Book review "The Book of Basketball," Bill Simmons

If you are a Laker fan, I don’t blame you if you can’t make it through the first 20 pages of “The Basketball Book” by notorious Celtic homer Bill Simmons.

Simmons is the no-credibility Boston fan we knew growing up. As a writer, he’s think Johnny Most of announcers or Red Auerbach of distinguished coach/administrator.

Hopefully they hung around like I did. He has something worth reading.

Simmons writes well and does a great job on the subject matter once he gets off the ant-LA, anti-Detroit or anti-Knick tirades.

If you’re an NBA fan you will enjoy the stroll down memory lane. He’s too young to remember Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain or Bob Petit, but he does a thorough job dissecting the stats, newspapers, film, etc. from the era(s).

This part is better than the next “what if” section. For example: "What happened if Len Bias did not die of a crack overdose?" I found this tedious and unimportant. The book is nearly 700 pages. Simmons could’ve clipped this.

Nevertheless, Simmons regains steam when he rates the top 96 players in pyramid. He’s done his homework and makes his cases for top all-time cagers. Fortunately, the Beantown bias is left at the door.

Simmons uses plenty of pop culture reference and locker room humor to accent his research. His use of copious footnotes is at time humorous. Other times, it’s distracting.

This is the only basketball book where you will find Bill Walton’s career compared to that of Tupac Shakur. My guess is Walton may be the lease pleased of anyone.

Simmons is a true NBA fan. He is passionate about the league and his devotion is evident in his work. He brings the intricacies of NBA excellence to the doorstep of less rabid fans.

His all-time player ratings (pyramid) are surprisingly fair. When it comes to final evaluations, Simmons puts the gloves down and learned assessments. I was amazed to find players who were pummeled in earlier pages rise to the top of the heap. [1]

He closes the book with a sit down with one of my all-time favorites: Walton.

The biggest compliment, however, I can give to Simmons is this. I’d recommend spending two hours on the couch with his book, rather than plopping down in front in the front of the big screen and actually watch an NBA game.