Nov 5th, last 7 minutes Simmons refers to the Rocket Thunder trade in the context of the Thunder loss in Atlanta. He compares trading Harden to the Lakers trading James Worthy after a loss in the Finals in '84. He also thinks that Thunder may have thought Harden their 3rd best player but really their second best player.
Simmons doesn't really even try anymore. For example, he had Harden #33 on his trade value list during the season. Behind the likes of John Wall, Derrick Williams, and Paul George. Keep in mind that at this time Harden was already a stat-head darling, who were already drooling at his ridiculous efficiency despite lesser minutes. Seriously, John Wall!? The guy who couldn't run an offense if his life depended on it? Still fairly entertaining a listen while exercising though.
yeah, nice observation...I believe he has at least jordanlike potential...but perhaps it's not fair to compare all players to MJ, because they may excel in some areas that are peculiar only to them...they may posses or develop some features which could not be easily measured by stats alone...for example chemistry creating or similar...although I believe that Durant and westbrook have MJ-like potential as well...Imagine how much westbrook will improve when he learns to control his ball spending and similar mistakes...
Agreed. Westbrook's basketball IQ is beyond baffling a lot of the time. Guy has other-wordly talent, but a 5 cent head.
Not really a Hollinger thing. Simmons is mainly trying to do something that no one else attempts to write. It's a list of "Who has the highest trade value?" He takes into account current salary, too, because big salaries are hard to trade. Here's his rules, FWIW
Given Simmons' close relationship to several NBA GMs, including Dork Elvis himself, I doubt he would ever give insights or call attention to any information about a player that would actually be meaningful enough to affect a trade that GM would be interested in making. That especially goes for his arbitrary "lists."
Good call, Simmons was funny trolling the NBA insiders before the internet media became so popular. Last year, he still wanted to be job as a GM. Obviously he has no insight or talent as an NBA analyst. He is funny sometimes being homers of the Celtics with this dad. But hey, Mark Jackson got a job as a coach. Hands down, man down. Mama, there goes that man.
Simmons isn't that bad, for one thing I remember him calling KD vs Oden correctly, he even wrote how Oden shambled around like a 80 year old man before he got injured. Also he was one of the few Media people who praised our draft, saying Dork Elvis had a pretty good haul.
Simmons makes gazillion predictions out of his ass and most turn out to be crap. I know this mainly because I generally end up listening to his podcasts a week or so after it was recorded. So I get to check his predictions even while listening. Honestly, the less Simmons tries to think like a pretentious talking head, the more entertaining he becomes. But to be fair, because he does have a relationship with Morey and many others at the Sloan Conference, his Rockets-related stuff tend to be more on the money than most of his stuff.
