As the NCAA Division I Basketball Tournament and NBA season continues throughout the spring, HBO is in the midst of premiering a nine-part documentary series about the history and legacy of the Boston Celtics. Bill Simmons, who recently signed a contract extension to remain the head of talk strategy at Spotify and continue leading and podcasting for The Ringer, served as an executive producer on the project that featured more than 80 interviews and archival footage surrounding the team. As the series moves into its episodes surrounding star forward and three-time NBA champion Larry Bird, Simmons appeared on the Dan Patrick Show to discuss the content venture.
Patrick acknowledged that while the project is regional surrounding the Celtics, Simmons and his team would want it to have national appeal. Simmons answered that they are trying to do both but that it is also akin to an old-school documentary where new shows premiere rather than being released on a streaming service all at the same time. In this sense, he felt the HBO model favors the project, and he thinks of it as creating nine one-hour movies.
“We’re really trying to dive into some stuff, and especially [with] how a franchise intersects with a city and a country,” Simmons said. “So I think for us – I felt this way when we did the first 30 for 30 and some of the other stuff I worked on – if something’s good enough, people are going to find it, so I think that was our mission this whole time.”
Simmons recollected that the idea might have come about before the global pandemic upon discovering a multipart documentary project about the Los Angeles Lakers. With a competitive fervor, he determined that they would have to come up with something better and tried to figure out the scope of the project. In considering its potential to resonate, Simmons assumed that doing a project on the Celtics could have high upside and tie into the history of the country. On top of that, he had witnessed the success of other recent projects in keeping people informed and entertained.
“I was shocked by how little people knew about anything before the 2000s about the NBA,” Simmons said. “It’s almost like most people felt the NBA started when Shaq and Kobe had the three-peat. So they had the Rodman episode in The Last Dance, and the people in my life were like, ‘Wow, that Dennis Rodman. He was crazy, huh?,’ and I’m like, ‘What? You don’t remember this?’”
Patrick recalled how going to Boston Garden felt like being on the stage for a Broadway show and thought about seeing Larry Bird warmup on the floor and by running around the upper deck. When Bird was finished on the court, Patrick would check to see if a basketball was out there, and if it was the case, he would start shooting on the basket. Simmons discussed the evolution of the NBA and divulged that Robert Parrish was one of his favorite interviews for the docuseries, having a lot of things to say and being charismatic.
Patrick followed up by saying that Isaiah did not want to do it, presumably referring to former Detroit Pistons guard Isaiah Thomas. In response, Simmons outlined that he knew why he did not want to do it and outlined that no one wants to be in sports documentaries when they are focused on the other team.
“The first 30 for 30s we did, we could get anybody, and the people were like, ‘Hey, we’re doing this documentary. Can we come film you?’ ‘Sure,’ and that started a shift in the mid-2010s, and I get it,” Simmons said. “If somebody was making a documentary about ESPN, I don’t know if I’d want to be in it, and I’m sure you would feel the same way, like, ‘Wait, how am I going to be portrayed?,’ so I get it, but it also makes these things a little bit harder and increase[s] the degree of difficulty.”
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