Is he still pissed at the Crown Casino?

It's on his podcast bro. Talking to KOC

I am NOT talking about Ben Simmons though I regret the title of this post.

You mean Bill, then?

Very good

Around 65:00 for anyone that wants to listen, but it's essentially a throwaway comment exactly as OP quoted.

Maybe he just watched some of the Hawks' games and is generalising from there? That or he has no clue.

Do you think LaMelo would've learned good habits playing for a lowly team where he would've barely paid attention to the coach?

Blaming LaMelo's time in the NBL for his bad habits... and not his the shit he pulled in high school and Lithuania, or on his dad? That's a hot take!

841, I'm not hating. Simmons has built an empire on being opinionated, and sometimes that leaves him vulnerable to being incorrect. When it comes to a league outside of the USA and Europe, I would hedge my bets on him not doing his homework.

Boston is shit and Bill knows it

Simmons is painful.

this slander is ridiculous.

All American kids do is dunk and over dribble.

Remember Melo in Lithuania? Garbage? Melo in high school, Garbage even though he averaged like 500 points a night off cherry picking and basically sitting under his own hoop refusing to play D.

Melo in Australia, pretty decent. Had to engage on both ends, had to make the right passes and got to get shots up over people who actually try on D.....

He's right, NBL is shit, Australians can't play.
Australia is that far behind the US they will never catch up.
The whole structure of Australian basketball from the ground up needs a wrecking ball put through it.

Would Brooks not getting injured have changed the outlook? One kind of led to another so they had a decent crack at it, unfortunate about the injury.

Did anyone expect the Hawks to be anything but budget last year?would they have actually looked better without Melo/Brooks? Probably not

Bill is shit. And Boston and the world know it.

When Lamelo destroys Simmons in his 2nd season of the NBA, let's see what Bill has to say.

Lamelo balls on his forehead

Ignorant Americans tend to be the loudest. Anything that isn't NBA or MAYBE Euroleague will be immediately discounted as "garbage" because they have no real scope of the depth of world basketball. But if we're being fair, the NBL does oversell itself and some people react negatively to overblown claims such as "second best league in the world" and the like. But for Bill Simmons to claim that the league gave him "bad habits" is absolutely ridiculous. The guy went from a second round pick to the favourite for the number 1 spot in 14 games in our league - so the NBL cannot be all that bad.

What amazes me though is Bill would make this claim about the NBL but wouldn't bat an eyelid if LaMelo balled out in the G League, which is basically the petri disk for ball-hoggery and bad habit forming, and is objectively a lesser league because of it.

"The guy went from a second round pick to the favourite for the number 1 spot in 14 games in our league - so the NBL cannot be all that bad."

the flip side of that is if looks so good in our league maybe the league standard isnt that good?

I dont remember, when was he projected as second round?

The league certainly isn't trash, but comments such as that are just as misguided as anyone claiming its the second best league in the world.

"the flip side of that is if looks so good in our league maybe the league standard isnt that good?"

The scouts that have deemed him a hot commodity know how good, or otherwise, the league is. Clearly they think it's of a decent standard if his playing "reasonably" well here has led to his current stock.

"I dont remember, when was he projected as second round?"

Before he came down. It was very much seen as an attention-seeking sign up, and many pundits thought RJ Hampton was the more serious player. There were all sorts of questions over his defense and ability to play with men in any serious league. He was seen as a gimmick and a project with NBA upside but a lot of work to do. He proved while here that the amount of work needed to be done wasn't nearly as much as they thought.

"The league certainly isn't trash, but comments such as that are just as misguided as anyone claiming its the second best league in the world."

Correct. For the NBL to rationalize that it's the second best league in the world, they have to throw in words like "domestic". It's not Euroleague. It's not NBA. It probably isn't the Spanish league. It probably isn't Bundesliga. I think second soon enflates to about 8th best league.

Don't be so sensitive, compared to the NBA, the NBL is garbage.

I'd rather watch NBL to be honest...

"Don't be so sensitive, compared to the NBA, the NBL is garbage."

This isn't even relevant. The comments were concerning LaMelo ball, who would otherwise be playing in college if not the NBL. College basketball is a much lower standard than the NBL, even if only due to age (which I don't buy).

So why point out that LaMalo is playing in a "garbage league" when it's a categorically higher standard? Because his peers can be easily compared by playing in the same competition, it's an American league (and therefore supposedly better automatically), and Bill hasn't done his homework.

"College basketball is a much lower standard than the NBL, even if only due to age (which I don't buy)."

College basketball might be the biggest incubator of NBA talents, but we shouldn't ignore the fact that 99.9 percent of college basketballers never go on to play professionally anywhere in the world because they're just not good enough. NBL skeleton squads filled with development players and NBL1 fill ins routinely beat top college teams with NBA draft picks quite easily in preseason.

And yeah, Americans only know about themselves. They think they're the entire world unto themselves. They even enlarge the northern American landmass on their maps relative to its actual size, such is their narcissism.

America BAD

Australia GOOD

Someone please tell me exactly where I can find the podcast he says this?, saw it mentioned on NBL Overtime but they obviously didn't show it.

The Bill Simmons Podcast on October 28th 2020, around 65:00 into the episode.