NBA Draft Reject

[Pakuni]

He wrties plenty.  More output than ever if you count the podcasts.
He doesn't come up with anything new?

collumn on how twitter and tech are effecting how athletes can control fan perception: http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=4137488  

Wait ... athletes use Twitter? It may effect how fans connect with them?
That's hardly an original thought. Do a Google search and you'll find dozens of stories on the subject written weeks and months before Simmons brought this "new" trend to light.

[RJax55]

This reminds me of Yogi Berra's old quote (I'm paraphrasing):  "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."

He's the most popular writer on the most widely read sports website...but what he writes about only appeals to a small percentage of the audience.  Am I missing something?  I hate all the Boston teams, but I like Simmons.

I understand the irony in that statement. It comes down to a personal preference, but for me having no interest in Boston sports, a 1200 word column on how Doc Rivers is screwing up the Celtics has zero appeal ... No matter how funny or random the references he makes.

I guess my hope for Simmons was that as audience and reach grew due to his popularity on espn.com, that the teams and topics he would write about would broaden. IMO, that hasn't been the case.

[TJ]

Fellow Jesuit alumn from Holy Cross. He hates Diener. Thinks Novak has a decent NBA future, for whatever that is worth.

I suppose he has good reason to.  Diener played a HUGE role in MU's first round victory against Holy Cross on the way to the 2003 Final Four.

[Mayor McCheese]

I understand the irony in that statement. It comes down to a personal preference, but for me having no interest in Boston sports, a 1200 word column on how Doc Rivers is screwing up the Celtics has zero appeal ... No matter how funny or random the references he makes.

I guess my hope for Simmons was that as audience and reach grew due to his popularity on espn.com, that the teams and topics he would write about would broaden. IMO, that hasn't been the case.

People write about what they know best / what they enjoy... for Simmons its Boston sports and how poor the LA Clippers are.  He won't miss you if you stop reading.. he has a big enough following (that includes me).

[bma725]

He wrties plenty.  More output than ever if you count the podcasts.
He doesn't come up with anything new?

He used to write 3 articles a week not counting the link to his Magazine article or the mailbags, that put him at 15 or so articles a month.  When he had his own site, he wrote minimum four times a week, if not every day.  In March, he wrote 6 columns.  In February he had 3.  In January, he had 5.  The columns are a totally different animal than the podcasts, which were started because too many people were b**ching to ESPN about how he wasn't writing enough especially when his tagline specifically said "Bill Simmons writes three articles a week for ESPN.com", and he didn't want to take the time to write more.

collumn on how twitter and tech are effecting how athletes can control fan perception: http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=4137488 

That's not exactly new, heck ESPN's golf writer Jason Sobel talked about the impact of Twitter and how it was changing the perception of some golfers before Simmons did. 

Great one on what stats need to be added to basketball in order to accuratly rank players on defence:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=4011524

Which is essentially just restating what Dean Oliver, Ken Pomeroy and dozens of others have been calling for the last several years. 

If you don't think that he follows nfl closely enough than you must not be interested in his gambling picks where he puts out about 1200 words each week on all of his picks against the spread.  Again, no where else on espn.

Writing about it and following it closely are two very different things.  Look at the results from his picks and what he actually says instead of just the fact he did it.  He actually used be knowledgeable about the game and talk to players, coaches etc. 

He recently had a series of podcasts where he discussed the downfall of newspapers with a few writers and editors that were fantastic.  Not going to see that anywhere elese on espn.

No sh*t, it's a sports website, of course you aren't going to see that on ESPN.  It's also a topic that's been done to death for more than a year.

These are all grabbed from his front page.  You sound like one of those people who like a band before it becomes popular and once it gets popular starts crapping on all the new stuff.  Total snobbery.

If it were snobbery, I'd be like the guys on SOSH who complain about how his writing went downhill once he gave up his own site years ago and joined ESPN.  I'm not.  But if you honestly think he's as good now as he was before he joined up with Kimmel you need to go back and re-read some of the classic stuff.  He used to have an edge to his writing that no one else had before he moved out to LA.  Maybe it was removed by working with Kimmel, maybe ESPN has forced him to tone it down more, but that's gone.

[RawdogDX]

Wait ... athletes use Twitter? It may effect how fans connect with them?
That's hardly an original thought. Do a Google search and you'll find dozens of stories on the subject written weeks and months before Simmons brought this "new" trend to light.

wow you did such a good job of responding to everything i said, I'm so impressed.  You completely convinced me that you are correct with your one line response to the 1st of 8 things i mentioned. 
Can you please name this columnist that produces multiple 1200+ word columns on a weekly basis.  Everyone of which is 100% new and innovative thinking.  I'd also like it to contain a multitude of pop-culture references but never ever repeat. Yeah, let me know when you find this magical sports writer.  As usual people are complaining without offering anysort of superior alternative. 

[Pakuni]

wow you did such a good job of responding to everything i said, I'm so impressed.  You completely convinced me that you are correct with your one line response to the 1st of 8 things i mentioned. 
Can you please name this columnist that produces multiple 1200+ word columns on a weekly basis.  Everyone of which is 100% new and innovative thinking.  I'd also like it to contain a multitude of pop-culture references but never ever repeat. Yeah, let me know when you find this magical sports writer.  As usual people are complaining without offering anysort of superior alternative. 

Geez ... are you Bill's agent or mother? Perhaps you're getting just a tad emotional over a sportwriter who, I suspect, you've never met and never will.
You like the guy. We get it. Not everybody shares your opinion. It's no reason to get upset.

Sorry my job of responding to everything you said didn't meet your standards. Perhaps had I made reference to the explosive Kimberly-Michael-Amanda love triangle (explosive ... get it?) you'd have liked it better. Though, frankly, that wasn't my intent. Nor is it my intent, or wish, to find you a superior alternative. I suspect my superior alternative and yours may not be the same.
I just found it laughable that your chief example of how new and fresh Simmons is these days was a column covering a topic that's been covered dozens of times already in various publications.

[MU B2002]

I love the non-basketball portion of the year.