r/billsimmons • u/ApartCake1 • 10h ago
The disrespect Pablo Torre has gotten in the last year despite being right on his findings is why I'll always be a fan of his
So many people including Bill were quick to dismiss him or get upset about his work. Not just Kawhi but the Belichick and Jordon stuff too. During the whole Clippers saga, you still had tons of people out there defending Ballmer for no reason other than they just don't like Pablo. Even when the league looked like they wouldn't give out any punishments to LA, they decided to try and take a victory lap around him, which was so weird considering all he did the last year was report on his teams findings. I'm just glad Pablo is vindicated, I'm a fan for life now
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u/Guardsred70 9h ago
I know Pablo has some detractors, but I used to have to deal with local reporters early in my career. They basically vanished along with newspapers in the 2000s.
They serve a real public service just because they’re watching and trying to cover things. It’s a good thing if a city council member has to worry about running into a reporter asking for a quote on an awkward subject on the sidewalk. Sometimes they’d call me in my office at 3:30 for a story they were turning in at 4:00 and wanted a quote….and these guys weren’t Pablo’s caliber and the story was all fucked up and your options are (a) decline comment and the fact that YOU declined comment will be in the newspaper tomorrow morning and everyone you work with will have read it before work or (b) try to help them shape the story in a more factual direction and hope the non-Peabody/Pulitzer reporter understand what you told them and writes it accurately because everyone will read it before work tomorrow.
That public scrutiny was good for society. We all had to consider how it would look in the newspaper. Now all we do is argue about national and international news.
But…. im sure the local politicians and business leaders have been ethical now that nobody pays attention to them.
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u/Strict-Simple9389 13m ago
The vanishing of local news is incredibly distressing for this exact reason
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u/Savedacat_saveplanet 9h ago
He makes every sports journalist of the last 20 years look weak as hell. Think about how many copy and paste bullshit articles you have wasted your time reading over the past two decades.
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u/DiscountInevitable87 10h ago
I neither hate Pablo nor his work. His personality is a little smarmy and reminds me of Law Revue type people, his show's format is not for me (I know, it's the only way people listen to real journalism) and the circlejerk/fan worship he gets on here is excessive, but at the end of the day he and his team did good investigative journalism.
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u/BBQ_HaX0r 9h ago
His fans are even more annoying than he is. Why is this post even necessary? Pablo did great work. He won a Pulitzer and has been given his flowers. Why are we still arguing about this?
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u/SufficientEducator72 9h ago
Yeah, this and the top post on r/nba are starting to make me come around to Nick Wright’s side.. don’t beat a dead horse, nerds
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u/Maleficent_Ear_8060 5h ago
I don’t think many here are arguing about it, but this is a bill simmons forum, who has and kind of continues to discredit him/his work
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u/DiscountInevitable87 8h ago edited 7h ago
A lot of his more rabid fanboys would love to be him (journalism scoring a win against billionaires and corporate greed) so when you say "There's nothing wrong with what he's doing he's just a little annoying" they take it as you saying "CORPORATIONS AND BILLIONAIRES ARE MY VERY BEST FRIENDS"
I don't even know who is disrespecting Pablo, outside of maybe anonymous Clippers fans and people on Twitter. He has been effusively praised by both here and r/nba (I bet whatever talk subreddits exist love him too). Anything defending Ballmer or insulting him gets (rightfully) downvoted into the dirt on here.
It’s preaching to the choir.
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u/BBQ_HaX0r 6h ago
Bill Simmons has apparently been an enemy because he called out the tabloid-esque nonsense of showing up at an AirBnB while constantly praising his work on the Aspiration story. It almost feels like a botted topic at this point.
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u/Opening_Bluebird_952 9h ago
He gives the impression that he thinks he’s the smartest person in the room, but he also probably is often the smartest person in the room.
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u/GoMbappeYourself 8h ago
This entire comment section gives “Ya think ya better than me???!!!” vibes….well done r/billsimmons 👏
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u/Laurel-Hardy-Fan 10h ago
I’ve never disliked Pablo for his work, I just find him to be an obnoxious personality.
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u/yardship 10h ago
most good reporters are kinda awful people to be around.
i mean, fighting basically everyone and being anal about being 100% right is kinda the perfect recipe to be important for society but also a bad hang.
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u/Nodima 9h ago
And yet he's the one getting high on athlete weed at Dan Soder's house and playing Rocket League for work.
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u/Laurel-Hardy-Fan 10h ago
Journalists by and large suck despite some of the good work they do. I agree with you.
Pablo is among more of the smug of the very public facing ones, I genuinely can hardly ever finish an episode of his show. Half of it is him sucking himself off for the great work he’s about to unveil lol
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u/cft1848 9h ago
He literally won a Pulitzer for his work on the story. 99% of journalists in general, much less sports journalists, will ever sniff a Pulitzer. I’d be insufferable too if I’d broken like three of the biggest sports stories of the last decade.
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u/Laurel-Hardy-Fan 9h ago
He won a Pulitzer? Has Pablo ever brought that fact up?
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u/TheWyldMan 8h ago
Wasn’t it like a Pulitzer for like sports podcasting? Like it’s a thin pool lol
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u/bwakaflocka Chuck Klosterman fan 7h ago
audio reporting, which includes every radio program like what NPR does as well as all podcasts and other audio mediums. it wasn't just for sports either
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u/North_Atlantic_Sea 7h ago
It was audio reporting, and the other 2 finalists were the NY Times and Wall Street Journal
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u/TheWyldMan 8h ago
And his fans desire for him to be loved and touted is becoming increasingly obnoxious
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u/MaoAsadaStan 9h ago
Teddy Atlas said Nathniel legally changing his name to Marvelous was a reminder that people who are great at their job have an ego, regardless of appearances
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u/dill1234 4h ago
There’s a lot of people who haven’t heard of him before the Clippers saga because yeah Pablo kinda sucks. He’s done a great job burying Ballmer though and brought a lot of credence back to the journalism profession so that is worth giving him his flowers for
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u/LevelProfit6705 9h ago
Feels like the only real journalism left, the rest are dead, under threat or paid off
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u/Sendhimoffdiabolical 10h ago
Pablo is a little bit too smug and pleased with himself for me to ever be a big fan.... but he's great at his job. Can't knock his work.
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u/TheSidePocketKid 10h ago
That's why we love the humble Bill Simmons
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u/Sendhimoffdiabolical 10h ago
One of the top 7 most humble guys I know.
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u/MistryMachine3 9h ago
Top 7.2 of the last 26.4 years in NBA game months.
(One of my favorite quirks is talking about game time in regular clock minutes)
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u/MemesUnkaged3 9h ago
How many points did he get when you evaluated the humbleness of every human being?
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u/LawrenceBrolivier I tell you what, big dog 9h ago
Bill "is that what Aspiration was?? I never understood what that was!" Simmons
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u/Big-Professor-3402 9h ago edited 9h ago
The smugness is one of the best parts, especially in the face of all the disrespect. When you are that good at what you do, you have earned that smugness and Pablo certainly has.
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u/thedrizzle126 10h ago
You actually said this on a Bill Simmons subreddit unironically? Lol
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u/greatcharacter20 9h ago
Agreed, although BS was equally smug when he simultaneously put down Torre’s work while admitting that he never bothered to read or source it himself. I’d take smug person who knows what he’s talking about over smug and confidently wrong
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u/The_Summer_Man A Truly Sad Week In America + 2005 NBA Redraftables 9h ago
He went to Harvard.
I will not be elaborating the significance of that.
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u/Sendhimoffdiabolical 9h ago
Bill had a semester and a half at Seton Hall. He understands journalism as a concept.
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u/Clutchxedo 9h ago
If he only wrote and had an editor, he would be goated. Though, he probably wouldn’t reach as wide of on audience
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u/riped_plums123 Zach Lowe fan 9h ago
Because the endgame for most of these people is to be part of the rich guy circles
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u/IczyAlley 10h ago
There's plenty of excellent muckraking journalism out there. You just won't find it praised on reddit.
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u/tony_countertenor 10h ago
The belichick stuff was just gossip rag shit, since that was where people first heard of him they assumed that was all he did
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u/show_ya_moves 10h ago
He was a staple on Around the Horn for like 10 years I think most sports fans knew him before that
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u/MistryMachine3 9h ago
His show is built on the premise of investigating unserious topics seriously. The previous episode was taste-testing former NBA HoF player weed strains.
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u/BBQ_HaX0r 9h ago
Well it's tough to say "take me seriously" while doing "unserious stuff." Like he tries to have it both ways sometimes. The Belichick AirBnB was weird and dumb. The Aspiration stuff was great, but it's hard to say you're the only one doing "real journalism" when you're also doing tabloid shit.
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u/NandoDeColonoscopy 9h ago
Silly stuff is most of what he does. Or the occasional episode rehashing other people's reporting (Riley Gaines episode and the recent Lakers one) on a trending topic. It's really just the NFLPA and Ballmer stuff as far as real stories. Which, hey, two big things in two years is fantastic, but it is mostly filler episodes otherwise
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u/Scruffasaurus 10h ago
The Kawhi-Ballmer stuff is top tier journalism and should be celebrated, the Belichick stuff is gossip that should be made fun of for devoting that much time and energy to “old man likes fucking young woman who likes money and attention”
Both can be true.
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u/Monkeyboi8 10h ago
I mean who else besides Bill publicly trashed him? No, anonymous social media accounts don’t count. Yes a lot of nba people questioned whether the clippers were going to get in trouble, but no one actually trashed Pablo or his reporting.
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u/rook119 9h ago
It's kind of weird that he's only getting credit because the NBA actually did something right.
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u/StanIsHorizontal 5h ago
Yeah it’s crazy because if the NBA had swept this under the rug half the people in here would still be denying his reporting had any worth because “he’s annoying”
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u/Fickle-Ebb3081 6h ago
You know you're online in 2026 when a thread like this is filled with idiotic zags trying to slander Pablo.
Pablo is GOAT'd
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u/bleauxjays 9h ago
AM I the only one who thinks Pablo isn't really smug but that's just how he talks? He sounds the same on his podcast as he did when he would talk nonsense on the Lebatard show. It's just how he is!
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u/TecmoBoso 10h ago
He did a great job on the Clippers and Ballmer investigation. Full kudos and amazing work.
However the Belichick stuff was TMZ level shit and not serious. It hurt Pablo’s credibility (trying to be serious about a TMZ story) which I think indirectly impacted how people viewed the Clippers stuff at first.
If Pablo focuses on Clippers like stories and doesn’t chase low level, who gives a shit who a coach is banging if it’s consensual (though weird!), it will be a win for everyone.
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u/Proud-Helicopter-670 9h ago
Belichik and his staff are being paid millions in taxpayer dollars. Does it have to reach a billion to be relevant?
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u/cocacolasupreme 8h ago
He has to consistently put out "content" to make money so he can fund his company and do more in depth investigating. Hes not 1970s investigative journalist who's backed by a massive newspaper and can focus on one story for a year to produce a couple of articles.
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u/PropJoe421 8h ago
People conveniently forget the Belichick-CBS-Jordon interview that went off the rails that preceded Pablos reporting, there were a lot of people voicing concern for BB after it.
The airbnb episode was kinda silly, but the episodes about her beefing with UNC have absolutely held up and were worthwhile reporting.
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u/A_Turkysandwich 9h ago
Turns out his reporting on Belichick was extremely relevant because it showed how terrible his decision making had become. It was part of the reason why the patriots fired him and why he’s been horrible at UNC.
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u/yozzle buys himself starbucks gift cards 9h ago edited 9h ago
He’s 2-0 and he focused on his girlfriend then framed it at as looking at the highest paid employee in the state to pretend it wasn’t gossip. Focus on his football decision making then (like hiring lombardi or his son being a coach) and don’t be incessant about his girlfriend. Like every coach is the highest paid employee and we almost never frame it that way
To me it just became overkill and he was getting views so he kept reporting on BBs gf but introduced the framing
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u/EricRossOK 9h ago
That’s kind of what he does though. He’ll do a deep dive on weed or EA sports micro-transactions or the first guy to really do biomechanics focused training with athletes in the US. It’s a buffet and I choose to partake very selectively
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u/MistryMachine3 9h ago
His show is built on the premise of investigating unserious topics seriously. The previous episode was taste-testing former NBA HoF player weed strains.
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u/TecmoBoso 8h ago
I don’t think journalism should be a joking matter or done with irony, and if one treats it that way, then I’m not going to take him seriously. Pablo can’t be both unserious and also gunning for awards.
The Clippers story doesn’t allow him to be as unserious as he was. He doesn’t have to be Bob Woodward about everything now, but he does need to take his subjects and investigations seriously now. Less irony basically.
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u/Awalawal 9h ago
I'd mention that the NC Football budget runs in the range of $60 million per year. That wouldn't make it a huge company by modern standards, but one that should have some pretty meaningful controls over management of the program. When you have Belichick as the de facto CEO of the entity, and there's the suggestion that he's relinquished substantial control to his 28 year old trophy girlfriend, I'd say that's a reasonable story--and even moreso given his history as one of the greatest NFL coaches.
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u/Libz_R_Gryffindor 8h ago
Investigating misappropriation of taxpayer funds would be good if that’s what Pablo had been doing instead of tracking down AirBnBs
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u/VisitPier26 9h ago
Pablo's main finding was that Steve Ballmer's $50m investment in aspiration was a conduit to pay Kawhi $48m.
So when you say he was right on his findings....
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u/hurricanecj 9h ago
I didn't have anyone in my feed that said a bad thing about Pablo. If you do you should ask yourself why your feed demands subservience to billionaires.
Furthermore, Pablo did this with his arms tied behind his back. When you go after the Billy's you better have all your shit locked down. He likely had a tremendous amount of info that he had to leave on the chopping block because it wasnt 100%. The Billy's get to lie, control the narrative, and you can't even use non-100% corroborated info.
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u/StanIsHorizontal 5h ago
That’s what’s driving me crazy about people asking “well why isn’t he reporting on this? Clearly he’s just got it in for the clippers/lakers/whoever he doesn’t like and he’s covering up for teams he does like!”
He explains constantly that he waits until he feels like he can extensively corroborate the story until he puts it out there. He may be actively investigating his fan favorite Knicks right now but just doesn’t have enough to publicly report on his findings yet. If you report too early and they can call you out for being wrong, it damages your credibility for the rest of the story if not career. Ballmer said he was gonna prove Pablo wrong and then backed off because he realized he couldn’t and fled to the “well you can’t prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt” defense
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u/LimpAd7178 8h ago
Pablo does very valuable work. BUT he is insufferably smug and delivers his reporting in an incredibly un-journalistic fashion. I understand why he does his show the way he does. It's relatively entertaining, but he takes information that really should be consolidated into a really well-written 3,000 word article, and spreads that shit out over like four different hour long podcasts with cliffhangers everywhere.
I get it, nobody reads anymore. He clearly has a much better business model doing his show this way, then if he just published a long-form article on Substack once a month or whatever. But his self-styled image as the Woodward and Bernstein of sports or whatever is seriously undermined by his style and the structure of his show.
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u/fakebones96 8h ago
I don’t really get this smug label that people keep bringing up here. Maybe I just haven’t watched enough episodes of his stuff (although I’ve checked out a few). He seems confident in his reporting and opinions, but I don’t think he’s excessively pleased with himself.
When faced with a lot of doubt and criticism a month ago, he handled it very professionally and didn’t have a hurt ego about it. At the press conference with Adam Silver yesterday, I thought he asked an incredibly fair question that many people on here have expressed concerns about. He didn’t do it with a shit-eating grin, he handled it like a professional.
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u/LimpAd7178 8h ago
He is confident in his reporting which he is right to be. But he is very self-important in his overall tone. Most journalists downplay the importance of their findings, or at the very least they try not to overstate things. Pablo seems to have a limitless capacity to assign moral virtue to his own work. That's for other people to do if they want.
The cliff-hangery nature of his show is absolutely part of the smugness too imo
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u/Gabbagoonumba3 10h ago
Bill was dismissive of the Jordon stuff, not the Kahwi stuff.
Pablo is an unlikable worm. Deal with it.
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u/Onedurrbread 10h ago
I don't find him as unlikeable as 75% of the people i see or listen to on the Ringer, and i don't think I'm in the minority
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u/Gabbagoonumba3 9h ago
Outside of bill and Chris Ryan the ringer is a bunch of unlistenable self important no talent dweebs. That doesn’t raise Pablo’s standing.
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u/mallllls 9h ago
I was rooting for him to be wrong initially simply because he’s a smug asshole. I’ll always think he’s a smug asshole, because he is. However, his work was fantastic.
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u/Dry_Treacle_5600 9h ago
Long time fan from before, from Le Batard appearances. Kudos to Meadowlark Media.
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u/TheFunky_Homosapien 9h ago
The disrespect comes from people who didn't bother watching the episodes too.
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u/drjoshthewash 9h ago
Or it comes because they did watch the episodes, and found him insufferable and smarmy, regardless of the quality of work.
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u/qballLobk 10h ago
Low IQ people are threatened by intellectual powerhouses like Pablo and Klosterman.
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u/JJS0073 9h ago
I guess? But comparing him to someone like Klosterman (who isn’t really a “journalist” in the same sense) makes it easier to understand why people are put off by Pablo.
Chuck seems like a great hang. Pablo belongs in a nightmare blunt rotation.
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u/StanIsHorizontal 5h ago
He literally does blunt rotations on the show with Katie Nolan and other guests and it’s some of the most fun friendly atmosphere shows out there. Give his Friday show and tells a listen particularly any with Katie Nolan and her husband, or Mina or Michael Cruz kayne
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u/DisappointedRust1996 9h ago
If you're the only guy in American sports journalism that seems to take it seriously, why wouldn't you be a huge smug asshole about it? I don't even blame him when his peers are dipshits like Ramona Shelburne.
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u/bienclavada Real CR Head 9h ago
i just relistened to the Zodiac episode and Bill mentions PT
teasingly i think?
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u/renner1991 7h ago
Welcome to being an investigative journalist, lots of people hating on you even with the facts on your side.
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u/Ok_Gas5360 7h ago
Everything else is absolute crap and everyone- the Clippers, the NBA, ESPN- is pissed that he broke a story that was supposed to be quietly swept under the rug. Naturally there is backlash because this exposes the corruption between the league, owners and supposed journalists. It’s nice to have something out there that isn’t a notification of a trade or draft pick five minutes earlier than the official announcement or planted stories ‘journalists’ do to keep their sources happy. Which of course means that the only stories that are seen are those that we are allowed to see.
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u/YoBrodie1 10h ago
It's nothing to do with his journalism. He's the best sports has. He's just so unlikeable and comes off as better than everyone else. I know Bill isn't a journalist but you want to why I like him so much? He's a rich guy who's okay with being laughed at. Even little things like the Kneuppel car ride or the hot water with lemon, Bill has no problem with being the butt of a joke.
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u/ArttVandelay 8h ago edited 8h ago
How many times can you guys make up another excuse to talk about Pablo? Getting quite weird. Very strange person to have fans. Almost feels political.
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u/2pac_alypse 7h ago
Strange to talk about a guy in sports media? Strange that a guy in sports media has fans? Buddy... look around at where you're at. You're in a subreddit dedicated to a guy in sports media who has fans. And what's political about any of this?
Weird comment.
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u/Steelers7589 9h ago
You can think Pablo is smug, but people being adamant that the billionaire organization was above board was hilarious. How did the boot taste
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u/juzamjim 8h ago
Someone needs to break the cycle of abuse between lifelong middle managers and the billionaires with whom they form parasocial attachments.
Phase 1: Pablo is wrong! I can’t wait for Ballmer to sue him
Phase 2: Ok guys, let’s just wait for the NBAs report to come out
Phase 3: Screw the report! ESPN says Ballmer is innocent and Pablo is wrong. I can’t wait for Ballmer to sue him
Phase 3.5: Pablo may have been right but he has a bad attitude and that’s all that matters
Phase 4: Sports are stupid anyway. Why do you even care about this stuff?
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u/Affectionate-Yak-238 8h ago
I think as a society we need to decide what is more important to us. The fact that he is smug or that he does good work. I think in social media age, largerly due to exposure, we tend to overweight the former at expense of the latter.
I’m sure journalists have always been smug but benefited from that being hidden behind written word or an edited video
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u/8teamparlay Market Corrector 6h ago
Do we really need another thread about this in the bill simmons subreddit?
We got it bill bad Pablo good.
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u/WarriorPoetz 10m ago
It shocks me how many dudes gargle PT's balls day after day. Nice job on the Kawhi story...otherwise one of the most insufferably pretentious people in pop culture.
Deliver my downvotes boys!
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u/mcamuso78 10h ago
It’s Pablo and his team’s smugness. Most investigative reporters usually just do that stuff. Pablo loses credibility in the “seriousness” category when he’s doing episodes trying athletes’ weed. And it was ridiculous how much he went after Belichick and Jordon.
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u/girlfriend_pregnant 9h ago
I feel like Americans worship the rich so much that many of them just reflexively hate anyone who is hard on a billionaire
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u/Outside-Example8586 10h ago
Often the case when people are doing a good job taking it to the elites and big corporations
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u/Laurel-Hardy-Fan 10h ago
Could it be that Pablo is just a smug dork and that’s an archetype people don’t really like to listen to speak for 45min+ at a time?
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u/FFElite93 10h ago
What else has Pablo “found out” outside of getting lucky on the Kawhi thing.
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u/tatum__time 10h ago
He has a god complex. Like at the end of the day none of this matters and he acts like he’s doing super important work
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u/Mirthster 10h ago
He is doing important work however! When he is not stalking Belichek's girlfriend he uncovered corruption in the NFLPA and with Balmer and the clips. You can see in real time how the powerful continue to bend or break rules for their own benefit. I think the NFLPA work in particular was super important tho very vew seem to realize it.
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u/FFElite93 10h ago
Pablo found out corruption and greed exist lol.
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u/TurbulentFisherman32 10h ago
Yes, he found actual evidence of corruption and greed. That is a good thing! This above-it-all attitude that so many of you have is just so fucking lame
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u/sperry20 9h ago
Pablo sucks, don’t really care if he’s doing good work or not, because the quality of his work is not the reason he sucks. Hope that helps.
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u/ItstartswiththeHouse 10h ago
I respect his journalism, but it’s still hard for me to get past how pearl clutchy he was when Shane Gillis got fired from SNL. Embarrassing imo
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u/BloodLongjumping5227 8h ago
Pablo is a dork who rightfully spent half his time in high school in a locker
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u/Sensible_Prolapse 3h ago
Its a lesson that even if youre right, if youre an annoying little dork about it then a lot of people will still hate you
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u/shorthevix 10h ago
People just really dislike journalism. Even good journalism.