In Defense of Bill Simmons (a Man so Successful that he Doesn’t Need Defending)
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009I was not on the show for the intriguing interview with podcaster/writer Dan Levy- who was a good guest with interesting things to say. No, he isn’t a basketball expert or even a huge fan (a fact that seems to have rankled a few of our regular listeners), but Levy is a savvy follower of the sports landscape and we felt that his perspective on where our little sport stands right now would be relevant. It was.
Levy took a pre-existing beef with aspects Bill Simmons’ work and reputation onto our show and pre-existing beefs are one of the many reasons that a guy like Dan Levy is an interesting interview in any context. You want guests with fire in their belly.
I wasn’t there to offer my own opinions or to ask follow-up questions; I instead sat and listened to a finished product [that still has my name on it] and had to remain silent. It is tough to remain on the sidelines when a topic gets discussed on your own show that you have a strong opinion about. . . tougher still when you have a dissenting opinion from what eventually went on record.
Bill Simmons is very relevant to NBA fans right now because of his book and book tour. I believe that such relevance warrants a blog entry to get my opinion of him on record . . . because you all care so much what Ken thinks, right?
Just for giggles, and because lists are fun, here are nine (Roy Hobbs’ number) thoughts related to this topic that I would have offered if I was sitting in on that interview instead of changing poopie-diapers. Ascribe your own context to them and enjoy the rest of your day.
- There is a difference between disagreeing with someone’s opinion and using assumptions about motives to discredit that opinion. That’s a slippery slope.
- Every time the Sports Guy writes a column I am excited to read it. That has to be worth something. I am not a lemming or a zombie. I am, in fact, a college educated and well employed 30 year old father who reads about a book a week (on varying subjects), who once worked in NYC publishing and left because it was interfering with his enjoyment of books, who can tell good writing from bad writing independent of style choices. Popularity does not concern me as much as quality.
- Let’s not underestimate how hard it is to really engage people, and have them experience actual fun, with an internet column. If it was easy to do than more people would do it. How many national sports writers in history have been that much fun to read for a solid decade? Being entertaining is a big deal because there is no gimmick to fake being entertaining.
- Can I name several national NBA writers who flat out know more than Simmons about the NBA in general AND demonstrate that knowledge in a digestible way? In terms of columnists who don’t travel with teams, I would say no. There are a few. We’ve had a couple of them on our show, so I won’t repeat their names and pretend to be objective about them. Surf the blogs and newspaper/magizine sites for a week and you’ll be able to figure that one out pretty easily. One notable name we’ve mentioned in the past in this space is Kelly Dwyer, who hasn’t been on the show; he’s lapped Simmons in NBA street-cred with his Behind the Boxscore column, but that’s hardly an indictment because Dwyer has lapped everybody.
- It is Great with a capital G that someone so popular loves the NBA so much.
- I agree with the Sports Guy, without qualification, that the NBA is rising in a big way and I don’t think that he made that claim up to sell books. He doesn’t need to make anything up to sell books. Trends are trends. More importantly, “coolness” is important because it is often a couple years ahead of the wider trend-and the NBA is the coolest sport right now, by a mile. Advertisers follow youthful coolness, almost to a fault. Further, baseball and even football are getting less cool by the second. MLB censors videos on YouTube and is about to have a SERIOUS PROBLEM with the gap between rich and poor teams that will be amplified by what I am predicting will be another 5 years of dominance for the Yankees; the NFL has nowhere to go but down, especially considering ludicrous PSL’s and the growing awareness about the physical damage the sport inflicts on the players as they age.
- My own beef with the Sports Guy is that he doesn’t write more about the NBA on the website. I hope that some day a million people will enjoy my work so much that they get upset when I don’t write as often as they would like.
- I haven’t read the book yet. I want to enjoy it very badly because the world needs a good 700 page book about the NBA. I’m still waiting for the review copies we requested later than we should have to review it for your people, so we’ll see.
- I wrote this column last summer, for what it is worth.
