bill simmons IS bill simmons IN the book of BASKETBALL

to be fair, they're very good nachos
actually they are not

for me simmons is very much apiece with the common current prosumer approach of like the onion av club ppl who pretend to know things who dont know anything and see the world as primarily existing in the context of /craft/ and /narrative/, which is interesting as simmons started out as a /i dont know anything/ guy

The whole concept of a sportswriter who claims expertise on every sport is totally ridiculous and needs to be shitcanned

Bleacher report/TNT seems like the best fit for Simmons

Whoa balls used shitcanned too, hive mind ilh shit

i don't think he "claims expertise" on anything other than maybe the NBA, but he definitely talks about everything at great length, which is not precisely the same thing

it is sometimes insufferable and sometimes w/e

idk it's like who caaaaares, there are sportswriters out there who are bigoted or are genuinely vicious and not just more or less harmlessly dumb, this act of pointing at the foibles of simmons like, "SEE? SEE?" as if those doing the pointing are having these brave truth-to-power moments of insight that will really /tell it like it is mannnn/, is fucking laughable

um no its actually very cool

If you make the pronouncements he does about sports he doesn't really follow (boxing, hockey, etc) you are implicitly claiming expertise. I guess you could just say he's talking out of his ass but claiming expertise is a nicer way to put it.

It's not like he's the only guy who does it, it's a long established role for sports writers to be an oracle about every fucking sport

feel like thats just standard sports writer behavior and while not defendable is just kinda boring and typical simmons sends it over the top by fusing that tendency with the most begging ass bro naratives

Idk I find it kind of outrageous as a fan of niche sports when some dickhead lies about being a lifelong scholar of it. Less boring and more nails on chalkboard.

you guys sure seem to know quite a bit about sports writers, but do you have any credentials that I can look over?

hes working so hard to get u to buy in and just has no chill, this is particularly off putting on tv where while hes supposedly having a conversation hes just picking his prewritten dumb stories and pop culture references out of a hat and it just comes off super stilted and contrived, im sure every tv person operates off a script to some extent but he is very bad at making it seem natural at all, there is no flow he just has to share his amazing ideas abt why the warriors are like 90210

Idk I find it kind of outrageous as a fan of niche sports when some dickhead lies about being a lifelong scholar of it. Less boring and more nails on chalkboard.

― Matt Armstrong, Monday, May 11, 2015 5:41 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tbf this is also bad

i could see simmons going to turner if they let him build his own website, no way he does anything with bleacher report though

Well I kind of think of bleacher report as just a company/media entity, he's not gonna be a blogger.

Simmons to Vice seems like a no brainer

omg what if inside the nba adds simmons /kills self/

He'll go to pitchfork.

lol

there is no flow he just has to share his amazing ideas abt why the warriors are like 90210

i dont think anyone really has flow or chill when talking about sports on tv to be fair although he can be pretty awkward, the pop culture references are obviously tired but so are 75% of the standard stylistic tactics on virtually every other sports website

It would be funny to see Simmons wuss out whenever shaq or chuck says something really dumb (Kenny he'd engage)

dont think anyone really has flow or chill when talking about sports on tv to be fair although he can be pretty awkward, the pop culture references are obviously tired but so are 75% of the standard stylistic tactics on virtually every other sports website

― slothroprhymes, Monday, May 11, 2015 5:47 PM (21 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

things have distinctive characteristics did u know that

would watch a sports chat show on Vice where norm macdonald just makes fun of simmons and klosterman

do they now xp? im not sure how i offended yr sensibilities with that statement

the shit deadspin does is repetitive, the shit bleacher report does is repetitive, the shit simmons does is repetitive like how is this any different? it's sportswriting

actually everything is like that is the goto slothp rhetorical gambit

actually that's everybody's gambit

/bows/

yeah i highly doubt im the first person to default to "everything is kinda shitty/weird/etc." when they don't understand why one particular thing is a source of outrage vs. others

JIM ROSS: OH MY GOD! That's that's Bill Simmons' music!

SIMMONS: http://www.onlineworldofwrestling.com/pictures/h/hulkhogan2/15.jpg

ROSS: NO!!

lol

yeah i highly doubt im the first person to default to "everything is kinda shitty/weird/etc." when they don't understand why one particular thing is a source of outrage vs. others

― slothroprhymes, Monday, May 11, 2015 5:56 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

its true everyone does it

http://deadspin.com/how-jason-whitlock-is-poisoning-espns-black-grantland-1698683962

like here is an example of a good takedown piece that happens to contain -- gasp -- some actual journalism. i'll wait for the simmons one

-- gasp --

some journalism is reporting, some journalism is summarizing/synthesizing, some journalism is opinon

reporting is obv the preferred route

if you're gonna resort to the latter two for a takedown piece, naked professional jealousy kind of hurts the credibility, imho

no reporting is not obvs the preferred route, different approaches are appropriate for different situations and they are all actual journalism

if criticism necessarily involved reporting then criticism wouldn't exist

the whitlock piece and the simmons takedown are two functionally different things -- not everyone is a whitlock... the cases against whitlock and simmons are different: one is a bad boss and monster, the other is a hack. those require different pieces -- you don't need to report out whether you think someone is bad at writing

deadspin has reported on simmons also though in a fashion that is rather sympathetic to him http://deadspin.com/the-sports-guy-vs-espn-how-bill-simmons-lost-bristol-1639533260

i'm not going to bother restating my point that a takedown piece with original reporting is better than one without, this is not debatable

xp funny how that works, huh?

explain to me how you report out criticism of someone's writing? this is like saying that you need to report out why wale is bad instead of just writing that wale is bad

the whitlock piece and the simmons takedown are two functionally different things -- not everyone is a whitlock... the cases against whitlock and simmons are different: one is a bad boss and monster, the other is a hack. those require different pieces -- you don't need to report out whether you think someone is bad at writing

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, May 12, 2015 10:38 AM (1 minute ago)

this is a fair point, sort of limits the impact a piece like that can have tho

sure they are totally different things. like i said, not everyone is a whitlock. that's a very unique situation (for various reasons) which is what has given those pieces their power.

security cam footage of them typing

i hadn't read your post i just quoted yet xp jordan

like i said yesterday given what we know about simmons, that he is generally regarded to be a decent guy if a little egotistical, it's going to be hard to craft a takedown piece with a whole lot of impact. hence what we get are some pieces griping about his writing that amount to not much more than professional jealousy

imo theres a very good takedown or criticism to be written of bill simmons, i think some of these pieces touch on it but no ones really done a comprehensive job

i mean maybe someone has im sure the ones i havent read far out number the ones i have

i think lagoon made some very good points re: simmons's television presence yday, like as an example of legit criticisms to levy bc in that case the product he's pushing, the grantland bball hour, doesn't really work that well (it's not bad as a podcast! he just doesn't have great on-camera presence and those weird animations are dumb as hell). the point being, you could say something like, he's overextended, he should stay in his lane, and that functions as a fair criticism of how his egotism has gotten a bit out of control.

naturally, deadspin has to tie in some shit about how he's TEH VOICE OF BROS, which is funny imo because i know more bros who read deadspin and fucking barstool sports (vomit) for their sports #content than i do sports fans of the bro or non-bro variety who bother to have much of an opinion about simmons.