Bill Simmons has been synonymous with the NBA ever since he broke through at ESPN two decades ago. But despite a title run by his beloved Boston Celtics this spring, Simmons is worried that the league is in bad shape.
In a monologue to open the latest episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast, Simmons explained why the league’s new collective bargaining agreement passed last year coupled with a lack of vision in the league office have hurt the NBA. He said those moves have made it a clear little brother to the NFL.
“The playoffs weren’t good,” Simmons said. “We had a lot of injuries, and I think people were more unhappy than happy with it. And I love basketball the most, and I was like, ‘I’m ready for football. I’m ready to throw myself in. I’m ready for Week 1 NFL.’ Football’s more fun, it’s a more smartly put-together sport at this point than basketball.”
So far this offseason, NBA teams have openly pushed back on the new rules regulating spending. The legendary Golden State Warriors dynasty was split up in part because it was prohibitively expensive for the team to retain sharpshooter Klay Thompson. The 2023 NBA champion Denver Nuggets lost veteran guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope because of luxury tax punishments. After losing All-Star forward Paul George, the Los Angeles Clippers released a statement citing the second apron of the luxury tax, which brings harsh future penalties and operates as the league’s version of a hard cap.
Simmons believes the NBA chased competitive balance and an equal playing field at the expense of a compelling on-court product.
“Ultimately, the league should care about good basketball,” the Ringer founder said. “Basically what they’ve done with this whole system is they’re so desperate to create parity and to not have that bottom half of teams that suck that they’re penalizing the teams that are smart.”
Simmons also listed numerous other issues with the NBA that league executives could be fixing instead of bringing the hammer down on player salaries and manufacturing balance.
“What the league should actually want if they really cared about this s***, which I’m not positive they do, because if they cared about the overall health of the league, the schedule wouldn’t be 82 games, we wouldn’t be in this situation where it’s roulette every summer with guys just jumping around and 15 teams that are unhappy and 20 superstars and stars who are unhappy,” Simmons said. “One of the things we should fix is the continuity piece, and rewarding franchises for continuity, for drafting players correctly, for keeping nucleuses together. [That] should be what the league wants.”
Just as Denver lost Caldwell-Pope this summer, Simmons’ Celtics are facing down an enormously expensive roster in the coming years. Team governor Wyc Grousbeck announced this week he was selling his stake in the team.
Simmons believes the NBA, which already faced challenges around constant roster turnover, will only see more churn in the future.
“It’s too late now to fix it. I guess what bugs me is we’re probably not going to see great runs again,” Simmons said. “What we have with (Nikola) Jokic and (Jamal) Murray (in Denver) and what we have with (Jayson) Tatum and (Jaylen) Brown (in Boston), those are going to be anomalies. That’s not going to be the foundation of what the league is going forward. The foundation is going to be guys jumping around.”
Simmons is a prominent voice and advocate for the NBA. His words likely carry weight for league decision-makers.
As much as his monologue was a rant, it was likely also a plea for someone with the power to change it to do so.
