NBA WHO SAYS NO Rankings - Part 4 of 5

Before we get started, let me just remind you that ESPN and its incessant NFL draft coverage can go piss up a rope and die of AIDS.  And also OMYGOD as I type this, the NFL schedule is being released.  I know everyone is on pins and needles like I am: is my team going to play six divisional games, four games against the NFC division we last played in 2011, four games against the AFC division we last played in 2012, and finally two additional games against the two teams in the other two AFC divisions that finished in the same place in the division that we did last year?  There's really no way to tell--I should probably tune into ESPN to watch this big reveal.  God, fuck the NFL.  Moving on.

GROUP A: “Completely and Utterly Untouchable”

5. Russell Westbrook
4. James Harden
3. Stephen Curry

For the first time in the history of my Sports Guy column, 

You're going to provide analysis that isn't self-important, isn't full of idiotic pop culture references, and most of all isn't terrible?

we’re dusting off the old Dr. Jack Breakdown gimmick and turning it into a threesome. 

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I’m gonna throw my Eyes Wide Shut mask on, take a half-Viagra, throw down two glasses of wine and really get into this. 

Hey, that's kind of a funny "pop" (term used loosely here) culture reference with the Eyes Wide Shut thing.  It's also very self-important and I'm sure it will be terrible, but one out of three isn't bad.

Please, I implore you, for your own safety, don’t try this at home. I’m a professional. 

Go fuck an elephant.

Anyway …

SALARIES: Harden (signed through 2017-18) and Westbrook (signed through 2016-17) are max guys earning $16 million to $17 million per season … a paltry number in two summers when the NBA salary cap starts taking steroids and HGH, 

LIKE KOBE AMIRITE????????????????

but still. Meanwhile, Golden State has Curry locked down for $10.63 million (this season), $11.37 million (2015-16), and $12.1 million (2016-17). He won’t make as much money over those three years as Marcin Gortat. Anytime someone can make $11 million per year and you feel bad for them, you know they’re a bargain. ADVANTAGE: CURRY.

Curry signed that deal just before the start of the 2012-2013 season.  He had been injured for much of the lockout-shortened 2011-2012 season, playing in just 26 games and averaging a paltry 14 and 5.  Looks like one of those "it makes sense for both sides" contracts, really, since Curry would have been wise to take some guaranteed money, and the Warriors were paying him, at the very worst, to be a three point specialist.  Whelp, guess it worked out for the Warriors.  As a Nuggets fan I hate them, but I do love parity and fresh blood in the winner's circle so I wouldn't mind seeing them win a title this year.  JUST this year.  After that, fuck them.  Every important player on that team besides Curry and Bogut is a flaming cuntrag.  Also, if they pull it off, it'll be just the fifth title since 1991 (exceptions: that goofy 2004 Pistons team, the 2006 Heat team that had Shaq and Wade and every call in the Finals, THE FAWKIN' 2008 UBUNTUS, and the magical LeBron-defeating 2011 Mavericks) won by a team that didn't have Jordan, Olajuwon, Kobe, LeBron or Duncan.  And if Jordan hadn't gone to play baseball (IT WAS A SECRET GAMBLING SUSPENSION WHO SAYS NO????) we might be able to take Olajuwon off that list.  The more you know.

BEST GIMMICK: 

Oh yeah, this is crucial.  So glad we made it here after hitting all the important categories like "Salaries" and "nothing else."  BUT WHICH ONE OF THEM WOULD YOU WANT TO WATCH CASTAWAY WITH?

Sorry, fellas, you’re not topping Harden’s beard. Greatest NBA facial hair of all time in no particular order: 

Oh no you don't, buddy.  No cutting corners here.  I expect these lists to have a set order upon which any basketball worth a damn would definitely agree.

Wilt’s goatee; Bird’s wispy almost-mustache; [rest of list deleted]

I'm just going to stop you right there.  Thanks so much for your time.

SHEER AWESOMENESS OF THEIR CONVENTIONAL 2014-15 NUMBERS:Spectacular all the way around. Through Sunday’s games …

Westbrook 27.5 ppg 8.3 apg 7.2 rpg 2.1 spg 43-30-84% 9.4 FTA 3.7 3FGA
Harden 26.9 ppg 7.1 apg 5.8 rpg 1.9 spg 44-38-87% 9.8 FTA 6.7 3FGA
Curry 23.6 ppg 7.8 apg 4.4 rpg 2.2 spg 48-42-90% 4.3 FTA 8.0 3FGA

And Westbrook finished even hotter than that.  I hate him, he's a dick, I've definitely written here before that he is overrated, but damn.  Not sure I am going to ever write that again.

Some highlights: Westbrook working on the third 27-8-7 with a 30-plus PER in NBA history (the other two: 1989 MJ and 2013 LeBron) … 

He ended up just missing, with a 29.1 PER.

Steph knocking on the door of the 50-40-90 Club while jacking up a staggering EIGHT 3s per game (good luck ever seeing that again) … 

Just missed, shooting 48.7% from the floor.  But Steve Nash pulled off 50-40-90 twice while shooting between 4 and 5 threes per game.  I don't think it's some kind of Cy Young's win total unbreakable record.

Harden trying to become the first lefty 

OK, for fuck's sake, I appreciate that this breakdown category isn't dedicated to something as inane as facial hair, but this isn't baseball.  Who gives a flying sloppy fuck about basketball player handedness when it comes to statistical achievements?

to average 27, 7 and 6 

Just missed--only 5.7 boards.

while also trying to become the third player (after Kobe Bryant and Gilbert Arenas) to attempt 500 3s AND 750 free throws (the 500/750 Club!) … 

He got there easily.  Man, that guy gets to the line.  I thought there was a chance Curry was close to this as well, but not even.  He only attempted 337 FTs.

did I mention that Westbrook is a guard and he’s averaging eight freaking rebounds per 36 minutes? … my God, look at that Westbrook season!!!!!! Are those numbers real? Can we check the math again? ADVANTAGE: WESTBROOK.

I'm going with Curry, given that he did what he did on a team that had plenty of other good players, while Westbrook, minus Durant and Ibaka for chunks of time, was really the only guy on the Thunder capable of scoring or assisting.  But there's probably no wrong answer here.  WHAT IF WESTBROOK WAS LEFT HANDED THOUGH, CAN YOU EVEN IMAGE?!?!?!?!!

SHEER AWESOMENESS OF THEIR ADVANCED 2014-15 NUMBERS: Some of this stuff is bat-shit crazy. Through Sunday’s games
…

Westbrook 29.7 PER 38.4 usage 53.9% TS 6.6 RPM 8.4 WS; .234 WS/48
Harden 26.6 PER 30.9 usage 60.8% TS 8.51 RPM 13.2 WS .265 WS/48
Curry 27.8 PER 28.7 usage 62.9% TS 8.55 RPM 12.4 WS .286 WS/48

Some highlights: Steph’s WS/48 will be top 20 all time … 

He ended at .2881, 19th all time.

we’ve had only 17 30-plus PER seasons and 86 27-plus PER seasons (and Westbrook is knocking on the door), as well as just three guards who have cracked 30 PER (MJ, Wade and T-Mac) … 

Westbrook didn't make it, but Anthony Davis (who finishes at #1 in these rankings, deservedly so) did.  Make that eighteen 30+ PER seasons.

only Kevin Johnson (in 1997) ever averaged 20 points and eight assists with a 63 percent true shooting percentage … 

OK, you're starting to really reach now.  Also, as the three ball becomes more and more popular and players shoot it better and better, TS% league wide among guards should continue to increase.

West, Magic, Jordan, Oscar and CP3 are the only guards to ever finish a season with 16 win shares … 

Ah, the coveted 16 win share cutoff point.  Both Harden and Chris Paul made it this year.

and if we want to get super-fancy, Harden leads the NBA in points per game on drives and has assisted on more made 3s than anyone … 

I think I also wrote on this blog several times back in 2012 that contrary to what Simmons said, the Thunder didn't commit some kind of sin against humanity when they traded Harden.  I'm not going to take that back, because in-the-moment analysis is in-the-moment analysis and I stand by the idea that the trade was justifiable at the time, but wow.  Harden is really, really good, and the Thunder traded him for really, really nothing.

and Westbrook’s usage rate is threatening to break 2006 Kobe’s all-time NBA record (not necessarily a positive). 

He came up juuuuuuuuuust short, 38.7 to 38.4.  That Kobe team made the playoffs, though, which proves something, but I'm really not sure what.  So I'll just go ahead and remind you that Simmons is a fucktard.

I give Curry’s season a slight edge for its unselfish efficiency and efficient unselfishness. SLIGHT ADVANTAGE: CURRY.

Really awesome wordplay there, Kerouac.  Knocked that one out of the park.

MOST MANAGEABLE GLARING WEAKNESS: Golden State hides Curry on D as much as possible, but he’s a better and smarter defender than people realize. (Maybe he’s not Chris Paul on that end, but he’s not Damian Lillard either.) 

Ooooooooh. Cold blooded.  Lillard had basically the same defensive advanced metrics (defensive rating per 100 possessions and defensive win shares) as Westbrook this year, and was only slightly worse than Curry and Harden.

Westbrook plays with so much confidence/swagger/ferocity that he can’t stop going into 2006 Kobe mode, especially late in games, which is the best and the worst thing about him. 

More top-notch writing from this guy who gets paid to use words to express ideas.  Klosterman probably thinks that sentence is nectar from the Gods.

(I mean, are YOU gonna tell Westbrook not to shoot every time? I didn’t think so.) 

Aw snap!  In your face, readers!

And Harden’s night-to-night defense used to be somewhere between “reprehensible” and “he’s trolling us,” but he took enough guff that he actually started trying on both ends this season. Great for the Rockets; terrible for everyone who loved reading 1,200-post NBA Reddit threads centered on GIFs of Harden standing in cement as his man darted by him for a layup. He’s the most well rounded of the three. ADVANTAGE: HARDEN.

Indeed, the metrics bear it out.  Harden had more defensive win shares than the other two guys.

BEST NICKNAME: I enjoy “The Beard” and like “The Splash Brothers” a tiny bit more. 

Both of those are terrible, especially since one is a reference to a video game that was most popular ten years ago.

But you know how you’d never call Liam Neeson “Liam” or “Neeson,” or nickname him, like, “Li” or “The Angry Irishman”? He’s just “Liam Neeson,” right? Same for Russell Westbrook. He’s too cool for a nickname. He’s transcended nicknames.

That's simply untrue.  I have heard many commentators and dozens of NBA fans call him "Russ" this season.  You're making stuff up again, Bill.

Damn, I’m at capacity for Liam Neeson references in this column already. ADVANTAGE: WESTBROOK.

You've been at capacity for references to anything other than sports since 2002.

ONE-MAN-WRECKING-CREWNESS: 

Pretty dumb category (not that most of the rest of these aren't).

Um, Westbrook threw up 40-13-11, 39-14-11, 49-15-10, 30-11-17, 36-11-6 and 48-9-11 just in the past five weeks. Curry and Harden can eviscerate opposing defenses — and have — but only Westbrook makes you feel like you’re watching Lia— whoops, 

HIGH FIVE!

like you’re watching a WWE star sprint into a crowded Royal Rumble ring 

Yes, basketball is wrestling is basketball is Taken.  Couldn't agree more.

and immediately start clearing it out. He doesn’t need a nickname, but he might need his own entrance music. ADVANTAGE: WESTBROOK.

Topping off the wrestling motif there, with another wrestling reference.  Great stuff.

BEST QUALITY AS A TEAMMATE: Harden is a famously fun off-the-court guy — the kind of star who seems like he’d stay out with a new teammate until 6 a.m. and, um, show him around. 

He's not going to be your friend, Bill.  Let it go.

Westbrook would fight for any teammate or coach on and off the court; he even holds grudges on the level of, Even though Grantland has thrown more love my way than toward Kanye and Drake combined, I’m not appearing on the All-Star Break B.S. Report because Simmons is the asshole who keeps bringing up the Harden trade and saying that Scott Brooks isn’t good enough. (By the way — guilty!)

YOU'RE NOT THE CENTER OF THE FUCKING UNIVERSE YOU NAVEL-GAZING DIPSHIT!  JESUS CHRIST ON A FUCKING TRICYCLE

But Curry is turning into this generation’s Tim Duncan — an unselfish superstar who doesn’t want to be an alpha dog, 

I like Curry just fine, and I don't think this is a bad thing to say about him, but he most definitely wants to be an alpha dog.

pulls for everyone else at all times, 

That's what 99% of all pro athletes do.

has an infectious personality 

Duncan has an infectious personality?

and lacks any semblance of an ego. 

Yeah, those walk-away-before-the-ball-reaches-the-rim threes really scream "quiet guy who just wants to get the job done."  Again, not that that's a bad thing.  If I shot 48% from three, I'd do it too.  But what in the holy hell is Bill talking about?

I loved that he loved Klay Thompson’s 37-point Über–Heat Check quarter more than anyone. 

Who, among every player in the NBA, wouldn't have loved that if Thompson was their teammate?  What is this garbage?

He’s the best player on a team with phenomenal chemistry. That matters. SLIGHT ADVANTAGE: CURRY.

Excellent paragraph.  Full of sound, fury, and nothingness.

NIGHT-TO-NIGHT YOUTUBE/GIF/MEME/VINE POTENTIAL:

All of them.  Who gives a flying fuck?  It's 2015.  We all can watch all of their highlights every night.  It's not like there's limited space on the internet for them.

DEFENSE/REBOUNDING/STEALS: Good place to save some words. ADVANTAGE: WESTBROOK.

"Good place to admit that I actually don't know that much about basketball."

DURABILITY: Here, too. ADVANTAGE: HARDEN.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THEIR GIRLFRIENDS?  WHOSE IS HOTTEST?  WHY AM I READING THIS IF I DON'T GET TO SEE THEIR PICTURES?

POPULARITY: 

Yahtzee!

Big year for Curry — not only did he fetch the most All-Star votes, but LeBron’s departure from Miami allowed Golden State to become the NBA’s biggest bandwagon team. If your child is under 10 and searching for a hoops team that not-so-coincidentally might have a chance to win multiple titles, or you’re one of those secretly shady NBA fans-for-hire who drifts around from contender to contender because “I just root for players I like,” or you’re a casual fan who just likes watching dunks and 3s and that’s it, or you grew up in the Bay Area and wore a Warriors hat for 10 minutes when you were 8 years old back in the 1990s, then we have the bandwagon contender just for you! 

And there's your one place in the whole column where Bill actually says something funny.  Drink it up, people.

And yes, my daughter jumped on the Warriors bandwagon a few months ago. They’re irresistable. They’re bandwagon catnip. ADVANTAGE: CURRY.

Fuck those GSW fans.  They're horrible.  Even the long-suffering mainstays.  Fuck 'em all.

MEDIA SAVVY: You’d think Curry would win this in a landslide. 

You'd think, wouldn't you?  Finally, something fans really need to read more about.

But what about Westbrook’s tough-love strategy? 

YES, WHAT OF IT?  THIS IS FASCINATING.

I kind of dig it. Total dick for a week, goes generic for a week, becomes nice and thoughtful the next week. He’s like the arrogant, hard-to-get ladies’ man in a rom-com who keeps playing the frazzled-but-successful woman in his office who’s way too cute not to have a boyfriend (only she’s all about her work and her home life is a mess). 

That's how you think of yourself, isn't it?

Russell thanked us today! What does this mean? Does he like me? I love Russell Westbrook. 

Barf

If he punched me in the face the next time I saw him, I’d probably justify it by saying, “I probably deserved that.” Wait … don’t actually do that, Russell. SLIGHT ADVANTAGE: WESTBROOK.

No one cares.

MOST ANNOYING QUALITY:

Tie among all three of them, for being discussed extensively in this article.  Done and done.

BEST “WHAT IF?” BACKSTORY: 

WHAT WILL WE THINK ABOUT THESE POTENTIAL BACKSTORIES IN TEN YEARS WHEN THEY HAVE BECOME NON-STORIES?

Curry almost got traded to the Suns during the 2010 draft; nearly got dealt to Milwaukee for Andrew Bogut; and could have ended up in Minnesota had David Kahn not taken Ricky Rubio and Jonny Flynn over him. Westbrook trumps Curry with the whole “What if OKC never traded James Harden?” question lingering over his entire OKC tenure like a pungent fart on an airplane. 

I agree with the very mild intrigue of the Curry stuff.  The Westbrook stuff: sorry Bill, but the Harden trade isn't about Westbrook.  It's about Harden.  Let's see if he can get there...

And James Harden IS the James Harden from the previous sentence. ADVANTAGE: HARDEN.

He made it!  Go Bill go!

SWAGGER WHILE WALKING DOWN A RUNWAY BEFORE AN ESPN GAME DURING THOSE LUDICROUSLY LONG CAMERA SHOTS THAT

Don't care, we're skipping this category, you're not funny.

UNIQUENESS FACTOR: Brutal category. 

Totally brutal.  Oh wait, who gives a fucking runny shit?

Westbrook is basically Jim Brown 50 years later with basketball shorts on. 

Basically like literally OMG that's so what he is I can't even

And I just compared him to Teen Wolf 

Check that spot on your bingo cards, people.

and a poisoned movie character who uses so much of her brain that she becomes a robot, then turns invisible. 

I lost whatever reference he was making in copying and pasting this over to Blogger and removing the formatting--I can't guess it, and don't even want to know.

Somehow, I have him ranked third. 

He's a great athlete, who plays like another great athlete from a while ago, and a fictional great athlete from a bad movie.  So unique.

Curry is the greatest shooter I have ever seen in my life; he’s like Maravich reincarnated crossed with Steve Nash crossed with some sports movie character that hasn’t been invented yet. Somehow, I have him ranked second. 

He's a basketball player who is good at shooting basketballs into basketball hoops.  So unique.

And Harden is a true original – I’m half-convinced that Dork Elvis, Goldsberry and Hollinger wanted to see if there could be a superior and much more durable American version of Manu Ginobili, so they created Harden in an MIT lab in 2007 during the first-ever Sloan Conference. A left-handed scorer/creator who cares only about getting to the rim, getting fouled or shooting 3s?

He's just like this other guy who is about ten years older and also plays in the NBA.  So unique.

Important note:

No.  Moving on.

“SEEING THEM IN PERSON” FACTOR: Christ. This one isn’t fair, especially with Westbrook in Jim Brown/Bo Jackson/Young LeBron/Lucymode right now. But I saw Curry in Brooklyn earlier this month, and lemme tell you something: 

Hey, let us tell you something: most of us don't just travel around watching basketball as part of our jobs.  If we can make it to the arena nearest where we live when the Rockets, Thunder or Warriors are in town: great.  If not: we'll watch them on TV like everyone else.  You out of touch stereotype of an asshole journalist.

There is nothing — repeat, nothing — more exciting as an NBA fan right now than being in the house when Steph Curry is feeling it. Bird had the same quality, by the way. 

IT AWWWWWWL COMES BACK TO THE FACKIN' C'S!  I BET YOU THOUGHT IT WOULDN'T!  FACK YOU!

And these Curry shots are SWISHING. That’s the other thing. 

Not as SWISHINGLY as LEGEND'S, but they're still SWISHING.

When it starts happening, the energy in the building actually shifts and becomes something else. 

More exemplary use of the English language.  This guy knows how to paint a beautiful piece of shit with words.

It’s tangible. His teammates rise from their bench. 

Something unseen anywhere else in pro sports!

The fans start buzzing like they’re waiting for a band to make a Coachella entrance or something. 

MAYBE YOU HAVEN'T HEARD BUT BILL LIVES IN SOCAL NOW

Everyone stands because you simply have to stand. 

No, everyone stands because it's exciting, which happens all the time in every sport.

And all the limits of the sport we thought we understood get briefly removed. 

Barf

It’s amazing. Utterly, completely amazing. 

Barf barf

If you have the money and the Warriors are passing through your city, go see Steph Curry. 

Oh, you can't see them in person whenever you want?  Pity.  Perhaps you need a more connected family to get your media career off the ground.

You want to be there if he starts feeling it. Trust me. 

"You wouldn't know from watching on TV, peasant."

ADVANTAGE: CURRY.

I'm not even finishing this fucking segment of this shitstain of an article.  Here are the categories you missed, and the correct picks each:

NIGHT-TO-NIGHT COMPETITIVENESS: 

All of them, regardless of the fact that Westbrook looks meaner than the other two.

GUY YOU’D MOST WANT FOR THE NEXT 10 YEARS: 

All of them.

MOST VALUABLE RIGHT NOW:

Curry, I'd guess, but you can't pick wrong.

MEANING TO THEIR CITY:

NONE OF THEM, BECAUSE NONE OF THEM PLAY IN BEANTOWN AND THEY-AHFO-AH, NONE OF THEM AHHHH PROPAHLY APPRECIATED!

I'll wrap it up with LeBron and Anthony Davis in the next post.  Seriously, fuck Bill Simmons and fuck anyone who reads him for any reason other than to complain about him.

NBA WHO SAYS NO Rankings - Part 3

Are you finished feeling guilty for what YOU'VE done to DeMarcus "Boogie" Cousins, America?  Have you thought about what you did?  Good, now we can move on to two players who I genuinely dislike (one of whom does not belong this high on the list) and one who Bill is GENUINELY WORRIED ABOUT, GUYS.

8. Blake Griffin

Things that concern me in no particular order …

Oh wait, Bill is GENUINELY WORRIED about lots of things.  He's fretting.  His palms are sweaty.  WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?  Will NBA fans everywhere finally agree that Griffin is a manbaby hothead who is responsible for about 99% of every on-court scrape/half-fight/actual fight he gets into?  WILL PEOPLE STOP BUYING KIAS?  OH THE HUMANITY

A. Why didn’t Blake’s elbow injury submarine the Clippers’ season? 

Well, he only missed 15 games.  His shooting and rebounding are at career worsts, but his assists are at career highs and his PER is pretty much holding steady.  He's a good player.  He's not an irreplaceable player.  His absence probably cost them a win or two.

This is a team that gives real, actual, tangible minutes to Hedo Turkoglu, Big Baby Davis and Occasionally Fredo Rivers. They just signed The Artist Formerly Known As Nate Robinson and made him a rotation guy. They were upset when they couldn’t get Tayshaun Prince or Kendrick Perkins. They could sign literally any washed-up former star (Rasheed Wallace, Chauncey Billups, Gilbert Arenas, Shawn Kemp, etc.), play him 12 minutes tomorrow night and you wouldn’t be shocked. And they went 9-6 without one of the league’s best 12 players? Where was the 15-game swoon?

I don't like Griffin's game at all, I think he's overrated, but Jesus's hairy balls, dude.  It's not that weird.  They have one of the three best PGs in the league, a good coach (even if he can be a total shithead) and an elite rebounder/rim protector.  What were they supposed to do, go 0-15 without him?

B. He’s headed for his third straight Antoine Walker Award, given annually to the NBA star who provokes the highest ongoing level of disdain from opponents and referees. 

Herrrrrre we go.

Look, it’s hard to stand out on the 2014-15 Los Angeles Bitchers — 

Horrible, unfunny, corny nickname.  (I don't think he's got another "Jackass Central" in him.)  But it is most definitely accurate.

an irascible bunch that spends an unfathomable amount of time griping about calls, stink-eyeing officials, taking hard fouls way too personally and reacting to unexpected whistles by sprinting in short bursts with outstretched arms and their faces contorted in disbelief (or as it’s better known, “The Doc”). 

Wow--shocked that he would admit to as much.  I guess he's still sour about that time Rivers (rightfully) called him a know-nothing dumbass live during the NBA draft, as well as the fact that Rivers is no longer coaching his beloved C's.

But Blake has managed to do it. Opponents believe they can get in his head. And they usually do.

Go buy a lottery ticket, everyone.  I agree with Bill Simmons about something.  (Although I disagree that it's cause for concern about his status/value as a player.  I mean, he's a good player who has a short fuse.  Plenty of those guys have had successful and productive careers.)

C. A 6-foot-10 power forward who’s built like a Greek god, plays waaaaay above the rim and once averaged 12 boards a game as a rookie can’t grab eight rebounds a night in his fifth NBA season? That’s an astonishing drop-off, no?

Excuse No. 1: His offensive rebounding fell off (3.3 as a rookie, 2.0 in Year 5) because he shoots more jumpers now.

Love Bill's thinking here: he's grabbing 4.5 fewer rebounds per game than at his rebounding apex.  First possible reason: he's grabbing 1.3 fewer offensive rebounds per game.  Mystery: solved.

Excuse No. 2: There aren’t enough available rebounds now that Contract Year DeAndre has become possessed by Wilt Chamberlain’s ghost.

This one is actually pretty legitimate--Jordan is grabbing 15 boards a game.  That's nuts.  When Griffin was a 12 RPG rookie, Jordan averaged 26 MPG but only grabbed 7.5 boards.  It's like they've switched roles, and then some.

Excuse No. 3: Blake has bigger ambitions; he wants to be more of a playmaker now. That brings us to …

Probably fair, given that he's handing out more than five APG.  I don't like the guy, I think he's overrated, I think he's too high on this list (I'd take Cousins over him ten times out of ten), but that's pretty impressive for a guy who also scores 22 a game and plays most of his minutes with Chris Paul.

D. I voted Blake third for MVP last season and believed he was heading for a decade-long run of 24-and-10 seasons. 

Bill's obsession with HOW WILL WE LOOK BACK ON THIS IN X YEARS continues, only now he gets to unsubtly drop in the fact that he has an MVP vote.  Go fuck yourself, Bill.

This generation’s best power forward, basically. Well …

Mailman (Years 4-10): 28-11-3, 53% FG, 10.2 FTA, 2.5 stocks, 25.1 PER
Duncan (Years 4-10): 22-12-3, 51% FG, 7.7 FTA, 3.3 stocks, 25.8 PER
Barkley (Years 4-10): 25-12-4, 56% FG, 9.3 FTA, 2.4 stocks, 26.3 PER
Dirk (Years 4-10): 25-9-3, 47% FG, 7.1 FTA, 2.1 stocks, 25.5 PER
Blake (Year 5): 22-8-5, 50% FG, 6.6 FTA, 1.3 stocks, 22.9 PER

Why are FTAs in there?  I'm not saying it's a useless statistic, but the way games are reffed has changed so much over time that I really don't see the point of comparing Malone's and Barkley's numbers with Griffin's.  Look, the facts that his PER is materially lower than any of those guys, and his rebounding is disappearing (whether in deference to a teammate or not) are enough to convince me.

And I had to round up from 7.6 to get to eight rebounds. Shouldn’t he be trending up? Last season, after Blake carried the CP3-less Clips for a month and showed off a better all-around game than we ever imagined, Kirk Goldsberry called him “the most prolific interior scorer in the NBA” and backed up that progress with year-by-year shot charts. 

Difficult title to bestow on someone who plays with CP3 (who I also hate, but do not think is overrated).  With his post game, his insane vision on the pick and roll, and his ability to space the floor (not to mention frequent punches to opponents' dicks), Paul makes life easier for any big man.  With the Hornets he made Tyson Chandler and Emeka Okafor look like legitimate inside scorers.  He could probably get 2015 Charles Barkley 15 points a game if Barkley suited up and went back out there.

This season, Blake wanted to show off his improved jump shot and admitted as much in a piece in The Players’ Tribune 

Side note: the Players' Tribune is a great idea.  It's also a tire fire in terms of execution.  Much like Grantland.

that contributing editor Blake Griffin headlined, “Why Ain’t He Dunkin?” Kudos to him for spending thousands of hours fixing a once-broken jump shot, but man … we have 100 guys who can make 20-footers. As Goldsberry joked last week, nobody ever watched Blake and said, “Someday, maybe he can become the next David West.”

Well, in theory, a professional athlete should have so much time available for practice that they can work on one skill without having others deteriorate.  Maybe the reason Griffin's improved jump shooting has come at the expense of his interior efficiency (and possibly his offensive rebounding) is that he's just not as good as everyone thinks he is.

Like everyone else, I loved watching Year 4 Blake — the reckless super-athlete with a blossoming inside-outside game who searched for GIFtims (GIF victims) 

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

every time he careered toward the hoop. But Year 5 Blake? Let’s play America’s hottest game show, “When The Eye Test Meets Advanced Metrics!”

KIRK GOLDSBERRY/GRANTLAND

Hate to show too much love to Grantland, but those shot charts are fucking cool.

Goldsberry’s translation: “The good news: He’s finally converting all of those elbow shots at above-average rates. That will help him extend his career. The bad news: He’s gone from ‘great’ to ‘good’ in the paint. Not only is his efficiency down close to the basket, but his usage is way down, too; for the first time in his career, the majority of his shots are jumpers. So he deserves credit for improving as a jump shooter, but he may have already peaked as an interior force.”

Is he afraid of contact?  Do hard fouls get to him?  Is he getting lazier as he ages?  I don't really give a shit, but he's not the #8 trade asset in the league.  Especially not when he's getting ~$20 million a year through 2018, and his contract includes a 15% raise if he gets traded.

Ideally, you would want to combine Great-In-The-Paint Blake with Above-The-Rim Blake, Crash-The-Boards Blake, Sneaky-Good-Passer Blake and Above-Average Elbow Shooter Blake and create Super-Blake. 

America's most popular basketball analyst, and bestselling author of "The Book of Basketball" shares his really interesting thoughts about Blake Griffin.

(Right now, only Anthony Davis trumps Super-Blake as an all-around “JESUS! HOW DO YOU STOP HIM???” forward.) Will it ever happen? 

I mean, it sort of already has happened; he's a really good player who's good for 22 and 8 or so.  If he wasn't playing with Jordan it would probably be 24 and 10.  Please stop concern trolling about him.

Should we be concerned that, 

Please stop concern trolling.

during his age-25 season, Griffin’s rebounding, free throw attempts, blocks, steals, in-the-paint numbers and everything else that signifies “I am zipping around like a force of nature!” are drifting the wrong way?

Please stop concern trolling.

Super-Blake was and is untradable. But Not-As-Reckless-Above-Average-Elbow-Shooter-Who-Can’t-Get-Two-Rebounds-A-Quarter Blake? You tell me.

He's not untradable, other than perhaps from the perspective of the other 29 teams in the league with that 15% escalator.  He's still really good.  We have learned nothing from Bill's 500 words on Blake Griffin.  We're done here.

7. Chris Paul

Fucking complainy-pants asshole extraordinaire.  Unlike Griffin, though, I think he is properly ranked on this list.

“Teammates lived in perpetual fear of letting him down. Coaches struggled to reach him and ultimately left him alone. 

And just like that, Adam Morrison was out of the NBA."

Referees dreaded calling his games, knowing they couldn’t toss the league’s best player even as he was serenading them with F-bombs. 

I wish he were talking about Tim Duncan.

Fans struggled to connect with a prodigy who had little interest in connecting with them.”

Now he's talking about himself, maybe?

Did I write that in my NBA book about Chris Paul … or Oscar Robertson? (Checking.) 

OK, I'm out of bad "lol he was talking about someone else" jokes.

Whoops, Oscar. But Chris is really three people: Cliff Paul 

Darren Rovell just got half a boner upon reading that Simmons has internalized State Farm's marketing.

(the bespectacled guy from the State Farm commercials), 

Cliff Paul stinks.

Chris Paul (the media-savvy brand who gives thoughtful interviews, runs the NBPA and always does the right thing) 

Again, except when he's taking cheap shots, flopping, or bitching about the correct call.

and CP3 (the player himself). And you know what CP3 is? An impossible crank, an unforgiving perfectionist, a drill sergeant, a weirdly joyless player who struggles to resonate with teammates and home fans … and someone who plays point guard about as well as that position can be played.

And who has never been past the second round of the playoffs.  I hate that kind of criticism in most sports, but in basketball, great players have the ability to carry teams.  Paul is exiting his prime.  Within a couple of years it'll be pretty much impossible for him to be the best player on a championship contender.  But still, fuck, he's pretty good.

CP3 spent the first half of this season getting into shape (it’s true) while remaining supernaturally efficient; he’d routinely take quarters off and halves off and seemed even grouchier than usual. 

For fuck's sake, Bill.  You don't know the guy personally.  Who the hell knows how he was really feeling?

When Blake went down, CP3 unleashed holy hell; he has vaulted to that Westbrook/Harden/LeBron/Davis/Curry level for a solid month (and counting) while carrying a limited team. 

HE IS A TOP SIX PLAYER, MOST LIKELY EXACTLY SIXTH BEST.  NOBODY SAYS ANYTHING BUT YES

As Doc loves to point out, CP3 actually plays both ends and loves disrupting other point guards; new advanced metrics even back up CP3’s defensive brilliance. 

I'm not sure which ones he's referring to, but given his "the sun shines on things because I cast my eyes upon them" attitude, they're probably metrics that have been around for like five years that Bill just discovered.  Thus they are brand spanking new.

(I went to a Grizzlies game a few weeks ago in which he absolutely destroyed Mike Conley, who’s only one of the league’s best 25 players.) 

I like Mike Conley, but no he's not.

And CP3’s pull-up elbow jumper remains the NBA’s best crunch-time weapon. It’s about as sure of a thing as you can get these days.

"These days."  What the fuck is he talking about?  Is it way harder to get crunch time points now than it was ten or twenty years ago?  What?

And yet … CP3 is also a basketball curmudgeon, someone who dominates the ball in close games to an almost harmful degree. He doesn’t trust anyone else late; he’s like one of those moms who won’t let anyone babysit her kids. 

He also plays on a team with little scoring depth and no shooters other than "35 and not aging well" Jamal Crawford and "can't be on the floor continuously during crunch time because he can't guard anyone" JJ Redick.

His teammates know it, and even worse, his opponents know it. Can you win in the playoffs that way? 

Well, he hasn't yet.

Doesn’t it open the door for what happened in Game 5 of last spring’s OKC series? Can you point to another example of a ball-dominating little guy who also won four straight playoff rounds? 

We got it--enough with the fucking non-rhetorical rhetorical questions.  Also, how about Isiah Thomas?

He’s certainly the best pure point guard since Isiah Thomas — another fiery competitor who demanded perfection from everyone around him. But Isiah trusted his teammates way more than CP3 does. 

WHO SAYS NO?????  Thomas averaged 16 FGA per game for his career.  Paul, playing in a higher-scoring era on a very fast team, is averaging 14 this year and for his career.

If CP3 is more dictatorial, then Isiah was more democratic. 

You didn't use either of those words correctly.

He allowed Dumars and Vinnie to freelance in big spots and never needed the ball late like CP3 often does. 

I very much doubt that he "never" needed the ball late.

You would have loved playing with Isiah. You wouldn’t have loved playing with Oscar. And CP3 is floating somewhere in between those two extremes. It’s crazy that he hasn’t played in a conference finals game yet … but it’s also not that crazy.

Excellent writing.  Top notch.  When is this guy going to give up on the whole TV/podcast thing and just start cranking out some novels?

6. Kevin Durant

I’ll be honest, the broken foot debacle freaks me out.

Crank up the BILL IS WORRIED, GUYS tornado siren.

A quick recap: KD suffers a Jones fracture in mid-October … everyone spends the next few days writing that it’s a secretly dangerous foot injury and that you CANNOT rush back from it … Durant promises not to rush back, then comes back in six and a half weeks … 

Great job providing context to readers as to what would constitute rushing back.  Hey look, a Google result that says that for certain types of Jones fractures (of course Bill doesn't tell us which one Durant had, why would he) six to eight weeks is normal recovery time.

he doesn’t look quite right heading into the All-Star break and plays only 10 minutes in the All-Star Game (uh-oh) … 

THAT'S your barometer for "something might be wrong?"  Fuck the All-Star Game.  Fuck all all star games in all sports.

right after the All-Star break (February 23), OKC shelves him with a “minor procedure to help him reduce pain and discomfort in his surgically repaired right foot” because of a faulty screw, saying he’ll be reevaluated in a week … and three weeks later, the team announces that he’ll return within “a week or two weeks.” (Sorry, I can’t fight off these 2009 KG flashbacks.) 

IT AWWWWL COMES BACK TO THE C'S.  IT AWLWAYS DOES!!!!!  Too bad those 2009 Celtics couldn't even deal with a Magic team that was Dwight Howard and a bunch of mid-rotation guys, let alone the Cavs or any team that could have come out of the West that year.

If KD weren’t an incumbent MVP coming off of one of the best offensive seasons in 40 years, I would have panic-dropped him to sixth. 

Well, I'm certainly glad you didn't resort to such--

Oh wait, I just did.

OH SNAP, AMERICA!  Truth bombs, falling all over your head!  Protect your neck!

Confession time: 

Please no.  You self-important twat.

The thought of a “recovered” KD getting thrown into this late-season playoff push scares the bejesus out of me. 

Well, fortunately that's no longer an issue.

They’re supposed to protect his minutes and his twice-repaired foot when the alternative is “If we miss the playoffs, we’ll take one more giant leap toward becoming one of the most snakebitten almost-dynasties in NBA history”? 

They're no snakebitten.  They're just dumb.  Here's your annual "Bill was right" admission from Larry B: the Harden trade is such a gigantic disaster I don't even know what to compare it to.  It's like all the classics--Jeff Bagwell for Larry Andersen, an entire draft for Ricky Williams, Wayne Gretzky for not Wayne Gretzky, etc.  But it's worse.  Man, Harden is good.

They’re going to protect his minutes with Serge Ibaka out indefinitely? They’re going to protect his minutes in an up-and-down, testosterone-fueled, run-and-gun Round 1 bloodbath against the Warriors?

They'll be golfing in about a week.  Rest easy, Bill.  KD will have all summer to recuperate.

The storied history of the National Basketball Association 

THE NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION OF BASKETBALL TEAMS ON BASKETBALL COURTS

has taught us a variety of valuable life lessons, ranging from “If you make $100 million, that doesn’t mean you can actually spend $100 million” to “Always use the condoms that YOU brought” to “Don’t ever ask your casino host for a second marker”

Some good mealy-mouthed New England racism in all of those.

to “Don’t ever marry anyone with the last name Kardashian.” 

Are you kidding?  Humphries and Odom are doing just fine.

But this lesson ranks way up there: “If you break anything in your foot, don’t come back until you’re 100 percent healthy, and then wait ANOTHER two to three weeks just to be safe.” Can’t mess around with feet. Can’t. Can’t. Can’t. Not in basketball. 

Not in any fucking sport, you moron.  Human feet (and knees) are not at all designed for what athletes do to them.  We all know this.

I’m worried.

I don't care.

More later.

NBA WHO SAYS NO Rankings - Part 1

First, a fun (not really!) anecdote: on Thursday night I was at a bar that was (of course) showing NCAA tournament games on 59ish of its 60ish TVs.  The only exception was one screen over in a corner showing what was on ESPN at the time--a Phillies/Yankees spring training game.  No better demonstration of what ESPN's baseball coverage is all about than their decision to televise a game between two teams that, if things go well, will combine to win 150 games.  Anyways, I (partially) focused on this game for about 8 or 9 minutes.  That's all the time I needed to see: 1) Ryan Howard make an error trying to field a ground ball that 80% of high school first basemen would make 2) an unearned Yankee run score due to said error, and finally 3) a montage of Derek Jeter moments, likely prompted by the fact that new Yankees SS Didi Gregorious committed the baseball faux pas of coming up to bat while playing Jeter's former position.  I really feel bad for Gregoious.  If he starts at least 120 games at SS for the Yankees this year and performs at any worse than an All-Star level, someone in the Bronx is going to run onto the field and attack him by mid May.  Anyways, fuck ESPN's baseball coverage.

Now we move to Bill's piece de resistance, his Trade Value column.  Not content simply to write like an asshole, this year he also edited/promoted like an asshole as well.  I don't need to cover that, 1) because it's hard enough to just critique the flaws with the substance of this piece and 2) because Drew Magary did a great job talking about the other stuff last week.  It's awesome.  Go click that link and read it.  If I were to pick the best and most demonstrative line, it would be:

Bill Walton and Larry Bird changed my too-harsh opinion of Kobe's style…

(Magary) "No way! Two great basketball players told you a great player was great? WHAT A REVELATION."

Really, that just about sums up what Simmons is about at this point.  He's a wannabe "hoops nerd" who actually knows little about basketball but hopes that hiring Zach Lowe and having access to NBA greats via his ESPN gig will make his opinions interesting and legitimate.  But the opinions are just as idiotic as ever, and now, by flaunting these ESPN-facilitated relationships that would NEVER develop or maintain themselves organically if he were an independent blogger (even a nationally popular one) outside of the ESPNiverse, he's exposed for being a starfucker too.  Good on you, Bill.  Feel free to quit ESPN and go the fuck away any month now.  DIE.

Anyways, this is actually part 3 of 3 of his trade value column.  I'm just going to start here because it's plenty long anyways and I'm blogging at a snail's pace these days.  In fact, this whole first post is just going to be the first half of his recap of the previously published rankings from 60 up to 11, and commentary on how things have changed in the time since he made those rankings in January and February.  Really makes sense, right?  No one enjoys Bill's writing and Bill's thinking and Bill more than Bill, so of course he's going to comment on thoughts he thinks he thought a few weeks ago.

GROUP O: “You’re Just Lowballing Me Because He Expires Soon”

One of the dumbest features of what could (could) be an interesting premise for a column--the fact that conveniently, he ends up ranking guys that all have some relatively unimportant (relatively unimportant in the entire scheme of the player's total trade value, I mean) in common together consecutively in groups.  For fuck's sake, he puts Marc Gasol and LaMarcus Aldridge together at 13 and 14 below because they're both unrestricted free agents this offseason.  Yeah, they're maybe both top 20 value guys right now, but did you absolutely have to do it that way?  To the extent Bill takes this serious (he really, really does) this really takes away whatever legitimacy he was hoping to cultivate.

60. Brandon Knight
59. Greg Monroe
58. Paul Millsap
57. Draymond Green
56. Goran Dragic

UPDATE: In February, no. 56 and no. 60 DID get traded … and Dragic fetched a slightly higher price than Knight did. Big win for the 2015 Trade Value column! Don’t get used to it.

Both were dealt in three way deals, but in essence, in exchange for Knight the Bucks got a possibly useful combo guard (Michael Carter-Williams, who should be less of a shooting disaster now that he's not carrying the crappy Sixers around) who has two team option contract years left, a young point guard (Tyler Ennis) who may or may not be anything, and a warm body (Miles Plumlee).  Meanwhile, in exchange for Dragic, the Suns got a guy who probably doesn't even qualify as a warm body (Danny Granger or THE CORPSE of Danny Granger lolololol) and first round draft picks in 2017 (top 7 protected) and 2021 (apparently unprotected).

They're both good players, but Dragic is a better scorer than Knight (for now), so Dragic is definitely the better overall player (for now).  But as far as value goes, I feel like Carter-Williams + Ennis >>> a protected first rounder that's 27 months away and an unprotected first rounder that's more than two presidential elections away.  Like, that's a pretty clear win for the Bucks, as far as comparing their haul to Phoenix's.  Yeah yeah yeah, you've got to stockpile draft choices blah blah blah, but fuck that.  A first rounder in 2021?  The guy the Suns could potentially take with that pick is probably in like 8th grade right now.

GROUP N: “I’m Hanging Up and Calling You Back From a Pay Phone”

Why would a GM do this?  Because their office phone is tapped?  By who?  Unfunny, unclever, dumb.

55. DeMar DeRozan
54. Ty Lawson
53. Eric Bledsoe
52. Kevin Love

Here we have a group of guys who are thankfully not tied together by some unifying thread; Bill just thinks they have relatively equal trade value.  But here's another fundamental weakness of this whole thing that ruins its legitimacy from the start.  (And again, I get that the whole column is just supposed to be a fun thought exercise.  But you Billophiles out there know this to be true: Bill desperately wants to be taken seriously, and the NBA is the sport which he knows the most about.)  Love is a stretch four with just one year left on his deal.  Bledsoe is a point guard with four years left on his deal.  The idea of either getting traded for the other, or either getting traded for draft picks and trying to decide which would fetch more, is so totally dependent on the needs of the other hypothetical teams involved and those teams' willingness to take on long term salary that this list loses all meaning.

Yes, I know I just a minute ago said it was bullshit that Bill groups together guys who have something in common, and now I'm saying it's bullshit that he groups together guys who have nothing in common.  Guess what?  This whole dumb column is, in fact, bullshit.  If you asked me for a sincere idea for how to make it less bullshitty, after telling you to jump in a wood chipper, I'd suggest that the whole list be just 20 players long.  How the hell do we even begin to guess if the Suns would or would not swap Bledsoe for Love?  It's pointless.  The only fun and meaningful theoreticals of that kind involve superstar level players, not guys like the four listed above.

UPDATE: Latest odds for Kevin Love’s new home address this fall: Back Bay (-120), Brookline (+200), Beacon Hill (+350), Wellesley (+500), Weston (+500), South End (+700), Charlestown (+2000), Scituate/Hingham/Duxbury (+4000), Revere (+2000000).

KEVIN LOVE!!!  NEVAH WAS THEY-AH A TRUE-AH CELTIC.  HE'S BEEN PAHHHHT OF OW-UH CITY HIS WHOLE LIFE!  IT JUST TOOK HIM UNTIL NAW TO GET HE-AH!

GROUP M: “I Know, I Know, We’re Being Irrational”

51. Victor Oladipo
50. Alex Len
49. Jonas Valanciunas
48. Nikola Vucevic
47. Jusuf Nurkic
46. Nikola Mirotic
45. Derrick Favors

UPDATE: Oladipo made The Semi-Leap after the All-Star break: 12 games, 20.6 ppg, 4.8 apg, 45-39-83 percent splits, excellent defense and a recent Orlando Sentinel story headlined “Victor Oladipo is learning that success commands opponents’ attention.” 

That's not "making the leap."  "Making the leap" is a dumbass concept that Bill likes a lot (naturally), when he most commonly applies it to situation like this which would more properly be called "a good month-long stretch by a good player on a bad team."  OLADIPO IS ON HIS WAY TO THE HALL OF FAME, READERS.  YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST.

The following "self-deprecating" sentence is presented without commentary:

Please add “Oladipo over Bennett and Noel” to my all-time NBA draft win tally, along with “Durant over Oden,” “CP3 over Bogut and Williams,” “Derrick Williams over Kyrie,” “Okafor over Dwight” and “Jabari over Wiggins.” (Fine, I’m batting .500. Whatever.)

What an asshole.

GROUP L: “Sorry, He’s Worth More to Us Than He’s Worth to You”

44. The Completely Rejuvenated Pau Gasol

He gets a special nickname because he's white!

43. Jeff Teague
42: Zach Randolph
41. Joakim Noah
40. Markieff Morris
39. Wesley Matthews
38. Kyle Korver

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Korver is a good player signed to a good contract (about $6MM per year for the next two years).  Many contenders would be happy to have him; he's obviously the best pure three point shooter in the game right now (he has a shot at finishing the season above 50%) and he's not too much of a liability on defense because of his size.  But holy shit--Randolph is also signed for the next two years, at about $10MM per.  Teague is signed for the next two years at $8MM per.  Noah is signed for next year at $13MM.  You're either drunk or mentally challenged if you think Korver has more value than any of those guys, and it's not particularly close.

UPDATE: Matthews was earmarked for an $80 million to $90 million market max payday before that unfortunate Achilles injury. What a bummer. 

Even without that injury, since he was on an expiring deal this year, he's probably the one guy from the above list who maybe actually belonged alongside the likes of Korver.

If you gave me a do-over, I’d stick Matthews on the Trade Value DL, move Oladipo into this group and give Oladipo’s old spot to Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. Why? Because MKG is destroying people on defense, to the point that he boasted, “I want to be the best defender ever” last week — and nobody laughed. 

I'll laugh.  He's not even in the top 20 in the NBA right now in defensive rating, which might seem to some like a bullshit fancypants way to judge defense until you see that the top 5 (currently) are Draymond Green, Kawhi Leonard, Tim Duncan, Rudy Gobert and Tony Allen.  Or in other words, five guys who all are frequently mentioned as among the best in the league based on the ol' eye test.  So yeah, maybe Kidd-Gilchrist is on his way to greatness, but he's a couple plane flights away.

Kawhi and MKG are in the Finals in any “Which Guy Would You NOT Want Guarding You If You Had To Score A Basket To Save Your Own Life?” contest.

That isn't a contest, and it's a really dumb way of trying to make the point you're trying to make.  In any case, Leonard is obviously way better, as are a lot of guys.

GROUP K: “No Thanks — We Don’t Want Him to Come Back and Haunt Us”

37. Rudy Gobert
36. Jabari Parker
35. Joel Embiid

UPDATE: I didn’t have the balls to throw Gobert in the low 20s with Giannis and Wiggins. Big mistake. His next 11 games after Part 2 was published: 11.3 ppg, 15.9 rpg, 2.6 bpg, nine wins in 11 games, one Kirk Goldsberry piece titled “Rudy Gobert Is Making Utah an Elite Defensive Team.” Anytime “The French Rejection” and “The Gobert Report” aren’t your best possible nicknames, you know something special is going on. All hail the Stifle Tower!

MICHAEL KIDD-GILCHRIST FOR DEFENSIVE POY!!!!  Also, just the fact that you have to account for a guy like Embiid in these rankings makes them not worth writing, or reading.  Obviously the guy is untradeable right now.  Nothing anyone offered the Sixers would be good enough, and if they shopped him around, every team they offered him to would say that they were asking an insane price.

GROUP J: “Don’t Tell Anyone, and I’ll Deny It to the Death, But I’m Listening”

34. Carmelo Anthony

HAHAHAHAHA again.  Simmons went into greater detail about how fucked Carmelo and the Knicks are in the full version of part 2 of these rankings, but he (Simmons) still refused to recant his position that you can "absolutely" win a title if Carmelo is your best player.  Really, if I had to pick one piece of evidence that he's a fucking moron when it comes to the NBA, I might settle on that one.

33. Chris Bosh
33. Hassan Whiteside
32. Dwight Howard

UPDATE: Whiteside wasn’t really a top-60 guy (just filling in for Bosh), 

Just another reminder that while Bill wants these rankings to be taken seriously, a guy with like 100 games of NBA experience can be plugged in for a ten time all star.  Because both guys play on the same team and sort of play the same position, kind of!  It makes sense!  WHO SAYS NO

but let’s say I told you, “I will bet you $100 that Whiteside will either make the 2016 All-Star Game OR be out of the league before the 2016 All-Star Game, and you can pick only one of the two sides of that bet,” which side would you pick? I can’t decide, either.

I hate entertaining his little thought experiments, but I'll take the latter.  Whiteside kind of seems like an asshole who can't get his shit together.

GROUP I: “This Is So Ludicrous That I Can’t Even Hang Up On You Yet”

31. Gregg Popovich

UPDATE: I don’t know if you noticed the ’69 Celts potential of the 2015 Spurs lately, but … well … I mean …

IT ALL COMES BACK TO THE C'S!  BAWSTON IS THE LITAHRAL AND FIG-YOU-A-TIVE CENTAH OF THE UNIVAHSE!  FIFTY YE-AHS FROM NOW, PEOPLE WILL ASK "DID THE POPOVICH SPURS PROPAHLY CARRY THE DYNASTY BANNER ESTABLISHED BY THE AUERBACH C'S?  AND THE ANSWER WILL BE FACK YOU, BEANTOWN IS THE GREATEST!  I BET POPOVICH WEARS C'S PAJAMAS TO BED!  WHO SAYS NO?

More later.

This blog has always been known for its timely analysis

Which is why, per a request in an Anonymous comment from almost two weeks ago, I'm covering ESPN's Jackie MacMullan's SCORCHING HOT TAEK regarding The Incident from the AFC Championship Game Wherein the Patriots Were Found to be Using Underinflated Footballs.  That is my super clever and catchy name for this "scandal."  I hope you enjoy it.  I couldn't think of anything shorter, or involving the suffix -gate or a reference to a political "scandal" from the last couple years involving an embassy in Libya.

By the way, let me also be abundantly clear about one thing: while I despise the Patriots, I don't give a flying rat's cunt about this whole thing.  I just can't bring myself to care.  The Patriots were obviously the best team in the AFC from Halloween onward.  Beyond that, as that awesome story Brad Johnson told about paying guys off to tamper with the game balls before the Raiders-Bucs Super Bowl demonstrates, this shit probably happens all the time.  Honestly: who really gives a fuck?  Fuck the Patriots, fuck the NFL, and most of all, fuck the 24 hour sports news cycle that's obsessed with the NFL.  Now let's go out there and write this dumb post.

We don't know for certain yet whether Bill Belichick had anything to do with the deflation of 11 of the 12 footballs 

This was just another asinine facet to this whole thing--the repeated reporting that it was 11 of 12 footballs.  Not all the footballs.  Not almost all the footballs.  Not all but one.  Not "The Patriots were using a large number of underinflated balls."  No--let me break out my Easterbrook impersonation and point out that 11 out of 12 is HYPERSPECIFIC and we don't need that much fucking information.  Again, this is what happens when an NFL non-story breaks during Pro Bowl weeks.  Sure, there are dozens of NBA and NHL games going on, but we need the Bottom Line ticker to let us know exactly what fraction of the balls were tampered with.  I swear, the retards who inhabit this country love the NFL so much you could get great ratings on a 30 minute show that was just Adam Schefter and Chris Mortensen going back and forth about what their sources have told them about that 12th ball that was actually within the league's rules.

the New England Patriots used in their trouncing of the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship Game. In fact, we may never know.

We sure won't.  Because this will all be forgotten about about four seconds after the Super Bowl kicks off.

Regardless of what the league determines, the Patriots' coach already has been declared guilty in the court of public opinion, 

By the way, as we go through this piece, you'll discover that Jackie Mac says the league should come down HAHHHHHD on the Pats if they are guilty.  This is a hot taek in so many ways-- 1) she all but conceded in her first three sentences that we'll never really know, therefore more or less saying that there shouldn't be any stiff punishment, but even better, 2) anyone who has seen her on PTI knows that just like every other knuckle-dragging sportswriter from New England, she's an unashamed homer who wears her Pats-loving heart on her sleeve.  Meaning, of course, that this whole article is really just a trolling of other Pats fans who she knows will be totally offended by her position, thus generating BUZZ and CONTROVERSY and PAGEVIEWS.  Somewhere, Mark Shapiro is smiling and nodding.

his football brilliance superseded only by his football arrogance.

Such a deft juxtaposition.  Someone give this woman her own TV show.

Consider this tweet from Hall of Famer Jerry Rice:

11 of 12 balls under-inflated can anyone spell cheating!!! #Just Saying

First of all, Jerry, ask your kids about how hashtags work.  (Lol!  Old people am I right?!)  Second of all, wow, blazing taek right there.  Thanks for the input.

Rice has no skin in New England's game. 

Incredible analysis here.  "This is a very simple  story, but it is also a huge story in the world of the NFL.  Here's someone from that world who has no connection to the Patriots, AND HE'S WEIGHING IN ON THE STORY WITH HIS VERY BASIC OPINION.  Marvel at it, everyone."

He's not a former Raven or Colt, although he did play his final season in Seattle. 

If you see some hipster kid this weekend with a bad mustache, a SuperSonics hat and a Jerry Rice Seahawks jersey, punch him in the face for me please.

He is a football legend with an impeccable résumé and he won't be the first or last to cast aspersions on the football team in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

Again, here's Jackie: "Note that this person has an opinion.  Really makes you think, doesn't it?"

On the surface, knowingly tampering with footballs just minutes before (or during?) the AFC Championship Game in which your team is heavily favored seems, in the words of former Patriots safety Rodney Harrison, "laughable.''

Yeah, there's a guy who knew how to cheat the RIGHT way.  None of this getting caught for him, at least for most of his career.

It is also incredibly audacious, stupid and paranoid.

This was a single sentence paragraph in the article as published.

Bill Plaschke demands his royalty check.

Also, if the Patriots did this on purpose, it's a lot of things.

But I'm pretty sure it wasn't fueled by paranoia.

It's almost as ludicrous as videotaping the defensive signals of opposing teams after the league sent a memo specifically forbidding the practice and warning there would be serious repercussions if the decree was ignored.

This is more catnip thrown by a New Englander at all the Massholes out there reading this on their phones during their lunch break at the tuna cannery.  "Hey everyone... remember when the Patriots cheated this other time?  That got you good and riled up I'll bet.  Mmm hmm."

Spygate, Deflategate. Connect the dots and it appears to be more of the same, a haughty coach obsessed with winning who will do anything to get an edge -- and will gleefully tweak the league office in the process.

Fuck Belichick, but the guy has balls.  I'm almost starting to like him.

Therein lies Belichick's problem. A man who has made football his life's work, whose reverence for the game and its history is well-documented, 

I love the idea that doing anything to win is somehow not in alignment with loving the game and knowing about its history.  Why, it's almost like he wants to win so he can be a part of that history some day!  Madness!

has forever forfeited the benefit of the doubt when it comes to his own integrity. 

Guarantee you he doesn't give a shit.

Earlier this month, 85-year-old Don Shula, the winningest coach in NFL history and the only one to oversee an undefeated season, 

Barf

with the Miami Dolphins in 1972, 

Oh, is that when it was?  I'm only reminded of that every goddamn 10 minutes during all NFL broadcasts in October/November when there are only a couple of undefeated teams left.

was asked about New England's coach. The congenial Shula replied: "Beli-cheat?"

RAZOR SHARP.  WOW.  EVEN AT 85, THE GUY HAS A FIRM GRASP ON SHITTY PUNS.  THIS IS ALMOST AS CRAZY AS THE TIME JERRY RICE POINTED OUT THAT CHEATING IS THE SAME THING AS CHEATING.

It spoke volumes about the perception of New England's resident football genius. Shula is a man of character and credibility. 

Oh my God.  Holy shit.  No, he's not.  He's not Teddy Roosevelt.  He's not Roberto Clemente.  He's just a guy who was an awesome football coach a while ago.  Of COURSE he's going to shit on Belichick.  That's what all retired legends in every field do when asked about the then-current legends in the making in that field.

His words hold weight, far more than a blustery Ray Lewis embarking on a rant dismissing Tom Brady's career because of the tuck rule. That made no sense and had no merit.

Hahahahha.  I didn't hear that.  That's pretty great, though.  Good for Ray.  I like that taek.

This deflation controversy is a different case altogether. 

Right--one is a case of potential circumvention of league rules.  The other is a case where the league's referees probably did correctly enforce the league's rules, even though those rules are terrible.  Where am I going with this contrast?  I don't know, but fuck Tom Brady.

The Colts became suspicious about the footballs and asked the referees to check them during the game. An investigation was launched, and there is tangible evidence the balls were inflated 2 pounds per square inch below what the league mandates.

2 POUNDS?  ARE YOU SURE IT WASN'T 1.7 POUNDS?  GET ED WERDER TO CAMP OUT OUTSIDE OF JIM CALDWELL'S HOUSE UNTIL WE GET SOME ANSWERS.

Obviously there are myriad unanswered questions. Were the balls properly checked by the officials before the game? Who monitored the Patriots' footballs on the sideline? When, if at all, were the balls that appeared underinflated then discarded or re-inflated? Is there any tangible evidence that someone on New England's sideline tampered with the balls?

That last one is a pretty relevant question, which I hate to admit, because the other three are so mind-numbingly stupid and 24 hour news cycle-y that I want to throw myself down a flight of stairs.  WHEN WERE THE BALLS UN-INFLATED OR RE-INFLATED OR SOMETHING?  WHAT WAS THE NAME OF THE COW THAT THE BALLS WERE EVENTUALLY MADE OUT OF?

Let's dispatch one ridiculous notion: The deflated balls are not why the Patriots are playing in the Super Bowl next weekend. New England completely dismantled Indianapolis in -- as a certain coach likes to say -- every phase of the game.

A little nod and a wink to those Masshole ESPN readers I've been talking about.  "Hey, just so you guys know, I love Belichick and the Pats just as much as you do.  Stay with me here, I'm just trying to get paid."

In a perfect football world, the Patriots 

would not exist, or would go 0-16 every year.

would be riding high in the wake of a surge of creativity that has set them apart in recent weeks.

Nope, I like mine better.

The Brady-to-Edelman-to-Amendola touchdown, the four-offensive-linemen formation and the touchdown pass to tackle Nate Solder were all evidence that New England had rediscovered its innovative, edgy persona.

Hey, cheating is often innovative and edgy too.  Let's not rule out the possibility of having it both ways.

Why can't the coach trust his players' talents and his own intellect and lean on the excellence of the organization 

Fuck the organization and fuck Bob Kraft.  There is no Patriot Way.  It's a fucking team, and it will employ cheaters and murderers just as readily as any other team.  It's had a lot of success recently because of Belichick and Brady.  If those two guys died in their sleep tonight, they'd lose the Super Bowl by 30 and be irrelevant for the next 15 years.  Let's stop patting "the organization" on the back for having generational talents (one of whom they stumbled ass-backwards into employing) holding the two most important jobs on a football team.

he has so painstakingly built into a sustainable football juggernaut? 

Because he likes winning.  Article over.

It's like a prizefighter pummeling his opponent for six straight rounds, then feeling compelled to throw a sucker punch after the bell has sounded. Why? You had the fight won.

No, it's really more like a prizefighter paying someone to poison his opponent's food before the bout even though the opponent was much weaker to begin with.  See how my analogy works and yours is terrible?

I'll say it again: There's no concrete evidence yet that Belichick or the Patriots did anything wrong. 

Yeah, we got it.  Thanks.

But even the most ardent New England fan has to concede that when 11 of the 12 balls are discovered to be deflated, that's a mighty interesting coincidence.

You're doing that thing that all bad sportswriters do where you just start wandering off and either restating your old points or not making any new ones.  Just finish up already.

If the NFL finds the Patriots culpable (and that is still a big "if" at this point),

HOLY FUCK, THAT'S THE EIGHTH TIME YOU'VE REMINDED US.  WE GET IT.

it should lay the hammer down. If Belichick turns out to be a repeat offender in the skirting of the league rules, he should be suspended for the Super Bowl.

MOLTEN LAVA HOT.  BE CAREFUL EVERYONE.

It's not about the deflated balls. It's not about how much of an advantage (if any) it provided the Patriots or Tom Brady.

Actually, had that laughably impossible outcome occurred, it would have been about exactly that advantage.  What the hell else would it be about?  The Patriots having insulted the league's officially licensed ball and pump manufacturers?

It's about the integrity of the sport 

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

The integrity of the NFL

Hahahahah

That's wonderful

I'm crying

and the arrogance of a football coach who, if guilty, will have once again shown that he thinks he is bigger than the game.

Well, he probably does think that, and it's probably true.

For years the Patriots have fostered an "Us Against the World" mentality, whether real or manufactured (usually it was the latter).

It's always the latter.  Drew Magary put it best in his Deadspin weekly column today: "The world doesn’t give a shit. Most of the world is just trying to fucking eat. Some farmer in Burundi isn’t gonna be like, “The Pats won? Well, they showed me!”"  I don't adore Magary like some do (enough about your goddamn kids, holy shit, enough), but that's a pretty great line.

No one was better at inventing slights to motivate his team than Harrison, who is convinced Belichick and the Patriots will utilize the furor surrounding this controversy to their advantage.

No they won't.  That is a dumb, cliched narrative.  They will instead just ignore it and go out and try to outplay Seattle, same as they would have if the big story this week was that Spygate was a complete invention by the league and never happened.

"I can tell you, this is the last thing Seattle needs,'' Harrison said recently. "Those guys in that New England locker room are pumped. After all the hard work they've put in, after all they've accomplished, after all they've done, to have people doubt them?

Fuck yourself, Rodney.

"They're taking that stuff personally. They're fired up. Add the fact Seattle was favored in the Super Bowl, and look out.''

Yeah, and almost immediately after the books opened, the line swung around to favor New England, where it has stayed.  THAT'S THE LAST THING THE PATRIOTS NEED.  THE SEAHAWKS ARE PISSED OFF.  IT'S THEM AGAINST THE WORLD.

He's right. There's nothing like controversy to band a team together and provide them with the extra resolve to prove their detractors wrong.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz God I hate football culture and the journalists who enable it.

But here's the hitch: Even if the Patriots beat the Seahawks 60-0 in Super Bowl XLIX, the win will be declared a tainted one by many. 

I know, it's going to be so fun to use this complete non-story as ammunition against dumb Patriots fans for decades to come.  "Sure, eventually they won another Super Bowl without being able to illegally tape other teams' practices, but that's only because they found a DIFFERENT way to cheat.  Smh."  (Last part should only be used if you are giving your snarky anti-Patriots hot taek in an online environment.)  Seriously, it's going to be great.

The noise will continue, and the chants of "Beli-cheat" will endure.

As they should, as long as we all promise to brainstorm a better and more insulting nickname.

The coach probably won't care, but it's not just his legacy that will be stained. His players also are saddled with the perception that something far more unseemly than their preparation and sacrifice were the reasons for their success.

I'm sure they'll really care while admiring their Super Bowl rings and cashing their bonus checks.

And that's the most deflating reality of all.

OH WOW.  I spent all this time making fun of this article, and then she drops a KILLER closing line on me.  God, I look like a fool now.  Should have just turned this post into a bunch of deflated/soft/mishandled balls (haha balls) jokes.

Damn, no terrible baseball HOF articles are out yet

Come on, sportswriters of America!  They just released the ballot, so the time to get your moralizing and self-important posturing in is NOW!  NOW NOW NOW!  Talk about how Mike Piazza supposedly had back acne, or how Jeff Bagwell "was just a little too strong for it to have been only weightlifting, if you get my drift," or how Barry Bonds stabbed baseball to death with a screwdriver and danced on its grave.  Alas, I looked for a while and came up with nothing.  Give it a couple of weeks I guess.  Instead, who's up for some Bill?  His picks column from last week is all I've got, because I refuse to watch his dipshittery unfold on TV, and he's not writing anything else right now because he's too busy playing with the Trade Machine ZOMG TRADE MACHINE NERDGASM NERDBONER.

Gambling update: Gotta hand it to him; he's 18-11 since I last updated.  That puts him at 54-50 on the season, which is basically the break even point.  Good for him.  Meanwhile, Year of the Dog?  How could it NOT be Year of the Dog when they went 15-14 these past two weeks, leaving them at 84-88 on the season.  It's almost too easy!  THANKS FOR THE FREE MONEY, VEGAS!

Anyways, here are some LOWlights (lol) from his week 12 picks.  Someone should punch this man in the throat, yes, but let's not ignore His Readers (tm).  Most of them need a good throat-punchin' too.

Q: I have a six year old son. He is basically like a boney ball of energy that just wants to wrestle, run, jump, and climb everywhere and all the time. As a dad, it’s fun to horse around and let him win like a WWE style match. He loves it. But sometimes he gets a bit out of control and I need to pull him off a bookshelf or off my back. For everyone’s safety. He always has the same stunned reaction, like “How did you do that? You must be the strongest man in the world!” Watching the Pats game and Gronk’s ridiculous man handling of the Colts it reminded me of well, me as a dad. Gronk looks like he is just playing with a bunch of little kids. Its all fun and games, until he gets pissed and decides to toss defenders around like a dad that just took much crap. You’ve got a boy, ever go ‘Gronk ‘on him?
—Jim, Wharton, NJ

Let's run down the content of this email.

1) Writer letting other people know that, yes, he has conceived a child and is now raising that child, a feat previously never accomplished in recorded human history, so don't you just want to read about it?

2) Writer telling very unremarkable stories about said child

3) Chest-thumping about awesome parenting abilities, including the ability to monitor safety of said child

4) Talking about the GREATRIOTS to make sure Bill publishes your email

5) Answering your own question for Bill, to further make sure Bill publishes your email

Jim from Wharton, NJ, is a loser.

BS: We have the same son —

No you don't, fuckhead.  Most 6 year olds are alike.  YOU'RE NOT THE CENTER OF THE FUCKING UNIVERSE.

There’s nothing funnier than fake-wrestling a completely fearless little boy who weighs three times less than you. 

There are a lot of things funnier than that.  Norm MacDonald is funnier than that.  The Three Stooges are funnier than that.  It's a pretty long list.

They’re like a cross between a pinball and the amped-up dog in There’s Something About Mary. 

Timely!  Nothing brings the readers in like a reference to an obscure part of a somewhat good Ben Stiller movie from 15 years ago.

So as the dad, your job is to make sure neither of you get injured.

You don't say.  I was guessing the top priority would be to go totally ape shit in order to defeat your child at wrestling, but I guess that's why I don't have one!

Here’s how much I love Rob Gronkowski: I haven’t written a full-fledged Gronk column because I can’t risk putting the Simmons Stink on him, seeing him suffer another dumb injury because yet another safety cowardly took out his legs when Gronk wasn’t looking, 

All hail Bernard Pollard, my favorite football player of all time!

watching in horror as another Lombardi vanishes into a puff of smoke, 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA fuck you.  Tell me all about the Lombardis your franchise has lost to injuries, Bill.  Tell me all about it.  It's never happened to any other good team; only to yours.  Sure, they choked away what could have been the greatest season ever, while they were fully healthy and their QB was in his prime.  But if only GRONK had been healthy, they surely would have won nine straight titles by now.  DIE.

then sentencing myself to a lifetime of head shakes from my father and caustic emails from bitter Patriots fans. No way. There will be no Gronk column.

I hope the Pats are 100% healthy come January, and Denver or Indy or whoever goes into Gillette and stomps the fuck out of them.  God, it warms my soul just to think about it.

Q: The QB is the NFL’s most important position. Because of that, a QB is going to win another MVP in 2014. 

Watch out, everyone.  Dr. Knowledge is in the house and he's writing HOT TAEK prescriptions.

Shouldn’t the NFL create a different award to recognize the non-QB who offers the most value to his team? 

AHHHHH RUN RUN RUN IT'S GREGGGGGGGGGG WRITING IN UNDER A PSEUDONYM THE CALLS ARE COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE RUNNNNNNNNNN

If this award was reality it would be a five-player race right now between Gronk, Watt, Antonio Brown, DeMarco Murray and maybe Justin Houston (if he breaks the sack record). 

Hmmm.  "Gronk" and "Watt" used as nicknames because they've already been mentioned in the previous question... either Bill is editing his readers' questions unnecessarily, or he writes these questions himself.  I know which one I hope is true.

Why not a non-QB MVP? It’s a better idea than sending teams to London, that’s for sure.
—Patrick, Rhode Island

Sending teams to London is dumb.  This award idea is also dumb.  Congrats.

BS: And you didn’t even mention this wrinkle — in a 30-year span from 1956 (when the award was created) through 1986, only 17 QBs won the MVP.

MY GOD.  IT'S ALMOST LIKE QUARTERBACK HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE GAME'S MOST IMPORTANT POSITION, AND RECENT RULE CHANGES HAVE BEEN DESIGNED TO CREATE MORE SCORING, WHICH ENHANCES THEIR VALUE.  FUCK ME SIDEWAYS.  MY DICK JUST FELL OFF.  THIS IS TRULY ASTONISHING.

Q: After watching Gronk’s 

Gronk.  Gronk Gronk Gronk.  Gronk?  Gronk.  Bill is a seven year old who just picked his favorite player, and thinks the rest of the world finds this just as exciting as he does.

extracurricular pancake block followed by his ridiculous touchdown in Sunday’s game, we came up with a new word. 

Why are you writing this email in tandem?  I don't care if you're best friends, lovers, or the only two owners of a newly-formed corporation.  Write your fucking sports mailbag emails solo.

LeBronk: A player who plays the game with such a unique level of swagger that you continue to watch lopsided games just to see if they do something outrageous. At any given time, there are only a few LeBronks out there. Who’s on the LeBronk Mount Rushmore right now? We’ve got LeBron, Gronk, The Brow, and J.J. Watt.
—Sam and Noam, Brooklyn

You're both douchenozzles and you should be punched in the throats.

BS: You nailed the current LeBronk Mount Rushmore

There is no LeBronk Mount Rushmore (why not just call it LeBronkMore????!?!?!?!?!).  There are only athletes who play sports, and teams that employ those athletes.  That's all this is.  If you have to make things more complicated than that, you don't actually like sports.  You're just in it for the water cooler talk.  Go fuck yourself.

Q: If Rob Gronkowski and JJ Watt fought each other in the Thunderdome and it was scored like a football game, what would the betting line be? 

HOLY FUCKING SHIT WHO CARES?  

My friends and I thought that the public would probably push the line to Watt -6.5, 

WHO SAYS NO?

so I’d take Gronk with those odds. 

What odds?  How the fuck do you score a physical fight like a football game?  Why is anyone entertained by this?  Who cares?  Just watch football and enjoy it for what it is, it's not this complicated.

Sure Watt has the size advantage, but I think Gronk’s hands would help him grab the weapon needed to give him the upper hand. What’s the line and how would you bet?
—Alex MG, NYC

BS: Yes! Yes! Yes! This is a GREAT mailbag question.

HOW IS THIS FUN FOR YOU?

RAIDERS (+7.5) over Chiefs

(The Raiders had already won at this point)

Why I picked against the Chiefs (via Instagram): “Trap Game + 8 Straight KC Covers + We’re Overdue for An Andy Reid Game.” I think that makes me Nostrasimmdus! Never change, Andy Reid. Never change.

Yeah, it was totally Andy Reid going 2 for 14 on 3rd down and letting the Raiders rack up 180 rushing yards.  All you, Andy.  You're a punchline for dumb fans.  Sorry about that.  Those of us with brains acknowledge that you've won almost 60% of the games you've ever coached.

Q: Heading into Week 12 games: did you know that, if there were a fantasy football player named “All The Chiefs Receivers,” ATCR would rank #26 on the WR list averaging 9.2 fantasy points/game.
—Dave, Rogersville, MO

This is actually a non-idiotic email.  That is an interesting stat.  What will Bill do with it?

BS: And … there’s your problem with the Chiefs. You can’t be one-dimensional for four straight playoff rounds. It’s never worked. 

Really?  Never?  Never?  Not in 1999, when the Greatest Show on Turf Rams ran for 111 yards TOTAL in their three playoff games?  Total, not average.  OK, cool.  Oh, I forgot--the GREATRIOTS beat them in the Super Bowl two seasons later, totally invalidating everything Kurt Warner and that iteration of the Rams accomplished.  My bad.

(Those K.C. receivers put up 9.5 points last night, by the way.) Here’s the strange thing: For all their faults, the Chiefs were (and are) the scariest AFC matchup for the Patriots.

And there's what Bill did with that interesting stat--turned it into a chance to be WEEI caller WILLY FROM WORCESTER and tell the host that the PATS DO NAWT FEA-AH MANNING BECAUSE HE IS A FACKIN' GASH, BUT THE CHIEFS, NOW THAT IS A TOUGHAH MATCHUP.  VAH-REE TOUGH MATCHUP.  

Q: Make a pick for the following prop bet: What Philadelphia team will have more wins this year, Sixers (-200) or Eagles (+170)?
—Steve D, Philadelphia

Hey assholes: not everything has to be expressed as a made up prop bet.

BS: I’d jump on that Eagles +170 bet. 

I'd play the role of the house and take that bet.  Last year's Sixers were certainly better than this year's, with Evan Turner and Thaddeus Young and Spencer Hawes making them slightly un-terrible, but last year's team won 19 games.  That's a big cushion.  Only twice ever has a team won single digit games (or been on pace to win single digit games if the season were 82 games). 

I can’t see any scenario in which the 2014-15 Sixers reach 10 victories — 

None.  No scenarios.  Zero of them.  The East is a joke, Philly's division is ESPECIALLY a joke, but yeah.  There are literally ZERO WAYS they stumble to 10 wins.  Cool.

that’s a gruesome disgrace of a roster. Even though their front office played the bottoming-out thing correctly on paper, the fact remains, they’re disgracing the sport and defecating on their season-ticket holders.

This guy has a lot of nerve.  He really has a lot of fucking nerve, doesn't he?  Big fucking balls on this Simmons character.  I never, ever, EVER link directly to his stuff, but I'm going to do it here, because the out-of-both-sides-of-mouth talking display he's putting on here is truly something to behold.  Fuck Bill Simmons, fuck his readers (real or invented by him for mailbag purposes), fuck Thanksgiving, and fuck everything.  Have a nice holiday, everyone.

Guess who has some bad ideas and unfunny jokes to share? (Part 4)

Still working on his April 11 mailbag.  No others have been published since then, although by saying that I'm probably reverse double inverted triple jinxing him into publishing one tomorrow.  When we last left him, he was practicing his always-insufferable false humility by publishing letters containing bad predictions he had made in the past.  Let's continue.

Q: Remember this? You wrote …

“THE WHATEVER-THE-HELL-U2’S-LAST-ALBUM-WAS-CALLED AWARD FOR ‘MOST ABRUPT END TO A PHENOMENAL RUN’ — To the Duncan-era Spurs: 

He wrote that in 2010.  Pretty timely to make U2 the comparison for an entity that stopped being good abruptly.  While they continue to sell like gangbusters, including a chart-topping album from 2009 that I sure as hell am not familiar with (Bill is wrong part 1), they also haven't really released anything that is musically notable since like 1991 (Bill is nineteen years late and wrong part 2).  Always nice to see a good, solid double wrong.

Four titles, 13 straight 50-win seasons (I’m including the stupid lockout season) and a boatload of fantastic memories. OK, not really. 

What?  Like they weren't fun to watch?  I despise the Spurs, but they've always been entertaining during the Popovich era.  

But we got to watch Duncan (the best power forward ever), Ginobili (the best international guard ever if you’re not counting Nash, and you shouldn’t, since Canada isn’t really ‘international’), 

So, Ginobili is the second best international guard ever, then.

Parker (who perfected the celebrity relationship), 

Yeah, that marriage went really well for the first three years.  After that (six months after Bill wrote this), it kind of exploded because Parker was ALLEGEDLY fucking Brent Barry's wife.  Tough break, Brent.

Popovich (the best coach of the past 15 years), 

I love the not-that-subtle dig at Phil Jackson, who is pretty overrated, but also beat Popovich in the playoffs four out of the five times their teams met (18-8 overall record edge in the playoffs for Jackson).

and two really fun rivalries (Spurs-Suns, Spurs-Mavs). 

I thought we agreed that the Spurs really didn't generate many good memories.

Look, you can’t stay on top for more than a decade without getting a top-three lottery pick or having Chris Wallace trade you a top-three lottery pick. That’s just the way this league works. 

This is the man who should definitely be an NBA GM.

So hold your head up high, Spurs. Fantastic run. When players are bawling in their locker room because they finally beat you (like Nash did after Game 4), you know you accomplished something great. And you did.”

What a dipshit.

That’s dated May, 2010.
—Bernie, Washington, D.C.

Good for Bernie.  No herpes or hepatitis for him.

SG: The lesson, as always: I’m REALLY an idiot.

Love his shoveling of dirt on the Spurs because they got swept in the second round of the playoffs that year.  Duncan was 33; Ginobili was 32; Parker was 27.  Most of their important role players were in their 20s.  THEY'RE DONE.  FINISHED.  END OF AN ERA.

Q: Any thoughts on the NBA creating the equivalent to a Senior Tour for older players? With well documented retirement planning issues, wouldn’t this be a no brainer? 

No, it wouldn't, because no one would watch it, and even the good players who wanted to participate (like maybe Jordan, if you gave him enough money) would get hurt constantly.  This is a dumb idea and this guy should feel bad about it.  We're back on the herpes + hepatitis train.

Players would have to be retired for at least two years. Could Michael dunk on Patrick Ewing at 50? 

Sure.  Could you get them both to participate?  I'm betting you couldn't.

How much would Shawn Kemp or Antione Walker take to play in this league? 100K a year?

That might actually do it for those two, but they're pretty much the far far end of the spectrum in terms of former players who are possibly in financial trouble, and almost certainly are both completely incapable of staying in game shape.

—Sherif Elmazi, Hong Kong

Fuck you.

SG: I stumbled upon the answer to this question during my All-Star Weekend podcast with Dirk Nowitzki. We’d been talking about how long Dirk could play, conceivably, and whether he could spend his late thirties and early forties spreading the floor as a late-career Sam Perkins–type weapon for a contender. And Dirk said that it wasn’t about the still-being-able-to-play part, but the doing-everything-it-takes-to-be-able-to-play part.

No way.  Is he actually going to answer this logically?  Where is the THIS IS LITERALLY THE GREATEST IDEA EVER WHO SAYS NO sentiment?

That’s the part we always forget, as well as the most illuminating part of Steve Nash’s The Finish Line series for Grantland. When they get older, WE don’t realize how much it takes for THEM to play. So even if the Senior Tour is a fantastic idea on paper, 

It's really not.  Maybe a once-a-year senior game during all star weekend or something.

the amount of work it would take for ex-players with crazy NBA miles on them already to play basketball regularly, stay relatively healthy, avoid debilitating injuries … it’s just not realistic.

Knock me over with a feather.  Mostly sensible.

(Unless we make all PEDs legal. Then? Totally realistic!)

LOLOLOLOL GOOD ONE

Q: So another Wednesday has come and gone without an NBA Mailbag from the Sports Guy as we were all promised. I wonder what other job somebody could have where you could promises with no intention of keeping them..WAIT A MINUTE. THE PRESIDENT. BILL YOU SHOULD BE PRESIDENT!
—Aaron, Arvada, CO

Oh snap!  Take that, OBUMMER!!!!!!!!111  This is probably a reference to something specific, but I'm not sure what.  Obama did a podcast with Bill in 2012, and was scheduled to do another in 2008 before ESPN pulled the plug.  He also, of course, did a March Madness bracket this year with ESPN, so it can't be a reference to that.  Either Bill published an unclever PoFlaWa email from some turd, or I missed the joke.  In the event that it's the latter, I'm sure the joke was bad.

SG: I didn’t know whether to go with “Too soon” or “Words hurt” for this answer.

How about you just don't publish it?  Or any of the rest of these?  Or anything else, ever?

Q: No Wednesday mailbag again. There’s not a day goes by I don’t feel regret. Not because I’m in here, because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try to talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can’t. That kid’s long gone, and this old man is all that’s left. I got to live with that. Rehabilitated? It’s just a bullshit word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don’t give a shit. But I’ll read it anyway when it comes out.
—Ted Yates, Denver

THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION IS TOTALLY A GREAT MOVIE THAT IS STILL TOTALLY WORTH REFERENCING IN 2014!

SG: And you’re reading it right now! See, this all worked out. You didn’t even have to crawl through 500 yards of shit-smelling foulness the likes of which you couldn’t imagine to get here.

DO TEEN WOLF NEXT!

Q: Just read your Letterman column. If you want to show the differences between Letterman and Jimmy Fallon, just show people the video of Dave interviewing Paris Hilton in 2007.
—Jake, Fort Bragg

Jimmy Fallon is horrendous.  I will give Jake that.  I'm annoyed that he brought up Letterman though, not because I dislike Letterman, but because it reminds me of the way Bill managed to turn Letterman's retirement into an essay about how Bill will look back on Letterman and the way Bill's career was shaped by Bill's fandom Bill Bill Bill Bill is at the center of the universe.

SG: An all-timer.

He posted the video.  I've deleted it from the post-Youtube it if you want to watch it.  It's got nothing on the Joaquin Phoenix interview though.

Q: Where does The Undertaker’s loss to Brock Lesnar at WM rank on the Levels of Losing scale? I’m thinking it has to be either “Stomach Punch” or “Wait, This Wasn’t the Plan.”

—Tom, Simi Valley

I'm thinking it's probably "The Levels of Losing scale is only referenced by people who should be thrown into nuclear power plant cooling towers."

SG: That was definitely a 

Response deleted.  No one cares.

Q: What’s your opinion on Rondo and Boston’s 1st round pick for Kyrie?
—William Demitro, Chicago

SG: I just hung up the phone on William Demitro. Slammed it down, actually. 

Despite my defense of Irving in part 2 of this series, I reluctantly agree with Bill's assessment.

You’re not getting my top-five pick unless it’s for Kyrie straight up. And even then, I’m not that excited. Do I really want to give up Jabari, Wiggins or Embiid for someone who’s giving off major Steve Francis/Steph Marbury fumes? 

Yeah!  Great point!  He totally is definitely going to be like those guys, because his year three season was a lot like their year three seasons.  I mean, it was a lot like many awesome point guards' year three seasons, but what fun is sports "analysis" if you can't just construct whatever narrative you feel like and then push it for all it's worth in order to try to make yourself sound smart?

And then I have to throw in Rondo, too? 

Again, I agree with Bill that it wouldn't be a good trade for Boston, but let's not pretend like Rondo is totally free of question marks.  He can't shoot, never has been able to shoot, depends heavily on his quickness and just turned 28.  Not like he's suddenly going to start being terrible, but his best days are probably behind him.  Boston is going to have to rebuild mighty quickly for him to be a major player on their next upswing.

Even the New Orleans GM wouldn’t do that! (Thinking.) You’re right, he’d totally do that. 

IF I WERE A GM I WOULD OUTSMART HIM!  I WOULD ASK HIM WHICH ONE OF US SAYS NO!

But I’d trade Rondo for whatever and pursue Kyrie in a separate deal.

Huh?  "I would never trade Boston's only real player asset and their 1st round pick for Irving.  Instead I'd trade the player for 'whatever' and try to trade for Irving with something else, maybe the pick but probably not."

Here’s the problem with trading Rondo — he’s never re-signing in Sacramento, Detroit, Milwaukee, Cleveland or wherever. None of those teams are overpaying to rent Rondo for a year. Boston’s best chance on decent value: If Houston flames out in Round 1, maybe send Rondo there for Jeremy Lin’s expiring deal, Chandler Parsons and Houston’s first-rounder. 

Yeah, that's a great idea, but there's no way Houston is doing that.  

I can’t see them doing better, especially with how Rondo has looked lately — he’s been their best tanking asset down the stretch, hands down. Nobody else comes close. Shitty attitude, sloppy ballhandling, horrific defense, inexplicable decision-making, ugly shooting … he’s doing it all. Down the stretch, it’s like he studied tape of the game Tony threw in Blue Chips, then said, “I’m gonna throw in Brandon Jennings’s shot selection for good measure.” If we get the no. 1 pick, they should retire Rondo’s number next October.

Yeah, why WOULDN'T the Rockets want him in exchange for their first rounder in an excellent draft, a rotation PG who is 75% as good as Rondo, and a young SF who averaged 16/6/5 this year?  HOUSTON SAYS NO.

Q: As a Brooklyn Nets and New York Football Giants fan, I have a quick parallel for you …

Tom Terrific — Jaunary 30, 2008  (video of Brady laughing at the idea that the GREATRIOTS would only score 17 points in Super Bowl XLII)

King James — April 8, 2014 (video of LeBron telling a writer who asked if the Nets were the Heat's biggest challenge in the conference to "Get out of here")

These clips pretty much confirm that the Nets will beat the Heat in the greatest playoff series of all time. All that’s left is who’s gonna play the roles of Eli and Tyree in a Hill-Laettner kind of play?
—Eli, Chatham, NJ

That's some good trolling.  Eli can stay disease free.  Well done.

SG: I vote for Paul Pierce as Eli/Hill and and Joe Johnson as Tyree/Laettner. Also, I vote that I start drinking for the rest of this mailbag. JESUS. I clicked on that stupid Tom Terrific clip thinking it was something with Tom Seaver. It’s becoming increasingly clear that I will never get over that game.

And we're all better off for that.  Also, the video, like any Youtube video that hasn't been clicked on yet, starts with an image of what's in it.  It was a big picture of Tom Brady at a podium.  He doesn't look much like Tom Seaver.

Q: With the NBA regular season winding down, my gambling side is rearing its ugly face. Give me your best bets/longshots for the playoffs.
—Gavin, Omaha

SG: Don’t you want to get in early on Helmet Catch II, Gavin? Take Brooklyn +1200 to win the East. Actually, parlay that with +500 on me FedExing three days of dog poop to Eli from Chatham. I’m rattled.

Watch out, Vegas!  Bill "Sam Rothstein" Simmons is giving out free tips!

Q: When I watch Kevin Durant play, it always reminds me of something that I can never quite put my finger on. The other night it hit me: the smoke monster on Lost! Can we call him “Smoke?”
—Scott Herbst, Chicago

You're a fucking idiot.

SG: I think you’re late both with the nickname push and the pop-culture reference. (Wait, what? I dropped a Lost reference 2,000 words ago? You’re right, my bad.) 

You did, and it wasn't even among the top fifty worst dated/dumb pop culture references you've made in the last twelve months.  Don't sweat it too much.

But I went to Wednesday’s Clips-OKC game, in which Westbrook looked like RUSSELL THE BADASS ATHLETE/FREAK/DYNAMO/FORCE OF NATURE guy for the first time in 11 months. 

This is classic "the world is lit with sunshine because I cast my eyes upon it" Simmons.  He saw Westbrook go for 30/11/6 on 50% shooting.  FIRST TIME HE'S BEEN ON IN THIS SEASON.  Nevermind that he went for 33/4/8 on 46% shooting two nights earlier, or that he went for 36/9/9 on 59% shooting in early March, and a triple double the game before that.  Bill didn't see any of those games personally, so April 9 was Westbrook's welcome back game.  

Durant dropped a quiet 27, including a backbreaking double step-back 3 that was right out of Larry Legend’s playbook for dagger 3s. 

It was semi Antoine Walker-esque!  No, wait, Ray Allen in his 30s!  FACK YOU!  That's what everyone who was watching thought--"Yep, that Durant, he must study hours of Larry Bird game footage every night.  HEY!  I wonder if the Celtics are on right now?!"

And this was an average Durant game. He was fine. This season, his “fine” is an A-minus. Anyway, when you see this dude in person, you never feel like he needs a nickname. He’s just KD. He’s one of the 10 natural wonders of the world right now — a 6-foot-11 scoring machine with absolutely no historical parallel. It’s like saying, “I just went to the Grand Canyon — it wasn’t memorable enough, we need to nickname that thing!”

Yeah, Bill would never do something as worthless as waste time contemplating the question of a great player's nickname.