He's a loose canon, and he's often wildly off the mark, but Simmons is the only sportswriter in the country that I actually look forward to reading. He's funny. He's entertaining. And he doesn't take things too seriously.
4. "He was already highly touted, but Emeka Okafor turned out to be even better than expected. Still, he's not a franchise player." (Um, Okafor was the No. 1 pick in a deep 2004 draft and averaged a 15-10 last season, which is exactly what everyone expected. So if he's not a franchise player, and he's better than everyone expected, and he was a No. 1 pick ... wait, I'm confused.) I didn't know Okafor was the No.1 pick. I guess Dwight Howard has something to say about it.
Man you guys take Bill Simmons way too seriously. He's a humor writer (and a damn funny one) who just happens to concentrate on sports and pop culture. He definately doesn't do any research - he used to have a feature where his intern would point out every single mistake on his column. And he's one of Yao's biggest fans - loves him - talked to him at length about this in Denver.
OK, I think as a public service the members of this BBS should create a running list of uninformed, asinine writers with links to their articles in question and post it so that we don't waste our time reading their stink. We can use this writer and his article as example number 1. Bill Simmons ESPN http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/051102 Evidence of ignorance: Comparing Yao to a Scrub. Claiming Yao disappeared from last year’s playoffs. We took a better team to seven games. We could not have done it without Yao and his stats speak for themselves.
Yea your right. I totally missed the humor and I'm usually one who can appreciate a good joke, and a sarcastic quick wit. Guess I'm just having a bad day.
The reason people still doubt Yao is because Yao still has not got out 1st round. Yao has to prove that he can do it this season. He does not need to be Shaq, but he has to be like Ewing, stats wise
His articles are pretty funny. He's just a dude who pokes at sports. I just posted it because it's a Page 2 thing.
seriously. every few months, simmons writes something along these lines, and everybody get's there panties in a wad. for the last time: BILL SIMMONS IS A HUMOROUS, SATIRICAL WRITER FOR ESPN'S PAGE 2. HE IS NOT AN NBA EXPERT, OR EVEN A SPORTS "EXPERT" FOR THAT MATTER. GET A CLUE. some of you people are reggietodd-did.
Well what is a "sports expert" besides somebody that follows sports very closely, and maybe gets paid for their opinion. Simmons is a sports writer first. He definitely has a humorous bent on his writing, but it's not as if he's a pop culture writer that just decided to "take a stab" at writing about sports. He's watched sports his whole life, watches a lot of sports today, and he writes about it. Sounds like a "sports expert" to me. He's just prone to jumping to conclusions, and then making outlandish comments that he often has to retract later on. That is the thing people should keep in mind instead of whether he knows his stuff or not (and he does usually know his stuff. At least he knows his stuff pretty well for a national columnist, and probably nails all of the Boston stuff).
I just love how National Media guys think they know what they are talking about when they write about a team that they didn't watch play more than perhaps 2 games last season. yao, disapearing act in the playoffs?! Give me a break!
The other thing about The Sports Guy is that, as he often likes to say, he's one of only a handful of true NBA fans left. His favorite sports team is the Boston Celtics (not the Red Sox, not the Patriots). So he knows basketball, and I generally respect what he has to say about the NBA. I think what he meant about Yao's disappearing act is that he was inconsistent in the playoffs. Looking at his scoring performance per game, Yao disappeared didn't show up every night (certainly not the way that Hakeem did against David Robinson in that San Antonio series, albeit that was a historic, all-time great performance): Yao Ming Game 1 - 11 pts (W) Game 2 - 33 pts (W) Game 3 - 15 pts (L) Game 4 - 20 pts (L) Game 5 - 30 pts (L) Game 6 - 8 pts (W) Game 7 - 33 pts (L) Yao wasn't that great during games 1, 3 and 6. And when he went off for 33 points in game 7, Yao played 43 minutes to TMac's 36 because the game was a complete blowout. So it is pretty legitimate to say that Yao needs to be a more consistent and dominant player. But that's true of both the regular season and the playoffs, and I expect him to do just that.
writer on yao " ... but does that mean he won't disappear in the playoffs again?" think he's mixing him up with Nowitzki
That's not completely true...you just described 70% of the posters on this board. Including the 'retract later' part.
Except if people were paying for our opinions, we'd be "experts" too. Personally I feel I know my basketball as well as a lot of the "experts" out there. I just don't have the writing/speaking skills to get my opinion across as well as they do.
