Bill Simmons wants people to recognize just how unreliable former players can be as narrators of NBA history.
Don’t get The Ringer founder wrong ‚ he enjoys “some of the ex-player stuff.” But when it comes to discussing different eras and comparing all-time greats, he’s skeptical at best and outright dismissive at worst.
“These are people that were playing the entire time,” he said on The Bill Simmons Podcast on Monday. “They might have opinions on who they were against. It’s not like they spent a ton of time thinking about different eras of the league and stars and comparing… and you’ll just see stuff on these shows or pods or on your social feed where you’re like, ‘What are we doing?’ I just feel the discourse, big-picture about basketball, as it relates to eras and the past, is like the worst it’s ever been.”
Simmons has a point.
Stephen A. Smith vowed to shut down any LeBron James vs. Michael Jordan debates on First Take this week, but that’ll likely last about 48 hours. The show has long been a breeding ground for sloppy historical comparisons, and Smith is far from the only culprit. JJ Redick, now the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, once dismissed Bob Cousy’s competition as “plumbers and firemen” on First Take‘s airwaves.
“[Bob Cousy] had 29 assists in an NBA game.” – Chris Russo
“Well, he was being guarded by plumbers and firemen” – JJ Redick
Sir. 😲😂 pic.twitter.com/8qmeARNeOj
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) April 20, 2022
That didn’t exactly go over well.
Simmons didn’t call out that specific example, but it’s not like you have to look hard to find his frustration with the “Face of the League” debate — and how the past of the sport is being discussed in general. He’s not just worried about bad takes; he’s worried about how they shape the way people perceive the game’s history. And given the current discourse, he might be right to be concerned.
“Just go back, like go read some of the books,” Simmons says. “Go read Phil Jackson’s book about Kobe [Bryant] in 2005. You can’t just pretend stuff didn’t happen.”
But this is a different era of players, one where checking social media mentions at halftime is the norm. And they aren’t alone. It’d be hypocritical for anybody in sports media to call them out, considering, as Ryen Russillo pointed out, everyone on television is guilty of the same thing. Just like the players, hosts scan their mentions during breaks, and, in his view, it only makes them worse at their jobs.
That’s the reality Simmons is pushing back against. And, yet, neither he nor Russillo took issue with what LeBron had to say — it’s the constant noise of self-serving commentary and historical revisionism that gets under their skin.
And when it comes to Simmons, it’s the ex-players who’ve become the loudest offenders. They weren’t around for the entire history of the game, but they’ve certainly got a lot to say about it. And that, Simmons believes, is what’s undermining the integrity of basketball discourse today.
