Minnesota looks to be the easiest candidate given their current closest conference foe is Denver and OKC. Now they would have Milwaukee, Chicago, Indiana, Cleveland and Detroit within a 1.5 to 2 hour flight
Edit: Memphis is another easy one.
The Bill Simmons Thread
- Thread starter RedOctober3829
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Edit: Memphis is another easy one.
Yeah I'm thinking Memphis is the "compromise" team, i.e. Toronto & Boston not needing to make extra trips to New Orleans or Miami trips to Minnesota. That said, I wouldn't wish to face Ja more often in the eastern conference. At least I can talk myself into Zion flaming out due to weight, but Morant will be a force into the distant future IMO.
Move T’Wolves to the Central (Big 10 teams).
Seattle to the Northwest.
Vegas to Pacific or more likely the Southeast.
Done.
...do you mean Southwest?
And I just feel like it'd make more sense to go with four divisions of eight rather than four divisions of five and two divisions of six. That said, I'm not a Port Cellar regular, so what do I know?
Duh. Yeah Southwest. Sorry.
Then you have some symmetry with five in the Pacific, Northwest, Atlantic and Southeast. And six in the Central and Southwest.
Minnesota always felt out of place to me. Like they belong with the other Big 10 teams.
The NBA should scrap divisions. Just go with 2 conferences and balance the schedule that way.
Another great Chris Ryan performance on that one.
“The guy was probably a billionaire. He was so efficient. Think of all the time he saved not having sex because of the premature ejaculation”
“The guy was probably a billionaire. He was so efficient. Think of all the time he saved not having sex because of the premature ejaculation”
Holy self-importance, Batman
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/03/29/sports/bill-simmons-explains-why-he-doesnt-write-columns-anymore/
Wow.
So Simmons' POV is that if not everyone likes what you wrote, it's not worth writing? JFC. This guy is the epitome of an only child.
I can't believe that he said that.
Edit: I just read the rest of the interview and he's fucking delusional.
And now he's saying this shit? What a deluded asshole.
So Simmons' POV is that if not everyone likes what you wrote, it's not worth writing? JFC. This guy is the epitome of an only child.
I can't believe that he said that.
Edit: I just read the rest of the interview and he's fucking delusional.
This sentence, in a nutshell, is Bill Simmons. "I just want to sit around, talk to my friends, get paid a shit load of money to do it and for no one to say anything mean to me." Fuck this guy.
He's complaining about the negativity in this town? He's one of the originators of these hot takes. On his old Boston Sports Guy page (where he got his first taste of fame) he spent inches slamming EEI. Slamming writers like Michael Felger (he was a kiss-ass who laughed at his boss' jokes). Slamming the Boston Herald (They edited my articles and wouldn't let me cover the NBA straight out of college). Ripping Rick Pitino, Jimy Williams, Pete Carroll, Roger Clemens, Derek Jeter. That's all he did. And when he went to ESPN, he did the same thing. "More tapioca, Mr. Robertson?" He was fucking relentless--which was cool, that's one of the main reasons why people liked him, paid attention to him, noticed him in the first place.
And now he's saying this shit? What a deluded asshole.
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People don't want the backlash? Uhh, no Bill, you can't handle the backlash. Plenty of people out there writing great columns and don't give a shit if someone didn't like it. Jesus, be more sensitive.
Agreed with the above but also the nastiness of Boston sports media never improved after 1990? That is not a correct statement. Sure Shank is still Shank but the overall vibe of both the city and the sports media is totally different. 16 years, 11 parades has something to do with it.
I'm confused how a sexual harassment incident (against Olson) led to "sports media" becoming "too negative" in Boston.
I get that they both involve Boston sports media, but... I don't see the cause-and-effect at all, and in fact it's kind of gross to casually link the two without giving some nuance. How the media treats a sexual harassment victim and how they treat local sports teams are not really related. I mean, Anita Hill was testifying about sexual harassment in 1991 and she got some bad treatment too. I just don't get the connection he's trying to make, and it solidifies a strange solipsism that everything is about sports in the world because he's all about sports.
Also, Ted Williams complained about Boston sports media because they treated him like shit. 1990 is not some magical dividing line.
I get that they both involve Boston sports media, but... I don't see the cause-and-effect at all, and in fact it's kind of gross to casually link the two without giving some nuance. How the media treats a sexual harassment victim and how they treat local sports teams are not really related. I mean, Anita Hill was testifying about sexual harassment in 1991 and she got some bad treatment too. I just don't get the connection he's trying to make, and it solidifies a strange solipsism that everything is about sports in the world because he's all about sports.
Also, Ted Williams complained about Boston sports media because they treated him like shit. 1990 is not some magical dividing line.
Sorry guys, but I am fairly certain a multi-millionaire who has lived in LA for almost two decades has a much better handle on the pulse of Boston sports media than anyone posting here.
Simmons writing schtick became "hey look at this thing I did/that happened to me. It's never happened to anyone." It has/did. He got out of writing because his writing was tapped out. No shame in that. He obviously made a successful shift to something else. Shaughnessy, OTOH, writes the same half-dozen columns a hundred times a year.
I know, but I had come around to the idea that a lot of his personality is an act. A caricature. That he plays up many of his "worst" impulses (which aren't really that bad, they are just annoying) for the sake of making interesting listening or to make something happen. Like, for instance, talking about how attractive a female actor is and why she would make a better fit on "the recasting couch" on The Rewatchables. "He's just trying to make Chris Ryan uncomfortable", or so I thought (and still mostly do).
But then he says something genuinely clueless and I just don't know. Like, did he go into that interview thinking he needed to make some sort of Me Too adjacent statement against sexual harassment, or else he'd be canceled? It just seems so out of place and out of character, except to the extent he obviously is afraid of being cancelled.
It occurred to me the other day that Bill's dad was the superintendent of public schools, yet he saw fit for Bill to go to private school. There's something very funny and telling to me about that paradox - "There are rules for them, Bill, but those aren't rules for you." The same guy now believes that his daughter, who grew up in like a $20 million dollar house in Brentwood and also goes to private school, represents the average teenager. He's who he's always been, which is an entitled adult-adjacent narcissist who frankly cannot wrap his head around anything he himself hasn't experienced.
That's not to say he's not talented - he is! Fuck, I wish I had his belief in himself - I'd be much more successful. He's made some incredibly smart decisions, he's got an eye for talent (I don't listen to his podcast, but I like a bunch of the voices on his roster), he's a savvy dealmaker, but he's not really shown any growth since he came onto the scene because Bill, I'm fairly sure, thinks he's perfect and doesn't need to grow.
That's not to say he's not talented - he is! Fuck, I wish I had his belief in himself - I'd be much more successful. He's made some incredibly smart decisions, he's got an eye for talent (I don't listen to his podcast, but I like a bunch of the voices on his roster), he's a savvy dealmaker, but he's not really shown any growth since he came onto the scene because Bill, I'm fairly sure, thinks he's perfect and doesn't need to grow.
Is he Lisa Olson in this narrative? I have no idea why he’s bringing her up. Wasn’t he part of the sportswriter culture growing out of that “debacle”? I don’t remember him ever pushing back on that toxicity or championing women.
Didn’t he live with his mom and wealthy step-father? Thus the private school.
To clarify, the Lisa Olson thing was from his Twitter: "'Everything became so much nastier starting in 1990 with the Lisa Olson debacle (and how horribly she was treated, by nearly everyone), and never improved, Simmons wrote on Twitter at the time." I still don't really get the connection, just saying it's not from this interview.
I thought both parents need to agree on where a kid goes to school even if custody is mostly with one. I'm probably wrong - just seemed funny to me.
This is why he lost my interest. He decided that the best way to go was to stay the same and appeal to new audiences that come along. In general, I stick with "artists" (musicians and writers) who grow and can offer something new with their talents, as well as actual new talents. There's no right or wrong there.
Bill's only real talent is that he believes in himself. He was a good writer. I haven't listened to his podcasts in awhile, but he isn't a particularly deep or unique thinker, and if he has someone on who pushes back on him; he goes to pieces. Despite saying how easy it is to host a TV show, that was an unimigated disaster. He also didn't seem to be good at writing jokes for a late night show, despite years and years of saying how easy that gig is too. I will say that he's good at finding talent. And he's good at making friends with important people (Jimmy Kemmel, John Skipper, to name a few).
As far as the 30/30 documentary series, it was fine; but at the end of the day it was a series of sports documentaries. They didn't hang together (despite his mission statement of "finding the untold and forgotten stories of the last 30 years" and opening with the Wayne Gretzky trade) and while good (and sometimes great), they didn't revolutionize the industry. They could have been on FOX Sports or HBO or a million other places.
IDK, if your metric is that Simmons is good because he makes a lot of money; I won't argue with you. Dude is fucking loaded and has done very, very, very well for himself. If your metric is that Simmons is entertaining, again I won't argue with that. Podcasts are so personal and intimate, if you connect with Bill and his friends, I can't argue with that either. And there is a talent there, I suppose; but it's a medium talent at best. He's just good at promoting the Bill Simmons brand.
I think you're underselling him by saying that his only real talent is that he believes in himself. He's hosted the most popular sports podcast for nearly a decade (I think he still tops on Apple?), and before that he was probably one of the most popular writers on the biggest sports website in the country. He's certainly not perfect, as you pointed out, but you don't accidentally fall into that level of success in industries with a million alternatives for readers/listeners.
I may be. Like I said, Simmons’ podcast isn’t really my cup of tea. The few times I’ve listened to it, he’s done his Bill Simmons schtick with half-baked opinions and no one really pushed back on him.
Which, I mean, it’s his name on the podcast. I guess that’s how it should be. But if you can just waltz into a conversation with some notes and a direction of where you want to go and there’s not a lot of challenge to that, how hard is that? (I honestly don’t know, maybe it’s harder than I think.)
As far as his writing, you should take some time and revisit it. It really doesn’t hold up well. I was as big of a Bill Simmons fan as the next guy, but I think I got caught up in the idea that Simmons was the first writer from my generation that used touchstones and references from movies, TV shows and music I loved.
I didn’t have to read Dan Shaughnessy trotting out his “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” chestnut every time someone in Boston lost his job. It was great that Simmons used a song that was recorded in the last five years to do the same thing.
I thought that was groundbreaking but it wasn’t. It was the same old stuff but with hip hop and grunge lyrics.
Simmons might be a little bit long in the tooth and I skip about 50% of his podcasts at this point in my life.(but never miss a Rewatchables) But the above is just wrong.
What Simmons did from 1998 to 2001 was literally groundbreaking. He was writing in a unique way, in a way no sportswriters had ever written like, on the internet, which was brand new. He was the first person to do this and gain a huge following. He spawned scores of copy cats.
If that isn't groundbreaking, what is?
I think we can believe he's good because he:
- Used his political will at ESPN to have them carve out their own masthead for him (which didn't last, but how many other writers can make that claim)
- Used that experience to create his own media company
- Was able to sell off that media company to Spotify for a large sum of money (because it creates among the most popular podcasts)
I won't argue that his writing holds up - it doesn't to me. He was awful on TV. He's not very funny and I personally find him uncomfortable to listen to on podcasts because he's typically so in search of approval from his guests and cohosts that he talks himself into a pretzel (it's cringeworthy to me).
But... I think he knows when to get the fuck out of the way. That's a skill in itself. I know way too many people in creative fields who have senior leaders that don't trust their subordinates and that ultimately kills productivity along with creativity. Bill clearly is a good manager in that sense, and at this point he's probably better at that than any other skill. It shouldn't be taken for granted that anyone could do what he did because so many haven't done it.
Provide examples.
I read all of his stuff and the diaries are the probably the one thing that he did that no one else did (and that's because no one had the virtual unlimited space that he did). But mailbags were done by other people by then. Gathering links wasn't a new thing. Commenting on other writers wasn't really new. I guess giving using quotes to connect to parts of a season was kind of unique; but he really used a hammer to smash a lot of square pegs into round holes.
And isn't this the part where you tell us that we're all super jealous of Bill Simmons?
I agree with this. Aside from not being pro-union, he seems like a pretty decent boss and gives his people latitude to do what they want. That's definitely a good thing.
Infusing pop culture with sports. Maybe people thought of doing it before but nobody did. Simmons invented the category and genre. That is groundbreaking. I am surprised you don't feel that way, too. You were right in the wheelhouse back in the early 00s.
But he didn't really do that. Like I said, Shaughnessy did a lot of what Simmons did back in the day. He just did it with Boomer references. Yes, Simmons definitely took it further and that's definitely the reason why I was an ardent supporter of his; but he didn't invent this wheel.
Really, CHB? JMOH, is everything ok?
Shaugh wasn't close to what Simmons was doing and I find that to be an insane assertion. Shank was mean, cynical, and nasty. Simmons was earnest, hopeful, and funny.
And Simmons did it on the internet before anyone else. He was literally the first one. He broke the ground.
Yeah the building a sizeable audience writing about sports not at a newspaper or magazine or major online publication like ESPN should be viewed as a really big deal.
I don't know how you can say that he wasn't groundbreaking. Even when he was the Boston Sports Guy on Digital Cities (or whatever it was) my law school buddies who were not from Boston and aren't Boston sports fans were reading him, even when he was writing very Boston-centric stuff. This was because he approached writing about sports completely differently than anyone in print media at the time, or at least anyone I or any of my buddies knew of at the time. He was literally the antithesis of the Shags of the world, which is why we all loved him. Sure there was some luck involved in terms of the explosion of the internet and he capitalized on being able to write long form columns that would never have been printed in any newspaper or magazine. But you can argue that him understanding that in the year 2000 people would take the time to read something that long is in and of itself ground breaking.
You asked who used pop culture refs in their work and I know it’s sucks to hear, but Shaughnessy did it. And if you ever read his stuff in the 80s, actually did it pretty well.
I know it’s really hard to believe.
I would say recent pop culture. By the time most writers had paid their dues at newspapers to the point they were writing features and not about the Duxbury - Scituate football game, both they and most of their pop culture references were dated. I doubt the Globe sports section referenced the Real World or Beverly Hills 90210 too often.
Right. I’m not arguing that. My point is that Simmons was the first sportswriter to mix pop culture and sports.
So did Peter Gammons. Though maybe it was later on in his career.
Pearl Jamming with Peter Gammons and Theo Epstein. The Hot stove and Rock n Roll or whatever they called it.
Fucking AJ LIebling littters his sports writing with pop culture reference. That's not new. He did do it with kind of gen x masshole pop culture that we mostly share so it felt fresh but it's not new.
His ability to get distributed like crazy without a newspaper/tv station/etc because of the internet was new, that's for sure.
His ability to get distributed like crazy without a newspaper/tv station/etc because of the internet was new, that's for sure.
I’m guessing I’m one of the few people here who has been on the receiving end of nasty work emails from Simmons, suggesting I didn’t know how to do much job (spoiler: I did)… and yet I don’t have 1/10th the animosity towards the guy that some of you have.
Of course he has a fairly warped perspective on the world, given his upbringing and current lifestyle. Given the demographics of this site, so do we.
Of course he has a fairly warped perspective on the world, given his upbringing and current lifestyle. Given the demographics of this site, so do we.
IIRC Gammons was the first main stream reporter to blend sports and culture (mostly musical references) with his ground breaking must read Sunday Baseball notes. But Gammons probably took notes from George Kimball. And then he told Clark Booth. Shank was a Crusader in Worcester while Gammons was breaking ground on Morrissey Blvd.
IIRC Simmons was the first to introduce the genre and tap the WWW
IIRC Simmons was the first to introduce the genre and tap the WWW
The absolute low light of my marriage is still my wife saying she thinks Bill Simmons is smarter than me.
Probably retaliation, 8 years later, for when we were dating and I said her body was a 10 and her face is a 7. I really just meant to show how serious I was about her having a great body, but it is probably the single dumbest thing I've ever said.
Probably retaliation, 8 years later, for when we were dating and I said her body was a 10 and her face is a 7. I really just meant to show how serious I was about her having a great body, but it is probably the single dumbest thing I've ever said.
Where's the animosity? I'm seeing mostly disappointment and disagreement, with some debate as to the degree of his contributions. People talking about his upbringing (namely me) are contextualizing why he can be so out of touch with reality and say the kind of dumb shit that gets this thread bumped.
The guy is a millionaire several hundred times over, he has a huge audience, and he has a pretty large sphere of influence. If there's a person who should be discussed, dissected, and held to account on a messageboard about sports media, it's him.
This incredible. And I’m not sure if it was intentional or not but tying together a thread discussing how groundbreaking Simmons was with a movie reference is pretty meta.
I think.
I think Pervis Ellison is the key to the Celtics this year.
I love the Carl Crawford signing
Cop Rock would work today.
I did a magic trick in a job interview once...
There's a lot of stuff.