Simmons Talks NBA

The New Yorker's web site recently posted a good interview with Bill Simmons, ESPN's "Sports Guy." It covers the NBA's statistical revolution, lessons from this year's playoffs, the effect of no college on the basketball and social skills of current players, and Simmons' forthcoming book, which promises to be an entertaining doorstop:

I try to answer every question you ever had about the league -- which guys mattered (and didn’t), which teams mattered (and didn’t), how the league came to be, what were the big misconceptions about the past six decades, what were the great “What ifs,” etc. etc. -- and most important, if there’s a common thread that ties these questions together and makes the sport easier to understand and evaluate. In my opinion, there is. It’s a secret that I learned at a topless pool in Las Vegas from an NBA Hall of Famer. That’s all I will say. (How that’s for a teaser?) I guess the heart of the book is me figuring out the best 100 players ever and ranking them, but I didn’t do it in some arbitrary way, I did it in a way that makes sense and ties into the rest of the book.