Maybe the Suns didn't win a championship, but we'll remember them 100 times more fondly than the brutally efficient and hopelessly bland Spurs, who taught everyone over the years that the regular season doesn't matter, transformed the NBA playoffs into a flopathon, revived the vile and fan-unfriendly Hack-A-Shaq strategy and did everything short of sending Bruce Bowen out on the court with a chainsaw and a taser. If the Spurs were the Team of the Decade, no wonder ratings dwindled until the league's big comeback this season. The real shame is that all the mugging, acting, eye-rolling, flopping, rule-bending and hysterical shrugging obscured what should have been remembered as a throwback sports team, a shrewdly assembled roster of well-coached guys who played beautifully together, didn't care about credit and revolved around the best power forward who ever played. Instead, we'll remember them as the team that turned the NBA playoffs into the World Cup. Congratulations, fellas. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/080501 That's one of the more beautiful things I've ever read.
This is professional sports, and it's supposed to be well-organized, highly disciplined, and yes, taking advantage of any given rules in all possible ways. If he wants fun only, he could watch And1; if he doesn't want physical contact, he can play XBOX 360; if he doesn't like the rule, he could vent on the league to make sure that inferior FT shooters can not be fouled. Players only play the way officials allow them. Bruce Bowen is dirty, get the league to suspend him for life. You want to deal with flopping? Fine, get the league to call technicals like any other sports. To whine about Spurs flopping, when you have Bell, Nash, Barbosa, and Diaw on the Suns? That's just pure comic. BTW, as much as a Rockets fan I am, World Cup soccer is still 10 times more fun than NBA playoffs.
"Halfback passes to the center. Back to the wing. Back to the center. Center holds it. Holds it. Holds it... Halfback passes to center, back to wing, back to center, center holds it! Holds it! Holds It!"
The World Cup comment was simply another dig at their soccer dives. "Oh Dear God! I think I've been critically injured! Morphine! Just get EMS!" 5 secs later... "Okay, I'm good, let's go!" Soccer diving is one of my most despised things about sports. I separate it from flopping. It's a complete different animal. Bill Simmons, like myself, enjoys the World Cup. Evan
Simmons is a joke. He's just venting because the Spurs have successfully dismantled the biggest tease that's ever been perpetrated that is the Phoenix Suns.
Simmons' article on the management of the Suns teams from 2004 onwards was FASCINATING. I never realized how poorly managed they were and how awfully close to a dynasty they came.
This is the NBA, not American Idol...it's not about the most popular teams or players, it should be about who the best team is...and the Spurs have been the best team in the NBA for this decade.
He's going to hate them even more when the Spurs beat his beloved Celtics in the finals. (hawks wont win, come on)
If that spurs team was located in boston, simmons would call them the best team ever and crown them the new gods of all things sports. He's a good writer - but he's so insanely biased that it turns all those grandiose sentences into a goofy plethora of pro-boston nonsense.
It's only one side of the story but yeah those Suns teams should have been to the Finals at least once. They had a ton of offense but you need to play both ends of the court in the post season.
