Chisoxfn

QUOTE (bmags @ Feb 2, 2016 -> 07:54 AM) I will say the Bulls team last year had some really bad runs when Dunleavy was out of lineup, much stronger with him in it. He is one of the few players who plays within the flow of an offense. He always makes decisions quickly and keeps things moving. Love him as a player. It isn't that Dunleavy is great, it is that Dunleavy replaces guys who consistently seem to be negative players. So the collective difference essentially rates MJD as a better player than he is. Snell, Niko, and Doug have relatively consistently been awful. They all have had there moments but from a consistent perspetcive, they are consistently poor players. Even Snell, who once plays consistent defense seems to have lost that edge too and when it comes to Niko and Doug, if they aren't scoring, they are worthless cause they are getting torched defensively. And yes, as someone else mentioned, our pick and roll d is bad. That said, our OPP FG % is best in the league (or was...not sure if someone passed us in past couple days).

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 2, 2016 -> 07:45 AM) I haven't been impressed with Hoiberg, but I haven't really seen the Trestman level screw ups either. I think he's a guy that inherited a team with expectations and then immediately got hit with really tough injuries. Not having Dunleavy is a huge missing component to this team. People say he's old, but he's a very smart player, a very good shooter, and a guy that moves without the ball. One of the few on the roster that does that well and that's really what this team is missing. He's also lost Noah and Rose for some games. Moore and Hinrich here and there. And now Mirotic. That's not easy. This team is probably a lost cause, but getting the 3 position solidified with Dunleavy is going to help immensely IMO, assuming he's 100%. That's all that really matters at this point. Either they reach their peak at the end of the year heading into the playoffs, or they continue to play .500 ball and bow out early. No sense in getting all worked up over it before the All-Star break. Good post. My big thing I struggle with is Snell / Niko / Dougie and collectively where they have been this year. Gar deserves a lot of blame and this situation is very difficult for a first year coach and injuries absolutely have played a factor but as I said, I'm confident this would be a better team with Thibs (than again, I'd say that about almost any team in the league cause I think Thibs is the man).

QUOTE (bmags @ Feb 2, 2016 -> 07:44 AM) One thing that seems to be much different to me: -Under Hoiberg, when players have lost confidence, it seems like they are encouraged to go out and try and shoot more and create to get out of the slump. Play more individual. -Under Thibs, if you lost it, you earned your PT by focusing on the little things, playing d and rebounding and playing within your role, to then get time to shoot out of it. I think that plays a part of it. There's a "I need to shoot out of my struggles" we see more on this team, like Jimmy doing stepbacks galore yesterday. Yeah...I am totally sick of Hoiberg. He's young and I want to give him the benefit of the doubt but this team looks lost and yes, players should be blamed, and the front office deserves a lot of that blame, but Hoiberg's coaching leaves a lot to be desired. Yesterdays game was just absolutely frustrating to watch. I think you hit the nail on the head regarding the difference of the two players and I look at everyone whose taken steps back and while I'm not blaming Hoiberg entirely for that regression, I do think this team would absolutely be better with Thibs. I will give Pax the benefit of the doubt but Gar is absolutely done. Now I do hope Hoiberg somehow learns and pulls it out (by all accounts he's a good guy and he isn't Trestman...Trestman never played the game and was never near as successful as Hoiberg was). But things are a mess right now and I think Hoiberg's laid back style is hurting things at this point.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-po...-caucuses-work/ Educational piece on what a caucus is and how it works (in relation to Iowa). Some opinion in there as well, but thought some people might find it useful.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jan 30, 2016 -> 09:44 PM) Looks like it was the right time to sell on Montas. A preseason ranking tells me nothing about the right time to sell on Montas. The key is going to be his production.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 1, 2016 -> 12:49 PM) You don't attack Trump. You just feed the beast. Set him up to sound like a jackass, which he will do for you. That will continue to fire up the base, but equally repel anyone not in that deep base, thus ensuring a Dem victory. I still don't believe Trump wins the nomination anyway. If he wins Iowa, I see him taking the nomination. If he doesn't, than sure, something interesting could happen. Even than, I feel like it is Cruz. The non Cruz / Trump republicans need to figure out which one is going to stay in the race and the rest absolutely need to disappear and fast (presumably the first to win a state's primary of the non Cruz / Trump group will be the one who "stays" in the race).

One other point on yesterday's game. There must have been 7 or 8 situations in the first three quarters (I didn't bother with the 4th quarter) where the Butler was down in the post with Paul on him and the Bulls would swing by ball to the complete opposite side of the court and take an awful shot (often times with a combination of our bench unit out there). Why the hell isn't Butler given the ball every time in that situation. Pretty simple mismatch and yet they don't use it to there advantage. Everything should play off of Butler in that situation. Roster is obviously flawed (magnified from injures to MJD / Noah / Niko), but I also don't exhude confidence from what we are doing on the court, in addition to the development struggles from Niko and Snell (they have both regressed significantly). Doug is playing better but dude was hurt and missed a ton of time last season so I don't think it was hard to say he'd get better.

If you take out the 2 games he left early, Rose has averaged 20.1 ppg on 54.2% TS in his last 13 games. It's certainly his best month scoring-wise since the ACL injury. It seems sustainable, too - it's not like he's been on fire from outside. His turnovers have been ugly but a lot of them have been partly due to him moving much quicker and being more aggressive (which I would hope get cleaned up with time). Very promising as a whole. I'd also argue that he should start to get some more calls (not like normal calls cause Rose has never gotten calls, but this season has been ridiculous on how little calls he gets). The past two weeks has been the best I've seen Rose look (from a consistency perspective as well) since his injury. He still has tons of flaws to correct, but the other big thing is, his game has passed the eye test. He's had a lot of really terrific finishes around the basket and has even started to use his a variation of his jump stop (not near as aggressive / violent as his pre-injury jump stop, but still a jump stop either way). Some of Rose's finishes last night with Jordan in the vicinity were vintage Rose. The real question is whether his health will continue to be a positive and if it is, I see no reason to think Rose won't continue to get better (and I also see no reason that this is a mirage). Everything I've seen thus far during this stretch is sustainable (excluding injuries) and there are quite a few things that could still be better, imo. Now clearly Rose still needs to do more when he doens't have the basket and the offense has to figure s*** out cause it looks so ugly at times, but I'm also more and more convinced that has a lot to do with the fact that we have a lot of really s***ty role players too (the days of this being a deep team are over and it is a myth). On any given night we could have 4 or 5 just horrendous players who get significant minutes (Brooks / Snell / McD / Mirotic / Moore are all so inconsistent that they can all be absolute black hole awful...Hinrich probably should fit in this camp but so little is expected of him and he's still such a stable passer / defender). Prediction: I think the Bulls will hit there best streak of basketball about 3 weeks after Dunleavy is back. I do wonder if they acquire someone like Deng.

My best advice is don't do it (I have no personal experience but I've heard my dad, whose been in the business 40 plus years, echo those sentiments many times). So many potential things that can get you in trouble (that the upside isn't worth it, unless you know exactly what you are doing).

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Feb 1, 2016 -> 08:42 AM) I think Moss was better. Moss was the other guy who even came close in my opinion. I felt like Megatron was more dominant, that said, I underrate Moss to 2nd because I felt like he relied so much on his pure speed vs. Megatron who was just a total monster. Reality is they both had similar chuck the s*** out of the ball QB's to deal with (Daunte & Stafford are pretty similar). I can't argue Moss (as I gave it a lot of thought but than just think of how Calvin was both fast and physical).

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Feb 1, 2016 -> 08:24 AM) Lacking what? He had one outlier season, last season(which was unfortunate for him). And when he was able to play, he mattered, a LOT. They need to sign him, not f*** around with the franchise tag Yeah I get so tired of the Jeffrey schtick. He was so dominating when he was on the field and this was the only season where he had any issues missing games. s*** happens but when he was out there, you saw how good he was. Over a full season, he would have had a career high in receiving yards.

QUOTE (knightni @ Feb 1, 2016 -> 08:08 AM) http://espn.go.com/blog/detroit-lions/post...f-lions-targets That is great, but the Bears will use the franchise tag so that means worse case, Jeffrey has 2 more years until Lions can get him (or best case depending on whose shoes you are in). Reality with the franchise tag in play, Jeffrey isn't going anywhere (unless someone wants to make a significant trade offer). Sucks Megatron is retiring (from a selfish perspective that he was so fun to watch, that said, he's accomplished a ton and he's gotten beat up the past few years, so if he's ready, I wish him the best and I'll be glad not to see him go up against our non-peanut db's). In his prime, he was the most impressive wideout I ever saw.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 30, 2016 -> 01:49 PM) Listening to the RV/RH seminar this morning , it certainly seemed they are hoping to sign someone who has a QO attached. Hahn gave the stock answer about the team being good enough right now, but repeated several times the the true deadline was opening day. OF, IF, and pitcher are all targets. He doesn't like to name names either, but did mention a Matt Thornton reunion isn't going to happen. I agree. I come out of Soxfest (based upon the reports), excited about the fact that they clearly have there foot on the pedal and are saying all the right things. It is evident if this club was done or it was just minor retooling that was intended, you'd hear a statement like, well we are always looking to get better, but we are happy with our current team. What I see now is a much stronger statement about the fact that they aren't done. Always like what I hear about focus on cleaning things up, etc, plus even the comment about LaRoche was a strong comment to make (and sends a positive message...i.e., you want to play, your contract won't justify it).

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 30, 2016 -> 08:35 AM) All I am saying is that it's not particularly easy for Hawk to be entirely objective in his position. Hawk could have simply said, there is no one working harder than Avi this off-season or something along those lines. But I agree, he isn't objective and when you probably first hand see / hear what Avi has done from a work ethic perspective, you probably find yourself like Hawk, cheering / rooting for the guy and wanting to put out that praise.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 30, 2016 -> 08:16 AM) What do you want him to say? He's around these guys every day. You guys were criticizing the fans for booing Avi. You don't think it's worse if Hawk gets up and rips him in front of all the fans? To me booing Hawk for that comment is much more deserved than booing Avi. Look, I'm as down as anyone on Avi as a starting everyday outfielder (that said, I'm higher than most on him in a platoon role with LaRoche), but you have to seperate the player from the stats. Avi is the same guy who has busted his butt and put in tons of time. Whether it works out for him or doesn't, to boo him is just pathetic in my eyes (he's put in as much work as possible by all accounts, busted his butt to get back from a "season" ending injury early. Whether he'll figure it out or not, who knows, but don't boo the guy cause he's doing everything he can. The exception to my boo players rule is when a guy is a character issue (i.e., criminal or if a guy is a primma donna who doesn't put in the work and sucks).

Despite the loss, at times yesterday, Rose was absolutely filthy. So athletic. He also had a span of a ton of turnovers which turned a close game into the eventual route. Reality is the Bulls are giving a lot of minutes to guys who absolutely can't contribute (especially with Niko out and even he can't contribute).

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 29, 2016 -> 01:39 PM) Expiring contracts aren't really that valuable anymore given the huge jump in the cap that's coming. Plus there's no shot the Bulls blow this up when there's a small chance of beating the Cavs and getting to the Finals. If the Bulls thought they could sign Durant, it would be valuable. Given I don't think they are going that path, than I agree, the benefit of cap space is reduced (given a relatively weak FA class).

Jennings has been a consistent 2.5 - 3 WAR guy during his career (outside of last seasons injury shortened season).

Awesome move for ND.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nflvideos/...herd/vp-BBoam1M Pretty good interview from Boozer on Rose as a teammate. Always thought highly of Boozer as a teammate.

Please somehow let Bush get back in this thing. Let cruz and trump fade. Please...pretty please.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Jan 28, 2016 -> 08:44 PM) I'd agree he has definitely looked better and is trending upwards. Good? Debatable as he has been horrible distributing the ball and I'd say he has had 5 bad games in January (might be unfair to count the Miami game but he had a bad first half before sitting out the second half), 4 really good games and 2 solid games and the team has not been good with him on the floor. I agree the team has struggled as Rose has became more aggressive, but I think it comes down to feel and the team is continuously adjusting because Rose is continuing to adjust. He's a different guy than the guy who played the first two months of the year (far better scorer...crappier passer). Offensively though this team is a mess and I am beginning to think it has something to do with the coaching. I think Hoiberg is giving the players too much control (just my perception). I also agree there are other issues and if we had a legit pg it would be easier to tell. I also will be the first to say that Hoiberg has time to learn. Everyone got spoiled by Kerr's ultimate success but Hoiberg is still extremely young in terms of coaching experience.

I'll say this, I hope Buehrle is there and I hope he is signing a 1 year deal to pitch for the Sox. If he is going to retire, than I obviously want him to sign but I'm greedy and think he still has more solid baseball left and I'd love it to happen with the Sox.

This would be great. What kept Jennings out most of last year? Presuming it is not a recurring issue, this would be a great buy-low candidate for the Sox, imo.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Jan 28, 2016 -> 08:26 PM) Yeah, he really hasn't been great. Below average although he has been better lately. He has absolutely been good over the past month or so though and is trending upward (which is nice).