Hola, Amigos. I Know It's Been a Long Time Since I Rapped At Ya

Anybody on that reference? No? No one? OK, Forget it.

Since we never pick on low-hanging fruit here at FireJay, today I've decided to write something about William Simmons from the Anchorage Daily News. His nickname is "The Never A Pompous Dickhole Guy." (It used to be "The Anchorage Never A Pompous Dickhole Guy," but then he got syndicated.) In this column, he speculates on some "what if(s)?" from recent NBA history.

14. What if Jason Williams never crashed his motorcycle?

It has been so long, I feel like I have to add this disclaimer: We're talking about the Jason Williams from Duke (who later shortened his name to Jay Williams) -- not Jason "White Chocolate" Williams or Jayson "The Guy Accused of Killing A Chauffeur" Williams. Anyway, not a week goes by without some troublemaking reader sending us a "bad" prediction from my archives to make me feel stupid -- at least, I think that's the goal -- and one of the leading "somethings" comes from 2003, when I predicted Williams (the No. 2 pick in 2003) would be a better pro than Yao Ming (the No. 1 pick).

Use your imagination for a second. Pretend you're William. Are you in that mindset? Open a window to make your house or apartment colder. You're in Alaska, after all. Now are you in that mindset? Good. OK, so, you're a popular national sports columnist. You write dozens upon dozens of columns every year. Often, as is common practice in the industry, you make predictions about things that haven't happened yet in these columns. Some of these predictions will undoubtedly end up being right. Others will end up being wrong. And the rest will end up in a greyish area, where they are neither right nor wrong. Now, if some obnoxious readers (whose presence, keep in mind, you are in no way forced to acknowledge) want to harass you via email about such a prediction, what is your response? I mean, besides to email them back with a flash video of someone being hit with a snowball from first person perspective!

Think about it. I'll give you a second.






What's it going to be? Well, I hope you said "Take the low road and desperately cling to my unprovable stance which would probably be wrong if it were somehow testable."

Well, you know what? I was right. I was DEAD right.

Is that a joke about the other Jayson Williams's aforementioned chauffeur? I hope not. That would be tacky. And no, William. You were not right. You were let off the hook by Williams's injury. And had he never stepped onto that fateful motorcycle, it's unlikely you'd have been right when all was said and done. Make your case, and then I'll tell you why you're wrong. Then I'll make fun of you for living in an igloo!

A lightning-quick, physical 6-footer who would have been unstoppable after they changed the hand-check rules in 2004,

This might be true. But when it comes to offensive centers, Yao is on many nights the very definition of unstoppable. He's usually five inches taller than everyone else on the court, and frequently gets entry passes less than twelve feet from the basket. I don't even think a polar bear could guard him in that situation!

Williams had his moments as a rookie, including the 26-14-13 he slapped on J-Kidd and the Nets.

Former Detriot Tiger Chris Shelton had his moments, such as the 10 home runs he hit in April 2006. He now coincidentally owns a cross country ski lodge just outside of Amchorage!

He would have been a stud. There's no doubt in my mind.

To some degree, that may be true. I have no problem with that assertion. This post is really more about how fucking ridiculous it is to act like Yao isn't one of the 15 best players in the league. He's a minor liability on defense if the Rockets' opponent has a center who can step out and hit jumpers. But barring that, he's great. He's fucking great. He's an offensive force who commands double teams like Shaq did six-plus years ago. (I'm not saying he's as good as turn of the century Shaq, I'm saying defenses have to focus on him in a similar way.) He rebounds and passes extremely well. He was averaging 22, 10, and 2 blocks this year until his injury. If all the players in the league had their contracts cancelled tomorrow and the teams had to re-draft them all from scratch, where do you think Yao would be taken? Even with the injury concerns, there's no way he falls out of top 20. And you think you're "DEAD right" about Williams ending up as a better pro if he doesn't get hurt? Although it's tough to compare a PG to a C, odds are, even if Williams turns into everything he could have been him and Yao are roughly equally valuable on the court for most of their careers. Sounds like you've got frostbite in your brain!

(And while we're here, I wasn't sold on Yao for the same reason I'm not sold on any guy taller than 7-foot-2 -- other than Kareem, there's no track record of super-tall guys being able to stay healthy and effective while playing between 82-100 games per season at the NBA level.

I like this 7'2" cutoff. So being 7'1", like Shaq or Tyson Chandler, is no problem. But once you add that extra inch, watch out. Injury city. Being right at 7' even, like many recently great centers (Olajuwon, Ewing, Robinson), means you are completely immune to anything up to and including the common cold. Being 6'11", like Dwight Howard or Tim Duncan, means you have negative injury risk. You can actually heal other players on your team who suffer injuries with the touch of your hand.

Bill Walton, Rik Smits, Shawn Bradley, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Tom Burleson, Gheorghe Muresan ... all of those guys had major problems staying on the court, right?

Walton is a fair point. (Looking at his numbers, Jesus, the guy wasn't even that good! I guess he's better known as a college player.) Smits played 70 games in 9 of his 12 seasons. Ilgauskas has cleared 60 in all but one of seasons so far. He missed nine games total from 2002-03 to 2006-07. Burleson is a fair point. And Muresan stunk anyways. Insert "My Giant" joke here. So, no, wrong. Not all of them had/have major problems staying on the court.

It's not a game designed for freakishly tall guys who weigh 300-plus pounds.

It's not a game designed for 6 footers who weigh less than 200, either. Everyone gets beat up out there on the court. Maybe large centers are a bit more susceptible to getting hurt, but it's not like you can bank on any player of any size as a non-concern. I won't bother to list all the point guards throughout recent history who have had their careers affected to some degree by time spent in a suit on the bench, but there are plenty. T.J. Ford. Baron Davis. Even Sam "Simmons is all over my nuts, like, it's barely a figure of speech, he's practically grabbing them" Cassell. Hey, I guess that's what they do up in Alaska when it's cold out! Help keep each other's genitals warm! Dick joke!

That's what worried me about Yao, along with the whole "everyone will be going out of their way to dunk on him" thing

Although it's partially meant as a joke, that's one of the stupidest things I've ever read.

and all the requisite cultural adjustments.

The seriousness of that statement is why the dunking thing should be taken as only a partial joke. And as absolutely buttfucking ridiculous. Oh no, you wouldn't want your super-tall center to get dunked on! If it happens that's worth 50 points for the other team. The league reviews the footage, too, and usually suspends the center for a few games.

If Williams hadn't bought that freaking motorcycle, I would have been right on this one. So there.)

Almost definitely not. You are petty, unfunny, and stupid. William Simmons, I hope you get slowly crushed to death by a glacier!