As he makes the promotional rounds for his latest book, The Book of Basketball, Bill Simmons recently made an interesting statement to the HuffPo’s Jason Pinter - via THE ARENA BLOG:

(Jared, Bill invite us to eat fresh)

Part of me can’t shake the temptation of being the underdog again — like, launching my own sports site, hiring some talented writers and designers and trying to compete with the big guns. Like what Frank Deford did with the National. All right, the National lost $100 million. Bad example.

But I could see doing something crazy like that. I like taking chances, I am not afraid to fail, and beyond that, I am not afraid to fail violently and miserably. So anything is possible. A really good prediction would be, “Simmons is going to fail violently and miserably with a super-ambitious idea within the next five years.” Lock it down.

Two questions come out of this. Read more…