Sports Guys Mailbag Response on Fab Five
I found Simmons response this question interesting. It wasnt a NBA storyline but he gave a shout out to the Fab Five.
The Decision had to be one of the five biggest days in the history of the NBA to not happen on the court. What would be your top 5 for this category? For me it goes like this: 1. Magic announces he has HIV; 2. Jordan's first retirement; 3. The Decision; 4. Len Bias; 5. Jordan announcing he's coming back. Your thoughts?
-- Luke, Rochester, N.Y.
SG: Mine goes like this: (1) Magic/HIV; (2) Bias; (3) "The Decision;" (4) MJ's 1995 comeback; (5) the day the Fab Five guys decided to wear loose shorts, which eventually convinced everyone in the NBA except John Stockton to wear loose shorts (and ended the Nuthugger Era).
his take on LeBron going to Miami. It's true, the pickup basketball analogy is very apt. Aside from the fact that we want our athletes to be THE MAN, it always sucks if the couple of best players are on the same team.
Q: Right after watching the LeBacle, I couldn't help but imagine Jordan's reaction to the announcement. I picture MJ chilling in a Vegas lounge, and right after Bron Bron uttered the words "I'm taking my talents to South Beach", him taking a puff on a giant cigar, turning to Oak, grinning ear to ear, and smugly saying "What a [derogatory name also used for cats]." And he'd be right.
-- Joe, Charlestown, SC
SG: Jordan intimated as much last weekend. As for me, I figured out why the LeBron/Wade alliance bothers everyone beyond the irrefutable "Jordan would have wanted to beat Wade, not play with him" argument. In pickup basketball, there's an unwritten rule to keep teams relatively equal to maximize the competitiveness of the games. That's the law. If two players are noticeably better than everyone else, they don't play together, nor would they want to play together. If the two guys have any pride at all -- especially if they play similar positions -- then getting the better of each other trumps any other scenario. They want that test. Joining forces and destroying everyone else would ruin the whole point of having the game. It's like a dad kicking his young son's ass in a driveway one-on-one game. What's the point? When LeBron and Wade effectively said, "Instead of trying to whup each other, let's just crush everyone else" and "If these teams end up being uneven, we're not switching up," everyone who ever played basketball had the same reaction: "I hate guys like that."
So when my wife asked in all sincerity, "What's the big deal if they play together?" I couldn't really explain it to her other than to say, "It's a basketball thing. You just don't do it." Your goal as an alpha dog is to assemble the best team you can and beat the other alpha dogs. There are five alpha dogs right now: LeBron, Wade, Kobe, Howard and Durant. If two ended up on the same team by coincidence -- like Kareem and Magic, Shaq and Kobe, or Michael and Scottie -- that's one thing. That's sports. S--- happens. But willingly deciding that it would be easier to play together than beat one another? Even two weeks later, I can't get over it. LeBron's last two Boston games were a massive disappointment to anyone who truly cares about basketball, but for me, copping out by joining forces with Wade was even worse. And also ...
Q: Game 7, Bulls v. Pistons, 1990. If LeBron gave us "The Decision," then at 10:15 in the clip, Michael Jordan -- the unequivocal greatest basketball player of all time -- shows you "The Difference." In defeat, in 30 seconds with Pat O'Brien.
-- Craig H, Los Angeles
SG: (Nodding).
The couple of questions after this one also hit at why we're upset: LeBron took the easy way out. The MJ quote in the clip above is from when the Pistons beat the bulls in Game 7 of the ECF (1990). MJ said, yeah, i'm upset, but I'm going to use this to get better. They're the better team right now. but we're going to improve, get better, and get them next time. (which they did... see "The Walkout")
For all of the flaws in his writing, Bill Simmons knows basketball and writes passionately about it.
LeBron is a competitive fraud. As long as he doesn't care about what people are saying about him as an all-time player in 20-30 years, I'm sure LeBron and LeBron's talents will love South Beach.
To me, Simmons seems like possibly the greatest guy on the planet to grab a beer with. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of popular culture and he's the best at picking and weaving these strands into a compelling narrative. But I have never been reading a column of his and been absolutely shocked by something he wrote, the way I have with, say, Chuck Klosterman or Carl Sagan or David Foster Wallace, to pick three names currently on my bookshelf. I don't think I'd buy his book.
why do we want Rodriguez and Beilein to assemble teams that will crush all opponents?
centers around pick up bball, not league stuff.
Of course we want our teams to dominate, we also want our best players to dominate. Thats the main take-away for me, LeBron wants to take the easy way out to get his titles instead of going through the other best players, he's going to put up a white flag and join them.
Two groups of people (UNC fans, citing Jordan, and Illinois fans, citing the Flying Illini) will sometimes get angry when the topic of long shorts is discussed. They'll say that the Fab 5 was just continuing a trend that had already started.
There's some truth to that. As the picture of Kendall Gill here (http://www.illinihq.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t8633.html) shows, there was an intermediate stage between this (http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/81417056/Sports-Illustrated) and this (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/gallery/featured/GAL1153316/8/13…). But, the trend didn't really explode until the year after the Fab 5 arrived.
They wore slightly baggy shorts (in Jordan's case, because he wore a pair of UNC practice shorts underneath as a good luck charm), but they weren't very long. The Fab Five broke the mold.
from school and watching Magic's press conference. I was 10, I had no idea what was going on, my mom of all people had to explain it to me.
It's funny seeing that list. In terms of magnitude and significance, LeBron's decision does not even belong in the same stratosphere at Magic or Bias (which I was admittedly too young to know what was going on).
"The Decision" was simply related to basketball matters, Magic or Bias had enormous social implications. Magic Johnson's announcement single-handedly brought AIDS awareness to a national stage. I know, Arthur Ashe's condition also increased awareness, but it was Magic's announcement that was a catalyst.
The Bias situation had a similar effect on our society's awareness of drugs and in particular cocaine. It shaped many of your future drug laws that are still in effect today.
Lebron's decision was simply a waste of an hour of my time.
Q: Have you ever seen who Chris Johnson follows on Twitter? It's rapper The Game, ESPN's Michael Smith and an unreal slew of hoochies. Roger Goodell should monitor who his players follow on Twitter and use it as an algorithm to predict who he will have to suspend for six games in future years.
-- Eric A., New York
SG: I like it! Sounds like a presentation for the next Sloan Conference at MIT. By the way, has it ever been easier to hook up if you're a celebrity? Just find some hoochie who's following you, follow her for one day, DM her a couple of times and BOOM! You're in a hotel room banging boots the next time you pass through her hometown. If it goes well, you keep following her. If it goes badly, unfollow and you never have to hear from her again. I predict the number of illegitimate kids skyrockets these next few years and we'll be calling it the Twitter Boom.
Bill Simmons is the best personality ESPN has going for them, IMO, and they need to give him a show or broadcast his podcasts on air. but instead ESPN has people like Colin Cowherd and Jim Rome on air everyday
This is a complete tangent from the OP, but I saw a Cowherd mention and decided to bite.
Why does ESPN simply just make SportsNation a 1-anchor show with Beadle? They'd cut their expenses and increase the quality.
just do away with SportsNation completly. what an awful show. I cant wait for a real competitor to ESPN (no Versus does not count) to come in and challenge ESPN so they are forced to come up with quality programming.
I do not see that happening. If Fox Sports can't do it. No one can. Good thing they found their niche with the localized sports coverage for each region or they would have been done a long time ago IMO.
I heard that after Comcast bought NBC they wanted to completly revamp Versus and make it into a respectable network to challange ESPN
Is that Jordan went to UNC and got a first-class education in integrity from Dean Smith. LeBron went right from immature high schooler to the NBA. Who taught LeBron how to lose with class? I can't think of a better person to learn that from than Dean Smith, who lost a shit ton of big games and may not have every won a NC if it weren't for Fred Brown and Chris Webber, two players on the opposing teams.