LA Story

Wow. That's the worst line I've read since "Go, Patch!"

 

Me either. Thought I gave this one six grafs before tiring.

 

Judging from the posts that have provided a hint of Simmons' Steaming Pile Of Words, I'm confident that I have taken a stance which I can defend for as long as Bill Simmons' fingers touch a keyboard.

 

When I first opened this thread last night, Jenkins led, 3-2. Now it's 14-2. Leads me to believe Simmons got in early voted ... and so did his daughter or friend.

 

OK, I'll jump in...

The Jenkins piece bored me to tears. I have no need to read about a history of LA sports, "fans leave early" cliches or the role of the Staples Center. And if Simmons had written this:

...this board would have collective shit its pants, then imploded.

Having said that, the Simmons piece was nothing special. It was what he does. I liked it more than the Jenkins piece, but I didn't find either one noteworthy on any level. Simmons approached the games as a fan and Jenkins approached them as a sportswriter, and to me the Simmons approach worked better in this case, simply because I don't find it remarkable that a city like Los Angeles had a lot going on last weekend. The more detached style took away what little interest the story held for me.

In general, the reaction to Simmons on this board is predictable and silly. He's good at what he does, and what he does is different from what you do. Really, that's OK.

 

Define good.

 

Well, I think the "what he does" part is more the key to it. He writes a sports and pop culture column from a fan perspective aiming for a broad audience of guys, roughly 20 to 45. That, he's good at. He's not striving to add any insight from behind the scenes, which is a big part of why sportswriters exist. He's merely giving one perspective from a fan's view, and obviously, it's a perspective that a hell of a lot of people connect with. (He also knows the NBA better than a large percentage of people who make their living writing about the NBA.)

There are big shortcomings to this -- not the least of which is his style wears thin after a while, because you know his perspective going in. Some days the only question is which pop culture reference he will use. (For this column, if you had "The Wire," you win!)

I absolutely get why a lot of people don't enjoy reading what he writes, but the hostility is silly. The whole "I've never read a word!" badge of honor thing just makes me roll my eyes.

 

Yes, but Jenkins wrote that as a setup and came back later to expand on why it was significant in each instance. If Simmons had written that, it would just have been to show that he was with those people and he's cool.

 

So a guy who has never read a Simmons column is now an expert on what he would have done.

 

I've read enough snippets here and there to get a pretty good idea what the guy's about. And this hammered it home.

 

He is very good at understanding what most 30-45 males in the country like, and he writes about it. Maybe his writing is not all that great, but he has a very good feel for what most people like and what they will like.