Grantland so far

I know I'm having a brain fart here, but I didn't. Is he saying four graphs in, he was hooked, or four graphs in, he was ready to move on to the next shiny object?

 

The second one. He could already tell the story was going to be a long, overblown monument to the writer's ego, so he took his ball and went home.

 

"Gone" as in, he closed the browser window and moved on to something else.

 

Thanks. I have been there too. A lot with Molly Lambert stuff, for some reason.

 

I don't think she's one of their better writers, but the stuff Bryan Curtis is doing over there is really excellent. He was one of the few to get a shout-out from the ombuds.

 

I enjoy Titus, read his book and it wasn't bad.

Greenwald's TV pieces are first-rate. I like Katie Baker, either on hockey or the occasional pop-culture work.

 

I agree about Lambert. Her Mad Men reviews read like a 200-level English comp essay.

I love Greenwald, Jonah Keri & Rany Jazayerli. Wesley Morris, too.

But there are clearly a ton of Grantland writers that Simmons sees as younger versions of himself, and he's giving them an outlet to jerk off 4,000 words at a time. They totally over-rate the NBA's impact and popularity, and view everything through the prism of the movies, TV shows and music they loved when they were in high school and college. The trouble is, in most cases, that was only 5 or 10 years ago.

I honestly think Simmons hired Bill Barnwell because he is young, single and obsessed with gambling. What he writes about the NFL is what Simmons would want to if he was 15 years younger, didn't have kids and didn't have 10 other irons in the fire.

 

Should the Dr. V story remain up on the site:

 

In the sports realm, their basketball and baseball stuff is mostly good - Lowe, Keri, and Jazayerli in particular. Lowe and Keri are my favorite basketball and baseball writers on any site. Other than that, their articles are very hit-or-miss. On football, the only guy I like reading is Chris Brown, who breaks down Xs and Os well.

 

I look at it more for the Hollywood Prospectus than any sports stuff anymore. There's almost always a good pop-culture read.

 

I like some articles in that section. I can't stand Greenwald, though. He and Barnwell are my least favorite writers on that site. Greenwald badly needs a good editor to keep him from rambling on without a point for paragraphs at a time.

 

Latest 30 for 30 short: "Putt Putt Perfection," about a guy who shot just the third 18 in a sanctioned Putt Putt tournament.
Pretty cool retelling of a ridiculously difficult accomplishment.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/putt-putt-perfection/