ZoomSlowik

DePaul wasn't a very good team with Koshwal in the lineup, they're terrible without him.

I don't get that trade at all from Charlotte's perspective. Richardson is the best player in the deal by a fairly wide margin and they don't really save any money either. Bell's 5 mil salary does come off the payroll in 2010, but Diaw is likely there until 2012 (player option) while Richardson will be off the books in 2011. Looks like a steal for the Suns.

I'm pretty sure the "update" was the records on the page. All of those BCS ranks are exactly the same as the numbers from last week.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Dec 5, 2008 -> 11:38 AM) The person above me should worry about his own team that rests below mine. Hey, just echoing what you said. The person above me really likes making trades, seemingly just for the sake of making trades at times.

The person above me gave up a bit too much to get Derrick Rose in our keeper league.

FSU was pretty horrid, they turned it over on like every other posession. That said, NU is no longer a complete joke inside (though still not amazing), and if you let Craig Moore get open shots he'll burn you.

The Georgia Tech/Penn State game was more interesting than I expected. Gani Lawal is a beast.

QUOTE (rangercal @ Dec 1, 2008 -> 09:12 PM) True. MNF The person below me spends 20% or more of their average day in front of a computer True by a comfortable margin. The person below me spends more time than they'd like to admit preparing for a fantasy draft and/or filling out their NCAA bracket.

I always get some amazingly goofy s*** when I put it on shuffle, so this should be good... Get By- Talib Kweli Sir Duke- Stevie Wonder Amigos- Yan We featuring Huey Dunbar (yes, I listen to salsa and reggaeton) Can't See Me- 2Pac A Puro Dolor- Son By Four Paint it Black- Rolling Stones Around the Bend- Creedance Clearwater Revival King of the Dancehall- Beanie Man Love- Musiq Go U Northwestern- Northwestern band Waits for comments on my varied taste in music.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Nov 23, 2008 -> 09:03 PM) Curry's assist numbers are pretty ridiculous. His PG skills left a little to be desired in the only game I've seen him this year, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a team take a chance on him in a weak draft. Yeah, he's off to a better start in that area, though it remains to be seen whether he can do that consistently while he's their primary scorer, especially since he's historically been better off the ball. I see him as more of a mid-first anyways because he doesn't have ideal height or athleticism besides the PG questions. You never know what years teams are going to break patterns though, at this point last year no one thought DeAndre Jordan would fall as low as he did. Plus after the first few picks this draft looks like quite a crapshoot.

Knowing NBA people someone like Austin Daye will probably make the top-10 and Stephen Curry will slide. I know he's by far the best scorer out there, but they're not exactly fond of 6'0" shooting guards, unless they're a superfreak like Iverson.

QUOTE (fathom @ Nov 23, 2008 -> 02:25 PM) B.J. Mullens looks horrible so far. Brandon Jennings could be a very high pick, as could A-F Aminu. To be fair, it's only been one game. I know he still has to perform, but the general consensus seems to be with his size and athleticism he won't fall far unless he has a horrendous year, especially given that this draft appears to be low on high-ceiling players. Jennings will be an interesting situation, on talent he could crack the top-5, but we don't really know if/how playing in Europe will affect his stock. Yeah, Aminu can definitely be up there as well, though as a SF he's going to have to dominate to go that high (which he is doing so far). I could see Greg Monroe potentially sneaking in there as well. The general consensus is that he has the talent but hasn't always put forth the effort, and he appears to be off to a dominant start.

Top-3 picks unless something very weird happens are Griffin, BJ Mullens and Ricky Rubio. Thus far Griffin looks like the front-runner, and though he appears to have a ton of upside Mullens could pull a DeAndre Jordan I guess.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Nov 22, 2008 -> 05:43 PM) Kaman would be a great fit and would fit in with the core. I'd even trade Deng in a package for him because Deng is really not fitting into the current system (and I love Luol). Kaman/Gooden is a legit 4/5 combo with Rose a legit 1. You'd than just need to find the 2/3's and those are typically the easiest positions to fill on the court. Deng is obviously too much, but a healthy Hinrich and Tyrus Thomas or Noah plus a pick could intrigue the Clippers. They can't really move Deng because he's a base year compensation player, meaning he'd only count as a $4.5 mil player (half of his salary this season) in any trade even though his contract is actually in the 9-14 range for the length of his contract. I also kind of doubt they'd want an $8 mil backup PG back in the trade. I would think the package most likely to be accepted would be Gooden and his expiring deal, Tyrus or Noah, and one or two lottery-protected 1st rounders.

QUOTE (MurcieOne @ Nov 21, 2008 -> 11:45 PM) Rose looks like he hurt his hand in the final moments of tonights game.... f***. Actually, he took a knee to the hip/groin area (judging by his reaction it was the latter). Looks painful but not serious, If I had to guess I'd say he misses one game tops.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 21, 2008 -> 10:59 PM) Frankly, if the Clippers were actually intent on building long-term, they'd jump at a deal like Hinrich and Gooden for Kaman + maybe Mobely or something like that, or maybe try to get us to throw in one of the younger bigs along with Hinrich for Kaman. After the Brand Fiasco, they need to realize they're back to almost square 1 in a conference where they don't have a shot, and they need to clear cap space and look for draft picks or guys with contracts like Hinrich - that go down with time. But that's why they're the clippers. Mobley and Thomas are gone already, so right now they don't really have any "dead weight" contracts on their roster that we could eat, and quite frankly Tyrus and Noah have been terrible this year and probably don't have a whole lot of value. Adding an $8 mil a year backup PG doesn't exactly help either, and I'd imagine they'd rather try to develop Gordon than play Kirk at the 2. I have to think that if they really want to move him there are better options, if nothing else Charlotte probably offered Gerald Wallace in that scenario that made it to the press a while ago, if nothing else that is probably still there. Acquiring someone like a Kevin Martin (just a hypothetical, doubt they do it since they have Miller and Hawes and Thompson have started well) would make far more sense, and I would think they could get someone to give up a bunch for a 26 year old big man signed to a reasonable deal. I just can't see them totally starting over given that they just acquired Randolph, Camby and Davis this year, and if they did trade Kaman to accomplish that they'd probably want something more along the lines of good young players (which outside of Rose we don't have) or high picks (which we probably shouldn't give up given our lack of quality options). Unless it's a flat out salary dump I don't really like our chances to complete a deal, this isn't the 06/07 season where we had numerous attractive pieces and sat on them. Even if they took Hughes' contract, which seems unlikely since they just gave up a bunch of money that expires in 2010 and actually ADDED future financial commitments, they'd have to sign someone better than Kaman to make progress. I don't see any realistic package that we can send them that makes them a better team or gives them a real chance to be better down the road, so we'd have to count on some serious desperation and/or stupidity. I do suppose that is possible though considering they just acquired another big man with 3 years at about 17 per year left when they already had two starting caliber bigs that are making decent money.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 21, 2008 -> 08:23 PM) The Bulls have a ton of bargaining chips, the Clippers just don't want/need them. 2 large expiring contracts, multiple young guys, couple of trade-able veterans with contracts that actually decrease with time. But unless they're willing to go to the total rebuild and shoot for a 2010 expiring contract, they won't take it. Okay, maybe I should have rephrased that to say GOOD trading chips, the kind that can bring in a solid big man in his mid-20's like Kaman. We're not trading Rose, Deng is a BYC player and thus very difficult, if not impossible to move, and Gordon would also be very difficult to trade. So we're basically left praying that they'll take something like Gooden, Tyrus/Noah and a lottery protected first or that they really like Hinrich or Nocioni, which isn't exactly an overwhelming package. I doubt Hughes' contract would interest them considering they just gave up two other dead-weight type contracts that expire in 2010 with Mobley and Thomas.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Nov 21, 2008 -> 08:23 PM) And damn me for bringing you out of your fantasies you want to call reality. The Bulls' Opponents PER against SG is 11.9 which is 2nd lowest on the team. Between 2nd and 3rd there is a decent gap of 1.6 and between Gordon and our bigs, 21.1 and 23.1 for PF & C respectively. Which shows the true story on how our season is. Gordon has been disrupting opposing team's SG's while Deng does a decent job and our big men are atrocious and any big men facing the Bulls is going to have a field day. I was surprised to see Rose have an opposing PER of 11.4, which indicates a huge improvement from where he was about 2 weeks ago. So yeah, the whole Gordon is terrible defensively and doesn't deserve a large contract because he's 6'2 and not 6'7 has no credibility. Give me a 6'2 basketball player over a 6'7 bum (Hughes anyone?) 1) I don't think anyone has argued that Gordon has played poorly so far, outside of some scattered groans about the last two games. 2) I don't think anyone has argued that Larry Hughes or Kirk Hinrich is a better option at the moment, or that our big men are good. 3) That said, which has more weight in determining his defensive value, the 12 games of data from this season or the 19.2 PER he allowed in the 72 games last year while playing SG and 19.7 at PG? For every small-sample size stat you want to throw out there are larger samples from last year that show how bad he was at the defense end. Even this year he's fallen from almost a -7 points/100 posessions rating on defense end peak a few games ago to only a -1.6 and falling right now. He is a very talented shooter that can score in bunches, but that's about it. If they can sign him for around 10 mil or less you won't hear me complain, the problem is it sounds like he wants a fair amount more than that and that he won't be getting it from the Bulls.

I would think a trade of either Camby or Kaman is next, otherwise that's going to be a pain to split their minutes. Too bad the Bulls don't have a whole lot of bargaining chips anymore, Kaman would be a great fit.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Nov 21, 2008 -> 02:52 PM) In his defense, he's also the only scorer on the court. Gordon would be a tremendous asset in a sixth man role. In his current role on the current team, not so much, but without him, we'd probably have the worse offense of all time. Even without Gordon we'd be at worst a push with the Thunder.

When did Isaiah Thomas become the GM of the Warriors? They now have 4 guards/small forwards that derive most of their value from scoring and none of them are particularly good ball-handlers. That backcourt looks like a disaster waiting to happen.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Nov 21, 2008 -> 02:21 AM) This post shows me you do not watch much basketball. Gordon's defense is a non-issue. Skiles has said he's vastly better since his rookie year and is above average and that was before he left/was fired. Ben's an even better defender this year and he has great technique. The fact that he's 6'2 does not mean a thing. He's by far the best SG on the team and by far a top 2 player on this team and it's not even close. He's a SG. No one said he was a super duper star. He's an All-Star maybe, but no one called him Kobe. And by the way, his PER before the last 2 games was ridiculous on the season. I believe he had a PER of 24 which IIRC was better than Rose this season. And I'm pretty sure his PER is still at around Rose's level or near it. So Gordon's not only an efficient shooter, he's an efficient offensive player. Gordon's PER on the season is 19.51 including the last two games. Rose on the season has a per of 18.18. Just saying Gordon actually plays defense doesn't make it so. Gordon is a suspect defender because of his lack of size/length, especially on shooting guards (The Skiles thing you reference was against PG's, which doesn't always happen given the matchups and forces another suspect defender onto the 2-guard if it does. Consider that the guy that said that did virtually everything he could to not start Gordon and limit his minutes.), any scout will tell you that and the stats will back that up. The Bulls' defense was 8 and a half points better per 100 posessions on defense when he was off the court last season, and even with his offensive prowess the offense was only .8 points better when he was on the floor. Granted that figure is better so far this season, but it's a small sample size (his preciptitous drop in PER the last two games shows how small) and the stats have gone down hill since he was inserted into the starting lineup. There's no doubt that he had been playing well before the last two and that he's clearly at worst our second best scorer, but he's also highly streaky as the last two games have shown and like the rest of the team can be replaced with a little effort with someone that isn't quite as explosive but is more well-rounded and have a similar impact. If he were reasonable with his contract of course bring him back, but the last thing the Bulls need is another decent but not great player getting 10 mil+ a year, that seriously backfired with Hinrich and Deng isn't exactly off to a good start on that either despite having a higher PER than Gordon in each of the last 3 seasons. I'm also curious as to how the fact that Gordon's PER in a 12 game sample (which is also a fair amount over his career totals) is higher than that of Rose is relevant. Comparing an above average player in his 5th season to a barely 20 year old rookie playing a position where even the best young players typically struggle quite a bit isn't exactly even.

Ben Gordon has among the highest scoring rates in the league, there's a difference between that and scoring efficiency. If he were the most efficient scorer he would have a very high points-to-shots ratio resulting from a large number of free throws, a high field goal percentage, and/or a high number of 3's. His performance in that area has ranged from decent to pretty good. What's he's higher in is scoring rate, or points per 48 minutes. That means that he shoots/scores at a higher rate than most players in the league. 15-16 shots is a lot for a guy that typically plays 30-33 minutes. That's not exactly a bad thing, though it can get quite frustrating if he's not shooting well.

I'm pretty sure that Big Ten Network only has the rights to games played in Big Ten stadiums.

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Nov 19, 2008 -> 03:38 PM) Actually since you called Orlando average, I think we've won about 6 out of 7 (albeit we've had a pretty soft schedule thus far). I think that was me actually. The schedule helped a bit, especially with Calderon not playing, but they still have to win those and Philly and Dallas aren't exactly bottom feeders. Pietrus and Nelson put up some nice games in that stretch. I still say their jumper-happy ways will come back to bite them against quality teams though.