NBA Analyst Bill Simmons takes on Commissioner David Stern
Recently, popular sportswriter and analyst, Bill Simmons took on NBA Commissioner David Stern in a one on one dialogue. The discussion was in direct relation to the current lockout scenario and soon turned into a war of heated
words.
Bill Simmons was clearly upset by the whole lockout situation and related his anger to David Stern right at the start of the podcast. He leapt right into the battlefield and opened fire; with tough, hard hitting and to the point
questions.
Bill certainly pushed himself to the edge and exhausted all possible principles governing his stated code of conduct. He quickly got to the core of the issue and asked about the urgency in the situation at hand. He grilled Stern
with questions that directly questioned the integrity of NBA, the teams and their claims. Lack of scheme from the NBA, teams misreporting losses, and jersey sponsorship; were some of the key questions posed.
This row of anger from Bill, however, did not seem to throw Stern on the back foot as he continued to answer Bill’s questions with a rather uncanny and confident attitude. Bill just could not seem to knock the NBA Commissioner
off his seat as Stern either skilfully evaded the questions or responded with authority.
In fact, after Bill’s initial onslaught, Stern told him that he came to set him straight. Stern proceeded to call Bill’s ‘misreporting of the losses’ allegation as “unbecoming”. To finish off, he coldly told Simmons that the NBA
Executives were not as unintelligent and stupid as he would like to think.
The dialogue between both was a thoroughly entertaining one, as both tried to lead the offensive charge. It was expected that under such circumstances, Stern might have adopted an apologist stance, however, the current lockout
saga and Stern’s rage with respect to the attitude of the players; have apparently brought out the monster within.
Make no mistake about it; Stern has proved that he is not scared of anyone or any sort of dialogue. He certainly showed that he is not a man who would easily give in under pressure.
During the last few meetings with the players, it was thought that like the NHL and the NFL, things will eventually sort out in the NBA as well, however, the lack of flexibility shown by the players did not go down well with Stern.
Overall, the interview was not at all reflective of Bill’s former views regarding the NBA Commissioner. Previously, Simmons hailed Stern as the best commissioner in the history of the NBA.
Bill has been an avid basketball fan and even wrote a 700 page book depicting his love for the game. He has written other books as well which have all been best sellers. Moreover, he is accredited to have revolutionized the field
of sports journalism with his sportscasts.
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