Quotes from Bill Simmons

We spent so many years searching for an archrival for Jordan—the Frazier to his Ali, someone who'd bring out the best in him—when really, that player was probably Len Bias. We were robbed.

Once it's obtained, it's obtained.

throwing his cock around like it was a boomerang.

he intended to exploit as best he could the traditional rivalries, for that was one of the best things the league had going for it, genuine rivalries in which the players themselves participated. Those rivalries, Boston-Philly, New York–Baltimore, needed no ballyhoo; the athletes themselves were self-evidently proud and they liked nothing better than to beat their opponents

David Thompson was … The most underrated superstar of the past thirty-five years The single biggest NBA tragedy other than Lenny Bias

Look for this when you're not concentrating on how rattled Karl Malone was. 5.

the Lakers unleashed an all-time Keyser Söze run in April, winning 23 of their last 24 and coming within an OT loss in the Finals of sweeping the entire playoffs.41 So if we're trying to find the most invincible team of all time

So MJ, Kobe, Iverson,62 T-Mac and Wade made the leap from twenty-three to twenty-four, but Thompson took a step backward. Why? Two words: nose candy.

fact, the '01 Lakers swept a 50-win Blazers team (that nearly beat them the previous spring), a 55-win Kings team (that almost beat them 12 months later), and a 58-win Spurs team (that won three titles in the next six years),43 then came within an overtime loss of sweeping the 56-win Sixers

Great story from this season: In one of the dumbest ideas in the history of mankind, dunking was outlawed in many college conferences thanks to the idiotic Lew Alcindor Rule.

Their relentless competitiveness brought out the worst in opponents; I always found it fascinating that, for a team that ended up in so many fights, the Pistons never threw the first punch

Do Magic's Lakers win five titles with Jordan before Jordan thriving in Denver and Walton's feet holding up in Portland? I'm going out on a limb and saying no. What a shame.

What bothers him isn't that he's not beloved. "It bothers me," Barry says, "that I'm not even liked.

Frazier's resume includes three extremes: one of the best big-game guards ever; one of the best defensive guards ever; and one of the single greatest performances ever (Game 7 of the '70 Finals, when he notched 36 points, 19 assists, 7 rebounds and 5 steals and outclutched the actual Mr. Clutch).

only he wasn't satisfied with the noise level of the pathetic Clippers crowd, so he stepped away from the line and waved his arms. That's right, the Legend was imploring the crowd to pump up the volume. I

By the time Payton had finished whipping him like a dominatrix, Stockton was thirty-four and heading toward the twilight of his career.

and two doctors (Dunkenstein and J).

Here comes the great Kaka!

this was one of those rare "Wow, maybe these black guys aren't all on drugs; they actually seem like normal people" moments that the NBA needed so desperately in order to connect with secretly-still-a-little-racist America

You will not find a bigger month for a sports league than June '84 for the NBA.

thirteen-year-old boys looking at porn for the first time

You feelin' me? Word. This is one phat book I'm writing, yo. Recognize.

Just like that, they were gone and the patio was mellow again. As Rich said later, it was like a "gust of wind." MJ was the gust; everyone else was the twigs, leaves, and branches flying around.

Should hyperintelligence matter when we're comparing teams from different decades? Absolutely. It's an era-specific advantage, just like smoking, lowtop sneakers, lack of fitness and rudimentary VD medication were detriments during the Russell era.