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I have some bad news for people: the extraordinary circumstances of the 40s-60s US economy probably will not be recreated by any country that wasn't severely underachieving for the last 200 years without a substantial tech improvement to increase productivity. Instead you'll have to deal with a stable government, high wages, low prices and low land costs. Waaa waaaaa, this country is terrible waaa

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Jul 9, 2014 -> 02:56 PM) ...in a loss. Which was somehow celebrated. They won 1 of 4 games, and got absolutely dominated in their last game. If not for goaltending, that would have been a 7 spot as well. The whole "they tried hard!" mentality needs to go before US soccer can be a thing. They survived their group, which if it was so easy then Portugal, a legitimate soccer power would have. In a cup where England, Portugal, and Spain, all clearly better soccer programs than the US could not get out while 3 Concacaf teams which the US topped DID, that is fine for people to be excited about, especially since the highlights were younger players.

The difference between Gordon Hayward and Lance is that UTah has vowed to match all offers whereas the Pacers quite clearly are strapped. They cannot go into the luxury tax, well, they could, but again they only made 7 million last year.

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Jul 9, 2014 -> 09:19 AM) According to a basketball forum I frequent, LeBron to Cleveland is a done deal, word is he already informed Wade and got his 'blessing'. The anouncement could come as early as today but no later than Friday...hmmmmmm. This seems like great info. This must be why Wade is in Vegas ready to pitch LeBron, because he already has his blessing.

Remember how we thought Jordan had turned a corner? Guess not.

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Jul 9, 2014 -> 01:05 AM) Brett Austin has rebounded nicely after a rough start, 2-3 tonight with a double Trey 3-4 now Brett Austin had a rough start? I feel like he's had a nice line very time I looked.

I love the US. Think it's on the right track. You actually learn to appreciate the lack of corruption in the US. You may think the US is corrupt, but you have no idea how hard it is to remove corruption when it is actually embedded in a culture (bribes/tax avoidance/etc)

Eh, can't you let them have this? I know lots of people from cleveland, they are my favorite sports fans.

I'm not getting confirmations anymore when texting Does that mean stop texting?

Woj tweeted Bulls/Thunder leading way for Gasol. I doubt he signs MLE but maybe 8 mil. Would love if we could pull trade for Burks from Utah. Gasol/Burks/Mirotic is definitely a team that could get knocked out in 2nd round.

all rumors/news have fallen off. Looks like all midtier guys that had places to go are signed, the rest dependent on melo/bron.

I was thinking Beckham's OPS may actually be pretty good for AL 2b, but nope.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 8, 2014 -> 04:55 PM) Only the players who signed the mega cap-avoiding deals before the new CBA. From 2017-18 to 2020-21 (age 39 to 42), Hossa'a salary will be $1 million a year. The new CBA punishes teams if a player retires during that portion of the contract, which was the original plan. The NHL is so dumb.

starting Love at the 5?

Defensively Kyrie-Waiters-James-Love Verajao (but realistically their backup C due to injury) is possibly worse than rockets with only 1 plus defender (James) Kyrie-Wiggins/James-TT-Verajao(but really backup C) is still not great. That would all really depend on Wiggins development. Kyrie still has yet to be as great as people assume he is, to me he's nothing more than a streaky shooter and capable ball handler on a bad team that increases his usage rate.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 8, 2014 -> 03:37 PM) Does anyone know how the amnesty rule works in NHL? I imagine it's gonna happen in the next few years with Hossa. I believe if he retires early before 2021, the Hawks could face some major cap penalties. And the Crawford deal still sucks. You face cap penalties if a player retires early?

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 8, 2014 -> 04:34 PM) Kyrie's better than anything he ever had in Cleveland. Kyrie plus Wiggins

Kane/Toews/Hossa/Crow - roughly 50% of cap.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Jul 8, 2014 -> 04:10 PM) Basically that was taken by a dude on a message board right? What's the deal with Real GM anyway?? It looks like a message board to me....is it run by people with sources?? They have people with sources, sometimes they are true. On saturday they had "people with sources" who were saying they had friends that were partners at law firms in Chicago that Melo was coming to work out contract details on Sunday. So, yeah, not true.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 8, 2014 -> 03:56 PM) The question is, whether the guy who broke the Kidd story has connections to people close to Melo or the Bulls. If it's true, it would have to be Melo camp letting it out. Bulls may not have been technically told, but Melo has ruled them out. These are one of these rumors I will tell myself is not true, but I'm sure it is.

I forgot what I was reading (since I've read the entire basketball internet past week), but Pacers are close to luxury tax and only made like 8 million last year. They really don't want to pay Lance more than 8 mill so more than that may not be matched (frontloading this offer might be interesting)

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 8, 2014 -> 02:27 PM) The strikeout and walk rates are remarkably similar, but Quintana's LOB% is much lower than normal (career 74.2%, 69.7% right now), implying that if this were normalized, his ERA would be even lower. Plus park and league adjustments too. Are league adjustments really helping the AL this year?

So a month or so ago I believe NorthSide posted that what Trey was doing was good but not breakthrough. With his recent power, do people think he is ahead of development? What are things he needs to continue to show before moving to WS?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 8, 2014 -> 01:52 AM) IF he turns out to be Jose Quintana, would that be an awful thing? Would it be awful? hell no. Was I hoping his potential of our highest draft pick in 25 years was still trending as a #1 before even throwing a pitch? Yes. Obviously it's meaningless, I just saw that and laughed.

So Samardzija has allowed less earned runs in more innings pitched, more ks, the same amount of walks and less hits, and obviously lower WHIP, and he is worth .6 less fWar this year?