Bill Simmons ("The Sports Guy") Is An Idiot

This isn't gonna be about his deficiencies as a writer.

I mean, YES, he uses the same lines time and time again, and YES, it is ridiculous how he STILL uses Shawshank, The Karate Kid and Rocky movies to underscore his points. Also, his increased popularity, coinciding with his move to L.A. has changed his point of view, from "man of the people" to "check me out, hanging with Jimmy (that's Mr. Kimmel to you) while watching all ten games on my sweet plasma screen setup."

He also got kinda screwed by the fact that his Boston teams became good, and with that often comes mass hatred (pun intended) - I don't think he handles that well, incorporating an "eff you" bent to his columns, but whatever.

This is about his lack of knowledge of gambling, something he professes to know a lot about, and continually makes the same wrong point, as he did in his latest column when he wrote...

"I tried to determine a science for picking games in the first few weeks. Bookies are terrified of that stretch for this reason: There's no ironclad way to distinguish good teams from the bad teams yet."

My problem is with his declaration that "bookies are terrified."

Wrong.

Bookies don't set the lines. We do. All bookies care about is making sure that half the money goes to each team...that way they make coin no matter who covers.

A team like Dallas, which has a huge national following, gets a few points it's way just because it has so many fans who bet on them (bookies try to get gamblers to bet on their opposition). It has nothing to do with bookies liking Dallas.

I swear, every time he writes that I feel like getting The Sisters to pay him a visit. Or Byron Hadley. Or at least sweeping his leg.

Harris