bill simmons IS bill simmons IN the book of BASKETBALL

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