Re: Bill Simmons Strokes His Own Ego To his credit, he did call it, and he hopes he turns out wrong. Decent piece from a guy not that close to the Blazers. Quick's becoming a celebrity.
Re: Bill Simmons Strokes His Own Ego Call what, exactly? That GO can't run or look like he's supposed to? Regardless of whatever it is he's saying, it's way too premature to reach a judgement. The same goes for the Thorpe piece that was on Truehoop a few days ago.
Re: Bill Simmons Strokes His Own Ego He called pre-draft that he didn't think Oden was the best pick for us. He had concerns about chronic injuries. I don't agree, but since the mock draft was written, he's had a microfracture and some sprain issues, all in the right leg. To Bill, it's early confirmation. Now, if he pulls off a few injury-free years, then the stigma might go away. Until the rest of the country sees Oden highlights, they're wondering the same thing. It's to them, not Blazer fans, that Simmons is writing the article.
Re: Bill Simmons Strokes His Own Ego Hate to admit it but a nice piece. The problem is I've only felt like I've seen him healthy in one game (NCAA championship) and he dominated two legit NBA big men. My money is still on this kid to be one of the elite players in this league. I can't wait to see him play for 20 games because by the 10th game he'll have built up some confidence and we'll start to see the real Oden.
Re: Bill Simmons Strokes His Own Ego In that same mock draft Simmons said he thought Durant would be a once in a generation type player. He wasn't right about that, either.
Re: Bill Simmons Strokes His Own Ego He sounds like the "Oracle" from the first Matrix in this article. Remember the part where she says to Neo, "I hate giving bad news to good people"? Anyway, I thought it was well written.
Re: Bill Simmons Strokes His Own Ego Yeah he is just going threw Martell Webster syndrome. He needs to get some confidence and hit the cardio harder. He will be fine. ^^^ He is right.
Re: Bill Simmons Strokes His Own Ego Very nice, but hard to read, article by Simmons. My favorite part: You may not like him, but Simmons is a very gifted writer.
Re: Bill Simmons Strokes His Own Ego That is gifted? I mean... he is no Canzano, but there is nothing gifted about this article.
Re: Bill Simmons Strokes His Own Ego He writes about things that are almost entirely irrelevant to me as a sports fan... "connecting to a player on a semi-spiritual level"? What? Thinking that a first impression (or at least HIS first impression) of a player is the most important thing and seems to be, based on that article, always accurate? Ridiculous. The dude should stick to trying to be funny, because I don't think he really adds a lot about Oden based on a single preseason game he saw in person. Ed O.
Re: Bill Simmons Strokes His Own Ego Simmons can be laugh out loud funny - his draft-blogging is must-read. But he can also be sincere and passionate. He can also be a douchebag. This one was the middle one. I read David Thorpe's piece about Oden and I just thought "I always thought you were a moron." I read this piece and I think: "shit. He's right." Well, maybe not Dampier. But Oden really does not look sprightly. He moves much more like Patrick "huge bags of ice on each knee at every possible opportunity" than Hakeem "impossibly quick" Olajuwon. Mind you, Simmons also said last year that KG moved like a 50-year-old man, so Oden's in good company. Sigh. Has Oden lost his 50lbs yet?
Re: Bill Simmons Strokes His Own Ego The long list of injuries is definitely annoying (VERY annoying and angering) but the last injury could have happened to anyone. Coming down on a foot would roll everybody's ankle. Bill Simmons makes some good points but it's too early to declare Oden as "was his body built to play basketball for a living."
Re: Bill Simmons Strokes His Own Ego Who does Oden remind you of, in the games you've actually seen him play? I thought Simmons captured something with his description of Oden producing sudden bursts of amazingness (like that dunk off the Sergio pick'n'roll against Dallas in summer league last year) surrounded by not-so-amazingness, and it occurred to me that he reminded me a bit of Outlaw. Outlaw's all arms-and-legs and never looks graceful, but once in a while can just explode (the dunk on Carney). Hakeem, on the other hand, was like a taller Grant Hill - cat quick and smooth as silk. Andrew Bynum is a taller...? Monty Williams? Unremarkable in no way, but doesn't look particularly clumsy or athletic.
Re: Bill Simmons Strokes His Own Ego bill simmons says a lot of things. a lot of them are wrong. some of them are right. it's a little early for simmons to be considered right for saying that oden isn't going to be a good player.
Re: Bill Simmons Strokes His Own Ego for someone who apparently watches basketball so much, he knows so little about it.
Re: Bill Simmons Strokes His Own Ego Well Durant was ROY . . . which is a decent start to being a once is a generation player.
Re: Bill Simmons Strokes His Own Ego But that's because, as has long been established, Ed, you have no soul. In fact, I believe you are an experimental android. You don't like to watch actual basketball games even: you prefer just to have the statistics fed into your databanks for processing, the most important being the birth date of each player so you can calculate his all-important potential quotient.
Re: Bill Simmons Strokes His Own Ego There are probably a lot of posters here who could stroke their own ego by bringing up their prior posts regarding concerns about Oden's health. It wasn't the hardest or most off the wall prediction to make.
