ZoomSlowik

God, the Bulls just can't win, even when they have a good game. I'm so depressed watching this, especially considering we let Brand, Artest, Miller, and Brent Barry go. That makes 4/5 of a monster lineup, and that doesn't even count the guys on our roster, Jay Williams sans crotch-rocket, or picks that we would have used differently if we kept these players. I like Gordon, but I'm not sure he is the ultimate answer at SG. He's got the skills to be good at the point or the two, I'm just not sure it is going to happen. I'd really love to see Allen on this team. Redd would be pretty sweet too, but I am a big Allen supporter.

Damn, my picks were pretty good, I was close outside of the LSU pick, and those Big Ten picks were monsters. Virginia might still bail me out if the beat Va Tech, and WV is tied for first. I'm winning Soxtalk College Football Pick'em, whatever that's worth. I'm basically in first because everyone else is too lazy to make their picks every week.

I'm really hoping that these suspensions get reduced a bit on appeal. It just doesn't seem right to me that Artest is suspended for more games than Kermit Washington was after the Tomjonavich incident.

Count me as one of them. I think I'll be fine though. That league is full of idiots, somehow I got Pierce, Brand, Stoudemire, and Artest. I already voted for Artest and O'Neal by the way.

You're arguing that 58 games on a Red Sox team that was already going to the playoffs makes him a good option, that he's going to make the difference in getting us to the playoffs? He wasn't even the best SS to play for the Red Sox this season. He did a real good job getting the Expos to the playoffs too.

Yeah, Albert Belle was absolutely terrible when he was here... 97- 90 runs 30 homers 116 RBI .274 BA 98- 113 runs 49 homers 152 RBI .328 BA I can't see why we ever wanted to get him. God he sucked.

There was a hockey fight a while back at Madison Square Garden when a bunch of Bruins charged up into the stands and started attacking people. I wouldn't expect that one to take votes, but considering the Gamboa incident, the chair throwing incident with the Rangers, and the Yanks/Red Sox fight, and numerous other incidents with fans throwing bottles/batteries/whatever, I figured that is would get more like 60, not the overwhelming majority. Also, anytime you have an open-ended question like that you never know what incident on what level of play someone is going to bring in. This is even wierder considering the next question gave a choice between the Gamboa attack, the Rangers, and this and it was a lower percentage. It's not even the first time an NBA player has charged into the stands and punched somebody. They make it sound like it's the first time anything like this has ever happened. Yeah, the scale was bigger than we are used to, but jackass fans and player retaliations are nothing new.

ESPN did a poll concerning length of suspensions of the players involved. In each case, 10 games or more was leading. That's B.S. I was also amazed that 80 percent of respondents rated this the worst fan-player incident they have ever seen. I expected it to lead since it just happened but 80%?

The Pacers actually played only 7 guys tonight. Apparently they might have to activate some injured players because it is a rule that they have to dress 8 players. I really hope that nothing too major happens. Suspending Artest or anyone else for 20 games or more would be pretty harsh. I know it is bad, but as someone said, everything was provoked and it just got out of hand. I've seen two articles now talking about kicking Artest out of the league, which I think is flat out ridiculous. Several players have done as much if not more than Artest and stayed in the league, and none of them had the type of ability on the court that Artest does, so I doubt the league would choose to go that route. I'm hoping it's treated similarly to the Dodgers/Cubs hat stealing incident, where moronic fans were held at fault much more than the players. It's kind of hard to guage suspension time though because the two most comparable situations I can think of (Yankees/Red Sox, Rangers) happened late in the season. I'd personally like to see something like 10 for Artest, 5-10 each for Jackson, O'Neal, and Wallace. However, I think the league is going to make an example of them, especially since the suspensions are indefinite at the moment. Does anyone remember how long Vernon Maxwell was gone when he did something similar a while back? That was arguably worse because it was just him charging into the stands, not in the context of a fight. I think it was about 20 games, but I am not certain. Found it on ESPN. He was suspended 10 games and fined 20,000.

My Wildcats gave me a scare, were down 9 in the second half but ended up winning. Parker hit a 3 pointer to win it, had a solid game. Hachad was pretty off and Vedran didn't shoot very well, but they still won. These guys might be scary once Thompson is eligible.

Here's something more depressing: How do you think we'd be doing with these former Bulls still in on our team? PG: Brent Barry SG: Trenton Hassell SF: Ron Artest PF: Elton Brand C: Brad Miller That'd have to be enough to be one of the best teams in the east, without even factoring in Hinrich or Crawford.

Guess I jinxed Luol Deng. I commend him for taking care of the ball and he has 4 turnovers in the first half. By the way, I'm not saying I expected Livingston to kick ass right away, I'm just saying it's way too early to start calling him a success.

Livingston good? He's averaging 4.3 points, 2.8 assists, 2.1 rebounds, and 1.1 steals. Nice bench player, but that's not exactly superstar levels there. Quite a few turnovers considering his playing time also. I think he might be something special eventually, but he hasn't shown me a whole lot yet.

Danman, I forgot, have you stated your opinion of NU's team this year? I personally think they might still be a year off. Parker looked bad most of the time last year, especially since he was solid as a freshman. He's gotta be good for them this year. Vedran and Hashad are solid, but I think they need Parker to play much better and at least one of the transfers (Doyle and Thompson) make an major impact. I could see them doing well, but I wouldn't bet on it. I'm really anxious to see them play. At least they have some depth this year. On a side note, any thoughts on Arizona's performance? The announcers were ripping them, but I thought they looked okay. Frye and Adams played pretty poorly and they still won fairly easily. If that had happened last year they might have lost. They looked a little rusty, which is to be expected, but if Shakur and Radenovic can get production anywhere near last night for the whole year they are going to be really tough to beat.

Can we get Luol Deng in the starting lineup already? The guy had 22 points and 9 rebounds. He's our leading scorer and he's not turning the ball over much either. I have been REALLY impressed with this guy. I thought he was going to be good, but I didn't expect it this year. On the other hand, Gordon has looked awful. I love the guy's talent, but he just doesn't seem to know what to do in a pro game. Ill-advised shots and bad passes galore. He didn't pass the ball on a fastbreak when Deng was wide open. Instead, he put up a pathetic layup attempt with a guy right in his face (luckily Deng got the tip in). Duhon definitely looked good today, he actually hit some shots. I love him as a backup because he can run an offense and play D, but if he can score some more he could be a major steal. One thing I never understood is that he was an awesome outside shooter in HS (I think he won the 3 point contest at the McDonald's All-American game. I know he was at least in it), but for some reason he could never hit them at Duke. Here's hoping he can do it.

Something absolutely freakish would have to happen for the Bears to make the playoffs, much less win when they get there. Teams with an offense that pathetic just don't make it that far in the playoffs. You have to be able to do SOMETHING on offense. With the way our offense is playing the D has to play a near flawless game, which won't happen another 5 times. The one exception I can think of is the Ravens when they won it, and that was a monster defense with Jamal Lewis on offense. They didn't score an offensive touchdown for 5 games and still came out of that stretch over .500. The Bears aren't THAT good on defense, especially without Brown and Urlacher. This is much like the 13-3 year when we won a few games that we shouldn't and everyone got all excited. We win just enough games to show some signs of life, and all we do in the end is screw up our draft position. That's just what is happening this year. I am very excited about the future with the way our defense is playing, but our offense still needs a lot of work. If I were the Bears, I'd sign a veteran QB (even if Grossman is going to start, because this s*** is just awful) and draft a homerun threat WR like Michael Williams or Braylon Edwards and then have some fun.

Clearly we are happy that Bartolo didn't sign that monster of a deal, but it does set a precedent. You never know what a pitcher/player will do regardless of what they say. You can try to resign Hudson as soon as you get him, but it would be far from a guarantee. I sure as hell wouldn't sign before FA if I had the history that Hudson does with the Yankees and Red Sox potentially looking for pitching again, with the Angels and Orioles potentially coming into that also. Mulder might have grown up a Sox fan, but that was a while ago. Who knows how he feels now. Plus, that Bartolo offer was before we acquired Garcia and Contreras. I really doubt that we are going to invest more than $6 mil on 4 different pitchers assuming Hudson resigned. Again, would love to see either of those guys here for the long term, but I'm not buying it.

Having a quality 5th starter is not all that important. That's a guy that will hardly see the field in the playoffs. That's something you worry about when everything else is worked out. Most teams have to worry about starters 2-4, the Sox included in that. Only one of the playoff teams had any kind of quality out of their 5th starter(Cardinals). The other 7 had problems with most of the rotation throughout the year, much less with the 5th starter. The Sox certainly don't have the kind of resources to be able to worry about having a quality 5th starter, since they really only have a 1 and 2 right now(some would argue that). Besides, with Johnson, Garcia, and Buehrle up front, they are much less worried about production from the backend. Having that much quality at the top allows you to have more flexibility. The 4th and 5th starters are much less of a concern, plus the bullpen is going to face a lot less strain. Adding Johnson give us another guy that gives us 6 innings no matter what and could go deeper, and that makes life a lot easier. That way there is a good chance we won't have to work Marte and Shingo so much, making the pen more effective. That doesn't happen if we sign someone like Perez or Ortiz (assuming that even happens). If we start one guy for the whole year as our 5th starter, he'd probably get us 8 wins (I know we have sucked, but we also haven't given one guy more than a couple of starts). Garland gets us about 12 unless the light goes on. That's 4 wins. We could pick up just about anyone to get 10 and still get the benefits of Randy. Garland just isn't that valuable. The financial argument just doesn't hold water. Randy is a one-year commitment, and it would only cost us a couple of guys that probably aren't here for the long haul and not that much of a $ increase. If we sign a FA, he'll be here for at least 3 years, probably more. If he sucks we are stuck with him, and with the other starters we have locked up that gives us no flexibility. If Randy doesn't work out, we can just not resign him. More importantly, we don't have that great a playoff rotation compared with other playoff teams. It looks good when comparing it to the rest of the league, but Buehrle and Garcia are a stretch to consistently win against the likes of the Big Three in Oakland, Santana, Schilling, Vasquez most years, and whatever other top pitchers the Red Sox and Yankees go into next year with. Those are the types of players we have to face in the playoffs and beat, and I for one would feel much better if we had Randy or Hudson as our top guy then Garcia or Buehrle (or on the off chance we get Pavano for that matter).

I agree, especially considering that we already have Buehrle, Freddy, and Contreras locked up for a while. I doubt that we would invest that much money in 4 starters for the next few years. If we got one of those guys we'd only be guaranteed whatever is left on their deal. Unless we offer them something huge before they are FA, I don't see why they would resign. Those guys could just about name their price. It is much more likely that we would take a one or two year shot at Randy. However, if that falls through I certainly wouldn't complain about a year of Hudson or two of Mulder, assuming the hip isn't a huge issue (not so confident in Zito).

Or adding a new ace pitcher, a new closer, eventually a new starting SS and trying to trade your two most recognizeable position player for A-Rod and Maggs.

I can't understand all of the let's trade Lee and Konerko thoughts. Do we really think that hitters like these guys grow on trees? There aren't that many guys that can hit above .280 with 30 homers. We happen to have three that can do it when healthy. This puts us in a good position to deal one, but why kill our lineup by dealing two of them? Do we really want to depend on Jurassic Carl and The Big Hurt(empahisis on hurt) to carry our lineup? It's not like there are that many solid hitters out there to replace them either. Sexon and Delgado are both options, but they both suffered fairly serious injuries this year. Plus Delgado sucked when healthy this past year and Sexon can't hit for average. Drew may be coming off a career year, but do we really want to sign and depend on one of the most injury prone players in the league, especially considering that he has NEVER driven in 100 runs? You can't just throw together a group of mediocre players and expect them to produce runs. Let me anticipate the Twins as a counter argument and say the following: 1) the Twins do not have one of the better offenses in the league, and have succeeded more because of a stellar bullpen in recent years 2) they currently have guys like Ford, Stewart, and Mauer that can hit very well, and got solid years from guys like Hunter and Koskie in the past. I'm amazed at how we can want to get rid of a guy who has produced like Lee rather than a guy like Garland who has not been able to keep an ERA under 4.50 as a starter. This is RANDY JOHNSON people. And we would be getting him for a 1B with only one year left on his contract that had a career year and terrible home/road splits(and is a questionable resign at best) and an underacheiving 5th starter that is soon going to cost more than he is worth. We should thank the baseball gods for shining their grace upon us and move before the D-Backs come to their senses. The addition of RJ can cover up numerous other holes in our team, and since it is unlikely that we would get a solid starter and a solid bullpen arm, and even less likely that we would add an impact bat to compensate for losing Lee and Konerko, this would be our best shot to make a good run. P.S.- for those that want to point out my previous aversion to adding a starter and endorsing adding a bullpen arm, the starting pitcher(s) in question were not of the caliber of Randy Johnson.

First off, it's Herron... I saw him listed as a probable late round pick before the season, with the possibility of him switching to fullback. He's having a hell of a year though, averaging about 5 yards per carry and has 10 TD's. It's hard to tell right now, he might have moved up to the mid-rounds but if he runs like a 4.5 in the combine he can really shoot up. There's a lot of time before the draft, so who knows who will have how much hype and who will rise or drop in the ratings. The guy is a big power runner that can be effective in the red zone, so he might get a shot. He's also caught 25 passes at almost a 10 yard clip. 1st round is a major stretch though, there are going to be a bunch of good RB's in the draft. As for whether or not he will be a solid back in the pros, I don't know. He doesn't seem to have stellar speed or be able to run over a ton of guys, he just seems to find the creases. I thought Jason Wright was a better back and he didn't really get a shot. I think he could definitely catch on as a change of pace/red zone guy, but I personally doubt that he will get a shot at being a feature back.

The Red Sox winning the series was not dependent on their starting pitching, considering they didn't allow fewer than 3 runs until game 2 of the series, and won games 11-9 and 10-6 while losing 19-8 and 11-9. They got solid performances from their guys once they got to the series, but that had little to do with their win against the Yankees. Their offense bailed them out late in two games and the pen gave them a solid performance in those extra inning games, and it was their starting pitchers that put them in that tough situation in the first place. If anything, I think the Red Sox prove that anything can happen in the playoffs. Derek Lowe, a guy that has sucked all year and received loads of criticism came up with a key game 7 win and won the clincher, and the much touted Martinez was 2-1 with a no decision and really only had one great start out of 4.

If either of you guys want Shaq, make me an offer.

Has anyone figured out how often you are supposed to eat yet? My guy has like no body fat so I'm guessing it's more, but how much before it is a problem? Don't you get health and stamina increases as you eat?