is chuck klosterman really that good?

i have to admit: it took me a while to give chuck klosterman a chance. nothing is more annoying than people telling you you're going to love a writer who writes rambling non-fiction essays because they remind them of something you could write, because i know that either 1) i'll read them and be frustrated that said writer missed the point, or 2) i'll read them and be jealous and pissed that i'm actually just a living, worse version of someone else. after enough time, though, and a stupid enough title, sex, drugs, and coacoapuffs did suck me in. and i enjoyed it. there were flaws, but really i felt like i was having a conversation with a superior peer, which is a nice way (internally directed) of saying he falls under #2. and since then, c.k. continues to impress. his most recent article in espn the mag, for instance, about the nba's inherent flaws was spot on. while two of the three reasons are points i have argued for years, i never could have articulated them as well nor contextualized and framed them in such an overarching, sensible, point-making way.

but is he really that good? a few years ago i would have made similar claims about bill simmons, but now i kind of think he's a boston obsessed overplayed heteronormative less clever klosterman who admires david foster wallace a little too much just because he acknowledges that he's a bit over his head. or am i being too cruel to the sports guy because of an inbred accidental inherent disdain for my former sports-casting directed self and all that was attached to it?