Chisoxfn

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 14, 2014 -> 10:46 AM) The wizards may not have done anything that put them over the top, but they were also very young, and are now a year older. If Otto Porter's crap first season was just dealing with the hip injury, and he turns out to be a good player, they are a scary team. They diced the bulls apart. Nene/Gibson destroyed Noah. This is a much different team and wouldn't have gutted the Bulls without Trevor Ariza. Ariza was a better player then Pierce so that is a downgrade, imo. I don't even know how the heck Pierce plays on that team, given the fact that they benefit so significantly from their athleticism.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jul 14, 2014 -> 10:39 AM) Agreed with everything above. If the Bulls could just magically swap Dunleavy for a guard, I'd feel a lot more comfortable. I don't think anyone wants Rose getting 38 mpg, but when your only backup is Kirk, who is going to miss, at minimum, 20 games, that's a scary proposition. I can't imagine the Bulls' offseason is done yet. They should send like 5 picks with Boozer to Philly to make something happen with Richardson and Wroten. Then this team would be unstoppable. I agree it would be nice to find a SG and a PG. I wonder if they land someone like Mo Williams even (or can find a way to get creative to get a s&T for Jameer Nelson). I just don't want to send Dunleavy out for like a 3rd string guard or cap relief, that would just be stupid, given his affordable contract and how well he played last year.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 14, 2014 -> 10:33 AM) It has been incredibly inconsistent. Moreso than any other sport that uses it. I feel like there have been multiple times where the call on the screen was obvious, but the call wasn't made that direction. At other times it takes way too long to get an obvious call made. One of biggest problems with baseball is the speed of the game. Replay makes that worse and in a 162 game season, anomalies will off-set themselves. I understand in a tie-breaker game or the final game of the season it could be the difference maker, and if you really feel that strongly, like I said, only do it in September or something. But doing it all season is awful. Baseball also needs to do something to speed up at bats and breaks. They have for a long time and I don't get why they don't really hammer on it. Quicken the tempo / pace and you'll see ratings pick up, imo.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jul 14, 2014 -> 10:34 AM) Life is so much better with LeBron in Cleveland. People can (mostly) stop hating him now. This season the league is wide open. Spurs dominated last year, but will be a year older, and, well, the West is so difficult, you really don't know who will come through. I don't think the Wizards did anything to put them over the top (no Pierce won't be that difference maker). Pacers, who knows, they should be one of the 2 or 3 best teams, but you really never know. Bulls / Cavs should be 2 of the 3 best aHeat will be relevant (not a title contender) but that relevance depends on Bosh taking his game back to star levels and Wade playing a bit. Nets lose Pierce but get Lopez back, which will help. I don't think Kidd was a very good coach so they also get a coaching upgrade, but still, they are a meh team as a whole. Raptors are again solid but not a title team. I think 4 best teams (in no particular order) are Bulls, Cavs, Pacers, Wizards.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jul 14, 2014 -> 10:07 AM) Limit mileage on Rose. Healthy Rose > McDermott, so getting a guy who can give Rose legitimate rest was kind of a priority. Im not sure McDermott will be the best scorer in the draft. There are guys like Parker and Wiggins. I don't know if McDermott is even a starter. He might be more of a 6th man type. We'll have to see how well he can play defense and just how good his scoring will be. It isn't like we are talking about the #1 pick. I almost feel at this point that McDermott is getting overhyped on this board.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jul 14, 2014 -> 10:02 AM) Better off how? If the goal is to win a championship, with this roster, the only hope is that Rose is good again. You have to go for broke here, not plan for contingencies. If Rose is hurt again or isn't himself, it doesn't matter what player they could have drafted or signed because they're not going to win. McDermott at least gives you the best ceiling if Rose is back to form because he's the best scorer in the draft. Even with Love, with no Rose, this team isn't winning a title. Melo was the only guy, where we could have potentially won a title without Rose (and of course Lebron) that was available.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 14, 2014 -> 09:54 AM) You take the best player off any team, and they are screwed. We know what the Cavs are without Lebron. I like the fact that we have some young players who should improve and have some nice looking futures. If all things go right, we could win this thing, and that is great. Melo would have been fantastic but I think with Love we'd still have needed Rose (knowing we'd be losing a lot of other assets). Melo was the one shot at being able to contend either way. Now, to win (and even with Love), we need Rose to be healthy and be our best player. I think that can and will happen.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 14, 2014 -> 09:50 AM) You aren't going to get Presti to bite unless you include draft picks galore. At this point Boozer is overpaid by about 11 million, people know he's about to be amnestied, and as we saw last year, the 76ers don't really care that much about coming under the floor. It's not that harsh of a penalty. Technically the penalty is they just allocate whatever $ amount they were under the floor to the rest of the players on the Sixers, so in theory, if adding Boozer somehow helps them (and they get some sort of asset they think is helpful), then they really are getting him for free. Question is whether Boozer is better then someone else. Any dollar they go over the floor, because they added Boozer, impacts them though. I also don't know if that S&T actually works or if the Bulls would then also need to get the Lakers somehow involved too to tie in the Pau signing for it technically to work.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 14, 2014 -> 09:37 AM) Then I think you'll be disappointed. He has the 11th best wRC+ and WAR. He's a good shortstop. He will help a team down the stretch but I do not believe he is the type of player that a team view as a make or break piece. If the packages they are getting are similar to the ones the Sox were reportedly getting for Jermaine Dye in 2007 (Wily Mo Pena and Manny Delcarmen, two talented but struggling players), then I 100% agree you hang onto him. I think you can get a good package of young players for him and I think he'll be dealt. I agree with your posts but also agree w/Balta's. Both very good posts.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 14, 2014 -> 09:17 AM) I really, really like what I continue to read on Mirotic's defense, which I did not know was an asset: http://hoopshype.com/columns/david-nurse/w...-nikola-mirotic I still don't know exactly what we are getting but he has a lot of raw tools. I'm extremely excited for this season.

It sucks and should be gone. Use it in the post-season. Not needed in regular season. If you really need it in regular season, implement it in final 10 games or something. It is terrible.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 14, 2014 -> 09:08 AM) You were talking about Aaron Brooks, right? I haven't heard MarShon brooks discussed, don't really remember seeing him play at Brooklyn. I was referring to Aaron, who would be pretty realistic at the vet min.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jul 14, 2014 -> 09:02 AM) I actually like Ramon Sessions, that said, he's not on the roster. MarShon needs to show me somethin'. They better find a way to get him or someone of that ilk. I just don't know how they get him with their current cap situation. Guy made 5M a season last year. Highly doubt he takes what Bulls can offer, unless we can work a S&T with Randolph, etc, to get him. I think if we do that we can get close to 3.5M for him (under the cap rules), although somewhere I think I saw it might actually be as much as 5M, not sure how that works since Randolph just makes 1.8M). Clearly we'd have to give up a pick or something to entice the Bucks to do it.

I would expect some sort of trade in the next couple days to secure another back-court player. Not talking someone special but they'll probably use Randolph (and potentially a pick) to get him. They could also dangle Dunleavy, but if they look to move him, we better get someone good, cause I don't want to just let Dunleavy go and rely on our unproven youngsters quite yet.

Re: Cap, I stand corrected. Team is completely tapped out, can only add vet min contracts. Hinrich apparently turned down a 2 yr 8 M deal to take the Bulls offer. Total salary right now is just below 63.1M. Bulls are significantly below luxury tax threshold, which probably bodes well for a Jimmy Butler extension this year. Luxury tax threshold is 76.8M.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jul 14, 2014 -> 08:44 AM) so - rose sits out, and kirk has one of his 11 injuries a season - who plays guard? Sessions or Brooks or someone like that I presume.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jul 14, 2014 -> 08:20 AM) You keep harping on McDermott. Its kind of funny because I was one of the few who talked about him BEFORE the draft. Hes a nice player, the problem is, he isnt an ideal SF and cant play SG. So you add Gasol, Mirotic and McDermott, but you still didnt add anyone who can play SF/SG and create with the ball. Its not about the player, its the fit. As I before the Bulls drafted, said that McDermott would be good on the right team. He still can be good, the Bulls just needed something else and given the additions of Gasol/Mirotic its even more clear that a SG/SG and a PG were more important. Butler and Snell can play both positions so with McDermott, it is fine if he just plays the 3.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 14, 2014 -> 08:15 AM) Where are you reading this? Not from KC Johnson, who pretty explicitly stated BAE went to Hinrich. Unless we traded MDJ, which I hope we haven't because we have no 3, I don't see where that money is coming from. Sam Smith article indicated Hinrich took less then BAE. No one knows the money situation for certain yet though.

It is believed the Bulls still have their BAE to use on their back-up PG.

By the way, the Hinrich resigning is another example of the front office being lock-step with Thibbs. Thibbs said from the beginning he wanted Hinrich back and that was a priority move for him and low and behold Hinrich is back. Gar also indicated that was part of their plan too. So both Dougie McBuckets and Hinrich, two guys Thibbs was very vocal about wanting, are in Chicago. Seems to indicate some coesion there (not to mention all the coordinated efforts between Gar/Pax/Thibbs on the Melo chase).

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 14, 2014 -> 07:52 AM) Also who downplayed McDermott in the Summer League? I don't want anyone to think I'm not excited about watching the bulls. Our spacing with certain lineups will be much improved. I'm going to watch regardless, I'm going to convince myself we can beat the top teams regardless, but this was the last FA period (next years FA sucks) with our core in their primes. It's hard to even anticipate what Rose will be. If he truly is 2011 Rose, then the game has changed. But I worry, even if the heavy post offense will destroy in the reg. season, better teams can deny that ball going to the post and it will be up to exclusively rose to make that team offense work. I'm looking at our team, I don't see how there are more defensive holes than last year. Any subtractions would at least be lateral, and Rose/Kirk defensively is much better than Augustin/Kirk. In fact I think defensively we've upgraded. The Spurs didn't have a ton of "scorers". They have a great passing offense with a lot of shooters. We will have arguably the two best passing big men in the league at times in the same center court, one who has a very good post game as well + Taj who is a solid post player (although not near the same level of a passer) and we actually have shooters who should help create space. This is a different offense then the one Miami shut down. Also, that Miami team doesn't exist anymore.

QUOTE (TheTruth05 @ Jul 14, 2014 -> 07:47 AM) I think Augustin is basically a Piston after agreeing to 2yrs/6mil Sessions would be nice pickup tho, along the lines of vet min which is basically all the Bulls can afford now anyway. I wasn't around at all yesterday so didn't realize Augustin had signed. I agree with the posters that said with a healthy Rose, Hinrich is the better fit, however, we need to plan for Rose to miss some games and need another solid back-up who is capable of helping from the scoring perspective. This team is significantly improved from a year ago though.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 14, 2014 -> 07:23 AM) The next top of the line in his prime free agent the Bulls sign will be the first. If you or they are counting on making cap space in the future to sign these types, you and they are only kidding themselves. Rarely do these types even move. Fraschilla said Mirotic would have been top 4 in this draft and says right now he is a young Turkoglu. McBuckets scored 31 in a summer league game. It's totally downplayed. That is 2 lottery picks in this draft where most of complainers thought the Bulls should tank to get a lottery pick. Yet they complain when they trade their 2 picks to get a lottery pick. Rose is coming back. Gasol put up 20 with 19 boards agains the Defensive Player of the Year last year. Pardon me while I think that more than offsets the loss of DJ Augustin. The Bulls weren't going to get Melo and unless they totally gut their roster, no shot at Love. Be realistic. This team won 48, added 2 lottery picks, a 26 year old former MVP, and a possible HOFer with some gas left in the tank. That's not bad. The Heat isn't going to be the Heat. The Bulls, health provided, have a decent shot at the finals. Great post.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 13, 2014 -> 06:32 PM) FWIW, Real Plus Minus hated Augustin. Apparently, his defense was awful. It was. Bulls need another back-up though and a quality one. We can't play Kirk starters minutes. Kirk is perfect if we have another back-up PG and we can get him to

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jul 13, 2014 -> 06:28 PM) Wow. DJ Augustin gets 2 year 6 million and Kirk gets just under it. This is bad to be honest. Kirk gets way more than I thought and Augustin gets way less. EDIT: Augustin to Detroit. This is really bad. Bulls needed to find a way to bring both in.