The Bill Simmons Thread

johnmd20

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I skipped Durant but this last Rewatchables “The Firm” was a great hour of my life.
Simmons' podcast is excellent and I almost never miss an episode. But Durant's latest was a hard pass, like the previous 2 others with Drant. Durant is such a phony and his agent is so much worse. It's not enjoyable.
 

Rook05

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Same, John.

I love the podcast but the 2018 highlight for vintage Simmons is Kathryn Hahn of all people asking him what “O.G.” stood for and him having no idea.
 

johnmd20

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Same, John.

I love the podcast but the 2018 highlight for vintage Simmons is Kathryn Hahn of all people asking him what “O.G.” stood for and him having no idea.
Hahn was really awesome. I strenuously recommend that podcast. The husband's questions were a moment.

On the OG thing, Hahn asked once and Simmons tried to bulldoze over it because he didn't know the answer, but he failed and she made sure to ask again. To Simmons' credit, they didn't edit that out. To his detriment, HOW DOES HE NOT KNOW WHAT OG STANDS FOR?
 

ifmanis5

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One of the all-timers for me was during the awful and too long KD podcast, there was Bill bringing up how he was confused that the working press would ignore the game at times and be typing instead. I mean, I can see as a kid in 1982 being confused by this but as a grown man pushing 50 and working in the media for over 20 years, including some in a sports department of an actual big city newspaper, how could he possibly not know how deadlines work? Maybe he could ask one of his OG sportswriter buddies about it to get an answer. Blew my mind.
 

Remagellan

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Hahn was really awesome. I strenuously recommend that podcast. The husband's questions were a moment.
Loved this. I would listen to a pod of just Simmons responding to Hahn reading her husband’s takes on sports. It was clear she wasn’t just kidding when she said she didn’t have a clue what anything she was reading meant.
 

Bunt4aTriple

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He had that episode in the can for like 5 months. I felt so bad for her hunband who was been waiting to hear the responses since July.
 
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Kliq

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I haven't listened to it yet but Parent Corner is the best segment of media we have in this country so I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.
 

rmurph3

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Getting Bill's son to read his Christmas wish list during Parent Corner on today's show with Cousin Sal was cringeworthy podcasting - I just turned it off at that point, although I suppose others' mileage may vary.
Haven't listened to the segment yet, but when I heard Bill tease it at the top of the show, I immediately thought "Digital Cities Sports Guy would be absolutely excorciating middle-aged Bill for this".
 

johnmd20

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Sal’s parent corner was awesome, I turned off when I heard bill’s son ask for a gold chain.
I'm certain Simmons thought the gold chain thing was funny and I'm also certain nobody else in the world did. Why is that funny or interesting, the kid is 10, 10 year olds are dumb and do dumb things. Film at 11.

It's not even remotely interesting. Simmons' daughter is a powerhouse and I wouldn't mind if she was on the Podcast every month, but his son is too young.
 

kenneycb

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Why do you care? Put me on ignore if it sticks in your craw so much, which apparently it does since you've mentioned it several times. I've explained my position several times that I don't feel like rehashing again. I don't particularly care about your opinion on me regarding this topic if it isn't already clear to you.

Edit: Regarding the post I was referring to, touche. I misunderstood the point of the post.
 

Shelterdog

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I'm not mad, just amazed to see the kind of persistence in defense of a lost cause not seen since Hiroo Onoda stopped fighting World War II in 1974. But keep it up, I'm sure Bill appreciates your help.
 

kenneycb

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And you seem to have an equal persistence in following my posts with such responses. So (1) bullshit to the above and (2) good on you too!
 

Kliq

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And you seem to have an equal persistence in following my posts with such responses. So (1) bullshit to the above and (2) good on you too!
This thread is often full of odd and petty complaints against Bill, stemming from some weird "one of us" sense that some members have over Bill. Going after posts that merely defend Bill from some of these criticisms is a step too far, imo.
 

nattysez

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I have actively avoided Parent Corner since the one a couple of years ago where he described letting his 8 year-old son spend hours on his phone in his room and saying that his son had a girlfriend. I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt with regard to how they raise their kids, but that was really beyond the pale. Then I watched the first ten minutes of this and was again reminded that Simmons is an absolute douchebag who thinks he's hilarious.

But the man legitimately knows how to build a media empire and hire great people.
 

luckiestman

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So Bill the general manager is better than Bill the coach? I'll see myself out...

It’s a good joke but I can’t agree with it. Bill’s podcast and appearances are the best and most entertaining for me on the Ringer. He is the straw that stirs the drink.
 

Kliq

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Anthony Davis, who has a somewhat decent shot at actually being traded, is in his Group A, that means "Completely and Utterly Untouchable".
I think under the rules of the column, every presumed trade would be a 1-to-1 swap; so by ranking Davis that high, he is implying that everyone beneath him would not be enough in a 1-for-1 swamp; which is reasonable since every rumored trade partner would be sending a high-upside player + picks to land Davis.

Kyrie at 30.
Wendell Carter at 23.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander at 22.

If Danny was offered either of those two (plus necessary cap filler) for Kyrie, how quickly does he hang up the phone?
Yeah, I think he went overboard in rating the rookie class over established veterans; although perhaps with the caveat that a team trading for Kyrie might not be able to re-sign him, which hurts his trade value.
 

cheech13

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Kyrie at 30.
Wendell Carter at 23.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander at 22.

If Danny was offered either of those two (plus necessary cap filler) for Kyrie, how quickly does he hang up the phone?
He also went the opposite way by putting Tatum at no. 9. He's a great player and all with tons of upside, but you're not taking him over Durant or Harden. That's non-sense even when factoring in contracts.
 

LeftyTG

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Did anyone listen to the Klosterman pod? I'm touchy on the subject, having lost my father in law to a drunk driver, but listening to Simmons justify his drunk driving past because nobody knew any better 30 years ago was rage inducing. Klosterman also admitted to numerous incidents, but at least he located it in his own self centeredness at the time. Simmons just has no capacity for self reflection - it has to be someone else's fault. It wasn't that he'd drive home drunk because he was more aware of his desire to have a good time and not bear the inconveniences of getting a taxi and leaving his car in the parking lot. It's that there weren't enough PSA's telling him the risks of driving drunk. I get that times have changed and drunk driving has a way higher social cost now compared to back then, but don't tell me nobody knew the risks and dangers of driving drunk.
 

luckiestman

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Did anyone listen to the Klosterman pod? I'm touchy on the subject, having lost my father in law to a drunk driver, but listening to Simmons justify his drunk driving past because nobody knew any better 30 years ago was rage inducing. Klosterman also admitted to numerous incidents, but at least he located it in his own self centeredness at the time. Simmons just has no capacity for self reflection - it has to be someone else's fault. It wasn't that he'd drive home drunk because he was more aware of his desire to have a good time and not bear the inconveniences of getting a taxi and leaving his car in the parking lot. It's that there weren't enough PSA's telling him the risks of driving drunk. I get that times have changed and drunk driving has a way higher social cost now compared to back then, but don't tell me nobody knew the risks and dangers of driving drunk.

Having lost a friend to drunk driving in the 90s I’m touchy about the topic but I just thought Simmons was being honest. That is how people were back then and I remember how put off some of the drunks in my extended family were when the hammer started coming down on drunk driving.
 

johnmd20

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Having lost a friend to drunk driving in the 90s I’m touchy about the topic but I just thought Simmons was being honest. That is how people were back then and I remember how put off some of the drunks in my extended family were when the hammer started coming down on drunk driving.
Me too. I had an Uncle who died in a drunk driving incident in 1988. I got my license in 1989 and driving drunk was something people did, because 18 year olds do stupid things. I wasn't serial drunk driver and I never got a DUI, but I drove drunk on a number of occasions. I'm not proud of it, but I was young, stupid, in denial, and selfish. I barely even equated it with my uncle.

That said, it was looked at way differently back then, Simmons is definitely right about that. It wasn't about the dangers, it was about avoiding cops. By 1995, I wasn't driving drunk at all because I grew up.
 

Pablo's TB Lover

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It’s a good joke but I can’t agree with it. Bill’s podcast and appearances are the best and most entertaining for me on the Ringer. He is the straw that stirs the drink.
I was just building off the post above mine but somewhat agree. IMO his improving on a pod is more of a "social/everyman" type of way, not that he'll have add any mind-blowing content to a podcast. Such as on the On Shuffle podcast which I enjoy, sometimes they geek out and go down a rabbit hole with something I'm not very interested in, but when Simmons comes on for a 90s review or holiday music pod or the like he may have a wack take but at least it is relatable like your buddy you always argue with IRL.

You can kind of tell on his podcast in the first 5 minutes if his guest will provide some good conversation and be on Bill's level, or if the guest is turned off by his style and will be just playing defense the whole time. I notice that CURRENT athletes tend to be better guests for Simmons (the excessive 2nd through 100th Durant podcasts notwithstanding) rather than former athletes for whatever reason. Of course I didn't care as much about Charles Oakley's story as most.
 

the1andonly3003

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I'm only halfway or so through the David Chang podcast but it's embarrassingly bad. Simmons knows nothing about cooking or restaurants so it's just a contest of which of them can draw the most tortured restaurant/sports analogies. And maybe Bill you should look up how the Michelin star system works before you interview a Michelin-starred chef? Going into this not knowing how many stars Chang holds (two -- although they're not really Chang's anymore, because he's not running the kitchen at Ko, but that's a separate issue), and whether that's the highest rank (duh, it's not) is just an egregious lack of preparation.
Meh, the whole setup of his podcast is that he's just shooting the shit with cool people he knows, he's not doing deep dives or be a "journalist"
I'd assume 95% of his audience have no clue how the Michelin star system works so I think it's a good fit for Bill to just be like.... what the fuck is this? and have Chang explain it.
Chang and BS settled in for the last half of the podcast I think. But yeah, the 15 minutes of sports analogies to start the thing was ROUGH. I was really excited to see Chang was on the podcast, but it definitely didn't deliver even with things getting better towards the end.
Simmons rarely interviews anyone who's outside the sports/pop culture firmament that he's already (somewhat) knowledgeable about, so usually lack of knowledge isn't so much of an issue. This would be like interviewing an actor and not knowing how Oscars are awarded or whether the actor has won one.

What's interesting about Chang and Michelin is that Chang is (in)famous for rejecting a lot of what Michelin has traditionally stood for -- classic French cuisine served in lavishly luxurious settings -- while still being successful. Chang more or less invented at Ko the tasting-menu bar restaurant as a new, stripped-down minimalist way to serve haute cuisine without all the ostentatious trappings of traditional French restaurants (the original Ko had no table cloths, bare walls, bar stools, chopsticks instead of fancy place settings, and no servers, instead he had the cooks bring the food out, etc.). Partly the idea was to remove all the foppery in favor of an austere minimalist view that nothing should distract from the food itself, partly they were just trying to reduce overhead and run a haute cuisine restaurant on a much smaller cost basis. But the idea that you could serve fancy, serious food in a non-fancy, non-luxurious setting was wholly new and has been enormously influential in the restaurant world, for better or for worse. And Chang has also been notorious for experimenting with complicated online reservation systems that pissed off a lot of older diners who couldn't figure out how to use them.

So there's actually a really interesting conversation for Simmons to engage Chang in here about how you decide what parts of the old way of doing things are outdated limits on creativity that need to be rejected, and how you decide what conventions are still useful and should be kept. Obviously that's a subject that fits very interestingly with Simmons' career path. But to have that conversation Simmons would have to understand what Chang has done and why it has been important, and Simmons doesn't seem to have bothered to do that. So instead we get them discussing how a restaurant company is and isn't like a sports team.
Does anyone remember the cooking shows that David Chang mentioned in this appearance? I remember The Mind of a Chef, but what was the other one?
 

Spacemans Bong

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I'm certain Simmons thought the gold chain thing was funny and I'm also certain nobody else in the world did. Why is that funny or interesting, the kid is 10, 10 year olds are dumb and do dumb things. Film at 11.

It's not even remotely interesting. Simmons' daughter is a powerhouse and I wouldn't mind if she was on the Podcast every month, but his son is too young.
Man, incredible timing that I just logged in to see this response right as Zoe Simmons is saying "I don't even know if people will take that money, it's in such bad condition!"
 

luckiestman

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Man, incredible timing that I just logged in to see this response right as Zoe Simmons is saying "I don't even know if people will take that money, it's in such bad condition!"

To be fair to Sal and Bill, they put parent corner at the end so it is easy to skip. I get a laugh out of it way more times than not.
 

Spacemans Bong

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To be fair to Sal and Bill, they put parent corner at the end so it is easy to skip. I get a laugh out of it way more times than not.
Oh no, don't get me wrong, I usually like Parent Corner. That was a respond to johnmd talking about Simmons's daughter, she totally corncobbed her little brother in talking about how he threw $120* at her at Christmas.

*which has to be at least 3x the cost of the presents she got him, bubble bath and a vintage Jordan t-shirt. What a dingus.
 

johnmd20

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Oh no, don't get me wrong, I usually like Parent Corner. That was a respond to johnmd talking about Simmons's daughter, she totally corncobbed her little brother in talking about how he threw $120* at her at Christmas.

*which has to be at least 3x the cost of the presents she got him, bubble bath and a vintage Jordan t-shirt. What a dingus.
I'm not even sure what you're trying to say. On Christmas morning, Ben didn't get his sister anything. When called on this fact, he ran upstairs and picked up a pile of money and threw it at her sister.

But it was a lot of money, so I guess it isn't the thought that counts.
 

Remagellan

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I'm not even sure what you're trying to say. On Christmas morning, Ben didn't get his sister anything. When called on this fact, he ran upstairs and picked up a pile of money and threw it at her sister.

But it was a lot of money, so I guess it isn't the thought that counts.
It seems that Ben is as thoughtless and Zoe is as thin-skinned as their father is.
 

Reverend

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I'm not even sure what you're trying to say. On Christmas morning, Ben didn't get his sister anything. When called on this fact, he ran upstairs and picked up a pile of money and threw it at her sister.

But it was a lot of money, so I guess it isn't the thought that counts.
Of course it's the thought that counts.

As Huey from The Boondocks might say: "But he didn't think."
 

moondog80

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So are we done hearing about how he and his dad wanted the Pats to draft Lamar Jackson?
 

ifmanis5

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Simmons will follow up his Andre The Giant project with Showbiz Kids.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/bill-simmons-sets-next-hbo-documentary-showbiz-kids-1174472?utm_source=twitter&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral
Simmons will executive produce Showbiz Kids, a feature-length doc about the highs and lows of children working in the entertainment industry, featuring interviews with some of the most famous former child actors in the world. Alex Winter, a former child actor turned director, will helm the project and also serve as an executive producer via his Trouper Productions, along with Glen Zipper of Zipper Bros (Netflix's Dogs).