If you want to play the “We’ll Never See Anyone Like Him Again” card, you’re probably right … but not for the reasons you might think. He grew up atypically from most NBA stars, the only male child of a successful professional player, someone who never had to worry about money and even spent seven formative years abroad. The Lakers acquired him when he was 17. He started an All-Star Game when he was 19. He signed a $71 million contract when he was 20. He married when he was 22. He won three titles by the age of 23. He became a father at 24. He also became the most polarizing figure in sports at 24, thanks to whatever happened in Eagle, Colo. The next four years were awkward as hell — the league’s most gifted player struggling on a series of forgettable teams, the most-discussed athlete in any sport, someone who learned to feed off constant negativity much like Barry Bonds did — before fate intervened in October 2007, when a trade to Chicago fell through and Gasol/Ariza were gift-wrapped for Los Angeles a few months later. The rest is history.
Like Jack Nicklaus, Woods has become the exception to pretty much any rule. He is a better, more well-rounded player now than he was in ‘02, although his Butch Harmon-coached swing then looked more repeatable than his flatter Hank Haney-coached method now. Coming off his Memorial win, and that exclamation point of a 7-iron that he stuffed to a couple of inches on the 72nd hole, Woods looks ready to resume his pursuit of Jack’s once-untouchable record of 18 professional major championships.
Remember the scene in “Almost Famous” when William asks Russell Hammond what he loves about music? Russell smiles, turns his chair around and says, “Everything.” That’s how I feel about basketball and that’s what my book is about…everything. I try to answer every question you ever had about the league—which guys mattered (and didn’t), which teams mattered (and didn’t), how the league came to be, what were the big misconceptions about the past six decades, what were the great “What ifs,” etc. etc.—and most important, if there’s a common thread that ties these questions together and makes the sport easier to understand and evaluate. In my opinion, there is. It’s a secret that I learned at a topless pool in Las Vegas from an N.B.A. Hall of Famer. That’s all I will say. (How that’s for a teaser?) I guess the heart of the book is me figuring out the best 100 players ever and ranking them, but I didn’t do it in some arbitrary way, I did it in a way that makes sense and ties into the rest of the book.
— Bill Simmons in an interview with
The New Yorker. I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited for
a book to release. I don’t care if it will take me four months to sift through the 700+ pages.
