Thoughts on the New Bill Simmons Article

Bill Simmons wrote an article yesterday about the Bulls/Celtics series. I was surprised because he has already written once this week and Simmons doesn’t exactly bang out a ton of content for ESPN. It was good for the most part, but it had a few question marks. Quotes from the article in italics below:

They have the only two acceptable candidates for the question, “Who was the greatest NBA team of all-time?”

Simmons says this early in the article. He’s likely referring to the 72-win Bulls team or one of the many legendary Celtic teams. Any of those teams is an acceptable answer to the question, but Simmons is completely discounting a few other legendary teams. For example:

The 1971-1972 Lakers won 33 consecutive games and 16 straight on the road to finish the season 69-13. Gail Goodrich, Jerry West, and Wilt Chamberlain led Los Angeles to a championship after defeating the Knicks 4-1 in the Finals.

The 1982-1983 Philadelphia 76ers went 12-1 in the playoffs after finishing the regular season with 65 wins. Moses Malone, Julius Erving, Andrew Toney, and Maurice Cheeks dominated the playoffs, finishing with a .923 winning percentage.

The 1988-1989 Detroit Pistons are still remembered as one of the greatest defensive teams in NBA history. Isiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer, Joe Dumars, and Dennis Rodman formed a physical group that went 15-2 in the playoffs, including a 4-0 sweep of the Lakers in the Finals. 

There are other possibilities, but those are a few of the best. Apparently Simmons has the sole vote in the debate of greatest NBA team ever.

I see them winning Game 3 by 20-plus on Thursday night.

This would have been spot on had he been referring to the Celtics. However, he was talking about the Bulls who lost Game 3 by 21. Obviously hindsight is always 20-20, but I still found it funny that he sort of reverse-jinxed his beloved Celtics to a crucial win. 

They can control the boards without Kevin Garnett around.

This is a a questionable statement, considering it was written after Game 2, in which Boston out-rebounded Chicago on the offensive glass 21-8 and won the overall rebounding battle 50-36. Sounds like the opposite of controlling the boards. 

There are some other things that I could nit pick about, but you get the gist. He still wrote a good article, but there were a few things that I did not agree with. Hopefully, his prediction of an ESPN Classic-worthy series will come true, but, after the Game 3 blowout, I’m skeptical.