We’ve taken umbrage with ESPN’s Bill Simmons and Chad Ford in the past, most notably on this and this occasion, in Tim’s Mesa v. Simmons / Ford double dip. I’m late reporting on their most recent podcast because I haven’t been in the mood to lacerate anyone recently.
I guess that changes today.
I’ll admit that while I’ve been mulling over whether or not to react to the podcast, I’ve also done some additional thinking about Simmons in general. As the most popular sports columnist in the country, he’s an easy target for disdain. He’s also an unapologetic lover of all things Boston who seemingly sold his soul to Los Angeles. But I think that most of my disgust with Simmons doesn’t stem from Bill himself - it comes from the perception that what he writes and says is fact … when really he’s just one guy talking.
Or in most cases, one idiot talking.
And when he gets with Chad Ford, together they are two idiots talking - a.k.a. T.I.T.
This may become a string of posts over multiple days. It just depends on what else I feel like writing about as time goes on. For now, I’ve decided to run through the podcast from the beginning and address their first two ridiculous points.
1) The rumored Chris Bosh for Andrew Bynum deal.
Simmons brings up the trade and then Ford says there’s a very good chance it will happen. They then proceed to talk exclusively about the deal for the next six minutes, as if it’s waiting approval from the league office.
The worst part about this conversation is that neither guy - even Mr. Trade Machine himself - brings up the biggest roadblock to the trade being made - the fact that Bynum is a base year compensation player, and therefore, a straight up Bynum for Bosh trade doesn’t work. The salaries don’t match. Other players would have to be included from L.A.’s side - and their bench is already thin - plus, you’d be asking Toronto to simultaneously waive players they probably want to keep.
I’m not the only person who knows this. I learned it from multiple analysts / reporters, including Brian Windhorst and Larry Coon, just by having a Twitter account. I know Bill has one of those, although I stopped following him long ago.
What makes this omission so terrible is that a large part of the rest of the podcast unfurls from the idea that Bosh unequivocally will be traded to the Lakers for Bynum (more on this in a minute).
Towards the end of this topic, Simmons - as a Celtics fan - precedes to cower in fear of the dynamic Bosh / Gasol combo, adding that Bosh would certainly re-sign with the Lakers because he’d get to play with Kobe, Artest, Odom, and Gasol for the rest of his career.
This after Simmons spent the pre-season bashing Artest’s craziness and his game, saying he was a downgrade from Trevor Ariza, and wrote the following about Chris Bosh in 2005:
“The runaway winner of the Shareef Abdur-Rahim Award, given annually to a tantalizing young star on a losing team who everyone assumes will keep getting better and better, when the reality is that he’s close to hitting his ceiling already, and his numbers look so good mainly because he was playing 35-40 minutes a game on a bad team. Remember I told you this when Bosh is making $15 million a year on a 22-win Toronto team five years from now, and he’s the subject of 370 trade rumors before the 2009 draft.”
I listen to plenty of Bill’s podcasts about basketball. I promise that his opinion didn’t change, suddenly, until now.
2) “The Knicks are screwed.”
Here’s where the conversation goes after it’s been decided that Bosh will be a Laker for the remainder of 2010, before re-signing with them in the off-season for a max deal. Simmons’s declaration that “the Knicks are screwed” stems from the notion that Bosh will be off the market.
Why?
Because the “word on the street” is that Bosh and LeBron are going to be a package deal in 2010.
Also, this is not the only time in the podcast that Simmons cites the “word on the street.”
Anyway, Simmons thinks LeBron could actually stay in Cleveland if Bosh is dealt to the Lakers because Bron “won’t go to war without a big man.” So he’s not going to just sign with the Clippers, the Knicks, or the Bulls if Bosh doesn’t come along with him.
Yes, the LBJ to the Clippers thing came up. Ford loves it. So does Simmons (since he’s a Clippers season ticket holder). Don’t get me started on how Bill loves to protect the little guy (Zombie Sonics anyone?) just as long as he doesn’t have a rooting interest.
While we’re speaking of rooting interests, I should mention Simmons’s theory about the Bulls. They won’t have the cap space to sign two max players in 2010 … unless they trade Kirk Hinrich to the Celtics!
When Ford says that will never happen (about the first time in three years he’s countered any of Bill’s opinions) because of money, Simmons is stunned … despite hosting a podcast two weeks earlier with Ric Bucher and Marc Stein where the Celtics’ cap issues were discussed, and Bucher stated that the C’s are very, very close to screwing up their team for the foreseeable future because of where they are with the cap vis-a-vis the contracts they have on the books.
Simmons has two great ideas on how to solve the Knicks’ problems. The first is that they should start including Danilo Gallinari in trade offers involving Jared Jeffries and Eddy Curry - the two contracts they need to move to create the “dream scenario” of having enough cap room to sign Bosh-LeBron-Wade. Simmons thinks some teams might take on those contracts simply to get a guy who shoots 42.9% from the field.
Ford agrees that the Knicks should consider moving Gallinari (of course he agrees). But then he adds that if the Knicks trade Gallinari, they won’t have any attractive pieces to put around the superstars. All of the cap space will be eaten by the max players, and guys like Bron, Bosh, and Wade won’t want to be surrounded by guys who are getting paid the veteran’s minimum.
In other words, the Knicks with Gallinari … phenomenal place to play. The Knicks without Gallinari … wasteland.
Right.
The second incredible idea that Simmons has to resolve the Knicks issues with the summer of 2010 is that they should just delay their plan until 2011! The great Donnie Walsh could essentially set things up, Simmons argues, so that every contract on their roster expires at the end of 2011. Then they could definitely sign three max players - he doesn’t say who, but I assume one of these guys would be Carmelo Anthony.
What Simmons forgets to mention is that if the Knicks went ahead with his plan, they’d have the same “we have no money to spend on roster spots 3-12” problem that they’d have at the end of this year.
Now I’m sure that plenty of goons on message boards and sheep-like fans are proliferating Simmons’s theories all over the country right now. Some teenage kid in Avon Lake is probably crying, convinced that LeBron and Bosh will go to Chicago after the Celtics flip them Tony Allen and Brian Scalabrine for Hinrich. The Cleveland Plain Dealer is even willing to refer to Bill as a “reporter.”
Really he’s a homer who, with his penchant for discussing hypothetical scenarios, has more in common with Nostradamus than Walter Conkrite.
And Chad Ford is nothing but his willing accomplice.
Together, they are T.I.T.
