No! Readers! Come Back!

It's true, the Google Analytics don't lie. They're leaving this blog faster than Jerramy Stevens from a court-mandated AA meeting. Not too soon! Anyways, will they come back and start reading again if I do several Bill Simmons posts in a row? My guess is that they will, if only to let me know that I'm just a jealous hater and, come on, Simmons really isn't that bad. Sure, he used to be better, but I like his "every fan" perspective! Etc., etc. Yup. I can see it already. Eight comments, five of which are from anonymous/Anonymous and sound just like that.

Today he was lazy and did a chat, so I will in turn be lazy and pick on a handful of the most embarrassing questions he chose to print along with some criticisms of his own handiwork. As a change of pace I will not be complaining about the subject matter covered. Hey, his Celtics limped through the oh-so-powerful Eastern Conference and into the finals. He's earned the right to talk exclusively about them. As a non-change of pace, however, I will be pointing out a basic fact that Bill for whatever reason has so much difficulty grasping- Boston sports fans are no different than passionate fans from anywhere else. His inability to understand this might be the saddest thing about the guy.

Shane, Seoul Korea: Why is it that everyone....well at least most analysts on ESPN so convinced that the Lakers will roll over the Celtics. Considering most of them picked Detroit to win in 6 whats with the lack of respect?

To Simmons' credit, he answered that he didn't think a lack of respect had anything to do with it and it's just the fact that Kobe is playing so well that pushes analysts towards LA. I still felt like this was worth printing. A Celtics fan... is complaining... about a perceived lack of respect for his team... by ESPfuckingN, of all media outlets. It's a crazy world out there, I guess. If you look long enough, you can find people that are stupid enough to hold almost any opinion.

The irony here being that this is coming from a guy who doesn't feel like John Elway gets enough respect as one of the all time greats. Put him with Montana's supporting cast and he'd have six rings. Hey, I'm just saying is all. But Shane from Seoul is definitely stupider than me by several degrees of magnitude. Yes, Shane. ESPN totally hates the Celtics. You've got it figured out. When the playoffs started, their executives were praying for a Utah/Orlando finals so they could finally start covering teams that really draw in the viewers.

Rich (Bayonne, NJ): I hear you Bill, I am surrounded by Laker fans in NJ at both of my jobs! Laker fans are like Kobe, the biggest front runners in the league!!! Hey since you live in LA, do Laker fans arrive only 30 minutes after tip off instead of 45 minutes since it's the Finals!!!

I know he's just a reader and not a professional journalist, but hey Rich! Don't you know anything about punctuation! Like have you heard that if you ask a question you shouldn't end it with an exclamation mark! The real issue here, though, is the hilarious accusation of front runnerism from (presumably) a Celtic fan being leveled at Laker fans. Really? The Lakers? You know, one of the league's three most popular teams for the past several decades? I mean, if longtime Red Sox fans wanted to accuse Rockies fans of being front runners (or at least very fairweather) before last fall's World Series, they could definitely make a case. This, on the other hand, is butt-ass preposterous. They're the most popular franchise in the country's second largest city and have worldwide brand recognition. They're an extremely difficult ticket to grab on most nights and have been, again, for decades. Your team, on the other hand, couldn't even dream of selling out its own arena 14 months ago. You have a national fan base, and plenty of passionate lifelongers, but to point a finger at Laker fans... wow.

Bill Simmons: The Laker fans with good seats arrive in the second quarter or late in the first quarter. It's just a fact. They get a bad rap for their cheering during the game - they do know when to cheer and how to affect a game - but the tardiness is unacceptable.

Fair.

it's also worth mentioning that they booed their hero Kobe on Opening Night. Would the Boston fans have ever booed Bird in a million years?????????

Not fair. Because Bird was white.

Rick (LA): Don't forget all these "true" Boston fans chanted MVP for Kobe in the Garden last year...Boston fans the best in the world!

Bill Simmons: That story is NOT true. half the crowd for that game were Laker fans, those were the ones chanting. They were able to get tickets because the Celts were something like 12-40 at the time.

Nothing front-runnerish about that. And how many times has Bill's dad, the foremost authority on anything and everything related to the Celtics, complained about how hard it was to get rid of unwanted tickets last season? But that's not because Boston fans are to some degree front runnerish. It's because... wait for Bill's reasoning.

Chet (MA): and celtics fans aren't front runners? just look at the attendance last year compared to this year and it'll tell you all you need to know about celtics fans. you know what? you could say the same about all the boston teams if you look at the attendance before parcells for the patriots and the attendance before 1998 for the red sox.

Bill Simmons: Ridiculous. The Celtics fans were always there - it's just that it's freaking expensive to go to an NBA game, it's tough to shell out 75 bucks for a ticket to go watch Sebastian Telfair play point guard. The fans never left.

Oh. Really? Did they not? Also, notice that he didn't have a response to the Patriots and Red Sox accusations, the former of which is most definitely true.

Pat (Boston): Welcome to the spin/full denial zone. Someone presents you with facts about attendence and you just dismiss it with: "The fans never left" with a weak excuse that people cant afford $75 dollars? Gimme a break, I live in Beacon Hill and frequent "the Harp" and "the fours". Not only was there no one in the stadium, there was no one in the sports bars. Lemme guess, people just can't afford $3 dollar beers anymore?

Bill Simmons: In defense of the Celtics fans, the team was openly trying to lose games last year for Oden or Durant. Why would anyone go pay to see that?

Bill Simmons is taking crazy pills and delusional pills. There's nothing more that can be said about the situation. Look, no team is going to pack the house every night all season every season. No team is insulated from the effect its record has on attendance. But his continual insistence that Boston fans are somehow different and special can only be attributed to some kind of drug regimen at this point. (I liked his last chat session from about a month ago, when he assumed that Boston invented the "M-V-P! M-V-P!" chant. He was immediately rebuffed, but you could tell that until that happened, he legitimately just assumed it had originated there. I mean... why would it not? It's Boston, for fahk's sake.)

The numbers are right in front of you, douche. I don't care how fucking bad they were. The 2006-2007 Celtics finished 20th in the league in home attendance, 23rd in percentage of seats sold, 15th in road attendance and 20th in road percentage of seats sold. The 2007-2008 Celtics, on the other hand, were 12th in attendance (limited by the size of their arena), sold 100% of their seats, 1st in road attendance, and 1st in road percentage of seats sold. It's pretty crystal clear. That's a sign of a fan base that doesn't like to show up when their team isn't winning. Not that that's anything to be ashamed of! It's normal. Yankee Stadium isn't always packed to the gills. There are nights when you can get a seat to a Montreal Canadiens game pretty easily. Just don't go thinking your teams are any different. Unless they're a popular NFL team, they're always going to struggle to pull in capacity crowds when the team stinks.

Kyle (NC): You say Kobe's a jerkto his teammates...Didn't Bird call his teammates little girls after they lost a Finals game? All the things you're saying about Kobe, they used to say about MJ...A lot of the greats were sometimes jerks to their teammates.

Bill Simmons: True. And the next game, McHale put Rambis on his ass and we went on to win the series. Bird did it for motivation, Kobe did it because he's socially inept.

Bill Simmons, sports psychologist, is able to easily discern the subtle nuances that separate these two situations without even talking to either player.

Jake (DC): You can't win. You should have known this after however many years of marriage. Also, should/does the commissioner have any say in trades which are clearly made to help out old friends? I mean, doesn't that upset the competitive balance of the game while at the same rip the fans off? Something should be done about this...

Bill Simmons: The thing is, in both cases (KG trade and Gasol trade), it clearly helped the league as a whole. So nobody said anything. The interesting move would have been if the Spurs or Suns filed a lawsuit or tried to get an injunction on the basis that the Gasol trade was not fair and that other teams weren't given a chance to properly bid for him. Would have LOVED to have seen how that played out.

Dear Christ, I hope he's serious in thinking that that could actually happen. A whole new angle on the tininess of Bill's brain- honest belief that sports teams in this day and age would consider trying to go to court against other teams because of allegedly unfair trades. Fantastic. I really think the Bucs, Cowboys, Packers, and Patriots should file suit against the Chargers for not shopping Eli Manning's draft rights appropriately back in 2004.

Let's take a little look at a bit of homerism.

First this-

chapin (Boston, ma): Bill can you set the odds for PerkIsABeast.com's servers crashing after The Beast puts up 20 and 20 in game one? How do you think he will fair throughout this series?

Bill Simmons: Forgot to mention Perk as an enormous X-factor for this series. He was legitimately eye-opening in the Detroit series - nearly averaged a double-double and made some monster defensive plays. He's becoming the player we always wanted him to be.

Which is fine to say, until you respond to the exact same kind of sentiment from a Lakers fan about one of their players like this-

Renaldo (Los Angeles, CA): When are you going to admit you were wrong about Lamar Odom. The guy hit two game tying shots in game 4 of the Utah series, he hit all the clutch free throws in Game 4 of the Spurs series. The guy has been coming through

Bill Simmons: You're right, Lamar has proven himself - every question has been answered. The guy is an absolute sure thing in the Finals.

Like I said in my intro, nothing wrong with Bill being a homer in this context. It's just funny to notice.

Matt Walsh, From under some rock: Ok what if I said that I have a tape of the entire Patriots team clubbing baby seals. Would that keep me in the limelight for another week?

Bill Simmons: You're leading TMQ this week!

Easterbrook isn't due to write another column until August, but we can only hope he manages to squeeze in a little something extra in response to this.

Noam (NY, NY): Can we get a promise that after your inevitable finals and post-finals columns, we get a 2 week moratorium on columns that are about Boston sports teams (including veiled Boston team columns)? Maybe a column about having kids making somebody revert to writing only about their favorite teams?

Bill Simmons: I am doing my best not to over-Boston it... but come on, the Pats were the most written about team of this decade, the Sox won the World Series and the Celts just made the Finals. What do you wanyt from me?

We want you to write about other stuff more often. It's pretty simple. You don't have to ignore Boston. You just have to talk about them less, and other teams more. I promise the stories are out there. Really, they are.

I didn't write ONE Celtics column during the regular season... sure, it was because I didn't want to jinx them, but still.

1. That's incorrect.

2. Sure, there was only one true all-Celtics column, and it came pretty near the end of the regular season. But 80% of every mailbag and 60% of every "general NBA" column was devoted to the Celtics. Just saying.

Let's wrap it up.

Ben(New Jersey): Sports Guy! I've been a fan for years but I've never written in before. I'm a senior in high school and my friends and I love to play a game called KG that. It's when you take something ordinary and go crazy over it. For example, we went out for Chinese last Friday and after one of my friends ordered his beef and broccoli i told him he should KG it when it comes. When the waiter brought out his beef, he got up on his chair and started pounding his chest screaming "THATS HOW YOU ORDER CHINESE" he then ran around high fiving random people while pounding his chest and screaming. We ended up getting kicked out, but I'd say it was worth it. Whats the funniest situation you could see where you could KG something?

You are a zero. You're a disaster. You don't deserve to have access to a computer, let alone the internet. You don't deserve to reproduce. You and your unfunny friends should be immediately deported to the least exciting town in Mongolia. You stink.

Bill Simmons: Love it!

Of course you do.