Bill Simmons: NBA's think, know and prove

[teej]

Simmons stinks.

You've met him? Funny, B.O. never came out as one of his problems

Then again, if I got paid over a million dollars a year to write comedic sports articles, I wouldn't care about my appearance that much either.

[TheBeagle]

Nice find Swedd!

I'm starting to wonder if that Memphis rumor was true after all (Mek for 4th + we wanted to include Nazr)...maybe the deal we took was really the best deal out there?

On Lewis...well, I always come back to this:

spectre, did you find that pic from the BCP forum archives? I ask because I vaguley remember imbedding a link to a similar (if not the same pic) in one of my first posts as a member back in summer '07. I'm enough of an archive dork, I think I'll go back and check, but regardless, it was as appropriate and true then as it is now....

Keetcher! Glad to hear from you, man. Great analysis as usual.

And also as usual, fatlever speaks from the mouth of god....if you at all like NBA history (and I love it), it's an absolute must-have for the vaunted "Throne" library to browse through at your leisure.


EDIT: OH NO! I can't go back farther than my last 500 posts! So my soothsaying post on drafting JD and the Lewis/GW chart is lost forever! Say it ain't so, ziggy...

[spectre]

Heh, nah...I just remembered and did a google search on "gerald wallace, rashard lewis, WTF" and it came right up.

I have it in my photobucket account now...so you'll probably be seeing it more often!

[Toocool]

Nice find Swedd!

I'm starting to wonder if that Memphis rumor was true after all (Mek for 4th + we wanted to include Nazr)...maybe the deal we took was really the best deal out there?

On Lewis...well, I always come back to this:

Brilliant find that picture.
It is utterly hilarious...gotta love how Gdub beats Shard in almost every aspect.

[spectre]

It really needs to be updated as Crash's numbers have gotten better and Lewis' have gotten slightly worse.

Even more of a steal!

Seriously...dollar for dollar Crash probably has one of the best non rookie deals from a team's standpoint in the league.

[G Force]

from December, 2009; Bill Simmons on the Bobcats...


VP's Take: I don't mind watching these guys. They play hard, they're well-coached and Gerald Wallace's rebounding binge ranks up there with Kevin Porter's being a four-time assist leader and E.C. Coleman making first-team All-Defense as one of the most random NBA things that's ever happened. If the Bobcats upgraded Boris Diaw ($27 million through 2012), they might even be a mildly frisky Round 1 opponent. On the flip side, they're leading the league in Monets and paying $50.5 million combined through 2011 to Tyson Chandler, DeSagana Diop and Nazr Mohammed … or as they're more commonly known, "50.5 Million That We Should Have Just Set On Fire." (Important note: Did you know Diop will earn $7.342 million just for the 2012-13 season? I think the Mark Cuban Big Man Scholarship Fund is my favorite NBA charity. The NBA really DOES care.)
• Mitigating Factor: Larry Brown is permanently wired in "short-term right now we gotta fix this and get better!" mode, only they're getting destroyed financially and can only hope to win 37 to 40 games (good enough to make the playoffs in the crappy Eastern Conference, but still).
• VP's Verdict: Go for it this year and tank long-term. For example …
Fake Trade 4A: Diaw, D.J. Augustin and Gerald Henderson to Phoenix for Amar'e Stoudemire and Taylor Griffin (cap throw-in). Charlotte satiates Brown's short-term competitive disorder, gets a 20-point scorer AND gets out of Diaw's deal. If Amar'e leaves after the season, so be it. Phoenix saves $6 million (including the tax), adds two young assets and gets something for Amar'e. One danger: Steve Nash pulls a "BROOKS WAS HERE" in his hotel room when he hears about the trade. Otherwise, I like it.
Fake Trade 4B: Tyson Chandler and Gerald Wallace to the Clippers for Marcus Camby, Al Thornton and the Rasual Butler/Ricky Davis ECs. Camby is a one-year upgrade on Chandler who replaces Wallace's rebounding; Thornton/Butler could replace Wallace's scoring; and the deal saves Charlotte $3 million-plus this year, then another $20 million next year. Again, have you seen their home games? They hosted Detroit on Tuesday, and it looked as if there was "Get Your Own Row Night."

[Chef]

I bought the book but its huge. Is it an easy read? I'm not all that excited about a 700+ pg book.

great book. it has been flagged "a'la seinfeld". i have a general rule about once a piece of reading material is flagged it can not leave the bathroom unless it is a garbage can. this book was the only one to break the rule or else it would have taken me decades to read it.

as for his column in part 2, i would have definitely put Charlotte in the chemistry column.

[Ampsportsduo]

Emeka Okafor (No. 2) deserves his own paragraph. His career arc looks like something you'd see from a guy in his mid-30's. His contract ($10.6 million this year, $38 million over the next three) is a salary cap tsunami for a small market team. He's a horrible match for a Hornets team that once loved having its big guys set picks for its point guards, then roll to the hoop for alley-oops. (Okafor can't do it. Not in his skill set.) Since he can't post up or shoot free throws, he's useless for them offensively. (According to hoopdata.com, he was a 38% shooter inside 10 feet.) Defensively, his shotblocking/rebounding numbers dipped and his athleticism made you think, "Wait, is that Theo Ratliff?" Maybe Okafor hasn't been a bust on the Pervis/Darko/Bowie/LaRue/Kwame/Oden (sorry, he has to be thrown in at least for now) level, but at the very least, he's been profoundly disappointing

Who doesn't want to invest $52 million over the next four years for this guy? Seriously.

I just resisted the urge to post in the EO for TC thread (I'm trying to show restraint so Walt won't facepalm).

[fatlever]

I bought the book but its huge. Is it an easy read? I'm not all that excited about a 700+ pg book.

yeah its an easy read. something you read a few pages at a time. im about halfway through. i knocked out about 200 pages at the beach last week. now im back to ready a few pages each day. once you get through the first 50 pages (which is mainly about his childhood as a celtics fan, wilt vs russell and "the secret of basketball" as told by isiah thomas at a topless pool in las vegas", the book breaks down into lots of short segments.