Worthwhile Will Leitch essay on Bill Simmons

Geez, it was just a question.....

But, for the record, I don't think such a glaring error is a minor fuck-up. That's my opinion.

 

I wasn't answering your question like I'm pissed. Just trying to spell it out.

I agree: It's a fuck-up. But put it into context. He's not talking about Rick Barry the college basketball player. He's talking about Rick Barry the NBA player. That fuck-up has nothing to do with the real point at hand.

 

I understand, and if that's what is important to you, that's fine.

It's just I'm a stickler for accuracy. So much so that I will probably question the whole thing over something like where Rick Barry went to school.

For instance, I recently read the latest book written by hockey broadcasting legend Brian McFarlane. As I expected, it's chock full of the anecdotes he's already told 50 different ways in the other books he's written. Whatever. But there was one reference in one of the stories to Canada's 1962 Olympic bobsled team. Of course, there were no Olympics in 1962. It didn't matter to me, from that point on, what the story itself was about that he was telling; I stopped reading. I'm not going to tolerate a glaring fuck-up that even a cursory check of the copy should have caught.

 

Same with me. When I open a non fiction book I feel there is an implied bond of trust with the author.

Simmons should have started this book from 1980. He reached too far. Glad you like it Xan but don't bank on his pre 1980 views as accurate.

 

Even the Sleepy Floyd fuck-up didn't bug me that much. He said Sleepy scored 33 in that quarter of a playoff game, when it was 29 (I watched it live and was in awe at what I was watching). So yeah, I rolled my eyes. He said that happened in the first round of the 1988 playoffs, when it was 1987. But the point was that guards who could create points off the dribble killed the Lakers, and he tied that point with Isiah's massive quarter against the Lakers in the '88 Finals despite playing on a bum ankle. That's what he zeroed in on, and he made sense.

All of us are sticklers for accuracy. But I'm willing to forgive certain things.

Had he written, "Sleepy Floyd had one of the greatest 12-minutes stretches in NBA history when he scored 33 points against the Lakers in the 1988 playoffs," I would've been a little more put off. But the point wasn't the 33 (29). It was about terrific scoring guards who found a weak link in the Showtime Lakers' impenetrable armor, be it Sleepy on a so-so Warriors team or Zeke on that terrific Bad Boys team a year later.

I'm waiting till the end of the book to see those 50 or so fuck-ups he admits to. It'll be interesting to see what they are.



Edit after Boom's post: I'll trust that he interviewed a lot of players, coaches and the like and used upward of 100 books on the NBA for a backdrop into the 50s, 60s and 70s. When guys like from the 60s and 70s come out and start bashing the book, I'll take a step back and revise my opinion.

Edit II (hey, this is fun!): His dad bought season tickets to the C's when he was 6 years old. He was at the triple-OT game against the Suns. He watched the last 4 years of the '70s. So the combination of him growing up in the Garden in 76, 77, 78, 79, and his other research, I'm going to give him a little more weight.

 

He did say he read every NBA book imaginable to gain perspective and he watched a lot of game films since apparently he has a buddy that works with NBA Films.

I do think it's interesting he writes a "Book of Basketball" but depends on actual journalists and people who were there to form his opinion. I'll take his word on anything Boston Celtics. But I will think twice and three times on his take on anything else.

Glad to see another huge NBA fan on here, Xan.

 

The "what if" for Len Bias should have looked at the possibilty and probability that Bias would have turned out like Tarpley, Washburn, Walter Berry and William Bedford. Celtic fans like to believe that the Bird/McHale/Parrish would have taken him under their wing and he would have avoided coke in the future.

 

He would have been burning rope with Parish instead.

 

True. As I read his lust affair for Bias, I was thinking, "You know, Bill, he may very well have become a bust ... "

That said, back then we all thought he would become the next Big Thing. I loved watching him play at Maryland.

I thought Glenn Robinson was going to be the next Everything. Still don't understand how he killed at Purdue and with that body and ability did zero in the NBA.

 

What's so interesting about this? Isn't this what every writer/analyst/historian does for figures whose careers concluded before their time?

 

He even does it for teams and players who are still playing, such as the 80s Celtics and the Suns of earlier this decade. I didn't say it was earth-shattering.

Just that we're supposed to buy someone's opinions who wasn't even there for more than half the stuff he's opining about.

 

Well. at least we don't have to worry about Den opining about the Civil War, the bombing of Hiroshima, who really killed JFK, whether Walter Johnson was better than Christy Mathewson or the 1958 NFL title game.