nitetrain8601

QUOTE (WilliamTell @ May 27, 2009 -> 12:37 PM) Didn't those two get in a fight a few years back, or was it Miller and some other big man? It was those two. Shaq swung and completely missed on Miller. If he connected though, he probably would've been suspended for awhile. It was a huge swing that could've knocked out anyone.

I'd be happy with Shaq for a year. I think he's good enough if we keep the rest of our team intact, to actually contend for at least a year. Then when we lose him, well, back to a little better than we wer.

Easily Nascar followed by Horse Racing.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ May 6, 2009 -> 07:30 PM) Does anyone else besides me and Jason listen to Taking Back Sunday or am I talking to myself? (Because I don't count Jason). I listen to them. I constantly have Louder Now on rotation blasting Liar, MakeDamnSure and Error: Operator

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 8, 2009 -> 11:39 AM) I didn't want to be the first to say it...but I'll go with it now...how many "absolute athletic freaks" have there been in the last 10 years who have so far turned out to actually be clean? I can think of Pujols...and we all know what road that goes down. The NBA's steroid testing program is no where near as intense as MLB's. The NBA is still in that boat of thinking "Oh it won't help, our guys need quickness and steroids won't help with that" like where MLB was when they were making excuses in 95-2000. And even then, Manny was able to get through a full cycle without ever testing positive, he was only caught because some documents proved he had the stuff to take when you're coming down off a cycle shipped to him. Everyone knows the NFL has an enormous number of juicers, everyone knows MLB has a problem but they're at least making an effort at it, the NBA is still off in the wilderness for now. And the NBA testing is a joke. All it requires from what I heard is you peeing in a cup. I'd like for every sport to adopt the USOC way of testing. Keep the blood samples and look for abnormalities from one test to the next. I also wouldn't be surprised if a guy like Ben Wallace was on the 'roids either. That's just my honest opinion.

BTW, if there ever was a candidate for PED's in the NBA, it would be LeBron. 4% body fat and the guy looks like he's 260. That's a whole nother discussion as well.

Jordan all day everyday. I'd probably take Kobe over LeBron too. But this is about Jordan. His will to win was incomparable. Jordan made you play better or he would kick your [beep]. Jordan wouldn't put up with LeBron's antics at the beginning of games with all that posing. Jordan would've made LeBron cry in his sleep with nightmares of Jordan who consistently burning his team.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ May 8, 2009 -> 07:13 AM) It's not about that. At all. It's about standing up for your teammates and letting other teams know that they can't come inside, knock your guys down or hit them free of any consequences. I, too have noticed that it seems we've been hit a lot this year. It's not about tit for tat, it's about protecting your teammates. That doesnt mean you have to throw a heater at someones head either. Bingo.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ May 7, 2009 -> 04:58 AM) Messi and Ronaldo are givens as 1/2 (in any order) at this point. I'd personally place Kaka ahead of Torres at this point. Torres is a great player, but he's too one dimensional for me. I actually like David Villa more than Torres. Also, people tend to forget about the Afircans, but Eto'o, Emmanuel Adebayor and Michael Essien are fantastic players. Villa is underrated. Eto's great, but I expect more out of Adebayor though.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ May 6, 2009 -> 01:33 PM) I've been over Hinrich for a while now. His downfall to an incredibly average player has stumped everyone. Yet, he's still a great defensive player, a good leader, can play and guard 2 positions, and has valuable experience. And he can also light it up once in a while. I think Tyrus' main issue is laziness and lack of hustle on the court. It pisses me off endlessly. The fact that guys like Big Bayby Davis beat him down the court is unacceptable. He just seems to not care sometimes and he definitely gets frustrated EXTREMELY easily. I can't remember who it was again, but there was a game a couple months ago that Tyrus went up for a dunk, got absolutely rejected and hit the deck HARD. He wanted a foul, but it was a super clean block. Then a possession or 2 later, he threw down a dunk on that player. And still pissed, a possession or 2 later, he tried to do it again only to get a ridiculous charge called on him. And on the other end, he fouled the player again. And as far as our team defense, it's a mix of both. Our scheme is stupid. We play man defense and stress help defense, but our players are too dumb/lazy/slow/bad to rotate quick enough. And we're HORRIBLE at making adjustments in game. Glen Davis killed us all series, yet we still allowed him to take open jumper after open jumper. Defense is ENTIRELY about effort. It's as simple as that. We saw how good our team could be at times against Boston when the team REALLY wanted it and buckled down defensively. Stay on your toes, keep your feet moving, keep your hands out, and play with your feet, not your hands. Agreed. No doubt he has heart, but I think he lets others get the best of him in his head. Definitely agreed about the defensive aspect.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ May 6, 2009 -> 01:18 PM) I can live with the trade because Tyrus showed some major improvement this year IMO and I think his attitude now is a lot better than it was. But it was still an absolutely horrific trade, and that's reality. As for Tyrus' defense, I will say it was a lot better this year (as was everything else he did), but he still played below average defense (much better defense, but still below average) and took way too many goaltendings IMO. As for the post (can't remember who it was) which said Derrick will never be a top 5 player because of his defense and jump shot, well he will never be one with his current defense and jump shot, but those are things that can be impoved. I think his jump shot this year was much better than his jump shot at Memphis, and I think he will continue to work hard and continue to improve on it. As for his defense, that's the #1 reason I want VDN gone, defense. Derrick, and everybody else on this team, will struggle to improve on defense as long as a coach who simply does not care about his team guarding is in charge. And you can't win a championship that way. Well that's what I meant. If Rose doesn't have a jumper, or rather the jumper he has now, along with his defense, he won't be sniffing top 15 player. The defense is an attitude thing. Again, it goes back to his coasting. And Tyrus and Deng seemed to have improved on defense this year with VDN. It's a matter of scheme and players. VDN cares about defense which is why he doesn't run a true SSOL offense. So his guys could get back and guard up.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ May 6, 2009 -> 01:20 PM) Messi and Ronaldo are top 2, order not a horribly big deal. There are quite a few players fighting for that #3 spot. Nemanja Vidic has asserted himself as one of the best defenders in the world. Steven Gerrard is still an incredible playmaker for Liverpool and Fernando Torres is a prolific goal scorer. I'd say those are my top 5... Ronaldo, Messi, Torres, Vidic, Gerrard Ronaldo Messi and Torres. Excellent. My top 3 as well. I might slip Kaka in there.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ May 6, 2009 -> 01:24 PM) That draft will probably be worse than this one, but the reason I made the point I did is that draft had players with potential in it who simply busted. I believe this years draft will be ALMOST as bad as 2000, and unlike 2000, this draft has almost nobody with major NBA potential in it IMO. Agreed. For example, guys like Marcus Fizer and Kenyon Martin were thought to be stud players as well at Darius Miles. Stromile Swift was supposed to be what Dwight Howard is. DeMar Johnson had all-star SG potential. They busted, however, for their own reasons. This draft, there is Griffin who people expect to be a solid guy and a possible all-star and the same goes with Rubio. After that, no one is expected to do much which means, they'll perform under expectations as a whole and be even worse.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ May 6, 2009 -> 01:07 PM) There were 4 plays in the box that could have very easily been called penalty kicks for Chelsea in that game, and none of them were (two were really bad, one was a blatant hand ball that wasn't called, and another was a blatant foul which actually was called, but was somehow called outside the box even though it was clearly inside) so I can understand their anger at the refs. However, they still had a 1-0 lead in the 2nd half at home with an 11 vs. 10 man advantage, and found a way to blow it, so they have absolutely nobody to blame but themselves. Chelsea dominated the game and still found a way to blow it. I'm not a soccer expert (I've just started to follow the sport basically since the 2006 World Cup) but AC Milan or Roma? I thought the winner of Barcelona/ManU is the "World Champion"? For the Champions League tourney next year. With that said, AC has to stop signing guys who have passed their peak and start bringing in young talent.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ May 6, 2009 -> 12:58 PM) Ya, he's a douche, but he's probably a top 3 player in the world right now. His 2 goals yesterday were absolutely amazing. List your top 3. I'd honestly say, and I hate to say it, he's the best player in the world.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ May 6, 2009 -> 12:51 PM) But he's not a good defender. He gets blocks. He also takes stupid fouls and plays ole' defense way too much. Blocks do not = defense. See: Chris Kaman. He doesn't play ole' defense, but he does make some stupid fouls sometimes, I agree. Blocks don't equal defense, I agree. But blocks, sticking with your man, rotating out to help defend and steals are considered defense. Again, the main thing he struggles with are guys who can shoot because he'll allow them to take the jumper all day instead of manning that person up. QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ May 6, 2009 -> 12:54 PM) OMG, take things uber literally why don't you. Ok, not ALL of his blocks come from help D, but MOST of them do. There, I'm still f***ing right. Yes, I don't realize where Tyrus' steals come from, because I cannot honestly remember a single relevant steal Tyrus made all season, and I'd say I watched at least 3/4 of the games. It's not like he's shutting down his guy and not allowing him to do anything and just stripping the ball from him. Give me a f***ing break Gerry. And I maintain that he's not a good rebounder because, well, he's not a good f***ing rebounder. And don't ever f***ing bring up Dwight Howard when talkign about Tyrus again. Dwight had like 2-3 inches and 50 pounds on Tyrus and could snap him the f*** in half. I realize that athleticism leads to a lot of rebounds, but if Tyrus is such a freak athlete, he should be able to rebound a f***ton better. So don't give me your bs/hyperbole crap, because as much as I hate Tyrus, you slurp the guy twice as much. In a legitimate, sincere statement, I'd argue that 75% of his block are on help D, no joke. Like I've said, I'm not denying that Tyrus improved this past season, because he absolutely did. But he's still incredible mediocre, he's always going to have to prove himself because of the Aldridge trade, and all the retard fanboys who only see some sort of amazing potential make me hate him even more. And again, you're top defender argument is SUPER flawed. We're a horrific defensive team. Being a top 3 defender on a terrible defending team means nothing. If anyone thinks that Tyrus is actually a really good defensive player, I'm going to disagree a whole hell of a lot. I'll say Tyrus should be able to rebound more, but for a guy who is completely relying on athletic ability and not technique nor strength, almost 10 rebounds per game is pretty damn good. If he could muscle up, it would help his technique in that he would be able to box out his defenders and therefore grab more rebounds. Now if he actually bulks up is a whole nother story as we saw guys like Deng or Tyrus never do it. I'd still venture to say, 60% at most are blocks from help defense. Obviously, unless we find a stat online somewhere, there's no way to tell because I doubt either of us have every game saved to our DVR. Our DVR hard drive aint big enough. One can argue we're a terrible defensive team because of our scheme. I think you're one of them, but I won't quote you on it. The thing is, say Tyrus really is a bad defender and it's not scheme. In that situation, Rose is 90X's worse than anyone imagined and that's solely on him. I look at a defense which switches every single time, even if the matchup states we should stay at home. I personally think it's a flaw in either VDN's system, or the players themselves who always switch. That's up for debate. If it's the scheme, then VDN, Ociepka and Bickerstaff who all handle the defense need to work out several kinks.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ May 6, 2009 -> 12:37 PM) Michael Ballack is a piece of s***. Go ManU in the final! Cristiano is an even bigger douche, though I respect his talent. With that said, I hope AC Milan or Roma handles any one of these guys.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ May 6, 2009 -> 12:20 PM) Wow. QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ May 6, 2009 -> 12:25 PM) All his blocks come from help defense. I still don't know how he get's steals. And he is not a very good rebounder. Most of boards come from, yes, you guessed it, out-jumping people. Like I said earlier, he doesn't EVER take over games on the glass, Noah can. See: Thomas, Tyrus - 89th best rebounder in the NBA. And had a sizzling 9.3/40 minutes. So yeah. Not all of his blocks come from help defense. A lot do, but not nearly the 80 or 90% you make them out to be. I'd probably say 55-60% do which is fine. A block is a block. No need to be picky about it. You also have to take into account the fact that since he has great blocking/jumping ability, he alters a lot of shots. He gets steals as he has long arms and he's super athletic. With that said, it's easy for him to reach around a player and pick the ball or when he plays help defense or when he plays the passing lanes which he's able to do and not get burned frequently because of his ability to recover quickly(see: athleticism) I agree, he should be outrebounding people, and maybe that's something he can improve upon in the offseason. His man defense is solid as well despite popular belief. When he struggles, it's with guys who can shoot. Like Bargnani flat out eats this guy alive because Tyrus always lets them take the jumper instead of bodying up. He's far from a perfect player, and he's very very frustrating at times, but it's easy to see the upside and improvement that he has made. I also find it funny that the very same people who claim defense is the uber important thing in a team and b**** about Gordon's defense, complain about one of our top 3 defenders and our best post defender whether you like to admit it or not.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ May 6, 2009 -> 11:16 AM) Well, you can always say "coulda woulda shoulda", but trading Aldridge for Tyrus was a colossal f***up. The year the Bulls become deadly is 2010. You have to assume one of the big names will want to play with D-Rose if he continues to progress into a future top 5 player. We also get Omer Asik that year (presuming Pax likes the development)... Asik at worst should be Biedrins-lite. The future is bright for these Bulls, but unfortunately it has nothing to do with Tyrus. Rose won't be a top 5 player ever with his lack of a jumper and non-existant defense. With that said, Jordan sucked his rookie year at defense. LeBron was mediocre, only because of his body at defense. BTW, Asik is the roxorz! QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ May 6, 2009 -> 11:45 AM) Except for block shots, get steals and rebound.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ May 6, 2009 -> 12:03 PM) Tyrus came from the side on that play and still tried to block it. I give him props because a lot of guys don't jump for the fear they may be embarassed. Tyrus will jump with anyone if he has a shot. I wouldn't use this youtube video as a knock against Tyrus. Honestly, I would attempt to keep him. Hope he improves more this offseason, because he did make steps, and see what we have next year.

My most hated Tyrus play is when he dribbles the ball at the top of the key, gets a one on one, dribble penetrates with a crossover and a spin move, he finds himself under the basket, and instead of dunking the ball, he attempts an awkward ass layup that usually misses the rim completely. If he just dunked the ball, he would average at least 16ppg.

QUOTE (ZoomSlowik @ May 5, 2009 -> 05:05 PM) It's really not decision making, he fades on virtually every shot, even if he's wide open. Check out the highlight tapes some time, he's been doing it for quite some time. It doesn't really matter how much range he has if he's going to convert at that kind of rate. Agreed. It's not just his shot selection that's bad, it's his form. And he struggles mightily off the ball. For people who want Rose to handle the ball 24/7, Tyreke is the worst possible pick the Bulls could make. In fact, on NBAdraft.net, his comparisons are Jamal Crawford and DeShawn Stevenson.

I still think Tyrus could be a player in this league. With that said, I don't think he'll reach his potential. He'll be what you see now. Great shotblocker and wonderful energy guy, but when he's making mistakes, you have to have another guy ready to go. I wish we played him more in the playoffs as well. One thing I like though is that he is trying to improve. His IQ is just kinda low.

Stacey is hilarious. I think him and Wayne Larrivee would be great. Neil often got names wrong, especially in the beginning of the season. And he wouldn't even state what was going on the court correctly.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ May 4, 2009 -> 10:12 AM) This is the worst draft I have ever seen, and I've been paying attention to the NBA Draft for quite a while now. I'd like to see Terrence Williams drafted though. He's a good fit in that he actually defends (the Bulls can use that) and he can legitimately play the 1 through 3 on both ends of the floor, which is a good fit since VDN loves to play those stupid ass small lineups so often. I like Williams as an energy guy off the bench. His defense creates a lot of points and he's an energy player, but he also has talent. Actually, now that I think of it, he's one of the few guys that I think could start in this league and legitimately not suck unlike most players in this draft. Only guys who I think are starter material are Blake, Demar, Terrance and Lawson. I honestly think Rubio is going to be a bust. I think DeMar can be one too. Terrance though would be a nice safe pick and a pleasant surprise in one.