Bill Simmons Compares Bulls Rookie Caleb Wilson to Tracy McGrady in Wildest Podcast Rant of the Summer
Bill Simmons has never been shy about hyping up a rookie he likes. On this week’s podcast he took it a step further, then off a cliff, then straight into the sun.
Talking about Chicago Bulls rookie Caleb Wilson, Simmons compared him to Tracy McGrady in his prime. A 6-foot-10 wing with inside-outside skill and, in Simmons’ words, an “explosive Shawn Kemp side.” Which is already a big swing.
Then he kept going.
“If I was a Bulls fan, I would have no sperm left in my body,” Simmons said. “It would just be ejaculate in every room in my house. I would lose my mind.” He then compared Wilson’s summer league performance to the colon-cleansing prep for a colonoscopy, which is a sentence that will haunt anyone who heard it live.
The clip is going to live forever. That is what happens when a national media figure decides to torch the runway on a rookie evaluation.
The thing is, Wilson’s Summer League tape actually was a lot of fun. He averaged 23.5 points on 50 percent shooting, hit 41.9 percent from three, and chipped in 7.3 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per game. That is a real stat line. It is not just a two-game hot streak against fringe rotation players.
Whether that translates against real NBA defenses in the fall is a different question, and this is the part Simmons blew past on his way to the highlight quote. Summer League is a scouting tool, not a prediction machine. Every year a young player looks like Kobe in Las Vegas and then goes to work in October and struggles to earn 15 minutes off the bench. The Bulls also do not have a track record recently of developing their rookies into anything close to what Simmons is describing.
Still, this is what makes Simmons Simmons. He watches something, he gets excited, and he says the thing everyone is thinking in the most Bill Simmons possible way. The takes are always going to land somewhere between a fanboy panic and a Rick Reilly column. That is why he draws millions of listeners a week.
For the Bulls, none of this is bad. They desperately need juice. Chicago has been an NBA basketball purgatory for years, drafting and trading their way into a version of the roster that never quite figures out what it wants to be. Wilson at least gives them a young player to build a narrative around, and viral national hype from Simmons will not hurt his rookie season buzz.
Now Wilson has to actually be good. The bar he was measured against on Monday was not fair to any human being.
If he averages 12 and 5 as a rookie, that is a win.
If he goes for 20 a night, Simmons might explode on air.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
