Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Jan 22, 2016 -> 12:04 PM) He seems like a racist and misogynistic person, but there's a reason why he has a job and its been because he actually reports things. He hasn't been wrong in any of the info he's reported on the Bulls that I can think of. Maybe you can. He's Jay Marriotti 2.0. And i'm pretty certain he wasn't very good with Sox info when he was covering them. Getting outsourced by nerdy internet message board posters...

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Jan 22, 2016 -> 11:46 AM) To be fair, they had Cowley on and he's been spot in with his bulls reporting. Only guy who won't sugarcoat it. He mentioned Noah's knee being way more jacked up than the FO wanted you to believe when no one else would report it as an example. Either which way, he said Gar isn't on great standing and that he's trying to create relationships with other organizations. People in the organization feel he's a jackass too. There's been rumors about that before from players. Come to think of it, Paxsons demise really came at the behest of Gar's intro to power. Aldridge was a Paxson guy but Gar convinced Paxson to get Tyrus instead. Once Gar became GM, Pax really stopped making trades that improved the squad. Mostly its been dumping guys past their prime. Gar made the decision to let go of Ron Adams in a power play with Thibs. He's the one who chose Teague over Draymond which was Adams and Thibs choice. That led to Adams questioning Gar's draft analysis. He's also the one that block Thibs from hiring his choice for strength and conditioning coach who the Spurs hired once the Bulls passed. It would fit Paul Shirley's narrative for sure from years back. He's basically an asshole who has no regard for people and he gets promoted due to sweet talking his way up, not really earning his way on paper. Lastly, I'll leave you with this thought, Gar picked Snell, traded away assets for McDermott and picked Fred Hoiberg - all guys who have ties to New Mexico and Iowa State. You're doubling down on terrible sources here...

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 22, 2016 -> 09:50 AM) If you actually look at what happened there, you find that once again Kratz is full of s***. The judge didn't let in the evidence about her finding him "creepy" because the entirety of it was her making a joke to someone in her office about him answering the door in a towel and her saying "ew." She never said she was frightened or that she didn't want to go there. And as far as calling her that day, she was 30 minutes late to her appointment. Kratz was loaded up on prescription pain killers he was abusing the entire time and shouldn't have any credibility whatsoever. On a somewhat related note, why is it legal for AD's to prosecute two different people for the same crime with completely different and even contradictory theories of how that crime happened? Yep, that makes no sense to me either. I mean they can bring whatever charges they want, but why is a jury believing that nonsense? Again, you have this questionable confession that details how the alleged crime occurred, but there's no evidence backing up the kids story. How can you still believe the confession is true? It also gets to the point that Katz tainted the entire jury pool with that bogus press conference detailing events that NEVER happened and that he had no proof of (other than a forced confession). We all know that the 1st narrative provided of any story ends up being the one that most people believe, regardless of whether it's true or not. So why is that kind of stuff tolerated? You're giving the public a reason to judge before a trial even starts. And then that gets to the bigger picture that the documentary was exposing - media coverage on these cases. The first 1-1.5 hours is all about vindication and exoneration and how awful it is that we put innocent people behind bars. And holy s*** did those talking points get thrown out the window as soon as claims/suspicions came out about the murder. It was right back to "reporting" "facts" about "suspect" Avery.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Jan 5, 2016 -> 03:58 PM) But the prosecution did present sufficient evidence to convict. That's why his appeals were denied. I guarantee you he argued, among other things, that there was insufficient evidence to convict him. I decide criminal cases on appeal for a living and about 50% of them are sufficiency of the events cases. Without a doubt, there was sufficient evidence. You can't reverse a case like this under a sufficiency of the evidence review. I disagree, but reasonable minds can differ. Since you do criminal review work, what did you think of the arguments that he wasn't given a fair trial? Seemed really odd to me that they moved the venue, but still used a judge from manitowac county and jurors from manitowac county. If it was unfair to hold it in a manitowac courtroom, shouldn't they have used a different pool of jurors and judge?

Alright, i'm way late to the party, but I finally finished this. Here's my opinion: no way i'd convict either person, especially Brendan. For Steve's case, I totally buy that the cops wanted to ensure a guilty verdict so they planted some of the evidence. How else to explain the key, the lack of blood anywhere in the garage but finding a magic bullet, the suspect blood in the car (the puncture wound and broken seals on Avery's blood vial), etc. I could maybe buy that Avery was stupid enough to kill her and put the car in his lot...I guess, though that doesn't seem reasonable to me (he had the crusher and could have at least hid the car better). But that still doesn't account for the fact that the evidence doesn't really support the state's contention that he killed her in the garage. The big wtf questions to me are: 1) why did Colborn call in Teresa's plates before she was reported as missing? And how did he know it was a Toyota Rav 4? 2) why isn't there SOME blood SOMEWHERE in the garage? They find the bullet there but no blood anywhere? What? 3) why is Avery's blood in the car but no fingerprints? And why is his blood in the car to begin with? I could see maybe near the ignition if his hands were bloody and he was moving the car, but why in the trunk? And why wasn't Teresa's blood anywhere? I don't lend much credibility to the FBI's testing that that blood could not have come from the vile because of the missing chemical. Defense had a rebuttal to that with their chemist expert who said thats because they either didn't find it or it wasn't there. That left a door open. 4) What's the motive? I know you don't have to prove this but there needs to be SOME explanation for why Avery would decide to forgo his tens of millions of dollars he's going to get from the county and instead kill this person and then be maybe the dumbest murderer in history in the way that he tried to cover it up. None of that makes sense at all. 5) The *67 stuff is questionable but not really persuasive. So he's a creep, doesn't make him a murderer. Katz saying she was afraid of him doesn't really jive with one of the first things we heard in the documentary - her voicemail to Avery that morning indicating that she would be out there to take pictures of the van. There are more but I can't think of them off the top of my head. With Brendan's case, Jesus. What a tragedy. Allowing evidence obtained by his negligent legal representation, the jury believing the completely unfounded story that Teresa was tied up and raped and then stabbed... I mean that to me is the winner. You have this forced confession from this kid about an event that has zero basis in reality. The state has no proof that it happened that way, yet the jury still buys it? What? I think his biggest problem was that he performed TOO well during his time on the stand. He should have been dumber or not testified at all. And when they asked him why he lied to the cops, he shouldn't have answered "i dont know" he should have said because i didn't know what the heck i was saying and i just wanted to go back to school.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 21, 2016 -> 12:45 PM) Ugh.. The D word finally came up in my house. Disney. Blech. Been there the last two years with my wife and son. Let me know if you have any questions.

QUOTE (Tony @ Jan 20, 2016 -> 01:03 AM) Don't go to Springfield. Lol, that was great.

Wtf Jimmy?

Fire GarPax. Why didn't they trade their assets to draft Curry, Thompson and Green????? UGH. Such failures!

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 20, 2016 -> 02:16 PM) Classic oxymoron definition. The east f***ing sucks. And even assuming Rose never gets hurt, they lose to the Heat in '12, '13 and '14 and lose to the Cavs last year as well. Even if that's the case, they're in the top 4-6 teams in the NBA. That makes them contenders.

QUOTE (ozzfest @ Jan 20, 2016 -> 01:41 PM) Hawks AND Bulls? Are you kidding? The Bulls haven't accomplished anything since 1998. Since then, in 2011, their biggest accomplishment was under an MVP player who the FO got extremely lucky in winning the lottery with. You are lying to yourself if you don't see the Cubs having the second best FO in this town. Maybe even the best. Theo and Co. have built a sustainable CHAMPIONSHIP contender. That's how success should be measured. You're choosing contenders over actual winners? I can't waste anymore time on this argument. It'd be one thing to argue whether this move/non-move or that move/non-move was good/bad. But you're basically arguing championship or bust in a league you don't seem to understand very well. So if that's your criteria, you're right, GarPax have been failures. To the rest of the rational world, they got unlucky with Rose and have been trying to deal with that huge gaping hole ever since. That provides them much more leeway than someone like KW that didn't just get unlucky but continually leveraged the future for short term gains, or the bears who just...well, i dunno what the hell they've been doing up until last year.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Jan 20, 2016 -> 12:54 PM) Nice post. I stopped reading when you said the Bulls ensured they had enough cap space for Melo. They didn't and they wanted him to come in on a 2 year deal so when the cap rose, they could sign him to a max then which is illegal. Bulls couldn't even offer the non bird max. Blame that on retaining kirk Hiinrich when they did. I can't blame the FO for Rose getting hurt, but the FO blamed Thibs for not winning with Rose hurt as well. They let go of his top assistant who BTW had the best relationship with your superstar player and was voted assistant of the year last year in a power play with their coach. Look up Friedell and KC Johnson reports. Bulls fired this for basketball reasons and didn't think this "championship caliber roster" was meeting expectations under their old coach who kept making the playoffs every year with Nate Robinson and DJ Augustin leading the way. This surpassed expectations and was fired. You're best argument was that Paxson met or underachieved because of Rose - but they're still here. And first you want a star, and now you want to get the star under your terms. But he hadn't made the playoffs!! Anthony Davis didn't prior to last year and won't this year. Look the other way, he's not a superstar!!!!! In addition, I argued to trade Joakim at his peak. His usage was way too high and he had already broken down in the playoffs. A guy with no offensive game wasn't going to be able to keep that play up, especially being a proven injury prone player as well. They could have traded Taj and Dunleavy if they really wanted to make room. Or they could have worked out a sign and trade. It still came down to Melo choosing that extra 30-40 million in guaranteed money. Damn GarPax for not convincing him otherwise! Look, if you follow the team annually you know that last year, regardless of Rose's ability to get back to MVP form, the players had had enough of Thibs. Not just the FO, but also the team. The team was relatively healthy against the Cavs and simply could not score points against a depleted Cavs roster. That's why Thibs was canned. It was time and every reasonable person could see that. The way they went about it was wrong, but in the end I could care less about that. Great, you're trading Noah. To who? Who's taking him and giving a good return?

wheeeeeeeeeeeee! My accounts are nosediving. Not cool, guys.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Jan 20, 2016 -> 12:12 PM) Honestly, this isn't a discussion that will change anyone's minds. People believe what they believe. I guess it depends on what side of the fence you are on. As a fan, would you rather make the playoffs every year with no realistic shot at competing for a championship or would you rather compete for championships and actually make it to the Finals. Paxson is risk adverse. PS, I said trade Noah for Love. I also said trade Noah for Melo. Bulls refused to add him in either deal which is where negotiations stopped. Funny people get criticized for video game trades, but those are the only ones the Bulls attempt and fail miserably at. Fact is: Bulls suck at getting FAs Bulls suck at making trades Bulls suck at evaluating their medical staff Bulls are OK at drafting. And honestly, without Butler, they're mediocre at it Bulls are horrid with coaching relationships. But somehow that makes them a tip line front office. I guess as long the playoff tickets are available for a round, its all good. I measure my FOs in championships and appearances. Not how many times they got exposed in the playoffs for a weak roster makeup in a very weak conference. UGh, this is just infuriating. You're so unrealistic. Not signing FA's is completely out of their control given the NBA signing rules. Other teams can offer max contracts with more money. The Bulls can only offer max money. Period. Everyone and their mother agree that the Bulls roster was the best to join in both 2010 for Lebron and again in 2014 for Melo. So not only did the Bulls do a good enough job making room available to sign those guys to max deals, they ALSO did well enough to keep the roster full enough to be contenders. How do you not see that? Making trades. Wtf trade is out there. You're going to trade Noah, the defensive player of the year and all-nba center for Love, the oft-injured PF that hadn't sniffed the playoffs. And you're going to do that WHILE IGNORING THAT OTHER TEAMS HAD BETTER ASSETS AND MINNESOTA ENDED UP GETTING A GREAT DEAL FOR HIM IN THE END. Flip Saunders is not a stupid man. The Aldridge trade looks bad in hindsight, fine. GM's make mistakes. From the post-Rose era, however, there was no trade they could have made that didn't completely empty the coffers for a championship run. What you want is for the Bulls to be the Nets right now. Go for broke, leverage the future and get stuck being terrible for another 5 years straight. No thanks. I'd rather they continue to put out a competitive product that is sometimes fun to watch and that has a CHANCE at getting to the Finals. Without any superstar on their roster, that's the best you can ask for.

And 4 years ago they were one of the worst. These things are cyclical. Given the success the Bulls have had relative to their injury/contract situations, I still think the Bulls FO has done a pretty remarkable job.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jan 20, 2016 -> 11:22 AM) If Love became a Bull, Butler would be a Twolve and the Bulls would be worse off. Stop bring reality into this conversation. They should have done SOMETHING! SOMETHING would have made them better than they are today!

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Jan 20, 2016 -> 10:39 AM) Kawhi is leading the Spurs to championships. Yet he ays in the same league as the Bulls were LeBron and Curry are god. I wonder how he did it. Oh wait, his FO goes out and gets FAs and they make the necessary trades. Miami 6 years ago was s***. Had no assets other than Wade. Yet they aggressively went after guys and even after they got the big three, they went after guys like Ray Allen. So I ask again, why does the excuse train get to keep rolling when every other exec hasnt. So they don't have 3 other hall of fame players (drafted) on their roster? It was all Kawhi? You can't honestly be arguing that Paxson and Gar failed because they didn't get Lebron and Bosh and Wade in one deal are you? And you're not honestly giving credit for that to Reilly are you? As to the bolded, I don't know why you think people are giving them a pass. No other franchise in this city has had the sustained success over the last 6-7 years. They've played their cards as well as they could, they just got dealt some s***ty cards. I think reasonable people understand that.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Jan 20, 2016 -> 10:23 AM) Bulls should've offered up Noah for Love. They refused to though Gasol was already in the bag. Denver flat out moved on from the Bulls when they stated they flat out wouldn't offer Noah for Melo. Bulls wouldn't offer Deng for prime Gasol from Memphis. Bulls wouldn't offer Asik for Courtney Lee. They flat out aren't offering s*** to teams. Here, have our 8th best player and some worthless picks... Look at what Minn got for Love. Bulls couldn't compete with that.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Jan 20, 2016 -> 10:21 AM) And the Bulls already had Rose who according to this thread, Paxson is counting hard on Rose despite saying he wouldn't two off seasons ago. Bulls have Rose, Butler, and Pau. What is different between their situations other than the Bulls don't get deals done and the other teams do? And again, the Spurs had to deal for Kawhi from their core. They sold high on George Hill. Something Paxson refuses to do with his guys. They have a broken Rose who is no longer an all star let alone superstar. Didn't the Bulls draft Butler? A guy pretty close to Khawi? Does that not count? Do the Bulls have 2-3 other Hall of Fame players and the greatest coach of the last 2 decades and one of the best ever? You need to come back to reality a little and adjust your expectations.

They did go after melo and love. Other teams had better assets or could offer more money.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Jan 20, 2016 -> 09:27 AM) Complete and utter horses***. I'm not blaming hoiberg, but let's go look at the posts on here and realgm. It was stated over and over again - everyone is gonna fit. He's going to free mirotic and McDermott. Noah's passing is gonna be so good in the offense. Rose is gonna be able to have fun with jimmy in this offense. Everyone will love it. There was very few skeptics, and even then, Noah was definitely identified as someone who wouldn't fit. Dunleavy was a guy who might not fit. Snell, Gibson, and kirk were also thought to be guys who wouldn't fit. But let's leave even our opinions on the roster makeup out of it. If Hoiberg didn't have Hoiberg players coming into the season, who's job is it to get Hoiberg players?? Why wasn't that identified last off season? Was it because Paxson was an egotistical maniac who believed the roster he assembled was top of the line? Shouldn't Paxson have identified a coach he thought would fit with this roster as opposed to hiring a yes man with no regard to fit?? Lastly, Pau looks like he's gone. What are the Bulls gonna do to get Hoiberg players? Who is out there? Bulls have shown the inability to sign top tier free agents and make trades. Keep in mind, all the contenders have been able to play FA OE the trade market great. Spurs signed LaMarcus & traded George Hill for Kawhi Leonard (which was seen as a wtf move at the time) Cleveland traded for Love, then Mozgov, Jr Smith, & Shumpert GSW traded away Monta for Bogut. Were able to sign Iguodala (big time deal) at the time. The most frustrating part perhaps is that the Bulls have failed to do deals because of cap flexibility, but have yet to use that flexibility successfully. Because they know it'd be a waste of assets. Cleveland already had Lebron and Irving, Spurs already had Kwahi, along with the Aging Three, GSW already had Curry, Thompson and drafted Green.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Jan 19, 2016 -> 08:23 PM) The purpose of my long winded post was to be as objective as I can be. With that stated, I personally feel Paxsons time is expired as has been since 08. I do think he's good at changing a culture and taking a team from nothing. But then he falls in love too much with pieces and let's them expire. I feel there is a double standard when it comes to Paxson versus all other Chicago sports teams. The whole, well we don't have a LeBron argument is tired and a bunch of BS. Golden State didn't stop trying to build when LeBron was owning them in 2007. But we don't have a Stephen Curry! Neither did San Antonio. Yes you need great players to win. The Bulls simply don't do enough to acquire those type of players. They're very reactionary. Very slow at the wheel. Oh, he's available?? Let's try to go after him while another team has already had the jump. Bulls had a chance at prime Melo and declined. They had a shot at prime Kobe and failed. They lost out on their first four options in the 2010 fa class. Yes, Paxson was dealt a bad hand when Rose tore his acl. But when that happened, shouldn't Paxson tried to increase the talent exponentially to make sure he didn't have to carry the team? When Caron Butler, Jamal Crawford wanted to sign after Roses MVP season, and you trot out Richard Hamilton instead, you deserve blame. When you ignore the backup PG spot until the season is about to start every year, you deserve blame. After Rose tore his meniscus, you should've started to look for alternatives. You don't deal Korver for a bag of air. You don't hold onto Deng until he falls apart. You don't keep Ben Gordon until he just leaves. You don't hang onto Asik when you have Noah and you need a wing player like Courtney Lee. You call OKC and ask if he's available when you know OKC can't pay him and Ibaka. You don't hang into Taj Gibson when he can be replaced and a lesser rate. Lastly, when you have 13 years to win and you haven't even sniffed a Finals appearance, you get fired in every sport or on any other team. When you're core is the same as it was 5 years ago when it wasn't good enough and its on the wrong side of the hill, you don't keep your job. Lastly, when you bet on the exact same roster and fire your 2nd handpicked coach to hire someone else who is supposed to improve the offense, and he actually makes it worse, you don't get to keep your job. That's failure. There's nothing you can do! They offered max contracts to all of the available top FA's out there. Wade, Lebron, Melo, etc. If they don't come here, they don't come here. It's not for a lack of trying or GarPax being reactionary. They set up those FA pushes seasons before so that they could at least be in the conversation. They made roster moves so that they could do the exact thing you're complaining about. You're faulting them for not convincing guys to give up tens of millions or to play with their buddies in a set-up championship roster in Miami. GMAFB. As to the second bolded, you clearly don't understand the NBA. That's how the NBA works. Other leagues don't work like that. There isn't much parity in basketball. Either you get lucky and draft hall of fame players and you compete annually or you don't. Rarely do teams win through free agency. Let's look at the progression here: They draft Rose in 2008. They make the Salmons/Miller moves and make the playoffs. Rose wins Rookie of the Year. They have the epic series against Boston but lose. Rose seems like an all star caliber player. In 2009 that's what happens. They make the playoffs again, lose to Lebron. 2010 season. Rose becomes MVP. They're the best team in the regular season. They lose to the Heat in 5 in a closer series than the number dictates. (also should be pointed out that because Lebron & Co went to Miami, there were slim pickings in terms of FA. They got stuck with Boozer. They should have gone after Lee instead, but that's in hindsight.) 2011, off the MVP season, Rose signs his new max deal. Bulls look even better than 2010. Luol Deng goes from decent starter to All-Star. First game of the playoffs Rose tears the ACL. Gone for a season. Bulls lose. 2012 - no Rose. Bulls still win a playoff series. You can't give up on Rose at this point. One knee injury. It happens. Gotta keep him in the plans for the future. 2013 - Tears his MCL early in the season. Again, no Rose. Noah ends up 4th in MVP voting. At this point you could potentially start planning for a replacement, but you still owe him tons of money. And now you have a seemingly all-nba center, along with an emerging Butler BTW, the job finding replacement PG's on the scrap heap was amazing. You ignore that. 2014 - Again, Bulls back to being pretty good. Hoping that the return of Rose, return of Noah, Pau Gasol and Butler are enough to win. It's not. They should have won that series last year, but didn't. Now is arguably the only time where it was reasonable to start thinking about a post-Rose Bulls roster, and that's pretty much what they do. They get rid of Thibs for Hoiberg because their toilet bowl offense was atrocious and cost them the series. 2015 - Still near the top of the East. Still stuck paying Rose 25 million or whatever for his limited production. Have dealt with injuries to Noah, McDermott, Rose and others. Still winning every game against the top competition. The lone exception is GSW on the road. To me there are a FEW areas where GarPax failed. VDN wasn't a good hire. It didn't kill them since they weren't winning a title with Rose as a rookie anyway. And they were smart enough to switch gears pretty quickly. The Boozer signing wasn't great. They were forced into it given the Lebron debacle, but I still would have preferred Lee and they had a shot to get him. The biggest one to me was not tanking the 2012 season. Talk about a Spurs-like potential future. You have Rose (Robinson) and a shot at Anthony Davis (Duncan). That would have been epic. But really, could the Bulls have done that? They had Noah already. They may have gone SG since that was the big complaint at the time (so maybe Beal or Dion Waters). But is that better than what they eventually got in Butler? No. Big picture, I just don't see what more they could have done. They got stuck with a broken Rose. That's it. If he's the MVP Rose for his career, they probably get past Lebron at least once and get to the Finals. But, he's not, and they were stuck and still probably are because no one would want to take him with that salary.

After reading that I still say the same thing: you guys are crazy if you really expect the Bulls or ANY sports franchise to compete for TITLES, which is what you two are b****ing about, when your star players gets hurt for basically 4 seasons in a row. You're complaining that the Bulls didn't so SOMETHING when they've done quite a lot. Some of the moves worked out, some of them didn't. You can't expect GM's to be perfect. The behind the scene stuff, fighting with VDN, the way they let Thibs go, etc. has been embarassing. But from a strict basketball perspective, I think they've done a pretty fantastic job making this team a playoff mainstay and an ECF contender on an annual basis given that 20% of their starting 5 can't be counted on to play consistently and hasn't for about 5 years now.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jan 19, 2016 -> 09:09 AM) I think the Spurs are better and would win a 7 game series. The matchup next week is going to be must-watch TV.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Jan 19, 2016 -> 08:37 AM) I can definitely see Lopez and Johnson going to Cleveland. I just don't know if Cleveland has enough ammo for them, mainly Lopez. I don't see how that move helps the Cavs deal with the Warriors' speed and shooting.