Bill Simmons writes the popular and influential “Sports Guy” column for ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine.

Simmons, who wrote for the Boston Herald and the Boston Phoenix during the 1990s, is a pioneer of sports journalism on the Internet. He started his award-winning Web site “The Boston Sports Guy” in 1997 and joined ESPN.com as a columnist in 2001, and in 2002, he began writing a column for ESPN The Magazine as well. His first-hand accounts from NBA All-Star, as well as his annual column on which NBA players have the most trade value, have become staples for NBA fans around the world. During the 2008 NBA Finals, Simmons’ daily ESPN.com reports generated nearly 750,000 page views per day.

His groundbreaking BS Report is the most popular podcast on ESPN.com, as well as the Internet’s most successful sports-related podcast with 400,000 to 500,000 downloads per week. He is also a contributor to ABC Sports’ NBA coverage this season.

Simmons wrote the best-selling book, Now I Can Die in Peace, a memoir of his life as a Red Sox fan. His latest work, The Book of Basketball, is a comprehensive and rollicking account of his life as an NBA fan, as well as how the league came to be and which players and teams mattered the most. The Book of Basketball will be released in October 2009.