bill simmons IS bill simmons IN the book of BASKETBALL

P incredible that he got more than Stephen a smith got for implying mrs rice basically deserved it but I guess money talks

ESPN probably more afraid of the amount of inlfuence that he weilds

wonder what the contractual obligations regarding grantland/its writers are

im sure he cld get out of his contract if he wanted and espn wld happily keep grantland humming along

i dunno -- it's not like they could jettison nate silver and keep 538

they cld, not sure theyd want to

I'm fairly sure the worldwide leader owns grantland and simmons is just founder/ed in chief, and p sure both sides wanted it that way bc simmons can just walk away if he gets bored

I mean grantland basically exists as a perk to get him to sign his last contract so I doubt this suspension ends up anything bigger than "don't call an important business partner a liar until it's completely inevitably public knowledge and/or proven in a court of law"

yeah espn owns grantland and 538, silver gave them the name as part of his deal, grantland is the placeholder name their web designer used lmao

didn't the otl report basically call the nfl liars, if in less inflammatory terms? simmons wasn't even bashing espn, just daring them to fuck with him for showing a wee bit of journalistic integrity

I saw a grantland rice book in someone's recycling the other day and was half tempted to pick it up

yeah he was m/l paraphrasing espns reporting

The otl report used a little purple prose but definitely avoided asserting concretely that anyone knew anything that wasn't tied to a specific on the record quote

But yeah the point of the otl report is that any reasonable person immediately concludes that goodell is at best thoroughly incompetent or most likely incompetent and also a liar and also now engaged in a coverup to hide some lies

never read grantland rice but ive heard hes the ultimate old school mythologizer of athletes god amongst men etc various tedious bs, kinda ironic considering simmons made his name bringing everything down to the fans eye view

like larry bird?

larry bird is genuinely godly tho anyone can see that

http://i.imgur.com/fyPIxK5.jpg

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--nXGwr4j---/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/y96ncgfvinl6xmtvcfub.gif

yeah it's not like olbermann hasn't gone absolutely volcanic about this pretty much every night. i guess it comes down to you can't threaten espn or they will shut you up for awhile.

lol that gif is the best

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ByV9oqqCEAA3_wz.jpg

guess they figured ethics out good enough and they don't need one anymore, good work fellas

but you maybe be interested in the content below

oh i love content!

I'm proud of ol' Bill!

this is a great reminder that if you're going to flame out, you should do it using the phrase "fucking bullshit" as much as you can.

otm it is the ultimate flame out expression

Robert Lipsyte's espn ombudsmen column is back up. espn is claiming that there was a technical issue that brought down several blogs, including his.

lol ok guys

http://www.businessinsider.com/gossip-bill-simmons-wants-out-of-espn-2014-10

Best for last:

Tim Armstrong should also email Simmons — if only because AOL is where the "Sports Guy" got his start and because he still uses an @aol.com email address.

seems to me he wants to be on tv too much to leave espn so unless turner wants to buy up a flagship digital journal for him to slap his name on he's not going anywhere

i'm still in "believe it when i see it" mode with this shit, lebron-style.

otm

In some quarters, there's skepticism that Simmons is worth so much money. ESPN executives apparently gripe that Simmons' pet project brands on the web — Grantland and FiveThirtyEight — aren't doing very well.
uh

Grantland has been pretty weak lately - with the redesign they seem to put out a lot less content than Deadspin.

When did the guy from Rancid take over AOL?

Grantland has been pretty weak lately - with the redesign they seem to put out a lot less content than Deadspin.

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Sunday, October 5, 2014 4:11 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

After a crazy weekend of playoff baseball, there were two baseball stories up on the front page today. There's an entire 2014-2015 NBA preview section.

yes but baseball is a terrible sport

in depth preview is kinda more their steez than game recaps tho, but yeah you would think they couldve come up w some #longform way to explore the baseball playoffs, also may just be a lil lag after the weekend in the baseball coverage

baseball is already longform enough #americaslasttime

lol true

well they'll def have a big thing from rany about the royals up today but there's no way he could've turned it around in time for this morning

I wish GL was just NBA articles, TBH. Actually, just Zach Lowe.

And Molly Lambert

ya grantland for me is 90% zach lowe, i keep a bookmark to his author page, but they have some other cool stuff sometimes too

wesley morris is pretty cool, read him in the boston globe for years

ya hes good

Jonathan Abrams features are almost uniformly incredible

Zach Lowe is an incredible perpetual machine of NBA analysis but I am already kind of tired of his writing this season, feel like he needs to son of bazerk CHANGE THE STYLE a lil bit but then again when he tried to fit into the grantland pop culture reference style early on it veered dangerously into poochie on a skateboard territory

yeah wld prefer if he just honed it down a lil