A Bypremier Book Review

Despite popular belief, yours truly doesn't just watch movies and sports. Occasionally, I also read. Sure, I read books about movies and sports...but it still counts as reading.

Anyway, this years book review comes courtesy of 'The Sports Guy". That's right. Famous sport writer, twitterer, and podcaster...Bill Simmons.

Mr. Simmons recently wrote his second book. The follow up to his book about the Red Sox was a mammoth, seven-hundred page book on basketball. Fittingly titled, "The Book of Basketball". So after plowing through the book in only six months (it was a Christmas gift), I am here to give you readers my faithful review.

First off, let me preface this by saying I'm a huge basketball fan. It's my favorite sport to play.

Secondly; let me say when I first got the book, I skimmed through it...saw Simmon's pyramid rankings and could not help myself from reading his thoughts on the players I knew. So technically, I read the book out of order. Once I ran through the rankings, I read the book from the start. That's why it took me so long to read the book.

Anyway, back to the book. It's broken down into several chapters:

1. Simmons history with basketball.
2. The secret of basketball.
3. His thoughts on ending the Wilt vs. Russell debate once and for all.
4. MVP redo's.
5. His thoughts on redesigning the NBA Hall of Fame.
6. His debatable pyramid rankings.
7. Best Teams of All time.
8. Players that make up his all time team.
9. Closing thoughts.

So let's get to review already...bypremier's final take: The book is a great read. Simmons definitely knows basketball and is probably one of the most knowledgeable basketball people living. The rankings are the highlights. There is definitely a bit of homer/bias to the book: Simmons loves the Boston Celtics. However, he is fully aware of this and tries to curb his bias (for example, ranking Magic above Bird...Kareem above them both). But you can't write a book based on your opinions without your own personal biases seeping in. That's understandable and Simmons doesn't knock you over the head with it. Some of the other parts are a little slow (Wilt vs. Russell debate, best teams of all times...), but still enjoyable to read because Simmons absolutely does his homework and backs it up with intersting stats. And that's argubly the most impressive thing about the book. Simmons has really done everything he could to write this back. He's read every relevant book (including placing a listing of all the books and their helpfulness). He's watched thousands of hours of game film. He's even talked to almost every person imaginable about the sport. So give him credit for putting his heart and soul into the book. So all that boring stuff aside, let me just finish this review with a few intersting thoughts.

1. If you are a writer (or a wannable writer like me), you've probably tried to write a ranking or list about a certain topic. For me, I like to write a column for my fantasy football league and I try to include everyone in my league in my writing. And you know what? It's hard to write for some people...and very easy to write for other people. After reading Simmons pyramid rankings, I thought the same thing. For some people in his rankings, he wrote wonderfully. Particularly, the current players and any Boston old-timers. However, some other people (mostly very old players) were not very well written and had short paragraphs. Because it's not easy to write something great for everyone.

2. Nobody...and I mean nobody...compares sports to pop culture better than Bill Simmons. My favotire comparison of his was Magic vs. Bird to the two Shannons (Whirry and Tweed). My favorite growing up with Shannon Whirry.

3. My favorite part of the book was when Simmons thanks everyone involved in helping make the book possible. Simmons is a talented writer and extremely funny. But he also gets help. His friends make him infinitely funnier. When he thinks of a great idea or someone passes along a great idea, he gets input from his 'creative team' to come up with funny thoughts, good names to talk about, and basically write his brillant responses. So I'm glad he thanked his friends. I think if I ever was able to write professionally, I would do the same.

So overall, I highly recommend the book. It's a great read for any sports fan. A must read for any basketball fan. And an absolute read for any fan of the Sports Guy.

Lastly, I can't wait for the revised edition. Another beauty to the book: You can revise it multiple times and milk it for everything it's worth. Kind of like the guy who wrote the book "1001 Movies to see before you die" and updates it every year for that year's movies. Talk about a money maker. Another idea that goes into the "Why Didn't I Think of That" category.