but women have a lower center of gravity...............

that's kinda why i don't like him. I've never read his stuff, but he does the same thing on the podcasts. little too into how clever he is.

that being said, after the first 2 or 3 podcasts he was on, i started to enjoy him, it's really just this latest one where I was all wtf.

Klosterman referred to Todd Gallagher's book Andy Roddick Beat Me with a Frying Pan during the argument and I wish he had pressed it more or remember the book better. The story was not that the author almost beat a WNBA player, it was renowned athletic specimen Artie Lange going up 14-10 on Marissa Braby who was 5 inches taller and a WABA and WEBA all star during a skit on the Howard Stern show.

He basically then used the rest of the chapter to show that the top women athletes in the world were at the equivalent level as the top 14-15 year old males in the world.

i still think he comes out with good stuff, like last time where bill was saying that bs like 'ya that's what gladwell's theory at the conference was...', and chuck just immediately annihilated it.

i think he realised straight away that female player stuff was a ton of bs ('er, maybe? but all the evidence says otherwise...'), but agree he can be far too deferential at times. the stuff about kids at games was both baffling and his lowest point to date, and it was actually pretty embarrassing how he wouldn't let it drop.

I think Klosterman had the same feelings we all did about the woman's basketball stuff but he wasn't going to be like "you are being ****ing ******ed." It didn't seem like he was interested in or expecting the in depth woman's basketball discussion.

I turned it off before it I remember him saying anything too exceptionally ******ed. I don't really agree or enjoy his sports centric stuff overall, but occasionally he brings up a different or interesting point. His pop culture stuff is great and he is overall a good foil for Simmons, especially considering some of the idiots he has on the show.

Yeah this has to be the worst BS report I've ever listened to. Simmons going on about a woman playing in the NBA as a role-playing 3pt shooter was beyond ridiculous. Then his producer digs up the stats that the best college women shooters are at 40% with a line that is 4 feet closer than the NBA lol.

the best shooters were in the 45-50% category, i know this because i had the same webpage open. i'm not sure why he randomly picked a 40% shooter (just because she was from stanford?). anyway whatever, obviously the whole thing was completely ******ed and bill was laughably changing his argument every minute.

Just listened to the podcast and can't believe no one mentioned by far the stupidest thing mentioned. I mean the womens sports thing with a fun/goofy hypothetical that was basically morphed into "how good would someone need to be at hitting open threes to make an NBA team?" Klosterman had some okay point re: kids, but was being a complete wet blanket.

The worst by far was Simmons arguing that lowering ticket prices and decreasing capacity would be good for the teams because they would create a better product.

no, the 3pt shooting women is much worse than that. "better product" is a loose term, so I don't really disagree with him there.

both showed a pretty putrid understanding of sports economics, but half empty stadiums can't be good for the owners pockets, the fans' enjoyment, or the product in general. Now, a simpler thing is just reducing prices to meet demand (i thought simmons idea about a low, gen admission price for everything but the prime stuff was interesting at least), but lowering capacity isn't a crazy option. It's been done in other sports.

Are you getting at that lower prices/capacity reduces team profit, which in turn drives down players' share, which in turn may decrease the incentive for some to choose basketball? There's merit to that, but the same thing will happen with high prices/low demand product anyway.

another part I found disgusting is that during the NCAA/should they stay longer/should they get paid/etc is that neither brought up any ethical/moral qualms about keeping kids out of the NBA longer, or even with the NCAA system at all. Not that it's a black/white answer, but they just looked at it purely from "will I enjoy the sport I prefer more?"

Half empty stadiums aren't optimal, but they maybe best alternative for owners if the feel the revenue from each fan in a half empty stadium is 2x that of the revenue from each fan in a full stadium.
In some cities lowering capacity would drive out concerts or even (lol) hockey teams. Lowering ticket prices mid-season sounds like a great idea, except that it will alientate season ticket holders who are their biggest customers.

Simmons attacks the issues from a economic/business issue, but really all he wants to do is make the experience better for the casual fan, which is fine, but owners have different goals and Simmons is projecting his ideals onto the owners.

netball > womens bball imo, it'd be good if it caught on in america (lol as if) because it's actually a pretty fun sport to watch. but the main thing is it doesn't have the lolwomen taint that most women's sports have because men don't really play it (it's derived from the original differnet rules for women's bball). so it allows women to have a sports that's pretty much theirs which is good imo, afaik it gets good crowds in australia

tickets are priced by someone whose sole job it is to price tickets. probably not a great idea for anyone to think they know how to price tickets better than these people because they thought about it for 45 seconds

yeah this was kind of scary

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...8&sportCat=nba

I'm not sure labron deserves the MVP more than Wade. so I'll give it to Rose b/c he plays hard and the team totally takes on his attitude. Solid logic.

His argument would have been much better by just saying "Rose gets the MVP because hes the best player on the 1 seed."

In his latest article: Bill simmons not mentioning Charl Schwartzel by name, calling him "some toothy south African" and saying everyone will forget him and remember tiger's front nine instead gets me really really mad.

I agree that it was pretty disrespectful, but honestly, how many of the last 10 major winners can the average sports fan name? Or average GOLF fan, for that matter?

Yeah that bothered me too. I mean I don't even really follow golf, at all, and I can remember who won the last 6-7 Masters. Nobody's forgotten about Y.E. Yang have they? I mean that's like him saying that nobody's going to remember who won the Super Bowl in '07, only that the Pats lost (and I can totally see him making that argument)...the only time I can think of something like this actually happening was the 2001 World Series that many casual fans think the Yankees won!

For those who don't recall each of the last 10 major winners:

yeah all those names are pretty recognizable even if you only follow golf a little

Recognizing name != remembering that they won a major (and when). I watch golf fairly regularly and still forgot that

It's just such a perfect example of a member of media trying to cram a story down people's throats, despite it not being remotely true. This masters was possibly my favorite that I can remember because at one point on the back 9, there were legitimately 9 guys within a stroke of the lead and any of them could win it. Then charl birdies the last four holes to grab it by the throat, despite the Aussies playing spectacular golf. This was an insanely memorable tournament.

No way, Glover, Yang, McDowell, Oosthuizen, Kaymer, and soon to be Schwartzel, are very unrecognizable to the general public. I basically only follow golf a little (I watch the Masters/British/US Open every year), and couldn't pick those 6 out of a lineup, besides Schwartzel because I just watched him win yesterday, and possibly Yang.

edit: Kaymer is #1 in the world right now? Wow had no idea.

D104,
He isn't trying to cram a story down the audience's throat, he is editorializing. He didn't call him "some toothy South African" out of disrespect, he called him that to make a rhetorical point/joke.

This.

I actually enjoyed his article today, probably because I'm an expectant father tho.

standard casualfan.jpg from Simmons

ya, i gotta stop posting from my phone on work breaks b/c i do a horrible job of getting my point across

or at least limit my phone posting to things like +1 and cutlahhhhhhhhh

anyway, my basic pt. is the article sucks and the storyline that he took away from the masters sucks too

wheeeeee, articulate phone posting