Well, it's finally here. Brewing for more than two years and brought violently forth as I slogged through The Book of Basketball was an all-in-good-fun tirade against Bill Simmons, the ESPN blogger extraordinaire whose Grantland website launched earlier this year. Now it's written, organized into a list of 33 reasons (the number an ode to The Sports Guy himself) and filled with the stretching-it analogies, random pop culture references and mindless footnotes for which he is famous. Plus, it'll serve as my gift to Simmons because it arrives just in time for his Sept. 25 birthday. And, best of all, its title is based on a popular meme, the Manning Face, that is often attributed to Simmons -- even though it was conceived by a reader.
So what, then, is the Manning Face? It's is a grimace of frustration, a look of angry dejection, an expression of utter hopelessness. It's how a quarterback reacts when his receiver drops a perfect pass with the game on the line, or what a basketball coach is thinking when his player calls timeout after all the team's timeouts have been used. It's also how I feel when I read Bill Simmons' work.
The anticipation is palpable, so here's the rundown (and I know you carefully process every word of Simmons' columns, so the length of this piece won't deter you at all):
33. I Think, Therefore I'm Right
That heading pretty much sums up Bill Simmons' philosophy on writing. Why? He hardly does any reporting, relying instead on other journalists and columnists for angles, stories and quotes. He is to sports what Jay Leno is to news: Leno sits back while journalists uncover the day's news, then takes their collective work and turns it into a humor-laced monologue. The Book might as well have been a copy of David Halberstam's The Breaks of the Game with Simmons' notes in the margins; that's how frequently he leans on Halberstam for the meat of his assertions. Yes, there is a space -- even a need -- for outside commentary in sports journalism, but it doesn't have to come from a guy whose son's middle name is Oakley.1
32. When $h!t Hits The Fan
One of the supposed factors in Bill Simmons' meteoric rise is his fan-centric perspective; people enjoy reading his work because he, they say, is like one of us. But is he really? Maybe he was as the Boston Sports Guy, when his audience and ego were much smaller -- when he, too, was an outsider. Now, though, Simmons is a full-fledged media personality with an ESPN paycheck, easy access to the most prominent sports celebrities and connections to the most influential people in the sporting world. Which is all well and good, but let's face it: Fans don't get to interview David Stern or sit poolside in Las Vegas with Isiah Thomas. Fans don't get to direct and produce videos with the backing of the Worldwide Leader. He'd like you to think otherwise, but Bill Simmons is an insider parading as a fan.2
31. Pyramid of Failure
The funny thing about the conceptual Pyramid of NBA legends -- the driving force behind The Book -- is that Bill Simmons rarely follows the complex rubric that he rolls out during its introduction. We learn, eventually, that there isn't much rhyme or reason to it at all. For one, the player profiles are formulaic and bland: Each athlete was some combination of the greatest ever (in his era, at his position, considering his circumstances); or had unrivaled talent but didn't put it to use because of various maladies (drugs, injuries, woeful work ethic, bad timing); or wasn't all that impressive but is nonetheless remembered for one legacy (moment, move, style or off-court incident). Then, in the final segment of his Pyramid chapter, Simmons defends Michael Jordan as the greatest player of all time as much via personal anecdote -- Stop the presses! Simmons and MJ were once at the same upscale restaurant! -- as through memorable moments in the highlight-filled career of His Airness. It calls into question any grains of logic that existed between No. 96 and No. 1.
30. Tyranny of Statistics
The purpose of The Book -- to determine the best players and teams in NBA history -- is supposedly based on the premise that statistics cannot capture a player's essence like stories, anecdotes and colleague evaluations can. But what dominates The Book more than anything? Numerical data -- page after page after page of percentages, ratios and averages. In fact, The Book has more numbers than any book I've read save for Introduction to Algebra.3 True or not, it feels as though Simmons uses statistics to accomplish one of the following goals: support previously formed opinions; fill in where stories and anecdotes fell short; confuse the reader into buying a ridiculous argument; or maintain his status as an alleged research guru in the Google age.
29. D'oh! Excessive Homerism, Part I
Did you know that Bill Simmons is from Boston? (Of course you did.) Well, he writes his columns as if he's the protagonist in Memento and needs tangible reminders -- of his birthplace, his favorite teams and his most cherished sports memories -- to survive. His incessant doting on the Red Sox, Celtics, Patriots and Bruins is hard enough to stomach, and he complements that annoying adoration with childish jabbing at the Lakers and other rivals. But karma, as they say, is a boomerang:
28. Attempted Persuasion Through Personal Anecdote
An early example of classic Simmons: "Once upon a time, the Boston Garden fans cheered [John Havlicek] for 510 seconds," he writes. "And I was there. I was in the building. I cheered for every one of those 510 seconds ... " (p. 25). It's composed as if Simmons' presence makes that moment more memorable to the sports world, when in reality it serves as an obstacle. Perhaps Bottom of The Barrel says it best: Bill Simmons "does not believe in the existence of dinosaurs. You know why? If Bill Simmons does not experience something firsthand, then that event did not happen ... " We'll call this the Bill Simmons Test.
27. Mail Fraud
Mail Fraud is Bill Simmons' nickname for Karl Malone, but I'm starting to wonder if it might also work as an alias for the man behind the insanely long and incoherent mailbag columns.4 Why people feel compelled to submit their own rambling drivel to The Sports Guy is beyond me. Why people feel compelled to read other readers' rambling drivel is even more beyond me. Hey, those would be two great questions for the next mailbag!
26. In 140 Characters or Fewer
No one man should have all those Twitter followers (more than 1.4 million). Well, maybe some men should. #JustNotBillSimmons
25. The Next David Kahn?
One of things that most irks me about Bill Simmons is his know-it-all ego as a Monday morning quarterback. Yes, we all do it: As passionate sports fans, we slam general managers and front office personnel for the moves they make, somehow knowing in our hearts that we would've made better decisions about our favorite teams if we were in their shoes. Simmons, though, is ruthless; he takes swings players, coaches and GMs alike, always using hindsight to his advantage in proving his points. Honestly, I'd like to see him try to rebuild a struggling franchise. And honestly, I don't think he'd do much better than sportswriter-turned-Timberwolves-exec David Kahn. His tenure would probably last about as long as Stephen Colbert's presidential candidacy.
24. What's in a Name?
There's something about The Sports Guy that reeks of arrogance -- namely, his nickname. It would be like referring to Simon Cowell as The Entertainment Guy or Wolf Blitzer as The News Guy. Sorry, but neither the former "American Idol" host nor the CNN anchor deserve those overly generic aliases, and the same is true for Bill Simmons. I, for one, approve of Jimmy Kimmel's suggestion for a replacement nickname:
23. Going to Court
I would do something crazy -- read a Boston-bred blogger's rambling 700-page book, say -- for a chance to play basketball one-on-one against Bill Simmons. I don't care that he once scored over Paul Pierce; I feel confident that I would destroy him. He would wear a Kevin McHale jersey. I would wear a Magic Johnson jersey and devastate him with a baby sky hook. Or maybe I'd go with a Ron Artest jersey and secure the win with a three-pointer from the wing. In any case, he'll need ankle insurance. We'd have to get a bet going, too. If I win, Bill Simmons has to stop writing until the Clippers win a championship. If he wins ... well, there's no way he's winning.
22. Grammar Fail, Part I
The first (observed) typo in The Book will be used against Simmons, of course, and not against his editors. Read the following sentence, if you can bear it: "I would have rather been playing blackjack and drinking vodka lemonades then figuring out how to cajole a pissed-off NBA legend" (p. 35). Perhaps we should put this in terms that Simmons would understand: Optimistic coach Graham Mer had so much faith in Player E's potential that he was willing to bench Player A despite the latter's countless clutch performances for Team Than in these kinds of situations.
21. The Pisa Postulate
Simmons, after responding to a question of his own with an all-caps answer, takes a dig at Stephen A. Smith by painting the annoying ESPN personality5 as the embodiment of "What would it be like if somebody argued about sports with their CAPS LOCK on?" (p. 66) And yet, Simmons does THE EXACT SAME THING. Only he usually opts for italicized text instead of the caps key in a failed attempt to make his overemphasis on emphasis more subtle. In Chapter Two alone, Simmons uses italics not once, not twice, but 11 times (not including all of the book references, of course). This kind of abuse begs an introduction to The Pisa Postulate, which states that words sound more important than they actually are when they're leaning to the side.
20. Heavy-Duty Stapler
Bill Simmons immediately loses credibility as a basketball writer because he is also a Clippers' season-ticket holder. No wonder he thinks [insert name of decent NBA player here] is a venomous killer -- he watched the guy drop 40 on the most woeful franchise in the league! Simmons inexplicably wrote in 2006, "Something about this franchise sucks people in." Maybe it attracts losers like, say, the Clippers.
19. Grammar Fail, Part II
Amid a juxtaposition of the O.J. Simpson trial and the Russell-Chamberlain debate, we find a typographical error: " ... many of the dense jurors couldn't understood the damaging DNA evidence in the pre-CSI era" (p. 58). Sounds like an interesting segue. Too bad I couldn't understood that sentence.
18. Grammar Fail, Part III
This one's probably just another typo, but it's just as hard to digest: "Still, we have to penalize [Dolph Schayes] for excelling as a set-shooting, slow-as-molasses power forward during an time when black players were few and far between" (p. 379). An time? Considering all the typos in The Book, I can only imagine how many errors the editor(s) did catch.
17. Caucasian Confusion
In one of The Book's gazillion footnotes, Simmons lists single-game records for common statistics like points, rebounds and blocks -- by Caucasians. It reads: "Pete Maravich holds the white-guy record for points (68); Jerry Lucas for rebounds (40); Mark Eaton for blocks (14); Dirk Nowitzki/John Stockton for steals (9); and Dan Majerle/Rex Chapman for threes (9). Peja Stojakovic had 10 threes in a game but I don't count the Euros as true white guys. Just a personal thing with me" (p. 109). OK, excluding Stojakovic from this list is kind of funny; he's taking a little jab at the seemingly endless influx of overseas talent and, um ... wait a second ... Nowitzki is eligible, but Stojakovic isn't? The footnote went from humorous to puzzling faster than the plot of The Hangover.
16. Pardon The Interruption
Why didn't ESPN executives read this book? Astonishingly, we get Simmons to cede that he's not meant to be on television (p. 121). This admission, rather sadly, comes after numerous unbearable appearances as a backup co-host on PTI, among other programs.6
15. Serving Up a Facial!
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| Image source: @PTI |
Speaking of PTI, we're using this opportunity to take jabs at Simmons for the ridiculous mustache he debuted on the show during the summer of 2011. Part of me thinks he's trying to be Larry Bird, a childhood-and-also-adulthood hero of Simmons. Part of me thinks he's trying to be the title character from V for Vendetta, which isn't a bad idea considering Guy Fawkes might be more likable than Simmons. The rest of me thinks he grew the mustache to cover up a hideous "CHAMBERLAIN > RUSSELL" tattoo that he was forced to get after losing a sports bet with a friend. I'm hoping it's the third option.
14. D'oh! Excessive Homerism, Part II
Simmons' brain is washed, like Jason Bourne's in Operation Treadstone, with unbridled lust for Boston sports franchises. Case in point: After calling Bill Laimbeer a "world-class douche" (and excluding the former Detroit Pistons bad boy from his sacred Pyramid), Simmons shows his true colors by writing, "I would have loved him if he'd played for the Celtics" (p. 279). It would be like saying, "I absolutely can't stand my friend's girlfriend, but I would have dated her in a second."
13. The Sin of Self-Inclusion
Simmons blatantly commits what we'll call The Sin of Self-Inclusion, a cardinal crime in sports fandom wherein spectators employ collective pronouns to discuss their favorite teams. Exhibit A: "Sometimes when the Garden was quiet -- and that happened a lot, since we only won 32 games ... " (p. 135). It is true that the Boston Celtics won 32 games in 1977-78; curiously, however, The Sports Guy is nowhere to be found on the roster.7 So what gives him the right to use "we" in writing about his beloved Leprechauns? He didn't practice with the team or coach it to victory. He didn't log any minutes. He didn't score a single basket. When fans buy tickets to sporting events, they are not purchasing credit for the home team's successes. Not to diminish the importance of the fan to professional sports -- the latter would not exist without the former -- but "We won the pennant!" is not an appropriate substitute for "They won the pennant, and I am elated!"
12. Grammar Fail, Part IV
Another typo: "GP and John Malkovich would have been been my all-time favorite cross-ethnic lookalikes if not for Britney Spears/Pedro Martinez and Harry Carson/Glenn Close" (p. 408). This sentence would would have have been been unfunny and irrelevant even if it did did make sense.
11. This Photo
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| Image source: Bill Simmons via NYTimes.com |
10. Grammar Fail, Part V
From a footnote about Charles Barkley's likability: "Only when Barkley's persona life began to fall apart recently (a $400,00 debt to a Vegas casino plus a DUI arrest) did the media start mentioning Barkley's drinking" (p. 509). There's only one, small $360,000 problem; the amount was actually $400,000. I guess Simmons saved the last big fat zero for himself.
9. The Old Switcheroo
It's never a good idea to make contradictory statement on consecutive pages. Imagine being a tour guide and trying to explain this face-to-face fallacy to a bunch of rhetoric students. On your left, Bill Simmons recalls saying "I can't believe this" at least 50 times after watching the Malice at the Palace. And, coming up on your right, Simmons offers the following analysis: "Maybe it was a Hall of Fame TV night, but at no point did anyone who follows the NBA on a regular basis say to themselves, 'I can't believe Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson are taking on Row 3 in the Palace right now!'" (p. 168). I guess Bill Simmons doesn't follow the NBA on a regular basis.
8. Comeback Kid
There's no denying that 30 for 30, the Simmons-powered documentary series on ESPN, is must-watch television for sports fans. Among the entries are a dramatic piece about the tragic death of Len Bias, a moving tale about the relationship between Vlade Divac and Drazen Petrovic, a moment-in-time capsule of how the sports media world handled the O.J. Simpson chase and a remember-when story of Michael Jordan's baseball sabbatical. But I can't help but think that Simmons only dreamed up the series so he could feature himself in "Four Days in October," an unpacking of the incredible Red Sox comeback against the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS.8 Unfortunately, his face and voice corrupt one of the best sports sagas of the last decade.
7. Very Bad Boy
According to the Pyramid, Isiah Thomas was the best player on two championship teams -- the '88 and '89 Detroit Pistons (p. 481). Interesting, huh? I had no idea Isiah played alongside Kareem, Magic, Worthy and the Showtime Lakers. For someone who claims to be "in the top 0.0000000000000001 percent of NBA fans" (p. 268), I would expect Bill Simmons to step out of his alternative universe and admit that the Lakers -- not the Thomas-led Pistons -- won the title in '88.
6. If Simmons Was Sober
| Image source: redsarmy.com |
While drafting the Isiah Thomas piece of his Pyramid, Bill Simmons was either a) drinking heavily or b) drinking very heavily. Those are the only ways I can justify his mistake above and the even-more-disastrous gaffe that comes on the next page, when he mentions "the 'if Bird was white, he'd just be another good player' nonsense" (p. 482). Simmons, of course, was referring to Isiah's controversial comments about Basketball Jesus. But something about "if Bird was white" just doesn't sound right. Oh, yeah, that's right -- he is white.
5. Grammar Fail, Part VI
Bill Walton and Kevin McHale had "abnomally" long appendages (p. 667). And, hey, Bill Simmons had abnomally bad spell-check software. It happens.
4. The Green-Eyed Monster
Yeah, I'll admit it: I'm a little jealous. I wish had the fame and fortune that Bill Simmons has. I wish I could watch old NBA tapes all day, go to games at night, hang out with famous basketball types, write about those experiences and call it a living. Those desires only make me despise him even more. So be it.
3. Timeout!
For someone who claims to love the fantastic finishes of NBA games -- multiple overtimes, magnified mistakes, buzzer-beating shots -- Simmons advocates for some pretty silly rule changes. Take this head-scratching proposal: "I also wish we made a rule that no team could call time trailing by more than six points with less than 20 seconds left" (p. 267). Is this guy serious? Does he know what can happen in 20 seconds? Consider a not-so-hypothetical situation in which clutch three-point shooting meets poor free-throw shooting in, say, the last 18.7 seconds of a playoff game. Consider all the errant in-bounds passes and fluky tips that happen in crunch-time moments throughout a season. Player instincts matter, but aren't lineups, play calls and other coaching decisions tantamount to those last few possessions, arguably more important than at any other point of the game? Shouldn't a team have the opportunity to plan for those final moments? Bill Simmons, you earned yourself a long timeout for this one.
2. Simmons Was Simmons
If there's ever a documentary about The Sports Guy, and I somehow get a chance to be featured in it, I'll be the one who says, "Hey, what can I tell you? Simmons was Simmons." The phrase, according to his own definition, sums him up pretty well: "annoying, unpredictable, a complete asshole, a blowhard, as dumb as a rock or some combination of those five things" (p. 387). An accurate portrayal indeed, except for the whole "unpredictable" thing.
1. D'oh! Excessive Homerism, Part III
Lots of people told me I should read Bill Simmons. I resisted. Then I subjected myself to The Rebecca Black Rule, a law extending beyond sports that requires you to at least try something -- food, movies, music, etc. -- before passing judgment. So, to be fair, on May 1, 2009, I tried reading Bill Simmons. Presented with the more-epic-than-epic Bulls-Celtics series -- one of the most memorable NBA playoff battles in recent memory -- he wrote about the self-pity dog walks he takes after his poor Celtics lose crucial games? As his freaking lede? I'm pretty sure Simmons single-handedly inspired the #NoOneCares tag on Twitter. Needless to say, getting through the rest of that column was like trying to teach a dog to speak English. Here are the first six sentences:
I measure excruciating losses by the amount of time I walk my dog afterward. That's my ritual. My team gets crushed, I walk it off. The walks usually last for 15-20 minutes. The walk after Game 6 lasted for hours. I think I ended up in Compton.
Yup, this is America's most-read sportswriter.
1 Charles Oakley is the inspiration for Bill Simmons' son's middle name. I am not making this up.
2 He's also an insider parading as a sportswriter in that he's not a very good sportswriter.
3 x + 2 = I can't stand Bill Simmons.
4 This tirade will be submitted to Simmons as a mailbag question.
5 If you're confused as to which annoying ESPN personality is being referenced ... good.
6 Dan Le Batard makes PTI sweaty. Bill Simmons just makes it bad.
7 I will say this: I'm curious what he'd be willing to do for a spot.
8 Once Simmons added the 2004 ALCS to his list of 30 films, he probably sat around and thought, "Hm, I wonder who would be willing to serve as narrator ... Oh, I know -- me!"
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