Bill Simmons: Good Luck With Your Life.

mcpickl

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DeJesus Built My Hotrod said:
 
Has there ever been definitive proof that he, in fact, raped the girl?  If there is, then to hell with him but my understanding of the case is that she was a bit unbalanced and either had second thoughts after the fact or made the allegations for attention.  
 
If it was consensual, I have no problem with the guy - he was 25 and she was 19.  
Here is the police report on the incident.
 
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/kobe-bryant-police-interview?page=0
 
Don't know if it qualifies as definitive proof, but I don't think he comes off like he's been falsely accused.
 

Drocca

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Reading it now. Very interesting. Extremely defensive at first, worried about his career before they bring up anything. Denies having sexual intercourse with her.
 

Drocca

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Now he's trying to 'settle this.' Does not care what the girl says, is worried that his wife will be pissed at the allegations.
 

Drocca

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He interrupts the detective explaining a young woman is bleeding and has cuts on her vagina to say, "she's not that attractive."
 

luckiestman

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Kliq said:
 
A rumor is that Kobe went for "The Trinity" which apparently is something that most NBA-groupies are familiar with, and she didn't go for it. Just a rumor, I know nothing beyond that.
 
 
I read about this rumor a long time ago and it makes sense from what I remember about the case.
 
Society's position seems to be, if you are still awesome...all is forgiven.  If you are a washed up RB or old comedian...we're coming for you. Purple Jesus could have beaten his kid at almost any other time and walked on it. Too bad for him the cognitive dissonance would have been way too high after the Ray Rice KO.
 

Drocca

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Kliq said:
Let us now if you find out a breakthrough in the case.
He stopped when she said 'no' to his request to ejaculate on her face. In addition, he frequently engages in a similar sexual activity (i.e. choking, penetration from behind) with Michelle.

Also, his cell phone number is in there as well.
 

Reverend

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DeJesus Built My Hotrod said:
 
I just read this on Wikipedia and it suggests she did, in fact, have emotional issues.  I am not saying its true  and its clear that Bryant had a huge advantage in terms of resources available to him for his defense so I am always wary there.  That said, the guy was,a the time, the best basketball player on the planet and by all accounts a pretty bright guy.  I know those circumstances don't preclude someone from being a rapist but it seems to be incredibly stupid and short-sighted for him to force himself on a woman.  And unlike Bill Cosby or other alleged rapists, there aren't scores of allegations that suggest a pattern for Bryant.  
 
 
Marciano490 said:
 
Her blood was on his shirt, I remember that being pretty damning.  I think there was also something about him going for anal and her not being into that, but I could be misremembering.  At any rate, at best he's a married dude sodomizing a teenaged girl in a hotel room. 
 
 
Shelterdog said:
 
There was also a settlement of her civil suit and a lot of "reporting" claiming it was a multi million dollar settlement.  Who knows if that's true.
 
And of course there was Kobe's statement made at some point as part of a settlement with her
 
I also want to make it clear that I do not question the motives of this young woman. No money has been paid to this woman. She has agreed that this statement will not be used against me in the civil case. Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter.
 
(As an aside the "no money has been paid to this woman" is a kind of language I've seen in press releases a number of times where the individual does in fact get compensated, but the money goes to a trust or corporation and not to the individual). 
 
I've posted elsewhere that I have, in the past, become very familiar with cases of sexual assault and battery where I became convinced that the attacker really didn't know he had done it. Through some combination of self-absorption or not giving a shit and thinking that's just what hooking up is, he manages to just run roughshod over the will of the victim.
 
I think Kobe is probably a good candidate for pulling that off. I knew a very good psychoanalyst whose son played ball with Kobe when they were teenagers and he indicated that Kobe was basically a basketball robot who was... weird, and not in a good way. Like, not fully a person.
 
One way or another, we know that this young woman showed him around the place and then he had sex with her almost immediately upon getting to his room.
 
Having sex with a stranger within minutes of getting to your hotel room is a lifestyle.
 
Having now gone back and listened to the podcast of Bill and Jalen's chat with Kobe, while I really enjoyed their exchanges and feel enriched for having heard them, I can't help but think the net effect is a loss for me. Conversations like these are what has made Simmons become who Simmons is today: you can no longer write well from a fan's perspective when you've had deep and meaningful conversations with the likes of Kobe Bryant. Wasn't it more fun when Simmons hated Isiah Thomas than it is now that Thomas has explained "the secret" to him? I mean, I'm not sure I want to live in a world where Bill Simmons kinda likes Kobe Bryant. (Because you know that's where Simmons is headed, right?) Or to put it another way, the more good stuff like this we get from Simmons, the less old-style good stuff we're ever going to get from him...and whereas I trust other writers like Posnanski to be able to tease great conversations out of people like Kobe, I'm not aware of anyone writing today who is able to connect with smart (and not-so-smart) sports fans as fans in the same way Simmons did 15 years ago.
 

luckiestman

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ConigliarosPotential said:
Having now gone back and listened to the podcast of Bill and Jalen's chat with Kobe, while I really enjoyed their exchanges and feel enriched for having heard them, I can't help but think the net effect is a loss for me. Conversations like these are what has made Simmons become who Simmons is today: you can no longer write well from a fan's perspective when you've had deep and meaningful conversations with the likes of Kobe Bryant. Wasn't it more fun when Simmons hated Isiah Thomas than it is now that Thomas has explained "the secret" to him? I mean, I'm not sure I want to live in a world where Bill Simmons kinda likes Kobe Bryant. (Because you know that's where Simmons is headed, right?) Or to put it another way, the more good stuff like this we get from Simmons, the less old-style good stuff we're ever going to get from him...and whereas I trust other writers like Posnanski to be able to tease great conversations out of people like Kobe, I'm not aware of anyone writing today who is able to connect with smart (and not-so-smart) sports fans as fans in the same way Simmons did 15 years ago.
Let it go, let it go, the past is in the past
 

Blacken

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Bill's podcast with Doug Collins is must-listen. People goof on Collins, but that's a good dude.
 

crystalline

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ConigliarosPotential said:
Conversations like these are what has made Simmons become who Simmons is today: you can no longer write well from a fan's perspective when you've had deep and meaningful conversations with the likes of Kobe Bryant. I mean, I'm not sure I want to live in a world where Bill Simmons kinda likes Kobe Bryant.
I don't know. After listening to that podcast *I* kinda like Kobe Bryant.
 

Blacken

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I gave up on "sports hate" and similar degeneracies of the stupid a while ago, and I honestly can't hate Kobe Bryant. I have to respect his conviction that, no, Father Time is a chump and I'll prove it to everyone. I wouldn't want to know the guy personally, for reasons elaborated on upthread, but the world will be a poorer place when he isn't doing Kobe things.

He's wrong about beating Father Time, but the attempt is worth something.
 

crystalline

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Don't get me wrong, if I were Paul Pierce I'd be talking trash to Kobe that I was playing (pretty well) and he was not. And if I were on a team with Kobe I bet he'd really annoy me.

However he comes off well in the podcast. Kobe talked honestly about his whole life revolving around basketball (unlike some other NBA guys, which he was surprised to find when he entered the league), and how he needed to find something else to do with himself. Because he's going to be done with basketball soon.

To some extent you have to respect someone that works that hard. (Except for Ray Allen. Traitor.)
 

Scoops Bolling

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Good lord, that Irving column...what percentage of that was actually about Irving as opposed to Bill blowing smoke up his own ass? 10% 20%? I don't know why I bother anymore.
 

ifmanis5

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Scoops Bolling said:
Good lord, that Irving column...what percentage of that was actually about Irving as opposed to Bill blowing smoke up his own ass? 10% 20%? I don't know why I bother anymore.
Good Bill thing 'came around' on Kyrie after he nearly dropped 60 on the Spurs. It takes a big man to admit he was wrong  is getting smarter all the time!
 

Blacken

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I'm surprised you could get riled up by a column where he called himself wrong a bunch of times, and not even in that "but but but" way he sometimes does.
 

ifmanis5

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Blacken said:
I'm surprised you could get riled up by a column where he called himself wrong a bunch of times, and not even in that "but but but" way he sometimes does.
I'm not riled up. That whole column was about how Bill talked to a lot of famous people and they made him smarter.
 

luckiestman

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ifmanis5 said:
I'm not riled up. That whole column was about how Bill talked to a lot of famous people and they made him smarter.
 
I agree with Blacken. It read to me more like "I was wrong, all these guys were right and it is because they are players and I am a fanatic."  
 

ifmanis5

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Maybe I'm cynical but that was a lot of words about 'hey, look at me.' Of course, the whole gimmick of the value column (which is now many columns because he only writes NBA and NFL now) is more about what he thinks about players and not so much about the actual players anyhow, so I shouldn't be surprised when most of it is about him. Which that was.
 

nattysez

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As you'd expect, Drew Magary had the same reaction as Scoops:  http://deadspin.com/bill-simmons-is-a-name-dropping-waste-1691345977
 
Magary's column seems a over-the-top to me.  If Simmons had said, "I had a very firm belief about Irving's value.  As one should, I then went and talked to NBA experts of different stripes, and they all told me I was wrong," Magary wouldn't have said anything.  But because Simmons instead wrote it in his usual manner, he's called a name-dropping jerk.  I think that's a little unfair.
 

The Social Chair

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Having to break down a Simmons column (in 2015!) to fill a content farm quota is probably why Magary is so over the top mad. 
 
The funny part is that Simmons thinks the Trade Value Column has to stand as a definitive and constantly up-to-date record of his opinions instead of representing a snapshot of one moment in time, which is all pretty much every other column ever aspires to. If he just wrote the bloody column and published it in one go, he might understand that instead of trying to tweak everything to remain current...although now that I think about it, I don't think he can stop fiddling with his pyramid or whatever he calls his ranking of the best NBA players of all time (in his Book of Basketball). At this rate he'll soon start publishing a quarterly or even monthly Trade Value Power Rankings list.
 

luckiestman

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ConigliarosPotential said:
The funny part is that Simmons thinks the Trade Value Column has to stand as a definitive and constantly up-to-date record of his opinions instead of representing a snapshot of one moment in time, which is all pretty much every other column ever aspires to. If he just wrote the bloody column and published it in one go, he might understand that instead of trying to tweak everything to remain current...although now that I think about it, I don't think he can stop fiddling with his pyramid or whatever he calls his ranking of the best NBA players of all time (in his Book of Basketball). At this rate he'll soon start publishing a quarterly or even monthly Trade Value Power Rankings list.
Maybe the guy is just having fun and writing fun stuff. I love what Simmons is doing with his nba coverage. I don't know who drew magary is but if his job is making money by writing that bill simmons is a name dropper it is a weird parasitic sad life to lead.
 

nattysez

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luckiestman said:
Maybe the guy is just having fun and writing fun stuff. I love what Simmons is doing with his nba coverage. I don't know who drew magary is but if his job is making money by writing that bill simmons is a name dropper it is a weird parasitic sad life to lead.
Magary has written three books, writes for GQ, has a popular weekly column on Deadspin during the football season, and is actually a pretty entertaining writer. He's not for everyone, but judging him based on one over-the-top piece is unfair. He does have a well-established dislike of Simmons, which I think is why this piece is so strident. It'd kind of be like judging drleather based only on his Peter King posts.
 

Leather

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nattysez said:
As you'd expect, Drew Magary had the same reaction as Scoops:  http://deadspin.com/bill-simmons-is-a-name-dropping-waste-1691345977
 
Magary's column seems a over-the-top to me.  If Simmons had said, "I had a very firm belief about Irving's value.  As one should, I then went and talked to NBA experts of different stripes, and they all told me I was wrong," Magary wouldn't have said anything.  But because Simmons instead wrote it in his usual manner, he's called a name-dropping jerk.  I think that's a little unfair.
But that's his point.

The name dropping is entirely gratuitous and does nothing to further the point that Kyrie is, you know, a good player. Simmons doesn't write the way you posed; if he did, this thread would be 50 posts long. It's like saying "If Dan Shaughnessy just reported on sports, people would like him. But because he acts like himself and deliberately stirs shit, people don't like him. That's a little unfair."
 

ifmanis5

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Blacken said:
Cynical is not the word I'd use.
Okay, I'll step up my game. The whole column was one long Humblebrag.
 
And I can do it too. I was lucky enough to sit down with Margot Robbie, Anne Hathaway and Scarlett Johansson recently. They all told me that Emma Stone is actually hotter than I previously thought. Thanks ladies, I love my job! And scene.
 

nattysez

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drleather2001 said:
But that's his point.

The name dropping is entirely gratuitous and does nothing to further the point that Kyrie is, you know, a good player. Simmons doesn't write the way you posed; if he did, this thread would be 50 posts long. It's like saying "If Dan Shaughnessy just reported on sports, people would like him. But because he acts like himself and deliberately stirs shit, people don't like him. That's a little unfair."
CHB finds the most trollish way to criticize the local teams. If he were less talented, he'd be Eric Wilbur. His schtick would irritate no matter what, because there is no way to make his basic point - "these guys stink and you're a rube for following them" - without irritating everyone.

If you want to look at this in the fairest way to Simmons, he's acting like a wide-eyed fan who can't believe he had access to these great basketball minds who changed his mind about Kyrie and is telling people about them to lend credence to his point and better explain his change of heart. That may be a charitable interpretation, but barring him from citing his sources lest he be accused of name-dropping seems unfair.

Anyway, this exceeds my quota of positive things to say about Simmons for the month, so I'll leave it at that.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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Here's the thing though, Simmons is probably one of the most recognized NBA voices in the sport. We know this and he knows this too, why does he need to bust a nut telling us how he got to talk these people? They're all his colleagues. And furthermore, even if most of these guys weren't his colleagues, sports is his beat. He knows athletes. Bob Ryan knows athletes. Dan Shaughnessy knows athletes. Nick fucking Cafardo knows athletes. And some of these athletes are friends (or friendly) with these reporters (the more common word is a "source") yet I've never seen a writer drop so many names in a story. 
 
This looks like it was written by Chris Farley, not a guy who has been writing for 20 years. 
 

Kliq

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I haven't read that column yet, but how could his opinion change on Kyrie after one game? I watched the whole game live and you know what I learned about Kyrie that I didn't know before? Nothing! I already knew Kyrie was a very creative scorer that can get hot, make tough layups, and as a flair for the dramatic. I still don't know if he can play good defense, or run an offense for a playoff series. I should probably read the column, but a lot of the question marks about Kyrie still remain.
 

nattysez

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This is worth a read about Simmons's future.
 
Three highlights:
 
(1) Bill doesn't prep for podcasts.  Explains a lot.
 
You had an iPad in front of you during that interview, but it didn’t look you were looking at it. Do you do much prep for all of these?
I try not to prep, because I think it can ruin how it can go. Which is the opposite of a late-night show. I don’t want to have notes. If people think you’re looking at notes, and following some sort of script that you’ve laid out ahead of time, they check out a little bit. Especially if your eye contact is like [looks down] — I just think it’s bad. So what we’ve tried to create is a conversation. I’m right here.
 
 
(2) I thought this was interesting -- looks like he's ready to take a step back soon.
 
So that conversation has to happen first. And then you have to have a conversation afterward about me, and what I want to do. I still feel like I have five years left, where I can work at this pace. In five years I’m going to be 50, and I don’t know how hard I’m going to be able to work. I know how hard I work now. I don’t know if it’s going to be sustainable.
 
 
(3) He goes on at some length about, essentially, Grantland being underfunded and ESPN not being willing to spend the money to turn Grantland into something huge.  I suspect Bill's angling at having Grantland turned into a separately-branded content studio, but maybe others in the business can better interpret what he's saying. The interview ends with this, about ESPN: 
 
I think they take it for granted. Not just how hard I work, but how hard everybody works.
 
 

joe dokes

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I think they take it for granted. Not just how hard I work, but how hard everybody works.
 
 
 
I have no doubt that there are back-room underlings at ESPN that work hard and are taken for granted.  But if his salary is close to accurately reported, it would be hard to call him taken for granted.
 

ifmanis5

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joe dokes said:
I have no doubt that there are back-room underlings at ESPN that work hard and are taken for granted. 
I can attest to that. However, I don't mind Bill lobbying for his staff. All managers should do that but often don't, ESPN included.
Also, I do think he wants Grantland to be as good as it can be and he should get props for being aggressive on that front. What he should get ribbed for is writing trash columns which he does more often than not, even when it's NBA related.
 

Marciano490

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In five years I’m going to be 50, and I don’t know how hard I’m going to be able to work. I know how hard I work now. I don’t know if it’s going to be sustainable.
 
 
Bernard Hopkins held the light heavyweight title at 49;  Bill Simmons doesn't think he can continue writing about sports into his fifties.
 

luckiestman

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JohntheBaptist said:
Why does prepping for a podcast mean you have to have your head down buried in an iPad when it happens?
 
 
Simmons might be wrong about prepping but I agree with the conversation aspect. I saw Larry David and Rick Gervais talking about bad interviews where the interviewer is not interested in having a conversation and just following a list of questions. Go to 4:55 of this video
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VROjPCGA7j0