Bill Simmons RIPS the Raptors roster and salaries. (UPDATE Zach Lowe & Rob Mahoney go in on Raptors)

[Son Goku 25]

He compared BI to Naz Reid, Myles Turner, and Randle

smh

Lol wow

[SharoneWright]

I read somewhere that Bill was the guy who started the 30 for 30 series? It was a little vague tho. If true....he deserves enough goodwill to look past his raptor take.

Yeah he definitely was. He was really the guy who saw that the transforming media landscape opened the door to telling sports stories in all kinds of new ways.

He was also creator of the original smart sports journalism platform called Grantland, which was great while it lasted, and which led directly to the creation of the Ringer and indirectly to The Athletic and even the Player's Tribune.

And before that – if maybe you weren't around back then – he was ESPN.com's first and best columnist, who wrote a lot of really funny, outrageous and deep stories about sports people and events for many years long before eventually getting into the whole TV/podcast thing. I think he started in the 1980s.

For all the people who understandably can't stand his shtick in recent years, here is one he wrote about Kobe scoring 81 on us that will give you an idea how fun it was to read him. It includes this bit:

"The game made me feel the same way I felt while watching "March of the Penguins." I had always wondered what a penguin's life was like; once I knew how depressing it was, I wanted to sit in my garage with the car running."

and this:

"This didn't feel like a team effort. Actually, I'm not sure what this felt like. With seven minutes remaining, Odom made an open 3 because Kobe was being ninetuple-teamed by all five Raptors, two ball boys, an assistant coach and a Staples Center usher from Section 104. Without a shred of irony, the announcer reported it was Odom's first field goal of the night. He ended up finishing 1-for-7. By the way, he's the second-best player on the Lakers.

"Can you imagine being on this team?" my father said, shrieking. "Can you imagine? Look at Odom! I think he's going to throw up!"

https://proxy.espn.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/060124

I can't take his whininess on tv and haven't listened to anything he has said in years, but his place in modern sports history is actually pretty huge and very well deserved.

Also, I would trust him to draft for us.

[defstarcon]

so not:

76ers - injury prone players
wizards - bad dead cap
chicago - bad contracts
heat - no flex, bad contracts

but raptors. okay ryan ok.

[TravisScott55]

The Ringer is a bunch of idiots that just have to agree with the idiotic takes of their boss

[DreamTeam09]

when and where did he backtrack on the Raps? not just what Perkins said.
.

[lobosloboslobos]

https://www.espn.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/060224

Babcock: I have to disagree with that -- I think everyone can agree that I made the worst trade of the past 10 years.

Simmons: The Vince Carter trade?

Babcock: Right. I gave him away to the Nets. Gave him away. And I'm known for that now -- it didn't matter that I was working for Toronto. So you can have a negative impact on a small-market team, I think.

Thoughts on trading? For GM Rob Babcock, one step forward and three steps back.
(The crowd applauds.)

Simmons: Let's talk about that trade, Rob. Walk us through your thought process.

Babcock: When you're trading an unhappy superstar, like Isiah said before, you have to get one of three things back: Cap space, draft picks or young stars. Or else your fans will flip out. Especially if the guy immediately starts playing hard again, which was a mortal lock in Vince's case, because he was clearly tanking it for us. Anyway, my goal was to trade Vince without getting cap space, draft picks or another young star -- that's what would have made it the worst trade of all-time. The problem was that you can't be too obvious with this stuff or the commissioner's office will veto the deal. So what ended up happening was, the Nets gave us two non-lottery picks to save face, but everything else worked out -- not only did we not get a superstar back, we took on three bad contracts, including Alonzo Mourning's deal, which we had to buy out. So instead of getting cap space back, the trade hurt our cap space. I was more proud of that than anything.

Weisbrod: You know, I loved that trade, but I loved the Rafael Araujo pick even more.

Babcock: Thanks!

Weisbrod: Passing up Andre Iguodala for a 24 year-old center who averaged 0.1 blocks per game in college and runs like a duck … I just thought that was brilliant.

Babcock: Well, you hope with these things, but you never sure how they'll work out until they happen.

Simmons: Let's talk about the draft, guys. What are some strategies there? Worst guy available? Taking someone at a position where you already have someone?

King: See, that's where you're wrong. It's always better to make good picks in the draft -- this way, your fans can become attached to them, then you can trade them for inferior guys with bad contracts. Plus, it throws the media off your scent a little bit. I would much rather draft a decent guy, then trade him down the road, or overpay him with a crazy contract that makes no sense or kills my cap space. If you're openly tanking draft picks, it's too obvious.

Thomas: I agree, Billy. If you look at what I've done over the years, I always drafted well: Stoudamire, T-Mac, Camby, Frye, Ariza … you want to stockpile as many assets as possible, only because it gives you more options to do something dumb.

Babcock: I couldn't agree more. That's the single-biggest mistake I made with the Araujo pick. In retrospect, I should have taken Igoudala, kept him for a year, then traded him last summer for Joel Przybilla and immediately given him an $85 million contract extension. Oh, well. You live and you learn.

absolutely hilarious and ballsy as fk
classic simmons

and yes that was deep deep levels of sarcasm
just click the link

say what you will about him now (and maybe the Ringer is shite i never look at it either, but in its day Grantland was brilliant) but bill simmons was one funny and outrageous mofo back in the day
i mean who would make fun of today's GMs that viciously on ESPN now?
there are a ton of articles of his like that and they stand up really well even today

[Zeno]

The Ringer is a bunch of idiots that just have to agree with the idiotic takes of their boss

Michael Pina had an article on the Ringer before the season with the Raptors as a top 6 team in the east, also Joe House on Simmons podcast had the Raptors OVER as a lock too. Other than those two, the only other people that predicted the Raps to be anything other than a late play-in team are Sam Vecenie and Perk. Simmons does have idiotic takes though I agree.

[CPT]

Simmons is no expert, but I’d rather listen to his bad takes than most of the media. At least they’ll be interesting/entertaining.

One thing I appreciate is that he actually believes his takes. He’s not saying stuff just to say it like SAS, Skip, Cowherd, Nick Wright, Perk, etc.

[Appostis]

Simmons is no expert, but I’d rather listen to his bad takes than most of the media. At least they’ll be interesting/entertaining.

One thing I appreciate is that he actually believes his takes. He’s not saying stuff just to say it like SAS, Skip, Cowherd, Nick Wright, Perk, etc.

Perk actually one guy who had the right take on Raptors this year...

But by and large I agree.

[Brinbe]

I've said this before but Bill is just a fan, that was/is the entire point of his gimmick. He's the Sports Guy. So he'll have some good/bad takes like any other regular fan. That being said, I enjoyed his written work a whole lot more from his page 2 days compared to his podcast takes in the past decade. And of course he's a much different person now compared to who he was 25 years ago when Boston teams hadn't had any real success.

He is/was the father of birthing an entire industry of sports media that went beyond the usual sports journalists and I'll always appreciate that he used his prior platforms (especially Grantland) to champion long-form sports journalism and the excellent 30 for 30 series is the highpoint of his influence. But at this point it's sort of like watching streamers/late nite talk show hosts/entertainers in general where ymmv on how much you'll enjoy the content based on if you enjoy their personalities. And in that regard, Bill isn't someone I've found to be engaging or entertaining on that end. I guess the dated 80s/90s references didn't translate as well to a audio/visual medium. But the Ringer crew in general as a whole hasn't ever really clicked with me at all. Though there have been some exceptions like Lowe.

So I wouldn't go to him/them for any real basketball opinions but I feel like once you've spent decades watching the game, like those in here probably have, you probably (hopefully lol) have a good idea about what you're watching and don't need to be told what to think or have some thoughts validated by any of these personalities/outlets. Often times you'll probably be way ahead of the curve because you're paying closer attention compared to any of them.

[Airmiess]

He compared BI to Naz Reid, Myles Turner, and Randle

smh

Lol wow

Right now Ingram is playing on a level comparable to Tatum or peak Jalen Brown lol

if you really wanna go there..

[CPT]

Simmons is no expert, but I’d rather listen to his bad takes than most of the media. At least they’ll be interesting/entertaining.

One thing I appreciate is that he actually believes his takes. He’s not saying stuff just to say it like SAS, Skip, Cowherd, Nick Wright, Perk, etc.

Perk actually one guy who had the right take on Raptors this year...

But by and large I agree.

The thing is, Perk is so terrible I don’t know if he actually believed that or if he just wanted to be the only guy saying it so people would argue with him.

[Appostis]

Simmons is no expert, but I’d rather listen to his bad takes than most of the media. At least they’ll be interesting/entertaining.

One thing I appreciate is that he actually believes his takes. He’s not saying stuff just to say it like SAS, Skip, Cowherd, Nick Wright, Perk, etc.

Perk actually one guy who had the right take on Raptors this year...

But by and large I agree.

The thing is, Perk is so terrible I don’t know if he actually believed that or if he just wanted to be the only guy saying it so people would argue with him.

Agree 110%.

[SFour]

With Bill you just have to treat him like a biased Celtics fan.....he's not going to like the Raptors.

Even if Raptors become contenders he'll try his best to avoid giving them any praise.

[Rodrickle]

Perk actually one guy who had the right take on Raptors this year...

But by and large I agree.

The thing is, Perk is so terrible I don’t know if he actually believed that or if he just wanted to be the only guy saying it so people would argue with him.

Agree 110%.

I'm not fan of him but he's been bigging up the Raptors for a long time now and he explained why before all this drama. (Addition of BI, Scottie, RJ etc.) He was on two days ago talking about Darko's time in OKC. He's a huge fan of Darko.

[Johnny Bball]

Zach Lowe hasn't had this team right in years. He was only validated in his opinion due to massive injury then a subsequent tank because it was over. This team was always better than his idea of it.

[OakleyDokely]

The national media got too hung up on individual salaries and the luxury tax situation and that has nothing to do with the quality of the team or the players.

This team won 30 games last year despite a lot of injuries while actively tanking for half the year. Getting to at least .500 in the east was never going to be an unrealistic jump, especially considering they added Ingram to the team for basically nothing off their roster.

[TheGeneral99]

Zach Lowe hasn't had this team right in years. He was only validated in his opinion due to massive injury then a subsequent tank because it was over. This team was always better than his idea of it.

At some point it becomes obvious these analysts just don't watch every team on a nightly basis, so they are just going by raw data and statistics without any context. From an outside view they are just seeing that we sucked the last 2 years, Barnes appeared to have regressed last year, Barrett's advanced stats weren't good, and our bench was not very good. Ingram of course had barely played at least over the last couple seasons so they saw him as damaged goods.

However, with context and for us that see this team every night, last year we won 30 games and that was despite Quickley missing almost the entire year, Barnes, Barrett and Jak missing significant chunks of the year, without Ingram, and we were intentionally benching our starters in close games, trying to lose, lol.

It was almost certain that by virtue of being healthy PLUS adding Ingram PLUS adding Collin Murray-Boyles PLUS our young guys getting better, we would be at least a .500 team. Very few year expected them to be 14-5 out of the gate, but most here thought after 20 games we would be somewhere a bit better than .500.

[aminiaturebuddha]

The national media got too hung up on individual salaries and the luxury tax situation and that has nothing to do with the quality of the team or the players.

This team won 30 games last year despite a lot of injuries while actively tanking for half the year. Getting to at least .500 in the east was never going to be an unrealistic jump, especially considering they added Ingram to the team for basically nothing off their roster.

I never really understood how the salary situation became THE dominant narrative about this team amongst a lot of NBA talking heads over the past year.

It's not like the Raps situation is even all that noteworthy. They've got the 13th highest payroll in the league. It's not like they're top 5 or anything. If it was to the point where they were into a second apron and it came with significant penalties that would be one thing, but it's not.

I can't count the amount of times I heard the same "I don't know what this team is" line. I'm not sure what was so confusing. It's a team that doesn't often attract high level free agents that was trying to stockpile assets, add solid players, build depth, create a positive winning environment, and maintain flexibility to make trades and use draft picks to upgrade down the line. Why was this so hard for national media to understand?

[Brinbe]

Zach Lowe hasn't had this team right in years. He was only validated in his opinion due to massive injury then a subsequent tank because it was over. This team was always better than his idea of it.

At some point it becomes obvious these analysts just don't watch every team on a nightly basis, so they are just going by raw data and statistics without any context. From an outside view they are just seeing that we sucked the last 2 years, Barnes appeared to have regressed last year, Barrett's advanced stats weren't good, and our bench was not very good. Ingram of course had barely played at least over the last couple seasons so they saw him as damaged goods.

However, with context and for us that see this team every night, last year we won 30 games and that was despite Quickley missing almost the entire year, Barnes, Barrett and Jak missing significant chunks of the year, without Ingram, and we were intentionally benching our starters in close games, trying to lose, lol.

It was almost certain that by virtue of being healthy PLUS adding Ingram PLUS adding Collin Murray-Boyles PLUS our young guys getting better, we would be at least a .500 team. Very few year expected them to be 14-5 out of the gate, but most here thought after 20 games we would be somewhere a bit better than .500.

Exactly, which is why those who actually did watch us last season, like Bontemps/Vecenie were the few media people to say prior to the season that we'd probably be a decent playoff team, because they knew that context.

This isn't 1980 or even 2000 anymore. Games, even beyond your home market, aren't hard to watch and that access is all you really need to understand the game. And if you wanna go further, finding advanced stats aren't hard either.

And of course that stuff is annoying because their opinions potentially carry water with casual fans and can enforce untrue narratives/opinions but whatever, we're winning now and there's nothing that can really be shaped against that.