The Bill Simmons Thread
- Thread starter RedOctober3829
- Start date
I think people are underrating Murphy's appeal to millennials and Gen Z. In addition to being in Shrek and Mulan (two movies every single person my age has seen) he also did a bunch of kids/family movies in the 2000s (Dr. Doolittle, Daddy Day Care, Haunted Mansion, Meet Dave, Imagine That) which were not critically acclaimed and some of them were notably box office bombs, but kids still watched them.
Voice acting roles aren't the same as live action in creating recognition from kids. Otherwise Idina Menzel would be the biggest star in Hollywood. Do you think Mike Myers is well known for people under 25? He's probably known as "Austin Powers" if at all.
The Shining is still culturally relevant, and Batman was bigger than every 80s Murphy movie.
Rankings
1. LeBron
2. Denzel
3. Jack
4. Eddie
The Shining is still culturally relevant, and Batman was bigger than every 80s Murphy movie.
Rankings
1. LeBron
2. Denzel
3. Jack
4. Eddie
Bill watched this week's Succession twice and still had to have Joanna and Sean convince him that the viral video referred to in the episode was Roman crying at his father's funeral. I'd ask why someone that inattentive was on a pod discussing an episode of TV if I already didn't know the answer.
Yes. Not all voice-acting roles create recognition, but Murphy has in one of the most popular series of children's movies ever, that multiple generations of kids watch, in addition to prominent live action work that kids have seen.
As for Myers, Shrek is way more culturally relevant to people under 30 than Austin Powers.
My point is that Myers isn't popular with people under 25 at all. They probably wouldn't know his real name.
Again... Voice acting roles don't create the same brand recognition as live action. Although it is funny to think about Owen Wilson being wildly popular with gen-z because of Cars.
Joanna is a nice, thoughtful person who is also truly intelligent. She is well studied, researched, and polished. There isn't much she talks about that she doesn't know hands down. I think she is fantastic no matter what she is talking about.
You just have to wonder what she thinks about Simmons, who is the opposite and absolutely just riffing and half assing his way through every pod now.
My point is that you are wrong. And the argument is really "Is Eddie Murphy more known than Jack Nicholson, specifically with younger people?" and while Mike Myers won't be rivaling LeBron James in terms of public notoriety, certainly Murphy has more cultural cache with younger people than Nicholson, who hasn't been in a movie in 13 years.
Cool. You're wrong. The Shining and The Departed get more streaming views than any Eddie Murphy live action movie from 1980 - 2010.
He thought it was possibly of Logan on the plane. Because somebody said something about Ray uploading it and Ray was on the plane, so........
I mean, you could clearly hear Roman crying during the video. I'm not sure what Bill is thinking half the time.
And to johnmd20's point, Joanna is so in tune with this show, it's themes, and how things tie together. She regularly is citing Shakespeare and how there are similarities, at time, with this show. All Bill can come up with is "You probably won't get this Joanna" and then talk about sports or the Sopranos. I would love a pod with just Jo and Sean for the finale.
Who is streaming them? I have no idea what the answer is but the data point you use isn’t overly convincing.
Doesn’t Gerri specifically say “Oh, no not Roman..” as the video is played?
Last edited:
I listened to the most recent Simmons pod with Kevin O’Connor. Before I get into it, I have to say that Bill deserves a tremendous amount of credit for talking about the “Zombie Heat” and recognizing CJM could be a liability a lot earlier than others.
With that being said, this was pretty awful. As @m0ckduck0 pointed out earlier, even after a win, Simmons was kind of shockingly negative. I’m not the rosiest person when it comes to the Celtics but even I was getting a little annoyed at the constant negativity.
There were two other things that stood out to me as really, really fucking dumb. Simmons was talking about potential CJM replacements and talked about the need for a coach with experience…he went through the normal cast we hear about and then suggested…JJ Redick. This was so bad that KOC, who is pretty agreeable with Bill, started laughing at him.
The other was discussing how the new CBA will make it really hard to have two super max players so the Celtics might have to trade Jaylen Brown. That, in and of itself, is very reasonable. Unfortunately, his second trade idea was Bradley fucking Beal and the 8 for Brown. I honestly couldn’t believe how terrible the idea was…especially coming from a guy who has talked multiple times about how awful Beal’s contract is and how the Wizards would be lucky to get anything of value for him. It also doesn’t clear salary…
(The other idea was Simons and 3 for Brown. I also think that’s a terrible trade but at least it actually cuts salary)
With that being said, this was pretty awful. As @m0ckduck0 pointed out earlier, even after a win, Simmons was kind of shockingly negative. I’m not the rosiest person when it comes to the Celtics but even I was getting a little annoyed at the constant negativity.
There were two other things that stood out to me as really, really fucking dumb. Simmons was talking about potential CJM replacements and talked about the need for a coach with experience…he went through the normal cast we hear about and then suggested…JJ Redick. This was so bad that KOC, who is pretty agreeable with Bill, started laughing at him.
The other was discussing how the new CBA will make it really hard to have two super max players so the Celtics might have to trade Jaylen Brown. That, in and of itself, is very reasonable. Unfortunately, his second trade idea was Bradley fucking Beal and the 8 for Brown. I honestly couldn’t believe how terrible the idea was…especially coming from a guy who has talked multiple times about how awful Beal’s contract is and how the Wizards would be lucky to get anything of value for him. It also doesn’t clear salary…
(The other idea was Simons and 3 for Brown. I also think that’s a terrible trade but at least it actually cuts salary)
I didn't think Simmons was unreasonably negative in that pod, though he was definitely singing a far more positive tune after last night's game.
His ongoing trade suggestions involving Timelord seem crazy to me. His contract is way too reasonable for almost any trade to make sense.
His ongoing trade suggestions involving Timelord seem crazy to me. His contract is way too reasonable for almost any trade to make sense.
As long as Simmons meant as an assistant not a head coach he wasn't off the mark at all. This is from last year: https://celticswire.usatoday.com/lists/nba-boston-celtics-no-redick-for-you/
The new Simmons pod with House is pretty rough -- at least the first hour or so of it.
The (what felt like) 20 minutes spent talking about what teams got close to the Finals but never made it might've been the most boring thing he's ever put to tape. After all of it, his big conclusion was "teams who never won a Finals but got close made personnel mistakes." I don't think KOC or Russillo would've let him yammer on for so long, but House knows how is bread is buttered.
He also reiterated that Al Horford was coaching the Celtics, which is deeply annoying (and discussed more in the Mazzulla thread).
Lastly, after spending forever displaying his deep knowledge of NBA history, the example he used to prove how great it is to have a pass-first point guard was how great he felt when some guy that he and House played pick-up ball with at Holy Cross played point guard on his team.
I may need to take a break from him until football gets closer. I'll for sure skip his next podcast because I can't listen to another hour of him killing Mazzulla now that the Celtics have said they're keeping him.
The (what felt like) 20 minutes spent talking about what teams got close to the Finals but never made it might've been the most boring thing he's ever put to tape. After all of it, his big conclusion was "teams who never won a Finals but got close made personnel mistakes." I don't think KOC or Russillo would've let him yammer on for so long, but House knows how is bread is buttered.
He also reiterated that Al Horford was coaching the Celtics, which is deeply annoying (and discussed more in the Mazzulla thread).
Lastly, after spending forever displaying his deep knowledge of NBA history, the example he used to prove how great it is to have a pass-first point guard was how great he felt when some guy that he and House played pick-up ball with at Holy Cross played point guard on his team.
I may need to take a break from him until football gets closer. I'll for sure skip his next podcast because I can't listen to another hour of him killing Mazzulla now that the Celtics have said they're keeping him.
I guess this is why he stopped calling himself the (Boston) Sports Guy. Because if he can't speak intelligently on basketball, there's really no sport on which he can do so.
I only listen to him regularly during football season, and for the most part only the pods with Sal, and that's more about their interaction with each other than any knowledge of football either of them brings to their discussion.
The Jaylen portion was awful too. He starts off going “I was texting various people and sources if Jaylen can improve…” he then changes the topic and never gets back to it….
Also, the trade offers hes been throwing out there are fucking terrible. Houston where the best piece back is the 4th pick in a 3 person draft….and then Jerami Grant and the,3rd pick? I mean, those are both complete shit
Bill INSISTED during multiple podcasts that Kevin Young was a lock for the Suns job. Oops.
https://www.thebiglead.com/posts/bill-simmons-suns-hiring-kevin-young-frank-vogel-01h1ypk8h6rs
https://sports.yahoo.com/bill-simmons-roasted-phoenix-suns-215347204.html
https://www.thebiglead.com/posts/bill-simmons-suns-hiring-kevin-young-frank-vogel-01h1ypk8h6rs
https://sports.yahoo.com/bill-simmons-roasted-phoenix-suns-215347204.html
Agreed. And Bill is right--I hope he gets a job calling games because a studio job would not be the best use of his talents.
Two other things about this podcast:
(1) Doc's speaker phone was terrible and the producer did a good job of boosting the audio on the phone to make the podcast listenable.
(2) Simmons did a very good job of not interrupting Doc. Doc gave some really long-winded (but excellent) answers and Simmons just let him roll. I don't think Simmons would've done that a few years ago.
(1) Doc's speaker phone was terrible and the producer did a good job of boosting the audio on the phone to make the podcast listenable.
(2) Simmons did a very good job of not interrupting Doc. Doc gave some really long-winded (but excellent) answers and Simmons just let him roll. I don't think Simmons would've done that a few years ago.
It's also an impressive get given the heat between the two of them. At one point Simmons said Doc quit on the Celtics during an ESPN broadcast, Doc called Simmons an asshole and later said Simmons used his influence with Celtics ownership to push Doc out of Boston.
Didn’t they make up long ago in some way. I thought I heard Doc on Simmons before or doing something together since then.
Edit: this may be what I’m remembering
https://awfulannouncing.com/2013/doc-rivers-says-he-s-buried-the-hatchet-with-bill-simmons.html
Yes and he also trashed The Process mindset and a few of their missed draft picks. He got the name of the guy they picked wrong.
Also took a swipe at Danny for not keeping a few key pieces of the KG run together like Allen and Posey.
Simmons interviewed Doc after he went to the Clippers somewhere around 8 years ago and they joked about the "feud". I think the hatchets were buried a while ago. It was probably Simmons' fifth stage of grief over his disappointment in only winning one title. He had reached the acceptance stage that the other best chance the Cs had, in 2010, Red Auerbach would have had a difficult time getting over the hump in game 7 with the horses they were running out at that point. I mean, look at the mid-30 somethings playing huge minutes and the bench "depth" being run out there. Rondo's future ability to shoot three-pointers in the 30+ percentile rather than 20+ percentile range would have done wonders in 2010.
Despite reaching game 7 of the Finals, I was thinking the window was closing at that point. Even as I knew they'd keep winning during the regular season a while longer.
Oh yeah that to, he killed them for The Process.
His takes on Harden were brutal towards Harden; basically "James is very good at playing one way, but the way you need to play to win is a completely different way" and "I wish I could have coached him earlier in his career before he learned all these bad habits that prevent him from winning."
I was about to say Doc hit D'Antoni with the collateral damage from the coaching comment, but what I totally forgot was he actually played for Kevin McHale for 3+ years aged 23-26 and probably established some of the habits (looking at his FG attempts, he did) before D'Antoni even arrived. D'Antoni just pushed his usage into overdrive, smartly with respect to the style of play and officiating.
Yes, exactly.
Maybe Bill could do this as a What If Segment and Ryen could chime in with a "yeah think of how many more 3-1 playoff leads they could have blown together."
Simmons updated his NBA trade value rankings (no commentary anymore, naturally, just a list): https://nbarankings.theringer.com/trade-value.
I haven't scrolled through all the way yet but I think it's wrong to put Tatum behind Luka (who has had conditioning issues and admitted he sometimes gets too tired to play defense), crazy to put Tatum behind Curry (just due to age and salary), and absolutely insane to put Tatum behind Wembanyama (does Simmons seriously think that if Brad called up the Spurs and offered them Tatum straight-up for the #1 pick the Spurs would turn that down??).
I haven't scrolled through all the way yet but I think it's wrong to put Tatum behind Luka (who has had conditioning issues and admitted he sometimes gets too tired to play defense), crazy to put Tatum behind Curry (just due to age and salary), and absolutely insane to put Tatum behind Wembanyama (does Simmons seriously think that if Brad called up the Spurs and offered them Tatum straight-up for the #1 pick the Spurs would turn that down??).
My favorite part of this ep was Simmons continued war on former Prince Harry and that he actually had a meeting with that grifter(Simmons words).
Simmons: Prince Harry is definitely top 5 all time as terrible 2nd sons to the crown over the last 300 years.
Curry is a special case because there's just no way GS would ever trade Curry, he just means too much to the franchise (and it's not belichick running that team). I'm ok with Wembanyama being higher - his ceiling is just too much for the Spurs to consider trading him, and Tatum doesn't have as much value on a team that has to start from the bottom considering he's 25 and about to be making cap shattering money.
Luka, I have a problem with. He has to be making Dallas nervous for a few reasons (which you mention, plus it's starting to feel like he's unhappy in general, and is it getting odd that he hasn't really gotten any better since 2020?), Tatum gives Boston no such reason to doubt him or his future. Back to back 1st team all-NBA, multiple deep playoff runs, no true weaknesses, and he's gotten better every year. Has any player in history improved their ppg, rpg and apg for 5 straight years? It seems almost impossible.
There's no way the Spurs would do that deal. Wemby is cost-controlled for like 7-8 years and is a prospect on par with Lebron. NBA people think he could be a legit all-star this year. He could be #1 on the list and it would make sense.
With Russillo piping in with something like ‘in a weird way, he might be the worst Royal son period, I feel like that isn’t a CRAZY thing to say, but you know there is gonna be this narrative out there that it’s really the family that’s the problem and the press, whatever, but that’s just the world we live in today where you just can’t say what is common sense.’
Hilarious, I could hear Ryen's voice as I read it.
There's also the other smaller voice that Bill rarely responds too which would be something like "Okay, so we're not doing Richard III?"