Recent [questionable] decisions made by the Grizzlies, Pistons, Lakers and Timberwolves have me again wondering about the organizational values of NBA teams. It’s a comfortable place that I never should have left . . .
I was disappointed last year when ESPN’s Bill Simmons did not make more of a fuss after his campaigns to become the GM of the Milwaukee Bucks and Timberwolves were only treated as a clever column gimmick and not as a reasonable idea. I never expected Simmons to be hired, of course, or even be given an interview because that would have embarrassed the team; I do believe, however, that he should have spent six months using his bully pulpit to vent considerable outrage that NBA GMs are brought in from a talent pool that keeps yielding people who suck. One of the reasons that I look forward to a Sports Guy column is that his writing often catches the sports zeitgeist of the moment and articulates it for the masses. Right now, as it was a year ago, the zeitgeist of the moment in the NBA is that the product is not as good as it should be because so many big decisions are made by people with so little ability to do anything but flail.
There are often no real plans from NBA front offices, no organizational values on display and no new ideas to avoid repeating past mistakes. Bill Simmons could have hit us over the head with that fact repeatedly instead of landing a few glancing blows. It was a missed opportunity.
I do not mean to criticize Bill Simmons, however, for going too easy on NBA GMs. He has obviously gotten a ton of mileage out of criticizing them, possibly to the degree that his highly visible use of dead-on critique and humor over the last decade has helped spawn an entire internet culture of basketball fans looking for every opportunity to jump up and down and cry “stupid” after every shaky decision. I, in fact, find the columns and blogs written on the day of a truly ridiculous trade or signing to be one of the most entertaining aspects of following the league; and even though a JE Skeets or [our very own] Bethleham Shoals may write the best bad-move-response-piece on any particular day, part of the humor/insight medium that they work in must be credited to Simmons.
And there’s also the small matter that Mike Dunleavy and Chris Wallace see Simmons’ face when they cry in the shower.
(In other words, he’s got my respect on the bad-GM-bashing front.)
That all being said, he took his foot off the gas too soon on the Milwaukee Bucks and Timberwolves issues. He should not have let this issue go. He should have written six columns a week about his outrage at not being given an interview, ignoring pleas from ESPN brass about diversifying his writing topics. He should have gone down in flames and self-destructively allowed the anger to consume him the way Joba Chamberlain being removed from the Yankee bullpen consumed Mike Francessa.
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