bill simmons IS bill simmons IN the book of BASKETBALL

i’m completely baffled as to why he thinks this is a unique opinion……. not sure if it’s in this clip but he says on the podcast that he and rusillo and “5 others” believe that scoot is going to be a star

Scoot Henderson is gonna be a star — this is happening. Don’t say Russillo and I didn’t try to warn you. pic.twitter.com/5zbfFw15dn

— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) July 10, 2023

very brave of bill to say this

scoot fell one spot in the draft no one believed in him

"fuckin carries himself like an alpha" lol cant believe you guys listen to this shit

shd also be mentioned the "scoot can get by anyone" is far from a settled fact and wasnt even true in the game bill is freaking out over, he took a bunch of short pullups

he had one halfcourt layup and even that was boarderline transition, could see him being one of those good all around guys who never quite puts it together efficiencywise, a lot depends as it does in the nba on "how good can he shoot"

i didn’t get to see the scoot game but the way he’s describing him is something you’d typically hear about a player who is closer to being maxed out physically than one with limitless potential

yeah def a guy whos more physically mature than his peers, and is also just a beast

Scoot seems like a fun and charismatic dude. He may have more "star power" than, say, Lillard, who is great at hooping but pretty boring off the court.

that bill dialog on scoot was hilarious, dude is yelling at no one.

inventing a guy to be smarter at basketball than

look no one is saying this! I’m the only guy! but based on 11 minutes of summer league mark my words the guy who was the consensus one pick if 7’4 kd didn’t exist — he’s gonna be a huge star and nobody knows it

bill is the king of pretending like he alone thinks a well regarded player is really good (evan mobley is the previous version of this) but the scoot stuff is particularly absurd given that he was by any measure one of the most hyped prospects in years

he compared dude to prime russ, rose and cp lmao.

well he's far from the only one to compare scoot to russ and rose. but that's kinda the point

This election is going to be the most unpleasant of our lifetimes. It’s impossible to think what could possibly make it wor— pic.twitter.com/diSuJLK4zh

— Isaac Chotiner (@IChotiner) August 15, 2023

jesus

this one was funny

https://x.com/billsimmons/status/1691930025648369827?s=46&t=delhXlmZBYazm252j4iaFA

prob what happened more or less

yeah it seems fairly obvious (and predictable!) how it went down

yeah it's all reasonable my only note is that if philly *did* promise a wink wink deal a lot of these things could be seen as harden's camp (awkwardly ) keeping the pressure on to make that happen. i don't think it's like one or the other.

the one no-doubt thing is that he assumed he had a houston backtop option as leverage until he didn't.

I have a physical revulsion to this word and can’t wrap my head around how or why anyone would use it 5 million times in an article let alone write “let us not pretend the word doesn’t rule.” Wtf. I’m sure Bill personally had nothing to do with this Ringer abomination but not sure where else to put this. Is there a thread about the mainstreaming of 4chan incel culture or some shit?

The Official Taxonomy of Cinematic Cucks

Cuck cinema is having a mainstream moment. Song and her husband, Justin Kuritzkes, have independently written (and in Song’s case, directed) two films centered almost exclusively on the act of cucking. That’s the aforementioned Past Lives, in which Greta Lee cucks John Magaro until they hug it out, and the upcoming Challengers, in which Zendaya appears to cuck Josh O’Connor and/or Mike Faist. (Side note: After being set for a September 15 release date, Challengers has now been postponed to 2024, no doubt for fear of an excess of Hollywood cucking.)

Sure, “cuck” has had a long and winding journey to its current moment in the cinematic spotlight, from Geoffrey Chaucer’s use of “cuckold” to cuck’s place as the insult du jour of myriad far-right trolls. But let us not pretend that the word “cuck” itself, with its monosyllabic brevity and hard consonant punch, doesn’t rule. Let us also not pretend that during the last several years, it has not become (for better or worse) something far more universal, its definition stretching from “insult for a man whose wife is cheating on him” to a sort of catchall for any spineless or subservient specimen.

thats some very bad writing wow

i get why this is the case w/ CEO bill and all, but there's something funny that happens not infrequently on his podcast where he will have one of his employees on and will be like "so have you paid attention to [team] at all this year?" and the guy will reply "yeah you know i actually went down to training camp last month for 5 days for an article on the ringer, and"

you get the sense he may not be the world's greatest boss

idk his main people have worked for him for years, i think you can make a lot of criticisms more accurate than that.

yeah say what you want about him, and god knows one day something terrible might come out, but all indications point to him being a pretty good boss I think!

im ready to release some terrible info about him

hes a podcaster

iirc there was something where some lesser ringer staffers had their podcasts taken away and he told them they just didnt have the capacity to produce everything and he gave his teenage daughter a podcast at the same time

Yet somehow Verrier remains.

i now make active effort to avoid content from the ringer dot com

their stuff is so bad, pure slop

they employ kevin oconnor

yeah we all agree koc sucks, but they have some other writers who are good

they all have the residual stink of bill simmons tho

feel like every time i encounter something by them its notably unserious but at the same time not entertaining

i leave neither edified nor amused

both teams end up neither edified or amused, who says no?

lol

depends what you mean by "good boss" because I think there's a Peter Principle thing going on with him, he's a good writer (or at least one that can command a large audience) and I think he knows what sports bros want to see but I don't know how good he is at actually running things

iirc most of the Grantland writers said he was a good dude to work for

I think he knows what sports bros want to see but I don't know how good he is at actually running things

― frogbs, Saturday, December 2, 2023 12:18 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

pretty common scenario of someone with vision whos not necessarily expert at the day to day stuff, usually when you see a someone like that build a successful business someone else is just doing the operations things

lol didn't mean much by it, just seems like he'd be an annoying personality type. the one thing that I've noticed is that whenever any writers leave the ringer he never acknowledges their departure or existence

i'm sure there are worse bosses out there

he is annoying tbf

my post wasn't to allege that bill is a bad boss, just that it's funny when he has his writers on his podcast and reveals that he doesn't know what they're publishing, even though that is a fairly standard dynamic at a place w/ as many editorial layers as the ringer. it's just that most places like the ringer don't have a hugely popular podcast where its founder speaks frequently w/ his writers

that being said i know enough ppl that have worked for him to say definitively that whether he is a bad boss or a good boss depends on who you are talking to. there is a core group of people who have been w/ him for ages, there are also people who have found working for him untenable and have parted on bad terms. this is prob a fairly common dynamic among bosses.

why do the untenable people find it untenable

i don't think you have to know anyone behind the scenes to say that bill can be petty and vindictive. he deals w/ conflict in a way that can feel righteous when his opponent is ESPN and disney -- it's far more problematic when he is managing employees. i know that when the ringer union was forming, some people who were very active & vocal in the union drive felt that he was doing stuff like no longer tweeting out links to their stories from his personal account etc. boss fighting union is not exactly a breaking news story but there were some ppl there who felt like he was taking it to a more personal level

there's also just stuff like, the ringer having very few black people on staff, bill being confronted about this by his staff, and then his response being to hire ppl like raja bell and cc sabathia to host podcasts. like...

Above all, the four former employees said, it was difficult for black staff members to win more responsibility and visibility at the company — especially since late 2017, when company leaders appeared to make podcasting a priority. At that point, they said, top editors started claiming shows for themselves.

The outlet’s popular R3w4tch4bl3s podcast, in which staff members revisit old movies, led by Mr. Simmons, allowed for a variety of guests when it started. By the spring of 2018, the ensemble approach faded as the show came to rely more on Mr. Simmons along with S34n F3nn3ss3y and Chr1s Ry4n, both founding editors who are white.

“The Rewatchables was pitched as, ‘Let’s get the rest of you participating in podcasts,’” Mr. Collins said. “It very quickly became Sean, Bill and Chris.”

Mr. Simmons said by email that the company needed to spotlight its best podcasters. “It’s a business,” he said. “This isn’t Open Mic Night.”

responding to concerns by your (at the time) handful of black employees that there wasn't enough room for advancement by saying, to the new york times, that you aren't hosting an open mic night is a style of management that, um, isn't going to work for everyone. again this is the kinda thing that works when you're the david, not the goliath. but i think he always sees himself as the former despite having been the latter for quite some time.

good post thank you