ZoomSlowik

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 11:07 AM) From Sports Illustrated on Mirotic I think more needs to be explained about his buyout because $2 million is not really that much. There must be some really sticky language in his contract. Granted, he isn't ready physically to be in the NBA yet, but I would really like to know more about the buyout. Hopefully once Gar can talk about Mirotic (when the trade is finalized), we will know some more specifics of his contract. By rule, the Bulls can only contribute 500k to solve his buyout situation. Mirotic (or his agent I guess) would have to cover the other $1.5 mil. That wouldn't have really been an issue if he'd gone in the top-5, but at the 23 slot that's more than he'd make in his first year in the NBA.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 09:53 PM) And in a team sport like basketball, this means nothing. First off, MVP is individual. Second, if he were really so amazing, they wouldn't have missed the playoffs in the eastern conference. Third, considering how many games that Boozer and Noah missed, you can't really argue that the supporting cast was significantly better. Every single GM in the league would hang up on you if you tried to get Rose for Bosh. You wouldn't even finish the thought, you'd hear a click after you got out the "Ro" part.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 09:48 PM) Bosh's '10 > Rose's '11. That's all I can say. 62 wins, a conference finals trip and an MVP> 40 wins and watching the playoffs from home.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 09:42 PM) Did I miss something? Asik is not that good. A decent backup? Yes. The Heat have three players better than Rose. We need to aim higher. Good god, you rant like crazy. Bosh is not in any way shape or form better than Rose. It's a little easier to have a good series when you're being single-covered by a bad defender with two studs drawing all of the defensive attention than when you're getting trapped basically the whole game.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 09:33 PM) I didn't say that. But they clearly didn't take the best player available. A player that might be good in three years. Yawnnnnnnnn. This isn't baseball.. The odds of anyone at this point in the draft being "good" within three years are incredibly slim.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 07:26 PM) Yeah, I like Kemba more than most. He can easily be Ben Gordon in his peak. If you take out the whole making 3's part.

QUOTE (Palehosefan @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 07:20 PM) The only similarity with Sene and Biyombo is that they are both from Africa. Sene was drafted for his lean 7' size and 7' 8 wingspan. Biyombo is an even better athlete than Amar'e coming out of high school and already has an NBA body. At worst I think he will develop into Ben Wallace. That's assuming he makes no strides offensively as a supposed 18 year old. Yikes. Even saying Serge Ibaka is a stretch right now much less a multi-time DPOY.

QUOTE (Palehosefan @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 07:08 PM) Knight would pair well with Evans. Ugh, two guys that don't show many PG skills and take a lot of poor shots.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 04:26 PM) That's really not that bad. If that's his absolute basement, you could do a whole lot worse. I think he'll be considerably better. I watched him play in some World vs US prospect game or something a while back, and he dominated the paint against other guys who will be draft picks. He's got a Marcus Camby/Theo Ratliff ceiling. Anthony is pretty damn bad. Even the super-shallow Heat don't play him for 20 minutes per game. The only reason he's a remotely viable option for them is because they have two elite scorers and another solid one.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 03:36 PM) And images of the Heat locking up the Bulls predictable (lack of creators offensively) offense are still dancing around in my head. Ask yourself this question: did you foresee the Bulls being the #1 defense in the NBA before this past season? If yes, you're a genius. But I'll assume you didn't. Defense is half, or maybe even more than half, effort. Offensive ability is actual talent. Give me talent over effort in this case. The way to catch the Heat is not to try to put together two volume scorers that aren't as good as Lebron and Wade. There just aren't two guys in the league that can out-gun them. The way to beat them is to Try to keep them out of the paint and to make shots. The Bulls did the former but not the latter before and Ellis isn't going to help that. He's just another guy that needs 20 shots to score 25 points that will miss a lot of jumpers.

QUOTE (kjshoe04 @ Jun 21, 2011 -> 04:00 PM) I'm pretty sure the Cavs want Irving and Kanter, I also doubt that Kanter will be there at 4 pretty sure he will go third. Not sure who they will snag in that fourth spot. I would agree with this. Irving/Kanter is the best you could do in this draft without getting #1 and #2 IMO. I don't see Utah taking Kanter with two relatively similar players already on the roster in Jefferson and Millsap, so it seems doable. Solid point guards rule the league right now and big men that can score in the post are about as rare as Juan Pierre extra base hits. Plus I think that Irving is easily the safest pick in this draft, he was spectacular when healthy even if he isn't an off the charts athlete. Williams was awesome too, but the SF or PF question is a big issue (he should probably be a 4). Knight reminds me of OJ Mayo and I don't think Kemba really has a diverse enough skillset to be an above average starting point guard. He's fast, but fairly undersized, a volume scorer and not really a knockdown shooter. I wouldn't feel good paying #4 money to either of those guys and building my team around them. Even if Kanter isn't there, I'd probably take a flier on one of the other Euro bigs and live with it. Supposedly Valanciunas has great upside but might not make it to the league this year because of a buyout (which lets you sort of tank for next year in a much stronger draft).

Relax people. Kevin Love is not going to be a Laker. It's just a rumor, one that's several days old at that. The Lakers made a ridiculously lopsided offer, the T-Wolves countered with just the #2 pick and we're sitting here with nothing happening. But of course the Lakers are one of the glamour teams so the media keeps reporting it slanted towards them as opposed to the team that virtually no one cares about.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jun 20, 2011 -> 11:12 PM) Which you can interpret as a good thing or bad thing, besides for Kobe almost all of the legendary NBA players played at the college level. A great majority of them having played in Championships in the NCAA. Maybe Lebron is a better player today if he was coached by a Dean Smith, its not always for the best to be rushed into everything. KG and Moses Malone are both top-30 type players that skipped college too, plus arguably Dirk. Kemp and T-Mac were also pretty good, although they could have been better. Maybe if he stayed 2 or 3 years you could make that case, plus he might have been a little more likely to develop a solid jumper given his teams would be zoned to death (he usually just hits enough to keep people honest, but was very good from mid-range this year). I don't think it's terribly likely that he'd have the post game everyone gripes about though. There are way too many zones and double-teams in college and too many great athletes that reach the NBA with no moves. The really good post players I can think of (guys like Sullinger and Love) had very good moves before they even hit campus. Plus if he's one and done, I doubt it really helps any, especially if he doesn't go somewhere that has a coach that would help him develop.

Your basic argument seems to be that because he's on track to be "only" one of the 10-20 players of all time instead of #1 makes him a massive underachiever. That is patently ridiculous and I shall not be commenting on this line of discussion anymore. Also, Zach Randolph isn't really THAT big an underachiever. He's been putting up 20-10 for years even though he can't jump. Outside of trying a little more often on defense, there's really not all that much more you can expect him to do. He was never going to be a Tim Ducan-caliber defender, which along with a bad attitude have been his main issues.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 20, 2011 -> 03:01 PM) There was a fairly sizable feeling that he quit in his last NBA finals as well. You mean when they got swept by the Spurs? He was 22 for christ's sake, playing with a lineup of such monsters as Larry Hughes, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Drew Gooden, Sasha Pavlovic and Eric Snow. They weren't remotely in that series. The Cavs didn't have a 4th quarter lead until game 4, and the 3-time champion Spurs went on a run to close them out in a sweep. They shouldn't have even been there in the first place, the only reason they were is Lebron scored 29 of the team's last 30 points in game 7 against Detroit. I swear, it's like Lebron has to be better than Michael Jordan in Space Jam to make you happy, and even MJ still had Bugs Bunny on his team.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 20, 2011 -> 02:37 PM) To me there is a big difference between stats and achievement. Obvious numberswise you can't say LeBron underachieved. But all you have to do is watch the guy to know he leaves a lot on the floor. To me that is the ultimate in underachieving, stats be damned. You're putting way too much stock in this year's finals. Are you really saying he should have done more with the Cavs? How many guys would have been able to carry that awful team to the NBA Finals like when he almost single-handedly beat the Pistons? How many guys would have won 60+ games his last two years in Cleveland? Sure, they lost in the playoffs, but Orlando and Boston were just better than them. How many guys would have been able to win a series when his second best player was as awful as Mo Williams was? I mean Jesus, Lebron averaged 38-8-8 against Orlando and they still had no chance. He wasn't as good against Boston, but he still averaged 27-9-7. He was super-human in the only two games they won that series, it's hard when you have to do that EVERY game. This past year is the first time you can legitimately say he SHOULD have won a title, and even then an awful lot of people were looking at Boston or the Bulls to win the East and the Lakers to win it all. I'd love to see what you would have said about Jordan in the summer of 1990...

QUOTE (kjshoe04 @ Jun 20, 2011 -> 02:32 PM) Eddy Curry should be at least the backup center. I guess he would be a good candidate to be my starting center on the team, but using different logic. If he had actually worked to get in shape and gotten down to like 260 pounds, he had enough skill to be a difference-making center. He had a better touch around the basket than virtually anyone in the league right now, but he's too fat and slow to defend or rebound. An in-shape Eddy Curry is probably capable of putting up 20-10 on a regular basis, which is very far from what he's done in his career. I'd say that makes him a pretty major underachiever.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jun 20, 2011 -> 02:28 PM) Do you really believe those guys are underachievers? I don't. They were GREAT players who ran into some of the best teams of the last 20 years (Jordan's Bulls and Hakeem's Rockets). I really do believe LeBron will get his ring at some point. He definitely choked on a fat one in thi last finals. But the dude still has a ROY, scoring title, Two MVPs, and some of the most efficnent seasons the NBA has ever seen. Seriously. It's a stretch to say that a multi-MVP winner is a massive underachiever. By the same logic, are we going to include Shaq? With his size and athleticism, should he have won even MORE rings and MVP's? Should Wilt Chamberlain have had more 50-30 type seasons? Now if Lebron NEVER wins a ring that would be another story, but saying it right now is a little ridiculous. He's still going to be a first ballot hall of famer.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jun 20, 2011 -> 02:16 PM) Cousins on the same underachievers roster, I love it. It really depends on what you consider an underachiever. You have All-Stars on this roster, while I tend to want to put a guy who never amounted to s*** like Michael Olowakandi on there. I would tend to lean towards someone like Olowakandi being just a bad pick instead of being an underachiever. If he had any kind of talent whatsoever, don't you think he'd have been at least a serviceable center instead of a complete bust? It's not like it takes that much to be an above average center in the league right now. The same thing with guys like Stromile Swift or Kwame Brown. They might have had the physical tools, but they clearly lack basketball skills. I'm trying not assume that guys would develop tools that they didn't already have. I guess my definition is which guys were the farthest from their ceiling. Someone like Swift would reasonably be expected to be something like Josh Smith if he panned out, whereas someone like Vince Carter could have been at least a Dominique Wilkins type, if not higher up the food chain. At least in my opinion, the gap between being an all-time great and a garden variety All-Star is bigger than the gap between being an NBA bench player and an average to slightly above average NBA player.

While we're on the topic, all-underachiever team? For the purposes of this discussion, I'd limit it to the 90's on since that's what most of us are familiar with. I'm also going to leave out guys with freakish athleticism but no skills that were horrendous flops and concentrate on guys that were good but not consistently great. PG- Baron Davis (had the physical tools to dominate the PG position, but inconsistent effort and a lot of bad jumpers killed him) SG- Tracy McGrady (combination of size and skills beats virtually anyone I've seen, but WAY too many jumpers most of his career) SF- Vince Carter (too much coasting) PF- Derrick Coleman (I'm REALLY mad at myself for forgetting about him as he is the team captain) C- Rasheed Wallace (I guess. Does he count as a center? I can't think of a good one since they either tend to be good or useless) (dis) Honorable Mention: Steve Francis, Stephon Marbury, Glenn Robinson, Shawn Kemp, Chris Webber, Larry Johnson (not totally sure he was athletic enough, but people definitely expected more)

QUOTE (Palehosefan @ Jun 20, 2011 -> 12:31 PM) I have to disagree with you on Webber. He averaged around 21 ppg, 10 rpg, and 4 apg for his career, including a four year stretch where he averaged 25 ppg, 10.5 rpg, 4.8 apg, 1.5 bpg, and 1.5 spg. There's a difference between putting up stats and making an impact on a contending team. Despite regularly having some pretty good talent on his teams (Juwan Howard and Rod Strickland in Washington, Bibby/Peja/Vlade in Sacramento), his teams really only mattered once in his entire career (and they choked/got robbed by the refs depending on your point of view). How many people do you think KG would have murdered to play on that Sacramento team instead of relying on Wally Sczcerbiak and a collection of stiffs to help him most of his career? Statistically he might compare favorably to guys like Duncan and Garnett, but there's no way in hell you'd consider taking him over either of them. You can't just use statistics as the be all and end all, otherwise you might make conclusions like Tracy McGrady= Kobe Bryant or that Shareef Abdur-Rahim was a superstar. Much like the previously mentioned Vince Carter, Rasheed Wallace and Shawn Kemp, they were still All-Star caliber players, but they spent most of their careers collecting paychecks and watching the Finals on TV (yes, I know 'Sheed and Kemp both made one) when they had the talent to do a lot more.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jun 20, 2011 -> 05:58 AM) Vince + Kobe or KG's work ethic and drive = a top 5 player ever. No doubt in my mind. Rasheed Wallace is another guy that comes to mind. He should've been a perennial MVP candidate with his size, length and skills. The guys that always come to mind for me are Chris Webber and Shawn Kemp. Webber had everything KG had and was even a little stronger but never had nearly the impact. Kemp was obviously a freakish athlete that made a lot of highlight reels, but never really had the offensive skills to put up like 25 a game and ate his way out of the league.

You guys suck. 40+ posts and none of you posted the infamous Family Guy clip?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 19, 2011 -> 01:18 PM) But...the fact that its eventually unprotected is a good thing. Not really, at least not within the next year or so. Every traded pick is eventually unprotected (though obviously some are worth more than others). The big payoff on deals like that comes many years down the road when a team is under new management with a largely different group of players, not when the deal is made. Even then, the pick might not be as high as you hope it is, or it might be in a draft like this one. If you're Orlando, waiting until 2016 to draft a guy that may still take a few years to develop is far from ideal. Plus given that Charlotte is in the East, it's not out of the realm of possibility that the Magic end up waiting 3 or 4 years to get a late lottery pick, especially if the Bobcats hit on a couple of likely high lottery picks between now and then. Now if the 2015 draft rolls around and the Bulls are still owed that pick, then it gets far more interesting. However, that's still 4 years away.

QUOTE (sircaffey @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 02:12 PM) 4 1st rd picks in the next 2 drafts. 2 late rd picks in 2011. Charlotte's and their own in 2012. They could probably use their 2-3 of those late rd picks to move up and have another mid pick to add with Charlotte's. The pick they got from Charlotte is heavily protected. 2012- lottery protected 2013- top-12 protected 2014- top-10 protected 2015- top-8 protected So, yeah, it's going to be a while before they actually get that pick. That hurts its value quite a bit.