In his latest column, Bill Simmons takes the NBA to task for its poor officiating. It’s a good (if long) read.
Tag: Bill Simmons (Page 10 of 16)
…when I read a Bill Simmons mailbag.
Anyway, there was a really funny moment Thursday that could have only happened at a Lakers game. Near the end of a third-quarter timeout, the camera caught Val Kilmer and three of his chins on the JumboTron, punctuating the moment by playing “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins. You know, a “Top Gun” homage. He took a second or two to get the joke, then unleashed one of those “Very funny, you got me, just know that I’m on a lot of meds right now” smiles. And this would have been enjoyable on its own, but they cut to someone else in the stands. …
That’s right. …
Tom Cruise!
He caught on a little quicker and did the Tom Cruise Over-Laugh. And this would have been great on its own, but the Lakers pushed it to another level: They went split-screen with Kilmer and Cruise with “Danger Zone” still blasting. As far as I was concerned, this was the most emotional reunion in Lakers history. Cruise kept laughing; Kilmer looked mildly perturbed. (After all, he’s an actor, dammit! That was 23 years ago! He’s made a lot of movies since then!) At this point, I was praying they’d cut to Anthony Edwards in Section 312 but he wasn’t there.
Ha! Great one about Anthony Edwards sitting in the upper level.
Last year, when the Bucks had a GM opening, Bill Simmons started a campaign to fill the position. Fortunately, the Bucks hired John Hammond.
Fast forward a year, and Simmons is campaigning for the open Minnesota GM job, punctuated by this beauty in his so-called “epic” conversation with author Malcom Gladwell (the guy who thinks all underdogs should utilize the full-court press).
NBA teams rarely, if ever, think outside the box, and that’s one of at least 50 reasons why I could succeed as a GM.
This started out as a semi-joke, but I think over the course of the last year, Simmons’ ego, along with a few thousand emails of support from his readers, have convinced himself that he’s actually qualified to run an NBA franchise.
Look around the league and you’ll find that NBA general managers are usually former players, had front-office experience prior to getting the keys to a franchise, have advanced degrees in business and have an deep understanding of the salary cap and of how the fiscal side of the NBA works. Bill’s greatest strength is his ability to compare an athlete to a character to some random movie from the ’80s. What’s he going to do — sit Kevin Love down and tell him that his game reminds him of Chubby from “Teen Wolf”? How does this get the T-Wolves to the playoffs?
To me, the big question is whether or not Simmons keeps this up. Is he going to campaign for every open general manager position until he gets one (or more likely, dies of old age)? Or is there a certain point when all this I-can-run-an-NBA-team talk becomes so sad that he eventually just gives it up?
There’s no doubt about it — Simmons is an entertaining sportswriter, maybe the best in the stream-of-consciousness/pop-culture business. But he needs a reality check, and there’s no way to give it to him.
Rookies Michael Beasley and Mario Chalmers were fined before the season by the NBA and during the season by the Heat for breaking team rules.
The number of fines not only caught the attention of Heat President Pat Riley, but had team staffers addressing the rookies during the season about the penalties that were subtracted from their paychecks.
Spoelstra said none of the fines was for missing practice or showing up late for such sessions, declining to go into detail about the volume or specifics.
“In terms of your actual practice time, [Beasley] wouldn’t miss practice, he was never late for practice, he wouldn’t miss a turn in practice,” the first-year coach said. “And once you get out there and get him on the practice floor, he’ll work for you, he’ll drill for you, he’s coachable.
“It’s all the other things behind the scenes. That’s part of maturing.”
Beasley acknowledged work remains.
“When it comes to playing and it comes to game time and doing my job, I’m always on time, I’m professional,” he said. “There’s some stuff I’ve still got to work on.”
I don’t know whether or not it is deserved, but Beasley already has a little bit of a bad rep when it comes to his attitude. Bill Simmons had some harsh words for Beasley, though I doubt he attended any Heat practices or has ever met the rookie.
[Discussing Jason Thompson] You know, if Michael Beasley wasn’t such a colossal disappointment and semi-fraud, the 2008 draft could have ranked among the best ever.
[Discussing Jeff Green] Great teammate, tough as nails, gives a crap, does whatever you need. He’s the anti-Beasley.
These words prompted me to ask, “What kind of rookie season is Michael Beasley having?” back in February. Statistically, his rookie season was pretty solid, so whatever reputation he’s building has to do with the qualitative aspects of the game. It’s going to be interesting to see how he progresses in his second season.
Predictably, Bill Simmons was not happy about which team was on the losing end of the brilliant, triple-overtime Game 6 of the Boston/Chicago series, but that didn’t stop him from writing an eloquent column about how the series represents everything we look for as sports fans.
We love sports for the simple reason that we never know when this will happen. It rarely does. We watch a lot of crummy games. We watch sporting events that had potential to be great and weren’t. We watch sporting events that almost made it, but one dumb thing happened to screw it up: A foul at the wrong time, a penalty, a two-base error, whatever. We keep watching. We keep hoping. And when everything clicks, it’s blissful. I am hearing from people who haven’t e-mailed me in years. Readers are sending me 700-word e-mails. The thing that keeps jumping out: Even fans without rooting interests have gotten swept up in this series. How can you not?
Think of all the crap we deal with as fans. “Bulls-Celtics 2009” explains why we put up with every story about Clemens and Bonds and Michael Vick and Terrell Owens and everyone else who conspires to make sports less fun. On the same day of Game 6, a story broke that Alex Rodriguez was allegedly seen with human growth hormone. The story was digested and consumed in the same predictably brief cycle: Mainstream Web sites and blogs and message boards and sports radio first, then “PTI” and “Around the Horn,” then “SportsCenter,” then newspapers and magazines. You can either throw yourself into that cycle or look the other way. I am getting older. I just want to watch sports. I have trained myself to look the other way. This stuff clutters my brain, and not in a good way. I just want to watch sports. I just want to watch sports.
This is the best first round series I’ve ever seen. As a Bucks fan, I’m supposed to hate all Chicago teams, but I can’t help but root for these young Bulls. My only worry is that there has been such an emotional buildup in this series that Game 7 can’t possibly live up to expectations. The worst thing that could happen would be for one team to come out and lay an egg.
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