bill simmons IS bill simmons IN the book of BASKETBALL

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