BASKETBALL

THE NBA ACCORDING TO THE SPORTS GUY

THE BOOK OF

BILL SIMMONS

T
BALL ANTINE BOOKS TRADE PAPERBACKS | NEW YORK

A 2010 Ballantine Books and ESPN Books Trade Paperback Edition Copyright 2009 by Bill Simmons All rights reserved. Published in the United States by ESPN Books, an imprint of ESPN, Inc., New York, and Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. The ESPN Books name and logo are registered trademarks of ESPN, Inc. Grateful acknowledgment is made to HarperCollins Publishers for permission to reprint an excerpt from The Franchise by Cameron Stauth. Copyright 1990 by Cameron Stauth. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Simmons, Bill. The book of basketball : the NBA according to the sports guy / Bill Simmons. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-345-52010-4 eBook ISBN 978-0-345-51311-3 1. Basketball. 2. National Basketball Association. I. Title. GV885.1.S46 2009 796.323.'640973dc22 2009036006 Printed in the United States of America www.ballantinebooks.com www.espnbooks.com 246897531 Book design by Jo Anne Metsch

INTRODUCTION

You might be standing in a bookstore right now. You might be leaning against a sofa in someones house. You might be sitting on the john. You might be taking a bath. You might be shopping at one of those dollar stores, sitting on a beach, riding in a car, reading a free e-book preview. You might be sitting in a library or a Starbucks and wondering if the guy two chairs away is surng porn on his iPad. You might be planning on clubbing someone to death with this thingand really, you probably couldand wanted to read the rst few pages before you did the deed. Regardless, you are thinking one of the following four things. 1. This monstrosity was a no. 1 bestseller? A 700-page book about basketball? How the hell is that possible? 2. I forgot Bill Simmons used to write! Now hes hosting that terrible ESPN show with Dan LeBatard, No, Youre Wrong! What a sellout. 3. This is the book that billionaire owner loved, so he hired Simmons as GM and it was a total disaster! I think theyre still suing each other. I always wanted to read this thing. 4. Wait, I already bought the hardcover . . . now he wants me to buy the paperback? Greedy bastard.

INTRODUCTION

I hear you on no. 4. I do. If I couldnt make the paperback better than the hardcover, it wasnt worth releasing. Thats why I tightened it (cutting thirty pages of fat), xed every factual error (all of them harmless, but still), then lled the extra space with new material and seventy new footnotes.1 I added two new What Ifs? I updated the Hall of Fame Pyramid, changing a few rankings (biggest winner: Dwyane Wade) and rewriting the Kobe, LeBron, Wade and Howard sections. Same number of pages, better book. And our new virtual guide (www.bookofbasketball.com) allows you to follow up on any magazine articles, games, plays, YouTube clips or anecdotes mentioned in the paperback with one exception: Greg Odens dong. Until the bitter end, I resisted my publishers demands for a nished edit. They wanted it after the 2010 Finals; I wanted to wait until LeBron made his decision. Every instinct I had told me, Something weird is going to happen. Something did. Thats the thing about the book of basketballit never stops rewriting itself. After LeBron picked Miami, I realized this book will never be nished. For my own sanity, I needed to stop working on it. Five years was enough. There will never be another version. I promise. You have my word.2 Bill Simmons September 1, 2010

1. When I told Gladwell that I had spent eight weeks on my paperback, he laughed and said, Are you kidding? Nobody does extra work for a paperback! Yeah, but still. 2. Well, until 2015. Or unless some crazy NBA-related shit happens and I have to rewrite it again. Or unless I go broke. Actually, forget I promised anything.

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Now updated with spirited new writing on the 2009-2010 season; the Lakers-Celtics final; LeBron James; Kobe Bryant; Dwayne Wade; Paul Pierce; Dwight Howard; and Steve Nash.