ESPN analyst and author Bill Simmons has gotten the reputation for being a quirky kind of guy who will say anything out of his mouth.
His latest comments may not land him in hot water, but they definitely might make a community a little hot.
Simmons was in Memphis recently to watch the Grizzlies get eliminated from the Western Conference Finals by the Spurs.
Simmons somehow decided that he wanted to correlate the Grizzlies inability to deal with Tony Parker, with the assassination of Martin Luther King according to The Big Lead.
Simmons spoke about this to Jalen Rose on his BS Report podcast, and made the comments that he felt “Memphis fans get really tense during sporting events because Martin Luther King was assassinated there.”
“I didn’t realize the effect [the King assassination] had on that city. […] I think from people we talk to and stuff we’ve read, the shooting kind of sets the tone for how the city thinks about stuff. We were at Game 3. Great crowd, they fall behind and the whole crowd got tense. It as like, ‘Oh no, something bad is going to happen.’ And it starts from that shooting and it’s just that mindset they have.”
So let me see if I can get this straight. Bill Simmons thinks that because of the national tragedy that was Martin Luther King’s assassination in front of a Memphis hotel, Memphis sports fans, and most importantly Grizzlies fans, think back to that tragic time anytime Zach Randolph misses a lay-up or Mike Conley commits a turnover?
I’m sure such an event effects people for many years to come, but I would love to know how many Grizzlies fans were actually alive in 1968.