Whatever your opinion of ESPN’s Bill Simmons, his NBA columns are must-reads, if for no other reason than he knows and loves the game in a very pure way.
It’s the kind of love we hope to achieve with a human female one day, but never will because we’re morally ignorant in the ways of the relationship.
Regardless, the Simmons piece of the day urges you to root for Dallas to win this series, based on the idea that a Heat (read: Wade) victory means the revolution is over. The “new NBA” of team play, as he refers to it, will die before it fully lived.
In between Jordan and Wade, we had to watch all the wannabes pretending to be as good as them. And they weren’t. Not even close.
Here’s what happens if Miami wins the title: New Jersey will say to themselves, “Hey, maybe this could happen to us with Vince Carter”; Washington will say the same about Arenas; Boston with Pierce; G-State with Richardson; the Lakers with Kobe; New Team X with Iverson. And so on and so on.
Basically, the team with LeBron or Wade will win the next 10-12 titles, and it will come down to which guy made more 20-footers with two guys on him and which guy got the most cheap calls from the most spineless referees. That’s not basketball, it’s a star system.
Despite the italicized portion of the excerpt being pretty goddamn okay with us, we realize it’s probably not the best thing for the league. Of course, the NBA was reborn when everyone knew it was either Magic or Bird every year - that worked out, didn’t it?
Anyway, we don’t agree, which is basically what we just said, but will repeat here a different way, ala BJ Armstrong. The NBA won’t go that way again, and the reason is the next breed of NBA star appears to be legit.
LeBron and Wade are a little different animal than Stackhouse and Walker, two of the late 90s “next great ones”, who coincidentally are now role players in these Finals.
Kobe - legit. Duncan - legit. KG - legit. Melo - legit. Gilbert - legit. Bosh - legit. Dirk - legit. Brand - legit. Greg Oden looks like he’ll be legit. (Please don’t be angered if we’ve excluded your favorite player. If we did, it’s only because he’s not legit.)
Plus, the league is now set up up to allow the false idols of the past to assume their roles as MLE role players on semi-loaded teams. Much as we loathe his game, how nice would Starbury look scoring 13 per for the Cavaliers at $5.5M a season?
What all this means is the NBA’ll be fine when the Heat take it in tonight’s Game 6. You can’t really “copy” Wade/Shaq, and every GM around knows that thing was built for this year, and this year alone, even though they’ll all be back next season. It’s a little blip in the new NBA - not the end of it.
And that’s fine, friends. Everything is fine, as long as you stop with the “why are you hitting Cuban so hard” emails. We’re not - those are love taps. How could you read this site and not know we love that dude? (And yes, we totally want Dallas to win tonight.)
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That’s the first Simmons article that I’ve read and completely disagreed with. Bird, Magic, and Jordan all had to get help before they won a championship. Most NBA people are smart enough to know the “one-man show” style of hoop doesn’t work. Kobe didn’t have help, and the Lakers played the kind of ball that Simmons seemed to think the league will turn to if Miami wins…and we all saw how far the Lakers went this year.
Brian AKA the Cavalier’s low post game: Too legit to quit
Yeah I don’t know what Simmons was getting at, but Jones is right - my drop-step is deadly, provided the man guarding me is smaller than me.
I have a feeling that the Mavs are going to win tonight, and that you are going to get 20,000 comments from Zack K and Exodus…
I never saw any drop step
Yeah, but you’re bigger than me.
His drop step is very similar Roy Tarpley’s
Methinks Simmons isn’t dealing with the idea of Antoine Walker getting a ring before Paul Pierce very well.
What the hell is up with Shaq? 6 points?!? If he was having an ok game, he should be averaging that a quarter.
In my best Bill Walton, “Throw it down big man, throw it down!”
I don’t care, ‘Toine’s Mini-On-The-Floor-Shimmy made me laugh out loud. There, I said it.
Shaq draws doubles opening up everyone else, so even if he is not scoring, he is still doing a lot for the Heat. Wade never sees doubles consistently because of Shaq.
Pierce is getting his ring in 2011 piggybacking on Greg Oden in Chicago.
What about Mourning’s little dance there Howie? I think he might have Walker beat.
You’re going to wake up the Celtics bloggers with talk like that.
It has been a great game, but its about time one of the like 5 Mav’s capible step up. I can’t bear Gary Peyton or Zo riding D Wade to a ring when a guy like Charles Barkley couldn’t get one. Just don’t deserve it.
Especially in this 2-3-2 schedule. I know it’s been like this for going on 20 years, but its still trash. Especially after the rest of the playoffs is different. Second game in a row that Wade’s getting EVERY call. I guess it was more of a trend than an abbohration. Not sure if he deserves that treatment quite yet
It has been a great game, but its about time one of the like 5 Mav’s capible step up. I can’t bear Gary Peyton or Zo riding D Wade to a ring when a guy like Charles Barkley couldn’t get one. Just don’t deserve it.
Especially after the rest of the playoffs is different. Second game in a row that Wade’s getting EVERY call. I guess it was more of a trend than an abbohration. Not sure if he deserves that treatment quite yet
sorry for the double post
Charlie - I dunno man, Zo’s antics are weird.. like he wants to eat a baby cub’s head off after every block.
What the heck are mav fans bitchin about…
looks to me like the refs are doing all they can to help them out this game.
Double dribble? pahlease.
GP deserves a ring, get off his back.
mav fans are welcome to bitch about that. Dirk didn’t touch him.
Wow, I want the Heat to win but that last foul call on Nowitzki was b.s. D Wade stiff armed him and he got the foul.
Peyton is an asshole, only slightly better than Stockton. Probably a hall of famer, but he’s riding Wade to a ring he couldnt get when he did deserved it. Whoring yourself for a ring at 39 is the worst modern convention of this incarnation of the nba
wade. MVP. Shocker. Congrats to the Heat. I’ll even take back what I said about Zo. They’re definitely a top 4 team with a top 3 guy. Has there ever been a better guy than Shaq? I’d even let my sister date him. Hillarious
This Heat win isn’t necessarily good for LeBron because everybody is going to make the argument that D Wade is better than LeBron because he has a ring. I like Wade he’s probably my favorite player behind LBJ but now the talk is going to start. Face it…Wade had Shaq and Pat Riley….Pat Riley has led so many black men to NBA Titles he’s like affirmative action incarnate. It’s not fair, LeBron can’t win because LeBron doesn’t have a team. WORK YOUR ASS OFF IN THE OFF SEASON FERRY OR I’LL FIND YOU!
WOW> A Shaq calls next year too. I believe it if Wade’s shooting 20 FT’s a game. Though Sun’s with Nash and Amare are the best of both worlds
Mavs in 7
Zo really is a class act. Of Course he has circumstances, but, wow. Great interview. I used to wait tables in DC, and took care of Zo once. had a cran juice with his whole fam there. I have had kidney transplants in my family so i talked to him about it, and he was really down to earth and encouraging. Cheep ass tipper, but regular 7 foot guy.
That “class act” bitched his way out of Toronto like he was somehow better than everybody in that organization. And he got a ring as a reward. Yeah, the Raps blow, but they’d be alot better with the potential 5 blocks per game they RIGHTFULLY TRADED FOR.
I don’t even like the Raptors, but even I can see the folly in calling Zo a “class act”. While we’re at it, Vince Carter, and, by transitive property, this blog, are also class acts.
He’s a cheap shot artist too.
THESP, why even start an argument about Wade or LeBron? Yeah, they’re both superstars in the NBA, but let’s face it…LeBron will always be better than Wade because he’s bigger and stronger. Just because the guy wins a title doesn’t mean he’s better than the next guy…
Oh and Zo being a class act? I don’t care if he’s had 5 kidney transplants, New Jersey paid him $10 million dollars to sit on the injured list for a year and a half then he asked out of New Jersey because they weren’t a good enough team…NJ traded him to Toronto and he didn’t even bother to show up. He forced Toronto to cut him…what an asshole. He can block weak layups but he can’t stop skinny Tayshaun from dunking on him!
It was worse than that - he forced Toronto to buy him out at full price!
Maybe Bill Simmons made some good points in his article but I couldn’t wade through all the shite surrounding it. Can that guy write without going on tangents and extremely long-winded points that could be made in 1/4 of the space? No? I didn’t think so.
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