hunger that makes one a writer. it's rare as hell that he writes something now that doesn't slot into one of his gimmicky formats (this trade value column rolling out like grr martin is the ne plus ultra of this), usually a mailbag which is just him responding to emails. that kyrie column could've just been yknow a column about kyrie irving as well as how former players/legends see things that fans and nonplayer analysts aren't going to pick up and that can create that divide in perceptions and then when pt 3 came out he could just link to it for irving's paragraph but dude's weird narcissism wouldn't allow it, the same way he thinks his trade machine machinations mean anything or his past years of trade value columns in anyway function as a valuable metric. the podcast w/ lowe he made a prediction and then lowe was responding and simmons just started blurting out 'THAT'S RIGHT IT'S THE RETURN OF CLAIRVOYANT BILL' like he was dom deluise turning into captain chaos in the cannonball run. i think he writes about basketball cuz he loves it most and it's the thing he knows anything about and he writes about football cuz he loves it and it's the hugest sport so it drives traffic but otherwise he's moved on. i think the red sox have actually won a world series since the last time he wrote about baseball which is funny since that red sox book kinda made his name.

nothing simmons does these days is actually that bad aside from the writing being meh or legit bad with relative frequency, like it is what it is and expecting it to be otherwise is like that arrested development scene where michael opens a bag that reads DEAD DOVE on it as if he won't find the dead dove in there.

― slothroprhymes, Saturday, March 14, 2015 10:33 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The look on batemans face as he looks away and mutters "I don't know what I expected" is burned into my brain

I'm looking forward to him recycling the boxing column he writes for every major fight.

writers unclear on the concept "fictional"

http://i.imgur.com/x6CWz2w.png

new trade value column is peak "everything ppl hate about simmons," as well as some decent commentary

yes there are springsteen AND liam neesons refs

i had to skip past most of the steph/harden/westb part, so long and pointless

yeah that was hella indulgent, the stuff about brow was pretty good tho

i am now googling and rembert went to dartmouth, officially ceded any claim to being cool.

oh well *kicks a rock*

ha i def thought of u when i saw that, tuff break bro

I'm a two-time offender now, I made my bed

gbx gets a pass

you know who is really smart and interesting and who has a show that i didn't realize existed but that i will now try to watch? rachel nichols. her podcast with simmons was v enjoyable

yeah her on air persona comes off as really contrived but she def has her head in the game

hm will listen, have never liked listening to her, never liked her cadence and inflections.

at various roger goodell press conferences, she asked the best questions

I would love to know how my wife handled it if we were to go out for dinner once a week for four weeks, and every time, I wouldn’t say that much and would act weird but make just enough jokes to make the dinner passable … only every time we went out with another couple, I’d be hilarious and gregarious and charismatic and keep telling everyone, “You’re with Double-Date Simmons tonight!!!!!” You know what would happen? She’d dump Double Date Simmons and Regular Season Simmons. Only in sports can you pull off the idea of Playoff Rondo. And now it’s dead. R.I.P.

jesus, bill

lol i was thinking about that analogy last night. v funny!

he shdve extended it to when he finally behaved like regular season simmons on a double date for maximum descriptive power

"We’ve been waiting for Floyd-versus-Manny for six to seven solid years … it’s the biggest of Big Fights" -- Bill Simmons, 2015

"Unquestionably, it's the biggest fight in years. It's also the last Big Fight, period." -- Bill Simmons on Mayweather vs. De La Hoya, 2007

Boxing has drastically receded in importance in the USA, where the Big Money is, so the idea that Americans will eventually lose their interest in Big Fights is hardly preposterous. It's pretty damn hard to think of any matches outside of Floyd vs. Manny that would prompt more than a "uh, who's that?" among American sports fans right now.

@NYTSports
Scoop from @RichSandomir: @BillSimmons is leaving ESPN. Story coming soon here @NYTSports.

rip grantland

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/bill-simmons-would-be-nuts-to-leave-espn-2014-10

somehow i think he has the money to keep grantland running

except he doesnt own grantland

they say they want to keep it but idk

Grantland, the sports and entertainment site run by Simmons for ESPN, will be unaffected by his departure, Skipper said.

“It long ago went from being a Bill Simmons site to one that can stand on its own,” Skipper said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/sports/bill-simmons-and-espn-are-parting-ways.html

yeah one of the sources of friction was grantland. he wanted more resources for video, wanted to shield his writers from traffic/clickbait demands, they wanted sports buzzfeed.

hm, well as zach lowe and some others on that site still have a job, its aight...but if it really does turn into sports buzzfeed more or less that will suck

wld not be surprised if they fucked around with it for a while then gave up its a pretty odd not that great site that doesnt have that many readers

when someone is all i want to make something "good" but really has no specific vision

simmons to buzzfeed or bleacher report then? how about ~fusion~

i have not seen the traffic stats - how do you look that stuff up? honest question

i dont think theyre made publicly available thats just my impression

simmons to buzzfeed or bleacher report then? how about ~fusion~

― mookieproof, Friday, May 8, 2015 10:52 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah who knows does he want another grantland does he want an independent grantland does he just want to be a writer again does he want to be on tv what does bill simmons want

maybe vox media

i mean there are third party sites that estimate traffic but they are xtremely unreliable

tho i wonder if any of those companies that actually rely on web traffic wld given him a new grantland considering his anti traffic stance, maybe fusion is the wave they dont care and they have tv

but they r ~post text~ lol

find myself in the unanticipated position of realizing i quite like grantland and that even tho i didn't read his stuff it probably won't be as good without simmons if it does survive at all