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Bill Simmons: Miami Heat didn’t make the playoffs because Dan Le Batard is mean

By Luke Dahlgren

Credit: ESPN
Credit: ESPN /
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ESPN and Grantland writer Bill Simmons appeared on Le Batard’s radio show on Wednesday, and Le Batard claimed to not care about the MVP.

One major negative side effect of the Boston Celtics making the final cut in the East for the NBA playoffs is that Bill Simmons gets to gloat about it. The ESPN and Grantland writer was already riding high off of the Patriots Super Bowl win. Now, Simmons can revel in the postseason spoils again, and he has taken every opportunity to do just that.

That is at least another week and a half of Simmons talking about his team like the neighbor kid whose dad just bought a Mustang. We get it, Dillon. Your dad is in the top tax bracket.

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Humility would have served Simmons and the Boston faithful well in what was supposed to be a rebuilding year, but instead the Celtics experienced a late-season surge, powering their way through a pathetically weak Eastern Conference and into the seventh seed. The Celtics will likely be quickly eliminated from the playoffs by the Cleveland Cavaliers, but at least they get the opportunity to get squashed by the giant.

The Miami Heat received no such luck. After a season coming off a four-year dynastic reign over the Eastern Conference, torn a part by injury and the departure of LeBron James, the Heat limped into tenth place in the conference, just one game away from the eighth seed. Bill Simmons has let Heat fan and ESPN talking head Dan Le Batard know exactly what the Heat are missing out on.

Perhaps this was due to the way Le Batard will sometimes treat his guests. Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly recently appeared on Le Batard’s radio show, and the results were easy to swallow.

Simmons threw the blame for the Heat’s absence onto Le Batard’s cruelty to his guests.

From @SportsRapport:

"People treat you like you treat other people, and your work speaks for itself. I’m just saying. Look: all this stuff bounces back to you. You wonder why the Heat aren’t in the playoffs? It’s because you didn’t treat your guests well."

This was obviously spoken in good fun, although I imagine Le Batard was internally debating whether jabbing a pen into Simmons ear was a good option. If there is some sort of karmic justice to the sports world, then the Celtics would not be in the playoffs and Simmons wouldn’t be sending out annoying tweets.

The conversation soon turned to the MVP race, and Simmons confronted Le Batard on why he didn’t actually care about the race. Le Batard countered that the race was entirely splitting hairs, and that having an award won by Steven Nash twice and Shaq and Kobe once apiece was irrelevant.

"What I don’t care about, and this is probably not the best conversation to be having with you, who ranked all of the players in order in an 800-page best-selling book, but I don’t care who’s 8 and who’s 11. I don’t care. They’re both really good."

I disagree with Le Batard here. The important part of the MVP race is not the result. It is the debate that stems from the result. People are more invested in the present and more cognizant of the context of NBA history when discussing how MVP candidates stack up both now and from the past. The Curry v. Harden v. Westbrook v. Whomever Else debate gets people excited for the NBA in ways that no other pro sports award race does.

The good news is that this season’s MVP contenders have not yet reached a point where they are insufferable, unlike every Boston Celtic ever thanks to Simmons.

[H/T: @SportsRapport Soundcloud]

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