The sports world has seen a lot of discussion about aggregation of quotes and clips over the past years. Several media figures in particular have bashed some uses of aggregation, saying it takes them out of context. But an interesting twist on that came from The Ringer’s Bill Simmons Sunday. As noted by the Twitter/X account for the r/BillSimmonsPodcast (both a Reddit community for discussion of Simmons’ podcast and a podcast discussing Simmons) saw Simmons (or the person who handles his YouTube account) cut a short, sharable clip discussing the idea of the Golden State Warriors trading Steph Curry to the Charlotte Hornets, with that clip including Simmons saying “Don’t aggregate this”:
Bill Simmons:
"Please don't aggregate my Steph to Charlotte trade!"
Also Bill Simmons:
"Here's a YouTube short that clips 45 seconds of my podcast discussing the Steph to Charlotte trade *including the part where I say don't aggregate this*" https://t.co/9lR4wykXh2
— The r/BillSimmons Podcast 🎙️ (@rBillSimmonsPod) January 21, 2024
“What happens if Charlotte calls them and Godfather offers them for Steph? Let’s talk it out. What if they offered LaMelo [Ball], [Gordon] Heyward’s expiring [contract], and they offer them four unprotected firsts? Now, you say ‘Why would Charlotte do that?’
“Well, Charlotte’s been a disaster as a basketball franchise basically in any incarnation of it. Steph Curry, from Charlotte, maybe you promise him down the road ‘Wink, wink, you’ll get a piece of this team when you retire.’ And you just make him Mr. Charlotte.
“And then, if you’re Golden State, you get a reboot with LaMelo, the guy you should have taken anyway, and a bunch of firsts. Maybe it’s not four firsts, maybe it’s three firsts. What’s the offer that would make Golden State at least take a meeting? And I think it’s LaMelo and four firsts.
“They’re not trading Steph. So when this gets aggregated, because this is the new world we live in where they just aggregate a piece of what you said and not the actual context of it, I do not think the Warriors are going to trade Steph Curry. My point is, if Charlotte calls them, I think they have a meeting at least.
“Where the hell are they going? What are they going to do with Steph Curry for the next five years of his career? Anyway, that’s how bad it’s got for the Warriors, I’m making up Steph Curry trades.”
On some levels, this is a fair note by Simmons. In this discussion, he makes it clear he’s talking through the possibilities here, but he finds it at least unlikely the Warriors will actually trade Curry. And a writeup of this cutting off before the “They’re not trading Steph” would not represent the whole context of this conversation.
And Simmons and/or his social team were probably smart to cut the clip themselves here. This shorter clip does present the context of the conversation, but will be listened to by many more people than the full hour-and-45-minute podcast here. And it certainly will get written up by people, including us. But it is funny to hear Simmons joining the many who have complained about aggregation in a easy-to-aggregate clip he and/or his team made.
[rBillSimmonsPodcast on Twitter/X]
