Speaking of Simmons, dude’s worth north of $100 million. Talk about WTF.
With the company he’s keeping, he’s going to need a VP of common sense pretty soon.
Hot take: good for him, he earned it. 30 for 30, The Rewatchables, basically the only long form sports journalism platform left. Better The Ringer than f’n Barstool.
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Not to mention he’s apparently a great boss (maybe minus the union busting?) that got A LOT of people hired at Grantland.
He’s directly responsible for Zach Lowe at ESPN, by far their best basketball guy (I love Amin too fwiw). Woj doesn’t get the game at all, he just breaks news.
He’s that sweet spot of creative intelligent but not too much where he’s neurotic. Dude just plows ahead.
It’s also def right place, right time Gladwell Outliers stuff. I was listening to his last pod with Russillo and they were talking about the butterfly effect (not using the term) of how if he’d been hired at the Globe, that he’d likely still be a beat guy, instead appearing on Russillo’s big pod.
To clarify, I like Bill Simmons. I meant “WTF” as in he started off writing a blog on AOL. I wish he still wrote. He was great back in the day. And when ESPN used to do those chats, he really got into them. He didn’t stretch out 4 questions over a half hour. He’d answer hundreds of questions over 3-4 hours sometimes.
I remember he did a live chat during Game 7 of Lakers-Celtics. It would have been understandable if he half assed it or dropped it. But he still did it even after the Celtics lost. Always respected him for that.
I don’t know if you listened to the pod, but he just cited that and said he regretted it in that form bc there’s no copy of it. I remember BS did an epic one for I want to say 8 hours once.
I used to love those chats, I had more than a few questions answered w/ lolBucher being the main one I remember. He took four or five and mentioned me by name and apologized for taking so many comparatively (they were wide ranging on the NBA).
Deadspin used to do some pretty blistering take downs of BS’s mailbag, I wonder to what degree that factored into him stopping. I think a lot of it is like LeBatard where audio is so, so easy for them work-wise and they genuinely enjoy the medium.
Yea I remember that 8 hour one. He and (I think) Keith Law had been going back and forth making them longer and longer and he went HAM and blew Law out of the water by just making a whole day out of it.
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Episodes 3 through 8 can um be obtained now btw.
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Good because it’s flat out ridiculous that they’re dragging this out over a freaking month
I would usually agree with you but I actually don’t mind under these circumstances. Gives me something to look forward to each week and will hopefully make the next month go quicker.
the weirdest freaks like rodman seem to always pull the ladies
Got just a little taste of asshole Jordan on the plane. Gotta wonder what this thing looks like if not produced by Jordan.
Glad to see the feud with Isiah Thomas is still alive. Thomas deserved all the hate - would have liked to see them get into the Dream Team freeze out.
It was ridiculous.
It’s actually shocking how much of an asshole he is. Like GOAT asshole talent.
it’s really hard to be driven to that level of competitiveness without also being a total dick
by american standards though… we all know a lot worse.
Is motivated Rodman one of the all-time criminally underrated players in NBA history? Supposedly one of the best defenders and rebounders of all-time. Could lock down a big, switch off to almost anyone (he even looked good guarding Jordan himself when he was with the Pistons) and basically did all the dirty work and was a big-time physical presence.
You also have to consider that best player in the world Jordan + all-star Pippen + Grant/Cartwright etc couldn’t beat Rodman and the Pistons in '90.
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It’s tough because there are a lot of strong defenders/rebounders that can’t play meaningful minutes on playoff teams in the modern league because of their offensive liabilities. When illegal defense was a thing and shooting 3’s wasn’t, it was less of a liability.
Yah, for his era he was elite, would he hold up today? I actually think yes. Dude was super talented and after taking a look at the league formed himself into the type of player that would be very valuable to any team. I think if he were around today he’d also be able to figure out how to survive and adapt. Look how valuable Draymond is and he shoots under 32% 3s. Rodman is better than Dray at a lot of things but shooting and I wonder if Rodman could’ve at least gotten to be a 30% 3pt shooter in today’s NBA where it’s so important. His FT #s say it would’ve been a struggle, but who knows if he had devoted himself fully to the craft. He became a rebounding god by putting all that work into angles and knowing shooters.
Rodman was just unreal good I agree but he would foul out of every game today with six to go in the third
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