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Laughed Pretty Hard Watching the Trailer for ESPN’s New Ben Simmons Documentary
By Matt Schultz
Published:
Ben Simmons has long done anything and everything he can to stay in the news, and his next flailing grasp at relevancy will be an ESPN documentary coming in October:
[Interspersed with broadcast clips/audio of old Ben Simmons games and dramatic synthy music:]
UNKNOWN VOICE: “Why you so at peace on the water? Why you so at peace on the boat? “
BEN: “When you take the noise away from everything… it’s easier to not worry about the other things.”
UNKNOWN VOICE: “Everybody has something they’re gonna be remembered for.”
UNKNOWN VOICE: “At one point did you feel like things in Philadelphia were going in the wrong direction?”
BEN “(You want) the truth?”
UNKNOWN VOICE: “Yeah.”
[End of trailer.]
So damn funny. I’ve watched this a few times now and I’m still laughing every time. Some stuff that I particularly enjoyed:
- Excellent dramatics-near-water ambiance music throughout. Sounds like if Stranger Things took place at a lake house. Perfect for a documentary about a guy who isn’t as good at basketball as he feels entitled to be, but still wants to be famous more than anything.
- Ben wanted this line to sound wise so badly: “When you take the noise away from everything… it’s easier to not worry about the other things.” But it ended up sounding nervous and jumbled and didn’t really make any sense.
- The shots of the water look awesome, which means this documentary had to be so expensive.
- Can’t help but wonder if Ben and his PR team are paying for this documentary.
- Whole thing feels like when Philip Seymour Hoffman reveals he paid the documentary crew to follow him around in Along Came Polly:
- Very funny shot of him looking at his phone on the boat, despite him saying just moments before that the boat is where he gets away from all the outside noise:
- The trailer seems to be a retread of stuff Ben just talked about with Men’s Health back in June, which gave me a reason to go back and read all the wild stuff he said in that interview.
Really good stuff here, Ben. Can’t wait to watch.
Kinkead: hope they include the part where Ben refused to shoot the fucking basketball and then quit on the Sixers
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…) email: M.Schultz@sportradar.com