bill simmons IS bill simmons IN the book of BASKETBALL

i wasnt suggesting a ken bunrs style fwiw just pointing out that on a weekly basis frontline / nova / american experience do much high quality work than 30/30 which is much closer to a history channel/vh1 just standard not that great slapped together tv doc, they just seem totally unremarkable quality wise as well as style and subject matter

it wasn't ye olde ken burns baseball reverence/stories told a million times

― balls, Monday, May 11, 2015 12:05 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

none of them were exactly obscure subjects lol

did u guys know chris webber called a timeout

miami hurricanes were good in the 80s

some of them were! the usfl one was fun.

though it's gotten away from that. initially it was let talented ppl (ok or 'talented' ppl) tell stories that haven't been told a million times before, w/ the appeal being that you had different styles plus fresh stories as opposed to hbo uniform sports docs about the brooklyn dodgers. it was hit or miss even then (and not in predictable ways ie the barbara kopple one being one of the worst ones) but it was entertaining as hell at its best (the oj one, the u, the reggie/knicks one). it is funny though cuz that first wave was a big ratings and critical hit and then espn just shelved it until simmons publicly bitched and moaned enough that they brought it back. they've figured out 'o right, easy cash cow' and the distinctiveness is gone (can't remember the last time they bragged about the director of one of these) plus they're doing hbo type stories (again w/ the willis reed knicks) but even those are usually entertaining and occasionally they still produce one that seems unique and specific to the 30 for 30 idea - the big east one, i hate christian laetnner. i mean a pbs one would spend half the time w/ frank deford explaining who christian laetnner was and what basketball is, then wonder why anyone could hate duke it's one of our finest universities and coach k is an inspiring figure to the young men he's been a father figure to, and then expose its viewers to the shocking reality that college sports is corrupt and exploitive.

yeah i mean some of them r cool just wondering why the universal praise when they are quite obviously totally ordinary

also frontline wld make a million times better christian laetnner one, american experience maybe not

spoken like a man who's never heard npr's sports coverage

initially it was let talented ppl (ok or 'talented' ppl) tell stories that haven't been told a million times before, w/ the appeal being that you had different styles plus fresh stories as opposed to hbo uniform sports docs about the brooklyn dodgers.

― balls, Monday, May 11, 2015 12:16 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean i understand that this is the marketing pitch but i dont think its actually is what happened, prob partially cuase simmons was involved and his idea of doing something different is still gonna be very conventional

also frontline wld make a million times better christian laetnner one

i think the point is that frontline's not going to bother.

i mean i can guarantee you in the frontline laetnner one unlv and michigan are the bad guys

although i'm sure all things being equal that statement is true xp to self

i mean i can guarantee you in the frontline laetnner one unlv and michigan are the bad guys

― balls, Monday, May 11, 2015 12:21 PM (12 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

omg u clearly are clearly not a regular frontline viewer

that first wave each one was pretty different than the others and lol at the guy repping for ken burns baseball as what 30 for 30 should aspire to calling june 17th, 1994 conventional

frontlines wld be abt how college basketball is all bad, they have prob already made that one tbh, anyway my point abt pbs was just that they produce higher quality work not that the 30/30 series shdve been actually done by them

lol at the guy repping for ken burns baseball as what 30 for 30

― balls, Monday, May 11, 2015 12:22 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol have constantly zero reading comprehension

i'll take albert maysles over ken burns any day

daddys nap time

― lag∞n, Monday, May 11, 2015 12:04 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hmm what cld this mean

like theyre alright prob better than ur average basic cable doc but nothing on level of what say pbs regularly produces and nowhere near a theatrical releasey

― lag∞n, Monday, May 11, 2015 11:51 AM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

its weird u didnt start being all THEATRICAL DOCUMENTARY RELEASES ARE LIKE THIS

hey if there's other pbs sports docs you want to rep for feel free. maybe the expose that omg brace yrself concussions are bad and you can get them from playing football.

what theatrical releasey sports docs are you talking about (million dollar arm not actually a documentary)

u realize i was just saying they are not very well produced documentaries right like i suspect u realize that

idk is there some sort of side door for sports movies are they graded on a curve shd i be all this bad movie is good because it is about sports

i have never seen ken burns baseball btw lol no thank u

i mean if you're just saying 'eh, the u was alright but you know what was really awesome - SHOAH' then yeah sure

theyre just not that good as movies this is not that hard to understand

tv shows whatever

sports docs are totally graded on a curve - not to say that they should be, but i think that's definitely the case.

an episode of espns previous doc series the direct rip off of behind the music (behind the... lights?) wld prob pass for a 30 for 30 ep no prob

most likely due to lowered expectations given that the subject is sports and not, say, edward snowden's whistleblowing

thx for blowing our minds w/ the insight that bill simmons has yet to produce a mailbag or podcast or tv show that can compare to shoah. maybe next you can weigh in on fetty wap vs bach.

lol u cant stop

http://deadspin.com/bill-simmons-is-a-shitty-writer-1703163076?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_twitter&utm_source=deadspin_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

not that this isn't in many aspects true, especially given how his writing has declined, but deadspin is in serious pot/kettle territory given that they employ drew magary to write what are basically simmons columns and mailbags with a lot more fuckwords and a v tryhard faux truth-to-power stance

importance of 30 for 30 series is that it's a particular type of content and it's on Netflix

but since u asked fetty wap > bach

now is that based on a similar calculation w/ 30 for 30 and pbs sports docs ie you're not actually familiar w/ either

u cld start yr own thread and just like say what u r pretending im saying then respond with yr very cool not wildly irrelevant strange zings

all in defense of an obviously completely mediocre tv show

i guess in answer to my original question: no one really knows why ppl like it, but they do seem to like it... a lot

yes yr reading comprehension is great

there is no alternative for that kind of sports docu variety

goon what's yr take on dylie dollas vs mahler?

espn had another series before: beyond the glory lol m/l same idea

no one really knows why ppl like it

it is literally because there isn't much of an alternative, for those with any interest in sports docs, and as a result prob better regarded than it deserves as a whole. some are whatever, some have been very good. no more complex than that

i sometimes wonder if you're gregg easterbrook irl

xp

goon what's yr take on dylie dollas vs mahler?

― balls, Monday, May 11, 2015 12:49 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wow too obscure 4 me sry i mostly listen to buzz ballad compilation cds

xxxp narrated by Jay Mohr

if deadspin or fox sports 1 or whoever made better ones i think people would say they're better.

it is literally because there isn't much of an alternative, for those with any interest in sports docs, and as a result prob better regarded than it deserves as a whole. some are whatever, some have been very good. no more complex than that

― slothroprhymes, Monday, May 11, 2015 12:52 PM (31 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk i feel like theres something else going on here, there is a simmons halo effect which radiates out from typical hyperbolic social media behavior "OMG THIS THE U SHIT IS FIRE" and then when journalists needed am accomplishment to point to in order to have balance in their simmons/espn breakup pieces it was sitting their conveniently, the only thing is it actually serves to obscure the truth which is that simmons was not that hard to fire for espn cause he was m/l a failure in his non writing roles which is the stuff he wants to do most

in that sense i guess he is valuable to espn cause i dont think anyone wldve been talking abt 30 for 30 w/o him