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Is it just me or is Bill Simmons starting to become the smartest NBA mind of all time… in his own mind. My brother-in-law Ross and I both listen to his podcast (a must listen, by the way) and a few times over the past month we both commented how we’re getting sick of his “smarter than thou art” NBA attitude. He’s been whining all summer about not getting the Timberwolves GM job. Do I think that David Kahn is an NBA genius? Not really. But I don’t think he’s made a few decent moves this year so far. Honestly, I think grabbing the rights to Rubio, even as it has turned out to be two seasons from now until he’s able to come over, was the right thing to do. You know what I never heard in my billion hours I spent researching the draft from January until the end of June. “Ricky Rubio is ready to be an all-star point guard tomorrow.” N ever heard it. A lot of talk about potential and development, but the consensus wasn’t that this guy is going to walk in and make us a playoff contender. So, in the long term interest of the team, we ideally want the guy to be as good as possible before we start spending money and/or burning up the cheap contract years. It’s a different sport, but look at a guy like Joe Mauer. He batted .308 as a rookie. He batted .341 in AA the year before. Don’t you think he could have come up to the majors and at least batted .275? This year, .275 would put you in the top third for starting catchers. Baseball, though, is more worried with the long term. Basically, they look at a guy like Mauer and say “…well, he can probably hit .275 this year or we can let him develop one more year and instead of having a .275 season at the start of the rookie contract, we can get an All-Star season at the tail end of the rookie contract all while delaying arbitration and free agency one more year.” Seems to make sense.
Even Bill Simmons himself will often talk about how so many teams sign back contracts and generally should function more like the Spurs and Rockets (I’m assuming his friendship with Daryl Morey has a little to do with the latter).
So basically, what I’m going to do is to let Bill tell the story and I’ll give you some counterpoints and let you decide who’s the basketball genius.
From Twitter:
6/26 - RT @RicBucher: If Simmons had been TWolves GM, he would've done what Kahn did. HOW DARE YOU BUCH! I WOULDA GONE RUBIO/CURRY. NO BRAINER.
On his 6/23 NBA podcast, Bill Simmons even made the claim he didn’t watch the NCAA this year, so he doesn’t have a lot of opinions on the NCAA. If “GM Simmons” is drafting, the Timberwolves have just Curry this year.
8/31 - So Minny traded Foye & Miller for $18 mill of bad contracts + the right to negotiate with Rubio 2 summers from now? Savvy!
Minnesota had the 20th best SG and 27th best SF as a team last year. We had both under control for one more year and neither was likely to come back after that. So essentially, we traded one year of two players who didn’t help us win anyway for a guy we think has a better future (Rubio).
9/1 - Dear 'Sota: Your GM shoulda traded Rubio's rights from Day 1. Now he is playing the blame game. You cannot accept this.
I repost what Simmons himself said “I WOULDA GONE RUBIO/CURRY. NO BRAINER.” So the self-proclaimed genius would have drafted the exact same player (Rubio) the “idiot GM” did. He didn’t say “I would’ve drafted him and traded him.”
9/1 - Rubio needed big market endorsement $$$ to buy out other deal. LA-NY-Chi-Hou-etc. Minny couldn't work. Kahn messed up. Shoulda flipped him.
8/17 - Only 2 teams have the right players & cap figure assets for Minny AND make sense for Rubio. Easy to figure out. Sorry, NYK not one of the 2.
8/17 - Note to Real GM: You can't publish crap like this. The Knicks have no 2010 pick. How the F are they getting Rubio?
So on 8/17, Simmons says that the Knicks aren’t a possibility to get Rubio and only two teams have sense. Yet, two weeks later, when trashing the Wolves, he lists 4 teams (including the Knicks) PLUS and “etc” implying there are more teams that would’ve made sense to flip Rubio to.
9/1 - Hey Kahn defenders: You think a team that's BLEEDING MONEY wanted to bottom out again, take on bad salaries & wait 2 yrs for Rubio? Really?
How is this Kahn’s fault, by the way? Wouldn’t it have been a worse move NOT to draft Rubio. Even, though, earlier in the week, you said the following:
6/23 - The BS Report
“Ricky Rubio is clearly the second best guy in this draft.”
“When the actual draft happens, he’s not going to fall below 3.”
“He just has more value than anyone else.”
(summarizing) Minnesota should give up the 6, 18, and another player for the 2 and Darko.
For a bonus, here’s a few other things that Simmons has said over the years:
Draft Diary XI - Thanks to rumors that the Celtics might trade the No. 5 pick, Wally Szczerbiak and Delonte West for a soon-to-be 32-year-old shooting guard coming off double ankle surgeries (Ray Allen), I just spent the last 20 minutes on basketball-reference.com trying to find one great shooting guard who didn't decline significantly in Years 12 through 14 of his NBA career. Here's the list: Reggie Miller. That's it. Also, I just threw up in my mouth and some of it went up the back of my nose… This feels like Mitch Richmond going to the Bullets for C-Webb all over again. I'm somewhere between "quitting coffee and trying to make it through Day 3" rattled and "waiting for the results of an HIV test" rattled. And you know who's going to suffer? You, the home reader. That's who.
Ray Allen – 2008 NBA Champion, 2008 and 2009 NBA All-Star
Draft Diary XI: You have to love the T-Wolves… Anyway, they just grabbed Corey Brewer at No. 7. Another well-done, logical pick.
Corey Brewer career stats: 5.9 ppg, 3.6 rpg, 1.4 rpg. I really like Corey Brewer, but I think that Corey Brewer would even agree that he hasn’t yet proved to be a “well done, logical pick.” I expect big things out of him this year.
Draft Diary XI: Looking disturbingly like Chris Mihm, Spencer Hawes goes 10th to the Kings. Now they have a young center who can't rebound or protect the rim…
7 Minutes later:
Our long national nightmare is over: The Hawks finally drafted a quality point guard (Acie Law IV)
Hawes has been serviceable (top 20 in the league in blocks, top 30 in rebounding) while Law has been a complete bust to this point (3.6 ppg and 7 starts in two seasons thus far).
Draft Diary X -- Charlotte takes Adam Morrison. Love that pick
…I guess he’s won a championship, right?
Draft Diary X - Just when this draft couldn't get any crazier, my beloved Celtics just bought the 21st pick from Phoenix to take Rajon Rondo, the Kentucky guard who Chad Ford touted all summer because he mistakenly thought Rondo was foreign. Unfortunately, Rondo can't shoot. This is an understatement. As Bilas says, "Teams in the SEC didn't even guard him." Put it this way: The list of NBA teams that won an NBA title with a point guard who couldn't shoot looks like this:
1. (empty)
2. (empty)
3. (empty)
The list now looks something like this:
1) 2006 – Miami Heat (Jason Williams)
2) 2008 – Boston Celtics (Rajon Rondo)
2004 NBA Draft Diary - The Magic are on the clock with the first pick. If they're smart, they take Emeka Okafor. If they're dumb, they take Howard. It's that simple.
The state of Florida is probably glad they aren’t as smart as you…
2004 NBA Draft Diary -- Boston takes ... high schooler Al Jefferson. Good pick. Other than Kirk Snyder, he was the best guy on the board, and we didn't need Snyder.
First part of the sentence makes sense. Except for the part where he wasn’t as good as “Kirk Snyder.” Oops, again…
2004 NBA Draft Diary - Sacramento takes Kevin Martin at No. 26. "Never heard of this guy," dad hisses. He's tired and grumpy.
He’s never heard of Kevin Martin, but just as a guess, he probably prefers Kirk Snyder. Bill Simmons – NBA genius ladies and gentleman!
Anyway, like I said, I really like Bill Simmons. His column/podcast is third on my “must see” list after the Tony Kornheiser show (coming back this week!) and the Adam Carolla podcast. At the same time, you can’t be an expert at everything. I’m probably just as out there with my opinions and have been wrong just as much, but I’m not also proclaiming to the world what a genius that I am. When he was campaigning for the Timberwolves GM spot, he claimed that there is no other way the Wolves could headline PTI and Sportscenter. Ricky Rubio has been the number one story on ESPN.com for the better part of the last month which essentially proves that theory false. I do encourage you to check out Simmon’s column, though. When talking to friends, I’ve been amazed at how few of them actually listen to the podcasts which rarely disappoint. I’m not a hater, I just think that it’s necessary to call out the media when they play both sides which Simmons does quite frequently.
I’ll leave you with something that NBA genius Brent Hanson wrote the night at 3:05 AM on the night of the NBA draft.
“Initially, I was a little miffed... I've stated that Rubio and anyone is a successful draft. I don't know how they play together. Hopefully we can find a coach that figure out a style to play. We're now very unique. Unique can be good or can be bad. The Lakers were unique this year because they were so big. The GS Warriors were unique when they beat Dallas because they played such small ball.
I think Rubio can become a superstar. I think he has the potential to become the best player on a team... even as a non-scorer. Kind of like Jason Kidd with the Nets in his prime. Now, we need to surround him with pieces.
If you can ship a few of those pieces for an athletic swingman, I'm ecstatic. We've got a few picks next year - maybe we can get a guy like Al-Farouq Aminu.
If we have to wait a year or two for Rubio to play, I'm honestly not that pissed. It's just one more season when he's more ready to play that we get him. Of course I do want to see him next year, but PLEASE do not trade him. It would crush my soul.”
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