bill simmons IS bill simmons IN the book of BASKETBALL

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7503780/the-return-young-jeezy

? ! ?

http://a.espncdn.com/i/columnists/barshad_amos_m.jpg? http://a.espncdn.com/i/columnists/barshad_amos_m.jpg! http://a.espncdn.com/i/columnists/barshad_amos_m.jpg?

removing the bookmark from this thread so I'm never reminded of what a revolting shithead bill simmons is

why does deadspin feel the need to mercilessly bash bill simmons and grantland at every opportunity?

i feel like a good part of it is an inferiority complex? deadspin's always been really critical of ESPN so the idea of ESPN spinning off something like deadspin-lite has got to stick in their craw a bit

why does deadspin feel the need to mercilessly bash bill simmons and grantland at every opportunity?

― Mr. Snrub, Thursday, January 26, 2012 7:19 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

because bill simmons is kind of an asshole?

dying @ snrub

getting butthurt over deadspin's trolling of grantland is... quite a reason to get a hurt butt, i must say

god is that female tennis playing grading shit upthread for real? what a piece of work.

yeah them uncovering this shit is pretty awesome but when grantland started and they made a list of every nitpicky factual error it seemed pretty stupid

well they demonstrated that it's pretty weird to start a website of professional writing that does not employ any ediotrs.

Look, I don't want to be captain save-a-simmons here. He is an asshole. I mean, you can't even blame this horrible tennis article on "He was young, he didn't know better. That's why he's kept all these articles hidden so long; he was too embarrased" because he writes this shit all the time! Like his "Women should be forced to have their own fantasy leagues!" rant not too long ago, the prick.

imo simmons is who he is, don't really have enough time in my day to get all fake appalled over his dumb fratty bullshit, i mean duh of course he wrote this article

seriously who has that big a problem with women in a fantasy league. like yeah it sucks when someone's wife signs up b/c you didn't have enough people to run a league and winds up winning despite not knowing a single player she drafted but I think that's just because it reminds us all there is minimal skill in fantasy football and therefore bragging about how you dominated your league "for the last two years, bro" means nothing

seriously who has that big a problem with women in a fantasy league. like yeah it sucks when someone's wife signs up b/c you didn't have enough people to run a league and winds up winning despite not knowing a single player she drafted

lol well i don't know that it "sucks" but it's funny, my wife won our fantasy league for the second year in a row this year, mostly b/c she likes drew brees and is a big halo benders/beat happening fan (and therefore drafted calvin johnson.)

haha

time to channel my inner Simmons:

It's like, you know, that guy at the Blackjack table, who's playing horribly, hitting 14's vs. a 6, not splitting his 10's vs. a 5, and yet he's winning every hand. Meanwhile you're betting triple what he is and getting killed by 21's every time you get dealt a pair of bitches. THAT'S what my friend's wife does to this fantasy league.

frog bill simmons

lul

frogland

and is a big halo benders/beat happening fan (and therefore drafted calvin johnson.)

― omar little, Thursday, January 26, 2012 11:48 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lmao

yeah I feel like there's some thread on ILX that deserves to be curated in.

why does deadspin feel the need to mercilessly bash bill simmons and grantland at every opportunity?

uh because grantland will publish one or two well written pieces that ~makes u think~ but then publish 1157 articles of shit like "what if (x) on reality show was on reality show (x)" and "why does Michael Jordan dress up as the R&B Steven Seagal?" (totally forgetting that MJ does not have the major paunch or slicked back hair or crazy bad Asian outfits for such an endeavour)

tbf theyve been on the Simmons beat since way before grantland, they h8 him cause he was their boyhood idol but now that theyve grown theyre embarrassed of him, particularly since he did m/l invent the thing theyre doing, they admitted as much, also im sure its good 4 hits

lol exactly, Simmons was Deadspin before Deadspin in a way, and really one of the first sportswriters that seemed to be on the same wavelength as the fans

yah same wavelength as the fans was simmons credo, now days we call that 'blogging"

there was def something appealing about simmons in the early espn days, pre-bosox world championship when there was something universal and poetic about his sports fan pain but i feel it soon calcified into schtick and he didn't really take his style as a writer into better places. and beyond that i find his sexual politics to be really kind of nasty and cruel. he's still vastly better as a stylist than he was during the days he wrote that tennis piece.

especially when you compared him to writers like Rick Reilly who were constantly moralizing everything and writing lengthy articles about issues nobody cared about. I mean BoSox fans are pretty terrible in general but at least Simmons was "one of us", so to speak

speaking as a boston native and someone who journeyed home to experience the red sox winning their first championship of my lifetime, bostonians were really dialed into simmons during that series, everyone was talking abt his columns, it was now that i think abt it kinda remarkable

his basketball writing is still good from time to time, but the schtick has long since calcified for sure

so long as he sticks to writing about basketball he's fine. it's when he says crap like "the Colts intentionally threw a playoff game in 2007 because they knew they weren't going to beat the Patriots anyway" when you realize that he's kind of an insufferable prick

feel like if youre a professional writer for long enough its hard to resist the drift towards overfit narrative and/or trolling at the expense of making sense

wait why did i think lagun was a yankees fan?

lol dude

mb i'm thinking of max

deadspin goes after simmons and grantland because he and it are establishment media, plain and simple

naw theyve got a special thing for him

i mean they literally published a piece owning up to a while ago

the best argument against him I've read was something about how ESPN and Simmons need each other, how ESPN needs Simmons to prevent themselves from looking too controlling and one-sided, as he has opinions that are often controversial and un-PC, while Simmons needs ESPN because it allows readers to feel like he actually is wittier/edgier than his Disney-sponsored articles imply

well he's easily the biggest sportswriter in the country, it's not crazy that they write a lot about him

frogbs, ESPN doesn't need simmons because he gives them an edge. ESPN needs simmons cuz he's the most popular sportswriter in america and brings in a massive readership.

jordan what i said abt him being their idol and then them feeling weird abt it is what they said u should read it

it was by will lietch sometime in like the last 3 years iirc

its more about how they need a guy *like* Simmons. obviously there's nothing about BS in particular that makes him worthy of his popularity, but rather the idea that he's an ESPN-sponsored columnist who appears to be unrestricted

its more about how they need a guy *like* Simmons. obviously there's nothing about BS in particular that makes him worthy of his popularity, but rather the idea that he's an ESPN-sponsored columnist who appears to be unrestricted

― frogs you are the dumbest asshole (frogbs), Friday, January 27, 2012 5:37 PM (0 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i disagree w/ this -- if simmons left espn, his readership would follow him. if espn brought in a second rate version of simmons, that person would not do the same numbers.

jordan what i said abt him being their idol and then them feeling weird abt it is what they said u should read it

― lag∞n, Friday, January 27, 2012 5:37 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it was by will lietch sometime in like the last 3 years iirc

― lag∞n, Friday, January 27, 2012 5:37 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

will leitch's constant self-conscious navel gazing has little to do w/ the current incarnation of deadspin

it's when he says crap like "the Colts intentionally threw a playoff game in 2007 because they knew they weren't going to beat the Patriots anyway" when you realize that he's kind of an insufferable prick

He says stuff like this about basketball ALL THE TIME

I don't think very many people would follow frog bill simmons, even if frog bill simmons were writing for espn.com

if Grantland wasn't backed by ESPN I would think it would be a miserable failure

If some dumb lady wants to be in my fantasy league I will happily take her money.