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As some of you may already know, I was once a Seattle Super Sonics fan. I lived in Seattle for a number of years, but had moved away by the time the Sonics moved to Oklahoma City. Since I no longer felt ties with Seattle, I decided there was no harm in changing my allegiance to the Oklahoma City Thunder. I gave them up, however, when Clay Bennett decided that Oklahoma City was a small market city (you know, AFTER moving the team from a bigger market) and the market can’t afford the luxury tax from a James Harden contract extension. To take it one step further, this Clay Bennet fellow, worth $400 million dollars, has not paid a single dollar in luxury tax since acquiring the team (NEVER A DOLLAR SPENT ON LUXURY TAX, he should have the tattooed on his fucking face). And Oklahoma City wonders why they don’t win the chip with Durant. Anyways, at this time, I gave up. I sold my Kevin Durant jersey and put my fandom up for sale. I remained a free agent, only gaining interest from a few team, and was mostly focused on being a non-Warrior fan….one may describe me as a hater (I’m convinced that 75% of Warrior fans are SF transplants working in the tech industry who couldn’t tell you Steph’s dad’s name, but will post videos of his daughter doing the whip/nae nae on facebook). 

Anyways, back to the point of this post. I recently decided that I wanted to take on a team. I wanted to feel passionate about a basketball team as I do my football (Seahawks) and baseball (Mariners) teams. While watching the finals, I was cheering for Matthew “OUTBACK JESUS, CALL ME DELLY CAUSE I’M YOUR DADDY” Dellavedova because I followed a bit of St. Mary’s basketball in college (still waiting to see Omar Samhan play in the NBA) and I had no allegiance to either side (lil bit for Cleveland because, again, fuck the Warriors). I realized, I needed a team. I needed a team that I can follow through trials and tribulations…to share my ups and downs with. And this began my search for my new (temporary) team…because I’m obviously switching over to a new Seattle franchise once that day comes.

As I was narrowing down my choice I decided I could not cheer for any team who had made the NBA finals in the last decade since Seattle lost a team, or else I’m just a fucking rotten bandwagoner. That eliminated a fair amount. For those counting, I just eliminated the Warriors, Cavs, Heat, Spurs, Thunder, Mavs, Celtics, Lakers, Detroit. I went further and decided I’m just gonna eliminate all West Coast teams since I didn’t want to feel guilty switching to Seattle. It’s like when you break up with a girl, and you still want to get back together with the girl, so if you date, you date someone outside the circle of friends and 3 degrees away (like the 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon game, but real life). To narrow down further, I eliminated any teams that have made the playoffs in the last five years. Unsurprisingly, the list was short and I was essentially choosing between the Knicks and the Sixers. As much as I love Hinkie, I needed at least one player I could cheer for on a nightly basis so thus my Knicks fanhood began. (Side note: I’ve been a quite a few cities in the United States; the Windy City, the City by the Bay, City of Angels, Beantown….but never have I been to the Mecca)

I’m not sure if many of you follow basketball, but the Knicks fucking suck. The team is Melo….and that’s about it, and he was injured….like the whole season.
Highlights of the team include:

• Lou “Can’t hit a fucking layup” Amundson,
• Cole “Don’t have teeth” Aldrich,
• JR “Layin the pipes” Smith
• Alexy “Look like Rubio, play like an asshole” Shved
  
  Look at that smug ass fucking face. He hated New York so much, he went BACK TO EUROPE. He was like FUCK THIS BULLSHIT

To top it off, their future looked pretty bleak. They put together some cap space by trading away JR and Shumpert, but couldn’t shed Jose Calderon (who by the way is making like 12 mil and he’s 40. Only the Knicks). They traded away a great deal of draft picks, although managed to hold on to their pick this year. And Melo isn’t getting any younger. Only player that can resemble a “prospect” in any way is probably Langston Galloway…undrafted free agent, Langston Galloway.

And then, the NBA Draft came. We all knew the top three would be Karl Anthony Towns (aight), Deangelo Russell (bust), and Jahlil Okafor (BUST), but the fourth pick owned by the Knicks was still undecided. There were plenty to choose from…I personally liked Emmanuel Mudiay and thought he would be a nice steal at 4 (since before he went to the fraud of a school by Deion Sanders, he was technically first in his class). The Knicks surprised em all and went with Kristaps Porzingis, better known as Prozingod. Even though

Surprise, surprise. It seems, via Simmons’ personal twitter, that Bill Simmons has in fact signed on with HBO. The move gives Simmons the artistic freedom he lacked at sports conglomerate ESPN and looks as though he will have free rein on his content at HBO. (According to news sources, he will have a weekly show, podcasts, advise on documentaries, etc.)

I’ve been a pretty avid reader of Bill Simmons’ articles since high school, but wouldn’t call myself a fanboy. I appreciate his work, but you always have to read it with a grain of salt to sift through his homerism and blatant bias toward his hometown team. I have nothing against it though and, actually, appreciate that he cares so much about the Celtics and Red Sox over the Yankees and Lakers. Sports is about being childish and having arguments with other fans debating the legacy of player A vs player B and which team has the best chance of winning their division. Even a sports personality with the reach like Simmons should have a team he can argue for and against because it keeps with the friendly banter environment. Simmons launched his career with this very mindset, but he evolved his content to keep up with the trends of his readers. Now, fans are arguing about the +/- of a particular player and whether his contract will be a bargain with the rising salary cap. What keeps me interested in Simmons has been his keen instinct to write and publish content based on those trends. A huge example would be the NBA and HBO now has a large market to reach out to.

As a regular visitor of the /r/NBA subreddit, I can tell you that the most popular posts are those regarding trade rumors, the NBA draft, and dream GM scenarios. Occasionally you’ll have some original content piece regarding specific plays a team runs, or the defensive/offensive efficiency of a particular player (think Zach Lowe type analysis). During the season, a select few redditors will compete to post a gif of some amazing play happening IN REAL TIME, but for the most part, the readers love hypotheticals…..especially in the offseason. Dream trade scenarios and the summer league highlights of a touted prospects (PROZINGOD) allow fans to keep themselves engaged and entertained even when summer league basketball is the only outlet to soak in any resemblance of the NBA. So how do Simmons and HBO capitalize? By using his reach on NBA fans during the offseason and steer them towards other HBO products.

Simmons is the king of the offseason and hypothetical trade scenarios are his minions of choice. I imagine Simmons sitting at his desk playing with ESPN’s trade machine for hours trying to recreate the magical seasons in which the Celtics won an NBA championship with the big three. Simmons’ trade value column is immensely popular with NBA fans as Simmons will reenact what he believes to be each GM’s reaction if a trade proposal came their way; personifying a mystic figure that remains behind a curtain (Hinkie) or animating the thought process of a failing GM (KAAAHHHNN). Simmons’ articles and related contents regularly appear on the top page of the NBA subreddit. There, a community of 300k+, Simmons has a home. Even his own personal account racks up karma in the few posts his makes, because its Bill Fucking Simmons. Simmons can captivate an NBA audience when no games are being played. This sort of reach is immensely valuable and ESPN has no idea what they lost. Maybe a team decides to tank this year, (cough, Mavericks, cough). MAYBE Simmons sees an analogy of Deandre Jordan reneging to a certain backstabber on the Wire. Or the locker room relationship of Dirk and his younger teammates are similar to the onset relationship between Johnny Drama and his other, more younger cast members of Five Brother.

What Bill Simmons can do is influence and reach younger viewers; the millennials who will soon be the consumers of HBO programming. These kids, who were barely hitting puberty when the Sopranos and Sex in the City ended, will now be under the HBO umbrella. With HBOGO/HBONOW relying heavily on the popularity of their past Emmy winning shows to compete against the back catalogue of Friends and How I Met Your Mother on Netflix, Simmons gives HBO the perfect personality to reach the biggest potential user base.