NBA WHO SAYS NO Rankings - Part 5 of 5

Alright folks, apologies for the delay(s)(s)(s).  We're here.  We made it.  Everyone huddle together and let's get this over with.

2. LeBron James

Let’s have one last round of applause for LeBron’s incredible eight-year run atop the Trade Value list.

[gif of the stadium groundskeeper from Rudy applauding after Rudy gets into the game]

That's what applause looks like!  Simmons is so corny and stupid he can't even properly emulate Buzzfeed.  Gifs added to writing like this are supposed to be reaction gifs, not just gifs that say the same thing the words do.  THAT AWKWARD MOMENT WHEN LEBRON FALLS OUT OF THE TOP SPOT IN THE TRADE VALUE RANKINGS!

What happens next? The 30-year-old budding mogul has already logged more than 42,000 career minutes and played more than 1,050 games (including playoffs). 

I get that basketball will eventually wear down the human knees (and ankles, hips, wrists, etc.) but let's not obsess over minute or game counts.  LeBron has played 35,000 regular season minutes.  Plenty of guards have cleared 45,000 for their careers.

You know what that really means? 

IN TEN YEARS WHEN WE LOOK BACK ON LEBRON PASSING THE 42,000 MINUTE MARKER, HOW WILL WE REMEMBER IT?

Apex LeBron is gone. Here, look.

Seasons 1 through 4 (316 games)
41.3 mpg, 26.7 ppg, 6.7 rpg, 6.4 apg, 46-33-73%, 8.3 FTA, 3.3 TO, 24.2 PER, .181 WS/48

Seasons 5 through 11 (526 games)
38.4 mpg, 28.0 ppg, 7.6 rpg, 7.1 apg, 52-35-76%, 8.7 FTA, 3.3 TO, 30.1 PER, .283 WS/48

Ah, the always crucial (and very telling) "first four seasons as compared to next seven seasons" splits.

Playoff Career (158 games)
42.5 mpg, 28.0 ppg, 8.4 rpg, 6.4 apg, 48-33-76%, 9.7 FTA, 3.4 TO, 27.7 PER, .242 WS/48

Season 12 (57 games)
36.2 mpg, 26.0 ppg, 5.7 rpg, 7.4 apg, 49-35-72%, 8.0 FTA, 4.2 TO, 26.2 PER, .196 WS/48.

So, cool: he's on a new team, with new teammates, and his PER and win shares are down a bit.  He's mostly shooting the same as he did during his "apex years" (SEASONS 5 THROUGH 11 WHO SAYS NO) and scoring and dishing at basically the same rates.  He's turning the ball over a little more, and rebounding less.  That can probably be written off as a result of moving from a team with Wade and Bosh to a team with Kyrie, suddenly mediocre Kevin Love, and Mozgov (to soak up boards).

The good news: He’s still 85-90 percent as good as that seven-year apex, 

NO, EXACTLY 87.5%

keeping LeBron’s “best player in the league” ceiling the highest of anyone. I just don’t know where this goes. How long can LeBron stay great or even close to great?

He's 30.  Let's use our brain noodles and say "Well, on average, most great players stay great at least until they're 35 or so.  Therefore, LeBron can probably stay great until he's 35 or so."

In NBA history, only 35 guys have played more than 875 games and logged more than 34,000 minutes while averaging 35 minutes per game in their first 13 seasons. (Even though LeBron did it in 12, I added an extra year for everyone else because, you know, LeBron is superhuman.) Only 22 guys played more than 120 playoff games in their first 13 seasons while logging more than 5,000 playoff minutes and averaging 35 minutes per game. And only 12 guys cracked both lists: LeBron, Jordan, Wilt, Duncan, Russell, West, Bird, Pippen, Kobe, Hakeem, Malone and Havlicek.

And this goes to show (fart noise).

Wait a second … that’s a great list! 

Oh my gosh he's becoming self-aware!  He also still refuses to be edited!

We just ripped off 12 of the 25 best players ever. Just so I can sleep tonight, let’s include Dirk, Magic, Shaq, and Kareem as well, giving us 16 guys who passed 40,000 minutes (regular season and playoffs combined) in 13 years or less. That’s an insane day-to-day burden for anyone’s body, no matter how great you are. 

And now we're going in circles, chasing our tails (classic Klosterman writing technique, by the way) and we're probably going to end up concluding that LeBron is an all-time great, so he'll probably age like other all-time greats.

You’re talking about three-plus presidential terms of grinding out 80-100 games in eight to nine months (and carrying a huge burden, no less). 

Thank you for expressing that length of time in a way that the political nerds who don't follow sports can grasp.

After passing that benchmark, Kobe (four more first-team All-NBAs and a Finals MVP), Havlicek (second-team All-NBA and a ’76 Finals win), Duncan (two more Finals), Malone (1999’s MVP and two top-15 years after that), Shaq (first-team All-NBA and one more title in his 14th season), Dirk (third-team All-NBA in 2012, relevant even now) and Kareem (who doesn’t count because he was an alien) thrived for at least a little while. Nobody else did.

OK, so 7 of your arbitrarily chosen 16 players continued to be effective.  Cool.  I'm not even going to look up the post-40,000 minute stats of the other 9 guys, because I'm sure some of them achieved something significant past that point and Bill is just omitting them to prove his thesis of (fart nose).

But 50,000 combined minutes? That’s the danger number. Kareem passed 50,000 during the 1983-84 season, won the 1985 Finals MVP and remained relevant through ’88 (back-to-back titles), but again, he wasn’t human. Duncan passed that mark last season, then helped San Antonio win 2014’s title. (Of course, he’s also an alien.) 

So, Duncan and Kareem don't count for this exercise because they don't count for this exercise.  But LeBron won't be like them because he's not like them, or presumably not like them, even though you only really know if you're like those guys until you get to where they were in terms of minutes.  This is the level of analysis usually provided by a drunk guy watching TV alone at a sports bar at 2 PM on a weekday.  We are learning nothing, other than "playing pro sports tends to get harder as you get older, although certain players decline more suddenly than other players."  Which is pretty much (fart noise).

No non-center remained a star after 50,000 minutes except for Kobe; he passed that mark during the 2012 playoffs, then thrived offensively the following season right until his Achilles snapped in half. These things don’t end well. I think Kobe knew it too. That last season, he could feel his body breaking down and turned into Quint from Jaws: 

He grew a mustache and started hunting sharks.  Totally agreed.  Flawless analogy.

He started revving his boat’s engine until smoke began pouring out. 

Ah yes, so "turning into Quint from Jaws" means "doing this one thing that that character did for like 30 seconds in a 3 hour movie."  Even when he's making pop culture references, i.e. doing the one thing he should be best at doing, he's fucking atrocious.

He knew. He had to know.

Awesome writing.  Since you have so much access these days, Mr. Big Shot, why don't you just go ask Kobe to his face?  Better yet, ask him if he knew it after the 6 for 24 game in 2010.

Here’s the point: History says LeBron has two elite seasons left after this one, maybe three. That’s it. And you wondered why he didn’t want to wait around for Andrew Wiggins.

No one wondered that.  Literally no one.  A lot of people questioned that trade a couple months into the season, when Wiggins showed himself to be NBA-capable already and Love wasn't playing well, but when the Cavs made that trade, literally no one on earth who knows what a basketball looks like said "WHOA!  WHY DID THE CAVS JUST DO THAT?  IS LEBRON OUT OF HIS MIND?"

On the other hand … LeBron is only 30 years old. That’s the same age as Scarlett Johansson, Matt Cain, Mandy Moore, Adam Morrison, Katy Perry, Rick Nash and Purple Rain. 

So glad you consulted the Wikipedia page for 1984 before writing this.  Really brings it home to the reader.

When Bird turned 30, he was the reigning back-to-back-to-back MVP. When Jordan turned 30, he was four months away from finishing off his first three-peat. When Magic turned 30, he was getting ready for his third MVP season in four years. Doesn’t it seem insane to think that LeBron is passing his prime at THIRTY? Then again, only Kobe crossed 40,000 minutes before turning 31, but it happened over 13 years (not 12 like LeBron), and he didn’t take nearly the same physical night-to-night pounding. So who the heck knows?

Jesus fucking Christ on a fucking tightrope.  What did I tell you Bill was going to do here?  What did I JUST say was going to be the outcome of all of this?  I hate writing this blog.

Either LeBron will make history, or history will catch up to him. It’s one or the other. 

FASCINATING.  Go fuck yourself with a ice pick, Simmons.  You suck.

Just know that he’s no longer our most untradable player. For the first time, you can see a finish line for LeBron James. Unlike …

1. Anthony Davis

So, LeBron is almost certainly going to opt out of his current deal this summer and grab a new one (regardless of the Cavs playoff outcome).  But Davis can enter free agency in the summer of 2016.  I hate to indulge Bill's stupid rules for this stupid exercise, but since we've made it all the way to #1, I will just this once.  If back in January, the Cavs called the Pelicans and offered LeBron, with confirmation that LeBron wanted that trade to happen for whatever reason (i.e., he was just as excited about playing in New Orleans as he presumably is playing in Cleveland now, and would be just as likely to sign long term either this summer or next summer), you don't think the Pelicans would take that trade?  I don't know, they're a young-ish team, but they're not THAT young.  Other than Davis their best players (Jrue Holiday, Tyreke Evans, Ryan Anderson) are all in their mid 20s.  To an extent, they're built to win now.  I dunno.  Food for thought.  I hate myself for spending 90 seconds typing this.  As Bill would say, let's just move on.

In 2007’s Trade Value column, I wrote that “2007 LeBron and 2007 [Dwight] Howard are more untradeable than anyone in the seven-year history of this ‘Trade Value’ column, 

WHO SAID NO?

even surpassing (gulp) 2001 Shaq and 2003 Duncan.” 

This whole goddamn thing is so dumb.  He's like a little kid playing with Legos and making a Lego town and then arguing with no one about who in Legotown has the best house.  It's simpleminded mental masturbation.  The fact that this guy's book sold a jillion copies is a fantastic indication of how goddamn pathetic America is.

Eight years later, you’d have to belatedly cram 2015 Davis into that sentence while crossing your fingers nice and hard. 

OH GOD BE SURE TO CROSS YOUR FINGERS!  WHAT IF YOU'RE WRONG?

Why? 

No reason at all, fuckface.

Look what happened to the 2007 guys. LeBron has become a four-time MVP, a two-time champ and one of the best 10 players ever. Dwight has made only one Finals and never won an MVP, and started breaking down four years later. 

It's like we just learned: sometimes, players age well and sometimes, they don't.  Awesome.

You never know. 

It's one or the other.  You never know.  What do you want, real analysis?  Skilled writing?  A writer who isn't a self-obsessed prick?  Don't be greedy.

It’s 50-50 once a young star reaches anything-is-possible status. 

EXACTLY 50-50

You need injury luck, you need the right situation, and you need the player to want it. For every Shaq, there’s a Dwight. For every Magic, there’s a Penny. For every Kareem, there’s a Walton. For every Duncan, there’s a C-Webb. For every Kobe, there’s a Derrick Rose.

STRONG TAKE!

I'm probably not going to make it to the end of this, just FYI.  I'm actually getting upset while writing a blog post that like 50 people will read and for which I won't be paid a cent.  This is not fun.

So cross your fingers for the Brow. Nice and hard.

I'm not a Pelicans fan.  I'm not a Kentucky fan.  I like Davis just fine.  But if he did end up like Dwight (or Penny or Walton or whoever), it would matter about as much to me as whether my shit tomorrow morning was pleasant or uncomfortable.  Life in the NBA will move on.  It always does.  I hate it when people (especially sportswriters, the worst people on earth) try to make everyone think they should feel bad because an athlete didn't achieve his maximum potential.  (See: Rose's injury struggles, Westbrook's team being too shitty to play in the postseason this year, etc.)  GO FUCK YOURSELVES.

He just turned 22 years old and hasn’t even played 6,500 career minutes yet. 

WHY, HE COULD BE AN ALIEN AT SOME POINT IF HE KEEPS THIS UP!

He’s the best screen-and-roller since Young Robinson. Longer arms than McHale. Freakocious athlete like Hakeem. Light on his feet like Young Duncan. Drains 20-footers like Bosh. Protects the paint like KG. I don’t know what else you’d want. Jordan (24 years old at the time), LeBron (24), T-Mac (23) and Davis (right now) are the only under-25 players to post PERs over 30. He’s also one of three under-25 guys (along with ’90 Robinson and ’74 Bob McAdoo) to average 24 and 10 with 2.5 blocks and 1.0 steals. And if he came along 35 years ago, he’d probably be a senior at Kentucky right now.

Haha, now, that last point is actually pretty awesome to think about.  Jesus.  I mean, the level of play all across NCAAB would increase, especially at its upper ranks, if nearly all players stayed for four years.  But still: imagine 2014-15 Anthony Davis playing in the SEC.  That would be hilarious.

And look, I don’t know how this will play out. 

YOU NEVER KNOW.  IT'S ONE OR THE OTHER.  50-50.  BUY THE BOOK OF BASKETBALL TODAY ON AMAZON.

But I have been attending NBA games since the 1973-74 season, back when my father carried me as a tiny 4-year-old into Boston Garden and hoped that I would fall in love with the sport. I did. 

Boy, I guess you're just as qualified to speculate about unpredictable bullshit as the rest of us then!  Please continue!

Over the next 41 years (and counting), I watched maybe 25 up-and-coming stars who just seemed different from everyone else. Young Durant was all arms and legs, and he weighed about 20 pounds, but he had that crazy release and you just knew something unforgettable would happen with him. Young Hakeem and Young Robinson were Greek gods; they moved at a different speed, and with a different level of coordination, than anyone I had ever seen. Young Duncan had those beautiful feet; he just glided effortlessly wherever he wanted to go.

So, your point is that you have watched great players that everyone knows were great and almost everyone agreed were great at the time be great.

Young MJ was indescribable; I’m not even going to betray the experience by cramming it into one sentence. 

I'm pretty tempted to end the experience of reading any more of these sentences by running in front of a moving tow truck.

Young Kobe and Young Penny looked like MJ and Magic had cloned themselves just for kicks. Young Shaq was unfair around the basket; you couldn’t keep him away from the rim unless you had a two-by-four. Young Barkley was a bowling ball crossed with a runaway train. Young C-Webb looked like a combination of everything you’d ever liked about every power forward you’d ever liked. Young LeBron looked and played like he was 28 already; he’s the surest thing I have ever seen, a true prodigy in every sense.

So, your point is STILL that you have watched great players that everyone knows were great and almost everyone agreed were great at the time be great.

So that’s the first stage: the old Gladwell Blink test, 

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA there are like 200 more words in this article but I'm going to end it right here.  I think that's a great stopping point for us on this brutally painful journey.  How can you tell if Anthony Davis is good?  Well, first read 250 pages of nothingness by some asshole pop scientist whose ideas are about as original as Bill's.  That's stage one.

I hate Bill Simmons.  

I will probably finish Simmons's playoff preview before the playoffs are over

How much time do I have left before it's all over and a champion is crowned?  A week?  Ten days?  Chris W: U MAD

16. Ronmetta Artestpeace

I'd like to make fun of this for being dumb and unclever except that I did the same thing with Bill and Klosterman last post. I guess we can both be officially branded as dumb and unclever, that's a sacrifice I'd be willing to make if it got Bill fired.

Sorry, I can't call someone "World Peace" after he concusses James Harden and his beard with a deliberate/intentional/vicious elbow.

Always nice to have a joke spoonfed to you.  "Deadspin?  More like DUMBspin.  I say this because I think Deadspin is DUMB."

You could tell the difference between "people who have never played basketball" and "people who actually play basketball" by the way they reacted to this story — if your argument was, "He didn't see Harden, he didn't realize what happened," then you've never played basketball. 

No one said that.  Now let's burn this straw man!  Burn it good!

There are no accidents on a basketball court, save for two guys colliding because they were looking up at a rebound or something. It's not hockey. You know where you are and what you're doing pretty much all the time. 

Unless you're JaVale McGee.  Wizards JaVale McGee, anyways.

If a normal person accidentally ripped an elbow into someone's head and knocked him out on a basketball court, he would immediately stop running, feel horrified, hope the injured guy got up, then crouch over him to make sure he was OK. This would happen every time — repeat: every time — unless either (a) the guy totally meant to throw that elbow, and (b) the guy was a full-fledged fucking lunatic. In that case, the guy would glance at the victim's fallen body in disdain and keep running the other way, then raise his hands to fight whoever came charging at him. That's exactly what Ronmetta did. Which means he should have been suspended for 15 games, not seven.

Of course you're saying that, you hate the Lakers.

And before you throw the whole "of course you're saying that, you hate the Lakers" line at me, 

Aw snap!   Occam's Razor argument: THWARTED

please understand, I'm delighted that Ronmetta came back early. Here's the thing about Ronmetta: He's only good when he's playing physical, hard-nosed, passionate, occasionally insane basketball. He struggled early this season (and all of last season) because he was playing, for lack of a better word, soft. Kobe kept working on him and working on him, and finally, the old Artest came back during a game in Boston. 

BASKETBAWL MECCA!  OF CAHHHSE AHHTEST WOULD FIND HIS GAME DURING A VISIT TO THE HOUSE THAT PEDROIA BUILT!  Classic Bill, assuming anything and everything happens in THE HUB.  He's like a cuntball elitist New Yorker, only more wrong about the importance of his city.  MWP in the 10 games before that Boston game: 4.0 points, 2.6 rebounds, 2.3 assists.  MWP in The Game: 2 points, 2 rebounds, 1 assist.  MWP in the 10 games after: 6.5 points, 3.3 rebounds, 2.4 assists.  And that scoring average is buoyed by him scoring 9, 8 and 15 points in the last three games of that sequence--if you look at the 7 game sets before and after The Game, which I didn't do because that felt dirty for some reason, his numbers are virtually identical.  Conclusion: the legendary TD Garden crowd willed Artest to become an ever so slightly more mediocre player.

Gradually, he played himself into shape and found the right physical/passionate/crazy balance; by April, he had evolved into a genuine asset. But that's the thing … he only got there by unleashing Artest and turning his back on World Peace, which is what eventually led to the indefensible Harden elbow (and his even more indefensible reaction afterward).

I love how vocal and assertive he is about this: elbowing people in the head is wrong.  And while we're at it, what Jordan Hill (allegedly) did is not OK either!

You know what it reminds me of, actually? Mike Tyson.  [rest of paragraph deleted]

And given how brutally boring and obvious everything he's said in this section so far has been, I'll spare you the paragraph in which he deftly explains how the most famous crazy athlete of the last ten years is SHOCKINGLY SIMILAR to the most famous crazy athlete of the ten years before that.

15. Danny Granger


I normally avoid looking at a player's numbers in wins and losses because those statistics can be deceiving — for instance, Rajon Rondo's scoring numbers always look better when the Celtics lose. 

I normally don't do this perfectly legitimate analytical exercise, because it sometimes produces results that seem counterintuitive to me (but in fact are not counterintuitive at all).

But in Granger's case? 

I'll make an exception, because in this case the data helps me prove the point I already decided want to make.  That's how statistics work.  I learned about it from FanGraphs.

I watched them all season thinking he was Indiana's one-man litmus test — in other words, when he plays well, they look like a legitimate contender, and when he sucks, they don't. 

I had a genius idea because I am The Sports Despot.  Turns out my idea WAS RIGHT!  Bask in my greatness!

So I couldn't resist looking up his scoring numbers.

Wins: 20.5 PPG, 43.6 percent shooting, 43.9 percent for 3s.
Losses: 15.2 PPG, 37.2 percent shooting, 27.0 percent for 3s.

Hmmmmmmm. Could it really be that simple? 

Well, the same numbers say Rondo scores more when the Celtics lose, so my inclination is to say NO WAY!  NOT POSSIBLE!  TOO DECEIVING!

The bigger question: Can you really compete for an NBA title when someone of Granger's caliber is your best guy? Technically, yes … if it were a 2004 Pistons/2000 Blazers/1998 Pacers–type situation, 

2002 Kings if you don't count C-Webb, 2005 Pistons, 2007 Warriors (hell yes I'm counting them, that team ruled)

in which a contender had enough depth, veteran know-how and big/small flexbility that their lack of a true alpha dog didn't totally submarine them. The Pacers have depth and big/small flexibility, but veteran know-how? No way. I can't take the Pacers seriously. 

Take it from a guy who often gets 40% of his gambling picks right!

Sorry. In fact …

You really don't need to use a segue for every one of these.  It's obnoxious.  You're like a child who just learned a big word and tries to use it every 10 minutes.

14. Patrick Ewing

If Ewing wasn't coaching in Orlando, you could have talked me into the Howard-less Magic potentially pulling off a Ewing Theory run and shocking the Pacers. 

I might not have been as perfectly crystal clear as I could have been a few posts ago when I explained how utterly idiotic the Ewing Theory is.  Let me leave no doubt this time around.

Ewing joined the Knicks in 1985.  The team had made the playoffs four times in the previous ten years.

From 1988 to 2000, the Knicks and Ewing made the playoffs every single year.

In 1994, the Knicks made the NBA Finals (where they were defeated by the Rockets in a seven game series that could have gone either way).  Ewing averaged 24 and 11 with 3 blocks during the regular season, and 22 and 12 with 3 blocks in the postseason.  He averaged 19 and 12 with 4 blocks during the Finals.  It was a low-scoring Finals, neither team scored more than 93 points in any of the seven games.  In short, Patrick Ewing was always awesome at basketball, he was definitely awesome at basketball during the 1994 playoffs, and he was definitely awesome at basketball during the 1994 Finals.  The Knicks lost that series for a number of reasons, none of had anything to do with Patrick Ewing.

During the strike-shortened 1999 season, the Knicks squeaked into the playoffs but advanced to the conference finals against the Pacers.  Ewing was 36 that season but still averaged 19 and 9 with 2.5 blocks.  Take him off that team and they almost certainly miss the playoffs (they were the 8 seed).  By the time the playoffs rolled around, he was probably out of gas.  He averaged 13 and 9 and just 1 block.  In game two of that conference finals series against Indiana, Ewing tore his achilles tendon and missed the rest of the playoffs.  The Knicks would lose the game, evening the series at a game apiece, but go on to win the series in six.  They would lose in the Finals to San Antonio in five games.  Record with Ewing during those playoffs: 8-3.  Record without Ewing: 4-5.

The Knicks traded Ewing after the 2000 season.  They would make the playoffs just twice in the next ten years.  They have not won a playoff series since.

There were undoubtedly times during Ewing's career when the Knicks played well when he was out of the lineup.  Such as most of the 1998 season, and probably some other games/stretches of games.  There were also hundreds upon hundreds of times the Knicks played awesome when Ewing was in the lineup, and many many times they won games predominantly because he was in the lineup.

Conclusion to be drawn from all of this (NOTE, DO NOT DRAW THIS CONCLUSION UNLESS YOU ARE A FUCKING ASSHOLE): the Knicks were better off without Ewing, and anytime a team gets rid of a great player, be on the lookout for them to play better than they did when they had the player.  If it happens: THE EWING THEORY IS REAL AND NOW I WILL TELL MY FRIENDS AND CO-WORKERS ABOUT IT!  If it doesn't happen, which is the case 95% of the time: lie in wait, my friend.  Superstars change teams all the time.  You'll have another chance to show how brilliant you are someday soon.

Feels good to get that off my chest.

Wouldn't Ewing's presence reverse the effects of the Ewing Theory? 

Scientists say: ??????

It's like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters. As much as I want to pick an emotional "Eff You, Dwight!" upset by the Magic in which they start raining 3s for two straight weeks, this whole Ewing/Ewing thing scares me off. It hurts my head.

You and me bother, brother.  You and me both.

13. Amar'e Stoudemire


Let's say Carmelo plays LeBron to a draw. 

An unlikely but possible scenario in 2004.  Completely impossible in any year after 2006.

Let's say Iman Shumpert slows down Wade. 

Wouldn't have been impossible had Shumpert not gotten hurt.  Just not a very good bet.

Let's say Chandler executes his 2011 Finals defensive know-how and throttles Miami around the rim. 

Chandler is awesome, but he gets no help at all from any of NY's other big men.  Amare might be the worst defender in the entire league.  The Heat have a decent post guy in Bosh, and two of the five best guards in the league in terms of ability to finish around the rim.  Come on.

Let's say a delirious MSG crowd wins Game 3, 

By paying a bunch of Celtics fans to drive down for the game?

'Melo wins one game, and they win one game on the road because Novak and J.R. Smith started draining 3s as if it were a pop-a-shot game. 

It's as if Basketball Czar Bill doesn't want to acknowledge that the Heat are one of the best perimeter defensive teams in the league.

That makes it a seven-game series, which means that the Knicks only need ONE monster throwback Amar'e game to pull off one of the great upsets in the history of the franchise.

(Hold on, there's a gigantic "but" coming …)

(Seriously, it's a really, really big one …)

But …

Here's the problem: As any Knicks fan will tell you, 

The Knicks never had any chance at winning this series ever.  The Heat are the most talented team in the league and they don't have letdown/effortless games very often.  The Knicks had no depth, no defense outside of Chandler, and were missing the only player who actually energized them for a short stretch this season.

Amar'e hasn't looked the same since the Knicks traded for Carmelo in February 2011. Actually, he started sliding sooner than that: Mike D'Antoni ran him into the ground during the first 12 weeks of that season. In December 2010, Amar'e averaged 39.5 minutes, 29.8 points and 22.4 field goal attempts on knees that were so shaky,the Knicks couldn't even get insurance on them. He's never really recovered from that month. First his legs started going on him, then his back, and about halfway through this shortened season, he started to look like one of those banged-up mini-vans that a family is just trying to keep on four wheels until their lease expires … only in this case, Stoudemire's lease runs through 2015 (for another $65 million after this season). They rested him for a month; he came back last week and looked decent (last 4 games: 56% FG). Could he swing Round 1 with one vintage Amar'e game? Doe's he hav'e it in hi'm?
That joke with the apostrophes is pretty racist but I'll let it slide in the interest of pointing out Bill's hilarious logic to justify this paragraph.  "Let's start with the premise that all the Knicks need to win this series is one big game from Amare (that doesn't coincide with the one huge game Carmelo will have this series, the one game the MSG crowd wins on its own, and the one game that Steve Novak and JR Smith manage to do anything on offense).  So we start with that clearly not worthless premise.  Now let me explain why this really unlikely Amare thing MAY OR MAY NOT HAPPEN."  Christ, I hate this asshole.

12. Shaquille O'Neal

Hate to keep belaboring this … but can TNT trade Shaq before the playoffs so we can enjoy Inside the NBA in peace? 

He's not that bad.  They certainly don't need him, but it's not like he's ruining everything.

Can they send him to the NBC Sports Network for Mike Milbury? 

Take it from this brand new hockey fan: you only have to watch hockey on NBC for about a month before you realize what a fucking joke Milbury is.

What about Shaq to ESPN along with two no. 1 picks, $2 million, and the rights to Season 4 of Franklin & Bash for Stephen A. Smith? 

WHO SAYS NO??????

/hits self

Can they just amnesty him? Did TNT get an amnesty clause in the new labor agreement? Why isn't this a bigger deal? IT'S THE PLAYOFFS! I NEED ME SOME CHUCK AND I NEED ME SOME KENNY! WE WERE DOING FINE! WE WERE DOING FINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We were, I agree with that, but you can stop picking on Shaq for being a former Laker.  It's not like the Celtics were any good during his prime years in LA.

11. Blake Griffin

[Five paragraphs summarized: LEAVE BLAKE ALONE!  LEAVE HIM ALONE!]

10. Al Jefferson

On Tuesday night, Utah beat Phoenix on national TV to make the playoffs. Big Al took over in the fourth, making four straight shots to clinch the game. My wife happened to be reading a magazine as I watched this happen — she noticed me smiling and asked why.

Tell me more about your life!  /puts down phone without hanging up, walks away

"Because I love Big Al," I said.

"Who's Big Al?" she said.

Here's what I wanted to say: "He used to play for the Celtics. Even as a rookie, it quickly became clear that he could score on anyone, at any time, in any situation — even if you blindfolded him, spun him around and shot paintballs at him while blaring Linkin Park. We fully expected him to be Our Next Great Guy, only every time he started gaining momentum, he'd sprain a knee or twist an ankle. Nobody had worse luck. When the team went in the tank, he developed some bad habits and eventually became the centerpiece of that KG deal. Great, more losing for Big Al. That cloud kept following him. He blew out his knee in February '09 right when he was playing his best basketball ever. He came back the following year and got Kahnrambised, followed by Utah stealing him in the summer of 2010 for Kosta Koufos and two non-lottery picks … and two years later, we're here. He's finally on a good team. I'm happy for him. I feel like hugging my television right now."

I mean, I have to give him this: I rip him apart for knowing nothing about baseball or football, being a bandwagon Bruins and Patriots fan, and for generally being a snively little shit who cares about 50% as much about sports as most people think, and knows 10% as much.  But Jeebus, this man loves the Celtics.  He truly loves them.  He's still propping up Joe Johnson and Al Jefferson, years and years after they left the team.  He won't shut the fuck up about Tony Allen, who also left the Celtics a long time ago and isn't even that good (even with his defense).  Fuck him in his stupid face, but this man... loves the Celtics.

I didn't say any of that. You know what actually happened? She made me On-Demand The Client List. I wish I were making that up. 

FASCINATING

By the way, this won't be a token four-and-out for the precocious Jazz — that Jefferson-Millsap-Favors frontline is a nightmare for a finesse Spurs team that has trouble protecting the paint, and in case you didn't notice, Devin Harris and Gordon Hayward are playing out of their minds right now. 

It was a token four-and-out for the precocious Jazz, and none of the games were that close.  I would have picked on this had I been writing this two weeks ago, too.  Bulee dat.

There's no way in hell San Antonio is losing to an 8-seed for a second straight year, but it's going six games … at least. 

SUPER BOWL PICK: GREATRIOTS 27, GIANTS 2.

I really like this Jazz team. If something ever happens to me, you have my permission to make Kevin O'Connor the new VP of Common Sense.

Who will be the Czar of Frontrunnerism and the Minister of Bad Gambling Picks?

Mailbag? More like mailBAD, Part 1

Bill published it.  I promised a writeup.  And only four days late, you're getting just that.  Actually you're getting part of just that.  I didn't make it all the way through.  And I just read his "25 best storylines of the NBA playoffs" article and it's a fucking garbagecluster so now I've eventually got to do a writeup of that.  Jesus, life down here in this basement is tough.

/eats family sized bag of Sun Chips, falls asleep in front of TV blaring infomercials

When I heard about the "Fenway 100" anniversary celebration before Friday's Red Sox–Yankees game, my guard went flying up at the speed of a vintage Pedro fastball. See, we went from having neglectful owners (the 1970s) to incompetent owners (the 1980s and 1990s) to opportunistic owners who transformed the franchise (in a good way — we won two titles) while scraping every possible penny of profit out of their investment, to the point that Yaz was probably afraid to come to Fenway today because he didn't want to be murdered, chopped up and turned into commemorative Yaz-flavored kielbasa pieces for $499.95 per bite. 

In other words your team had a series of owners who were exactly like most other owners of their generation.  Neglectful, incompetent, intensely profit-focused: like 99% of all current owners can be described by at least one of those.  (Exception: Mark Cuban, who is intensely profit-focused in everything else he does so that he doesn't have to be with the Mavericks.)  WE AHHHH SPECIAL!  THINGS AH DIFFERENT HERE AND YOU WOULD NOT UNDAHSTAND!  WE HAVE SUFFAHED MO-AH THAN YOU HAVE, CLEVELAND!  No really he made that argument once.

The thought of a "Fenway 100" celebration made me nervous.

That's one of the stupidest things I've ever read.  Even the world's shittiest owners can put on a good ceremony if iconic players are in attendance.  Hell, Bill wrote a great article like a month ago about that very event happening at a Golden State Warriors game.  I mean, the owner in question was mercilessly booed, but people still went nuts for the iconic player.  It's not like that kind of thing is going to get screwed up.

And then the players came pouring out on the field, one after the other, and … well …


I mean …


What can you say? 

"My team has been around for a long time, so it's not too surprising that they have some legendary players.  And that those players took a day from doing nothing to show up for this.  Neat."

What can you say when every checkpoint from your entire life happens to be huddled as one big mass of Red Sox jerseys in the only hometown park you ever had? 

" (those are ditto marks)

There were Fisk, Rice, Pedro, Big Mo, Nomar, Remy, Rico … it was like a 35-man tie for "Guy I Was Most Excited to See Again." Even better, they invited everybody, so for every childhood hero, there was also a Mike Stenhouse, a Shag Crawford, even a Steve Lomasney. I ended up getting greedy and being bummed out that El Guapo and Freddie Lynn didn't show up. Talking about it with my father later, he mentioned the moment when Fisk, Yaz and Rice helped out with the first pitch — how he couldn't help but notice that Freddie Lynn was missing, how there was something fitting about Lynn not being there for that moment, either.

"He never should have left Fenway," my dad said for the 10,257th time. "Perfect park for him. He would have made the Hall of Fame if he stayed."

Lynn was a lefty who had a reputation for hitting the ball to the opposite field well, so Fenway was probably a good place for him.  Then again, he nearly broke his back slamming into the Green Monster during the 1975 World Series.  And then again again, if you're the kind of player who can only make the HOF if you play half your games in a specific ballpark, you are probably not a HOFer at all.

We have been having the same conversation about Freddie Lynn since I was 13. He should have stayed. These are the things you think about when your entire life is flashing before your eyes. Football is more popular, basketball is more marketable, hockey is more exciting, soccer means more throughout the world. But baseball has a way of making you think about everything that ever happened to you, every conversation you ever had, every place you ever lived, everything. I saw Millar and thought of standing in the tunnel at Fenway in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, when he was drawing that walk against Rivera. 

I should go back and do some research on that story of Bill's, but why the hell was he not in his seat?  Seems likely that he was trying to beat the crowd out of the ballpark if the game had ended with a Yankees win.  Classic Bill.

I saw Yaz and thought about him popping that ball up against Gossage, seeing it coming down, praying for a miracle that wouldn't come. I saw Pedro and thought of those precious nights at Fenway when he'd give up his first hit and the crowd would collectively sigh, as in, "Damn, I'm not seeing a no-hitter tonight." I saw Mo and thought about that hideous strike season, a year after I had moved back to Boston, when Big Mo was the only Red Sox player worth seeing. I saw Nomar and thought about how, once upon a time, it was Nomar, then A-Rod, then Jeter (in that order). 

There was never a time when it was that.  Not any onces upon any times.

I saw Remy and Rice and thought about the time Remy blew out his knee and Rice had to carry him back to the dugout, and I saw Evans and thought about the time he got beaned in the Seattle game and my dad and I thought he was dead. I saw Fisk and thought about that first White Sox game when he came back and rammed it right between our eyes.

I didn't see Freddie Lynn, and that mattered, too. So did the fact that I didn't even realize Clemens was missing until about 20 minutes after the ceremony. 

But please, tell us: how will you look back on that moment 10 years from now?  And how will you look back on the 10 years from the moment when you looked back on the ceremony 10 years after that?

All of this mattered. All of it. The Red Sox have been screwing just about everything up lately, but today wasn't one of those times. Let's hope that ceremony doesn't end up being the highlight of the 2012 season.

If the rest of us are lucky, it'll be outdone by a full-fledged dugout brawl between Valentine and Youkilis as Carl Crawford attempts to burn Fenway to the ground.

Q: I'm turning 30 and the only thing I want for my birthday is a new mailbag. The only thing. 

You're either super rich or super worthy of being shot into deep space.

I even told my fiance not to worry about giving me a gift. I hope you can come through for me, for all of us.


— Jana Fischer, Boise, ID


SG: I don't know, Jana. Lots of people turn 30. 

Like my dad, this one time!  Let me tell you about it!

I need a little more prodding.

It's astonishing: the more popular he gets (to the extent that it can be quantified, I would guess that he's currently more popular than he's ever been due to the relative success of Grantland), the more he needs to make sure everyone knows how popular he is.  That's not a hallmark of an insecure person or anything though.

Q: When a soon to be Holy Cross freshman is getting action in a 1966 Driver's Ed class on episode of TV's best show (Mad Men), I think that means it is time for a mailbag. Given that it is Holy Cross, it wasn't co-ed yet and that it was before the "free love" era, what are the odds that was the best that guy was going to do until he got back home next summer?
— John, Dunwoody, GA

SG: The odds are lower than you think. My dad went to Holy Cross in the late-'60s [rest of answer deleted because ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

I HAVE A FAMILY!  THEY HAVE DONE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT!

Q: It's 4/20 on Friday. You almost always write Fridays and you have owed us a mailbag for weeks. Also half your audience will get high before they read that mailbag anyway. Do I have to spell this out for you Simmons? 4/20 MAILBAG!
— MG, NY NY


SG: OK, now we're talking. I'm almost convinced. I'm on the brink.

Guarantee you that guy is super annoying to get high with.  MG, I mean.  But yeah also Bill.

Q: Sports guy. Deployed in Kuwait right now. Entering the 2-3 month point when you realize your life is depressing. How do you feel about a mailbag? I'm begging.
— Andrew Gerry, Udairi, Kuwait


SG: Now that's a good reason for a mailbag! Stay safe out there, Andrew. As always, these are actual questions from actual readers.

That's some good 21st century corporate PR material.  I support soldiers!  Everyone likes that, right?  Next mailbag Bill will bend over backwards to make sure everyone is aware that he is aware of breast cancer.

Q: Now that Dwight is out for the season, how likely is it that The Ewing Theory will soon become The Howard Theory?


— Kyle, Toronto, Ontario

SG: It's a perfect storm: You have the possibly overhyped superstar who never won anything; everyone writing off his team for the playoffs; a group of players who probably weren't crazy about becoming part of Howard's soap opera these past few months; a first-round matchup against a totally unproven Pacers team; and a coach who'd love nothing more than to shove it to the guy who wanted him out all season. The Ewing Theory Committee is on high alert. 

The best part about the Ewing theory, besides the fact that it's ridiculous bullshit fueled entirely by confirmation bias, is that the 1999 Knicks won a whole like three more playoff games after he got injured before losing to the Spurs in the Finals.  Not that their playoff run wasn't impressive or anything, but I just like that if (God forbid) you need to explain it to someone who's never heard of it, you end up saying "Well the Knicks made the conference finals with Ewing, then he got hurt, then they won the conference finals, then they lost in the next round.  And then the following year, with him back in the lineup, they made it back to the conference finals.  So as you can see, they were way better off without him.  Oh and also, here's the REAL proof: they've won a whole zero playoff series since his final season with them in 2000."  If you get all the way through that without the other person punching you or walking away, the nonplussed look on their face will be worth 1000 words.

Couldn't you see Orlando making, like, 20 of 35 3s in Game 1 or Game 2, then doing the same thing in Game 3, followed by Indiana getting tight and everyone saying, "Wait a second, Orlando can't actually win this series without Dwight, right????" More important …

He got the part about Indiana playing like crap and looking tight right.  The part about Orlando playing well, not so much.  I still think Pacers in 6.

Q: With Howard out for the Olympics, Stiemsma has to take his spot right?
— @bobfuton (via Twitter)


SG: Look, Greg Stiemsma already went from never averaging 12 minutes a game for a Big Ten school to averaging 20 minutes a game as a valuable backup big man for an NBA title contender. You're really telling me that "Greg Stiemsma, Gold Medalist, USA" is far-fetched at this point?

And it might be wishful thinking, but I'm also holding out hope for Hawks in 5.  Might take them 6 though.

Anyway, I'm glad Mr. Futon brought this up because I spent the morning freaking out about our gold-medal chances. Here are the nine definites for Team USA …


[long breakdown of the likely US roster, highlighting uncertainties with big men and the fact that Spain can throw both Gasols and Serge Ibaka at us]

In all seriousness, here's what we should actually do. First, we send Kobe, LeBron, Wade, Coach K and Durant to KG's Malibu house right after the Finals. They deliver the following message:

"We're looking for Andrew Bynum's place, do you have his address?"

We only need you for TWO games. You're going to be using the summer to stay in shape, anyway — what better way to stay in shape than a few weeks of July practices against the best players in the world in Vegas? From there, we'll go to London and stick you in a fire extinguisher case for the preliminaries — "ONLY BREAK IF YOU REALLY NEED KG." You can cheer on the guys, F-bomb our opponents from the bench, scream encouragement like a lunatic and do KG things. 

A couple weeks back I was thinking to myself that pretty much everyone I know who uses the "[Person] is doing [Person] things!" bit is obnoxious.  Well, lookie there.

Then, we'll bring you out for the medal games against France and Spain. You can finally get revenge on Pau Gasol for the 2010 Finals when you were playing on one leg. You can win a gold medal and add to your legacy. And by the way? WE NEED YOU. Win this with us.

No way Garnett turns them down. 

Garnett turns 36 in a few weeks.  I watched every minute of the Hawks/Celtics game earlier this evening; he played like he was 56.  In that column I posted about last week, Simmons gushed and oohed and ahhed about Garnett's midseason bounceback.  Here's the thing: the only reason he achieved a bounceback in March is because he was playing like dogshit in December and January.  Dude isn't one of the 12 best American basketball players right now.  He's not close.  He might not be one of the 12 best American big men.  Christ.  I'd rather have Javale McGee on the Olympic team.  YES I SAID IT AND I SORT OF MEAN IT.  I don't know which is more preposterous--this KG idea, or the idea that an objective person at any point, ever, could have preferred NOMAH to Fish Fillet-Rod.  They're both stupefyingly outrageous.

Q: How long do you think it will take for Bill O'Brien to get the "old person smell" out of his office?


— Mike P, Philly


SG: (Afraid to say anything.)

Ah, yet another Simmons reader writing C+ jokes that get published because most of Bill's own material is more in the C-/D+ range.

Q: Is it me or is Kill Frank Gore's Head going to be the most popular team name in fantasy next year?


— Butter, West Palm Beach

It's you, you fucking prong.

SG: Absolutely. I'm also excited for the obligatory terrible metal rock song with the chorus, "KILL THE HEAD (AND THE BODY WILL DIE)!!! KILL THE HEAD (AND THE BODY WILL DIE)!!!" 

Like I said, C-/D+ range.

That reminds me, where was the WWE during this Gregg Williams saga? How did they not create a wrestling manager/Williams parody who keeps "crossing the line," offers bounties for his wrestlers to injure other wrestlers, stirs up an ongoing moral dilemma and comes out to the entrance song, "Kill the Head (and the Body Will Die)"? How long do we have to wait?

F.

Q: How is Grantland not reviewing Jennifer Love Hewitt's new show The Client List? 

Get Klosterman on the red phone!  Sports fans who don't actually enjoy sports are clamoring for some analysis of The Client List!

It is female porn. There are so many guys with six pack abs that all need Jennifer to "massage" them in all the right places. Insecure men leaving their women. Overdone Texas stereotypes. Please get someone on this show asap.

— Jeffrey, Austin

Please go live in the woods somewhere and stop bothering people.  (Credit to Don Rickles)

SG: Done and done. We're launching a weekly "Hate Watching: The Client List" recap post next week on our Hollywood Prospectus blog. 

Reading that sounds about as worthwhile as watching The Client List.

Q: When the 8-seeded Kings took a 3-0 lead on the Canucks, I was reminded of how little advantage Vancouver received for their amazing regular season. 

For their hard work, the Canucks received home ice advantage throughout the playoffs and the easiest road possible to the Finals.  That's plenty.  Say what you will about the virtues of having eight teams in each conference make the playoffs, but if you start with that as a given, the Presidents Trophy winner has a pretty sweet deal.  Better deal than the NBA's best regular season team gets; they don't get the benefit of reseeding for the second round.  I don't want to ask you to think too far outside the box, but when you were eating those paint chips and pondering home ice advantage, maybe what you should have been reminded of is that the Canucks aren't that good when only one of the Sedins is playing and that Jonathan Quick is a monster.

Here's a dramatic and controversial plan that could keep ESPN's talking heads busy for weeks. I call it "Game 8." It's simple and beautiful. The 1 and 2 seeds only need to win 4 out of 7 as usual, but the low seeds need to win 5 games total. How do we do this? They could win 5-0, 5-1 or 5-2 in a normal 7-game series. But, if the low seed is leading 4 games to 3? The sportstalkopalyse: Game 8. At the high seed's home arena. Winner take all. 

Fuck it, why stop there?  If Game 8 is tied after regulation, there's no overtime... WE GO STRAIGHT TO GAME 9.  AND REPLACE THE PUCK WITH A BOUNCY BALL.  Yeah, you know what I've been thinking while watching this year's playoffs?  Game 7 just isn't fair enough.  We need to tweak that a little.

What a fucking jackass.  How could he make this email worse?

As you say: Who says no?

And there you have it.

— Brent T., Los Gatos, CA


SG: Let's be honest: The only hockey-related ideas that "could keep ESPN's talking heads busy for weeks" would be Tebow, Peyton or LeBron signing with an NHL team. 

Hoo hoo!  THERE'S some decent material from Bill!  All you have to do to get him to be mildly funny is get him riled up about his employer!

Anyway, I like the spirit of your idea but don't agree with the execution — the no. 1 seed shouldn't have to play an extra playoff game. 

THIS IS WHY HE'S THE VP OF COMMON SENSE, FOLKS.  SIT BACK AND WATCH HOW IT'S DONE.

I'd rather see the NBA, NHL and MLB adopt the following idea: give no. 1 seeds an extra home game in Round 1. In baseball, change Round 1 to a 2-1-2 format; in basketball and hockey, change it to a 2-2-3 format. 

That's pretty dumb, although certainly less dumb than 95% of the changes he proposes.  Seems like a good spot to take a breather.  More tomorrow (no for reals).

LOLZZZ

Good to see that the front page of the self-proclaimed World Wide Leader in Sports now features a piece by the Larry B-proclaimed most useless (sort of kind of but not really) writer in sports. The parenthetical in that last sentence refers to Klosterman sort of kind of but not really being a sportswriter, not him sort of kind of but not really being useless; he is most definitely useless.

This is great. This is like the Wall Street Journal publishing a front page op-ed by Bill Simmons on the state of the housing market. "See, the current refinancing market is kind of like the 2003 Red Sox, if Andy Dufrense took Grad Little's place and my dad were talking with Basketball Jesus about how he might look back on the situation ten years from now."

With each passing day, ESPN gets further and further from anything that could be called a sports outlet by anyone with a brain.

Hey everyone, just so you know

According to noted movie critic and cultural savant Bill Simmons, as published on the Official ESPN Spinoff Blog For Stuff That In Many Cases Is (Somehow) Too Stupid To Be Published On ESPN.com, the following people are not movie stars:

Paul Rudd

Josh Brolin

James Franco

Jesse Eisenberg

But the following people ARE movie stars:

Justin Timberlake

Zach Galifanakis

Seth Rogen

Kevin James

So in other words, even when taking part in an argument centered around a criterion that's so subjective that it should be impossible to be wrong, he's wrong. COOOOOOOOME ONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN. He's gotta be baiting me at this point. I'm very sorry for letting myself descend further into Bill's world of mental midgetry, and for inviting you to descend with me by making this post.

I'm not linking it, find it yourself.

Monday Morning Grab Bag

First of all, hey ESPN, nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnope:

Next time try: "McIroy wins U.S. Open." It won't affect your traffic one bit, I promise.

Second of all, hey Simmons, thanks for further reinforcing a stereotype:

Orr resonated with locals in a way Bill Russell never could; as my father explained later, you stayed home to watch him.

Orr was amazing. So was Russell- he's one of the top 10 players of all time. But as Bill's supergenius dad notes, you stayed home to watch Orr (what an utterly unprofound and useless distinction) because (subtext) he was white.

My father was one of those loyal saps. His wanted to see the Bruins hoist the Cup one more time and assumed it would never happen because, you know, it was the Bruins.

God, I know! I can't believe the suffering finally ended! That was only Boston's 6th Cup ever! And only the city's 7th championship in the last decade!

/sees that Vancouver, Saint Louis, Buffalo, Ottowa, and Minnesota (split between two franchises) have never won a Cup and that Toronto hasn't won one since 1967

Go eat a barrel of moldy dicks, Boston.

Literally Ironic Alert

I'm going to do something more substantial tomorrow or Wednesday night, but since posting has been a little sparse around here lately

/clears throat
/glares at other FireJay writers as much as one can do so on the internet, which is not at all

I decided I should throw up a quickie tonight. First of all, while watching some of the Daytona 500 today (yeah that's right, that happened, I channel surf to NASCAR occasionally, deal with it, I just happen to find it relaxing) I learned from one of FOX's announcers that the late Dale Earnhardt was an incredibly strong guy.

He literally carried the sport on his back.

That's pretty impressive. Just remember, kids: literally is a word that adds emphasis to nonsensical figures of speech.

And for the irony portion of the post we have the thoughts of Captain Douchehole himself, William Peaboday Q. Simmons the third. This comes from his annual NBA trade value column, which is really just an excuse for him to take a few cheap shots at the Lakers, talk about how much toughah and bettah the Celtics ahh, and write a lot of bad jokes about bad movies and TV shows (so really no different than anything else he writes):

Ty Lawson: I always get the definition of "irony" wrong, like most people, which makes me think that we should just change the meaning of the word to account for all the people who misuse it. So forgive me in advance. But doesn't it seem ironic in the traditionally wrong application of the definition that Ty Lawson -- the third point guard Minnesota drafted in 2009 (and immediately traded away) -- is better than the guys the Wolves drafted No. 5 and No. 6? That's totally what I think ironic means, even though it doesn't.

Besides being unfunny, stupid, and sickeningly self-congratulatory, you're also lazy. You and Chuck Klosterman were made for each other. If I had the money to make it happen I'd pay to get you both kidnapped, tied to the side of a rocket, and launched into deep space. Later in the same article:

A good test case for one of my favorite games (inspired by Chuck Klosterman): "Overrated, underrated or properly rated?" In the Internet era, we spend so much time dissecting things that it's hard to find something that's properly rated -- we either think someone's getting a little too much credit or not quite enough.

Fuck the both of you.

Bill Simmons: Obnoxiously Writing About a Whole New Sport

Yes, this was published weeks ago. Yes, I will still blog about it. No, World Cup fandom has done nothing to change any of the things that make Bill intolerable. OH BY THE WAY, CAN YOU BELIEVE KOBE GOT NBA FINALS MVP EVEN THOUGH HE SHOT POORLY FROM THE FIELD IN GAME SEVEN? Get ready for references from Bill about that for the next ten years. Anyways-

Am I really posting a 4,500-word soccer column on the same day all hell is breaking loose for the biggest NBA summer ever? You're damn right I am! I'm tired of wondering where LeBron, Wade, Nowitzki and everyone else will land.

And you are in no way responsible for the hype that surrounded that whole scene.

I'm even more tired of people reporting about things that might happen, could happen or seem likely to happen. Just tell me when they happen. Thanks.

So I can update my Book of Basketball (and ridiculous bullshit I pulled out of my ass) accordingly!

In the meantime, let's play 20 Questions with the 2010 World Cup.

Typical obnoxious Simmons article structure- HE will tell YOU what the twenty most important questions regarding the World Cup are.

Question No. 1: What's been the single best thing about the Cup so far?

I love the Cup because it stripped away all the things about professional sports that I've come to despise. No sideline reporters.

That's only a factor if you're watching on TV.

No JumboTron.

That's only a factor if you're at the game, and even then, is pretty easy to avoid.

No TV timeouts. No onslaught of replays after every half-decent play.

I like replays. They let you see what those world class athletes out there on the field (the SOCCER field playing with a SOCCER ball) did.

No gimmicky team names like the "Heat" or the "Thunder." (You know what the announcers call Germany? The Germans. I love this.)

Actually, they're also known as the Mannschaft. And lots of teams have nicknames- the Yanks, the Roja, the Azzurri, the Black Stars, the Elephants, etc. How do we know which ones are gimmicky, like Heat and Thunder, and which ones are not, like Red Sox and Celtics? We just ask Bill.

No announcers breathlessly overhyping everything or saying crazy things to get noticed.

Hello, pot. Meet kettle. (Replace "announcers" with "half-assed columnists" of course.)

We don't have to watch 82 mostly half-assed games to get to the playoffs.

Actually, World Cup qualifying is an incredibly complex and lengthy process. You don't have to watch it, of course, but then again you don't have to watch the NBA's regular season either.

We don't have 10 graphics on the screen at all times.

What is this referring to? Has Bill confused watching sports with playing sports video games? Because yeah- Madden has like 10 little boxes on the screen most of the time. But no live broadcast of a real life event I've ever seen does.

The World Cup just bangs it out: Two cool national anthems, two 45-minute halves, a few minutes of extra time and usually we're done. Everything flies by. Everything means something.

I'm not in this camp, of course, but there's a pretty substantial chunk of the country that considers soccer to be the slowest-moving, most boring, most useless sport of all time. And I'm not sure how "everything means something" applies to a sport where one team can hold a 65%/35% possession advantage, a 12 to 3 corner advantage, a 24 to 8 shot advantage, and still lose. (Spain's group stage loss to Switzerland.)

It's the single best sporting event we have by these four measures: efficiency, significance, historical context and truly meaningful/memorable/exciting moments.

Again, classic obnoxious Bill. Makes an unsupported point; then makes up a rubric of evaluation that shows that the point is obviously correct.

You know … as long as you like soccer.

Gotta unsarcastically credit him for throwing that in there.

Question No. 2: What's the second-best thing?

For me, it's been the schedule. See, my son (aka The CEO) wakes up every morning at 5:30 by opening his bedroom door, stomping out, slamming the door as hard as he can,

"Blah blah blah I have a family." Don't care.

Question No. 3: Why do we wait every four years to have the World Cup?

When I argued recently that the Cup should be every three years, readers flooded me with reasons it couldn't work: It's too expensive (apparently the Cup always loses money for whichever country gets it); they'd have to do too much reconfiguring for smaller tournaments already in place (note: I don't get that argument; that's like saying you can't have the Oscars interfering with the SAG Awards or something); people like having it every four years because it's more meaningful that way (by that logic, you should have sex every four years, too);

It's really not. At all. Good try though.

and most importantly, FIFA never wants to go head-to-head with the Summer Olympics.

My counter for the last argument: Why not? So … we'd have MORE sports on? Wow, that sounds terrible! I'd hate to have all those exciting things to watch.

Classic obnoxious Bill- having a World Cup and the Olympics during the same summer would be awesome for HIM- so why could it possibly be bad for anyone else? Complete failure of comprehension- TV ratings, money, attendance, location bidding issues, etc. But all Bill hears is "Wait- but haven't you considered how AWESOME it would be????" On a similar note, let's play game 7 of the World Series during halftime of the Super Bowl somehow. That'd be swell.

The best every-three-years case for both the Cup and the Olympics: When it's every four years, you might miss an athlete's apex completely. Look at Larry Bird: The Basketball Jesus peaked from November 1984 through April 1988 before his body started to break down. Had he played in the '84 Summer Olympics, he wouldn't have reached his apex yet. Had he played in the '88 Olympics, we would have caught him right after his prime.

Classic obnoxious Bill- he apparently knows the timeframe of an athlete's peak, down to the month. I'd love to find another Celtics fanboy who's 100% sure that Bird peaked from March 1984 through July 1988 and lock him in a room with Bill. Further, how fucking ridiculous is it to say "Larry Bird's peak was (allegedly) only three years and seven months long- therefore, if we continue to have the World Cup only every four years, we could miss an athlete's prime!" Good grief. Get over yourself and your anecdotal analytical abilities, Bill. You know what? Some athletes only peak for a six month stretch- we need to have two World Cups every year! AND NONE OF THEM SHOULD HAVE JUMBOTRONS!

We want the best of the best at their absolute best -- by going four years (and not three), you're taking a chance that a transcendent athlete might have the misfortune of peaking at the wrong time.

Seriously, you're a complete fucking dingbat.

Question No. 4: How many times did you regret not ditching your family, ditching the NBA Finals, ditching the Celtics and flying 20 hours to South Africa for the World Cup?

"Let me tell you about this decision I agonized over!" Don't care.

Question No. 5: Speaking of the vuvuzelas, did you really tell a friend that you have developed Stockholm Syndrome with them?

That's true. I don't mind them any longer. I like the World Cup, so the vuvuzela sound has become Pavlov's dinner bell for me. I hear them and think, "Cool, the World Cup's on!" By the way, you know something is historically annoying when you can compare it to a hostage sympathizing with his or her captors and the comparison actually works.

I unsarcastically agree. I will probably forever associate vuvuzela sounds with the 2010 World Cup. And it's not a bad thing.

Question No. 6: Was it good or bad for the World Cup that Italy and France got bounced in the group stage?

I'm going with "bad."

Shocker that the guy who doesn't pay attention to baseball unless it's Yankees-Red Sox or hockey unless it's Bruins-Canadiens would go with that answer.

I love when two old-school powerhouses battle with an underlying subplot of, "Yeah, it's just soccer right now, but back in the old days, these two countries actually tried to destroy each other." Keeping USA, Spain, Germany, England, Italy and France around as long as possible makes me think about the Boston Tea Party, the War of 1812, Neville Chamberlain, Napoleon getting overthrown, multiple wars, Thomas Jefferson throwing his genitals around France like a boomerang, Benedict Arnold switching sides, all the times France surrendered or withdrew, and basically everything good and bad that's ever happened between those six countries.

History summary fail.

Look, I loved watching France's tournament unravel, and it's always funny when countries live up to their worst possible stereotype. But losing Italy AND France? Too big a double whammy. Maybe it's not as bad as losing Federer and Roddick before the semifinals at Wimbledon, but it's not ideal.

(Let's wait a second for every NBC Sports executive to stop nodding grimly.)

This "it's about the stars, not about the competition" thing is one of the biggest problem with sports these days. Aaaaaand... I'm not going to bother writing about it right now. Maybe someday. If I ever get out of this basement.

Question No. 7: You haven't handled Boston's Game 7 loss to the Lakers very well. What was the snarkiest e-mail or text you sent to a Boston friend after hearing that Kobe was attending the USA-Ghana game?

Guess what? He gives two answers, both of which can be summarized as "BOOO IT'S NAWT FAY-UH KOBE IS NAWT A TRUE MVP!!!"

Question No. 8: After a few legitimately horrendous World Cup officiating moments, as well as FIFA's bizarre refusal to incorporate instant replay haunting the Cup multiple times, do you feel better or worse about officiating and leadership in American professional sports?

Question No. 9: But you'd still love the NBA to incorporate the yellow/red card system for flagrant fouls and technical fouls, correct?

[Legitimate and non-obnoxious responses omitted]

Question No. 10: Who does Lionel Messi look like? It's driving me crazy.

Dustin Hoffman in "All The President's Men."

There must've been a Jersey Shore, Karate Kid, or Victory (Don't know what that movie is? Join the club and don't tell Bill) reference in there somewhere.

Question No. 11: What was the funniest thing you've read about the World Cup this month?

I liked Michael Davies' take on England's demise: "Americans will never completely understand how crap it is, most of the time, to be English. We might have cute accents and be good at cocktail parties. But we are mostly losers." That slayed me.

Who the fuck still uses "slayed?" Especially in the context of "made me laugh" rather than "committed date rape?"

England's fatalistic, self-loathing, S&M-style attitude toward its national team tops Buffalo Bills fans, Minnesota Vikings fans or even Cleveland fans.

Question No. 12: Come on, it can't TOP Cleveland fans -- at least say it's dead even, right?

Good point.

Eh, as a side note, I think they're dealing with the LeBron thing about as well as can be expected. Not saying they're rational or that they all deserve a pat on the back, but... eh. Shrug.

Question No. 13: If you could change anything about soccer, what would it be?

I hate how teams milk leads in the last 15-20 minutes by faking injuries and taking forever to sub players. When that Ghana player had to be carried off on a stretcher at the tail end of the America game, then hopped off like nothing ever happened as soon as the stretcher was out of bounds, I thought that was appalling.

NO ATHLETE OF A TEAM I CHEE-AH FOR WOULD EVAH DO THAT!

Actually, it made me want to go to war with Ghana. I wanted to invade them. I'm not even kidding. That's another great thing about the World Cup: Name another sport in which you genuinely want to invade other countries when you lose.

Hockey? Pretty much any team sport in the Olympics if the stakes are high? Alternate answer: thanks, Bill, for assuming everyone felt the same way about the Ghana loss as you. Personally, I thought Ghana played pretty clean. After the game I was pissed at Bob Bradley and virtually no one else.

Question No. 14: What's been the strangest thing about the 2010 World Cup?

To hear Germany described in such likable, underdoggy tones. Who would have thought these young upstarts would jell this fast? It's like the announcers were talking about the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays or something … if the Tampa Bay Rays had started two world wars and nearly brought down Europe.

And of course, if your knowledge of world sports comes from somewhere other than 80s movies, you know that the German soccer team isn't really a bunch of direct descendants of Hitler.

Question No. 15: Your friend Chuck Klosterman thinks

Question/response involves Klosterman. Don't care.

Question No. 16: Who will win the 2010 Cup?

This was written just before the quarterfinals started.

I picked Argentina, so I'm sticking with them. Second choice: Brazil. Third choice: Germany.

Lost in the quarters, lost in the quarters, lost in the semis.

I never understood why people were discounting Argentina solely because of Diego Maradona.

Pretty much no one was.

How much damage can a soccer coach really do with a stacked team that's always better than anyone it's playing? When Bob Bradley screwed up the Ghana game because of his inexplicable "Screw it, I'm not starting my best 11 guys" strategy, that's a different story: We couldn't beat Ghana unless we played well and avoided any major boners. How can you screw up a team with superstuds like Lionel Messi and Carlos Tevez on it?

Typical obnoxious Bill, trying to pretend like he actually knows shit about this.

Question No. 17: Hold on, you can't let Maradona go that fast. Where does he rank for Unintentional Comedy on a scale of 1 to Ron Artest?

[Legitimate and non-obnoxious response omitted] At least Bill and I agree on one thing: Artest rules.

Question No. 18: After USA's exit in the round of 16, should American soccer fans be disappointed? Proud? Ambivalent? Frustrated but appreciative?

I can't think of anyone in the sports media less qualified to answer this question.

I'd go with the latter.

[Incoherent argument, essentially stating that the US team may be hitting a ceiling for the time being because we don't have the kinds of world-class superstars other teams have, omitted]

Question No. 19: Thanks to last year's Confederations Cup and Donovan's extra-time goal last weekend, do you think soccer is finally taking off in America?

Put it this way …

When I was in the third grade (1978), people thought soccer was taking off in America.

When I was a freshman in college (1988), people thought soccer was taking off in America.

When I was a barely employed wannabe sportswriter in Boston whose life revolved around the O.J. Simpson trial and partying every night (1994), people thought soccer was taking off in America.

When I was living in Boston with my fiancée and writing for ESPN.com (2002), people thought soccer was taking off in America.

I am 40 years old. I live in Los Angeles. My hair is turning silvery white. I have a wife, two kids, a mortgage and that same ESPN column. Guess what? People think soccer is taking off in America. Only this time … I agree with them.

I HAVE LED AN INTERESTING LIFE WHICH YOU CARE ABOUT! I HAVE A FAMILY! IT HAS QUALITIES OF A NARRATIVE!

Also, I can't speak for 1978 or 1988, and I can barely speak for 1994 as I was in grade school then, but I've been a die-hard sports fan with a bunch of friends who are the same since about 1998. No one thought soccer was taking off after the U.S.'s success at the 2002 Cup. I think Freddie Adu's "arrival" on the US Soccer scene a year later generated more hype than the 2002 quarterfinal appearance.

Question No. 20: Wait a second … you agree with them? YOU AGREE WITH THEM???? You sap! They say this every four years and it never happens!!!! Klosterman is right! You are the Manchurian Soccer Candidate!

Hear me out …

Nope. It's an eight paragraph answer that's basically just about Bill and Bill's life and Bill's friends and Bill's text messages/emails and how a younger version of Bill might have reacted to Donovan's goal against Algeria. Bill Bill Bill Bill Bill. Bill is an asshole and I hate him and his writing.

Now please, everyone go leave a comment about how I'm just jealous because I wish I had his job.

Currently Advertised on ESPN.com's Front Page:

Hooray! It's a podcast!

Simmons! Klosterman!

Fucking stab me in the eardrums with an infected needle!

Bill and Chuck Klosterman talk Tiger,

Bill's angle (my guess): the only athletes whose personal life is fair game for judgment for fair game are Kobe Bryant, Roger Clemens, anyone else he personally dislikes! Everyone else should be left alone!

albums of the decade,

Klosterman's angle (my guess): there were no albums released this decade, or at least, not albums in the traditional sense! We should really be worried about the best non-albums of the decade!

U2,

I can't guess what their angles on this long-irrelevant band are, nor would I care to! (I hope their angles are not that U2 has long been irrelevant... that'll really make me feel like a toolbox.)

college vs. pro football

Bill's angle: ever since the NFL decided to script Super Bowl XLII so the Patriots would lose (because it's obvious the league hates the Patriots), he's really only been paying attention to Colonial League NCAA football!

and more!

What more is there to cover? Besides some gratuitous whoring of their books!

Presenting: Punchlines That Write Themselves, Vol. 5

The guest on Bill Simmons's latest podcast (which I definitely will not be linking to) is... wait for it...

...

...

...

Chuck Klosterman.

That sounds like such an unbearably self-righteous combination that I might actually have to listen to it. Can you even fit both of their egos into the same room? I'm going to assume Klosterman makes his appearance via phone.

Oops, my fault, I'm supposed to let the punchline write itself. Sorry.