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QUOTE (SoxAce @ Feb 15, 2015 -> 01:08 AM) Ditto. They're pretty much saving the dunk contest. A damn shame some of these guys don't look up some players on YouTube doing dunks. Some guys are spectacular. (Jonathan Clark before he destroyed his knee was amazing) I am sure most of them do. Thing is most of those YouTube dunks take many attempts to before they succeed. And doing it in a competition on National TV is a lot more pressure than dunking at your local gym. Personally I think the new 3 attempts rule is stupid. They should go back to 90 seconds and let guys do whatever they want. At the end of 90 secs, give them 1 final attempt. Oladipo's last attempt of the one hand 360 off a lob could have been special, but he bombed his first two attempts and had to play it safe on the last attempt.

Snell' breakout reminds me a lot of Jimmy's second year, showing flashes of a good NBA player. I think we are striking gold again with this pick.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Feb 10, 2015 -> 12:48 PM) Given there are 2 games until the all star break, I kind of wonder if they'll just shut him down and be conservative. Would be really big if we were able to pull these next two out and head into the ASB with some positive momentum. If he's healthy enough to play then he should play. Thursday night against against the Cavs is both important in the standings and in the season series vs them. We could use some positive momentum heading into the break.

Someone refresh my memory on why the Sox don't qualify for the competitive balance rounds? I believe the 10 teams in the smaller markets and/or 10 with the lowest revenue qualify for the lottery. The Sox attendance was among the lowest the past few years, ergo low revenue (unless we really save THAT much with the low rental cost of the Cell). I understand Cardinals are in because of their market size, but how did Mariners qualify again?

QUOTE (Boogua @ Feb 9, 2015 -> 04:41 PM) I always thought it was interesting to see what happened with Lebron's heave statistics once Battier joined Miami. I had no idea that Durant was that low either. It really isn't a huge issue, though. He had 0 heaves in the last 3 years with Miami. You could tell he was very selective with his shots and was challenging himself to shoot .600 for a while.

Came across an interesting stat today. Chris Paul, Durant, and Westbrook has 11, 5, and 10 heave shots, respectively, in their career. That's 26 heave shots and 1,712 games between the 3 of them. Kobe has 47 in 1,014 games, and Lebron has 32 in 885 games. Meanwhile Rose already has 28 heave shots in just 330 career games. Just goes to show how much crap Rose gives about his own stats.

Much needed win tonight. It will be a dog fight in the second half of the season for 2nd or 3rd seed. We are 3 games back of Toronto for the 2nd seed, and tied with Washington for the 3rd seed at the moment. The difference between the 2nd or 3rd seed will be playing Milwaukee or Charlotte in the first round versus playing one of Toronto, Washington or Cleveland.

Bulls need to run more pick and rolls. It's the easy play to run in basketball yet the hardest to defend, especially when you have to pick your poison between a attacking Rose and sweet shooting Gasol or Mirotic. We also need to pass the ball more, and move better without the ball. Too much Rose or Brooks dribbling on the perimeter and other guys just watching. The offense doesn't have a good flow at all.

I won't cry about it at this point if Thibs does get canned. His defensive schemes are aren't as effective as they used to be now that it's popularized around the league and many teams feature a stretch big that will make us pay. Offensively, the play calling is beyond apprehensible, and his rotation management is an adventure every night.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 3, 2015 -> 05:36 PM) You know who looked pretty terrible his first year? Marquis Teague?

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Feb 3, 2015 -> 11:23 AM) The Wade Davis low ranking stood right out to me but he's due to regress a bit so I don't think that's necessarily crazy. It's just the guys opinion on who he thinks the best relievers for 2015 will be. I don't think he will regress much. He relieved as well in 2012 and was very good in that role. He became elite in 2014 after adding 2 MPH to his fastball, so last year wasn't just an aberration to his usual performance. If he thinks K-Rod and Soriano, both are currently free agents, and guys like Perkins and Cishek will be better than Davis in 2015, then I don't think his opinion should be published by MLB.

I don't read anything from mlb.com not written by Jim Callis, and I was quickly reminded why. The writer seemed to favor closers to setup men in his rankings, which is probably why Wade Davis was 25th, but then Batences was a setup men last year and was ranked 5th on his list. Also, if Fernando Rodney is the 6th best reliever in MLB then I think we could audition random dudes off the street to pitch in the big leagues.

Anyone find it strange Rollins came out his mic went silent and they cut to commercials all of a sudden?

I can see the DMD situation continuing to fuel the Thibs vs FO rift. GarPax are obviously high on Doug after trading two 1st, a 2nd, and absorbing Anthony Randolph just to get him. We clearly have a need for a shooter out there but Thibs is sticking to his old ways by either benching players who couldn't defend or redshirting his rookies. I could imagine Foreman trying to pitch for more playing time for Doug and Thibs is just blowing him off.

QUOTE (Jake @ Feb 1, 2015 -> 08:23 PM) I don't really see any deficit in athleticism. It's just a matter of putting it all together, being a basketball player. The end to end speed isn't there anymore. In the past, you would watch him grab a rebound or an inbound pass and beat everyone down court for an easy layup, and you just tell yourself, that is the fastest guy in the NBA. I have not seen that from him at all this season. A lot of the layups and easy basket he gave up on fastbreaks would have been chase down blocks in the past. Just from the last Suns game, the soft one hand dunk he put down would have been a huge tomahawk dunk in years past. He was also blocked by Goran Dragic of all people at the rim for a layup. You might say he's just conserving himself so he doesn't get hurt, but I've seen him tried pretty hard the past 2 weeks, he still a premium athlete, but not the once in a generation type of athlete that he was. That's why I said he has to learn to play smarter without being able to out-quick or out-jump everyone else.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jan 31, 2015 -> 01:39 PM) Having the basketball IQ to understand what's going on out there while you're hurt is a lot different than doing the right things at game speed. I'm okay with how Rose is doing. There is undeniably a dropoff, but he's playable and we often see flashes of that raw talent that made him special. He still does some stuff getting to and finishing around the hoop that keeps me hopeful that we'll be seeing the awesome version of him at some point in the future. I don't think you will see him playing more athletic than he does now, and we can agree that he's not the athlete he once was. 80-85% perhaps. And at 85%, is he good enough to help this team win? We got plenty of great athletes in the league nowadays, especially at his position. For a player who used to get by with athleticism, having his athleticism reduced to closer to the par of the league is the reason why he struggles to score at times. At the end of the day, he needs to learn to play smarter, not harder. If he still relies on his athleticism to get by, he will hurt this team as much as he help this team. He's always one of those players that you wonder how his game will transform as he ages and loses a step. That point has come for him earlier than he or we would like, now we will see how he cope with his game.

Apparently Thibs is more inclined to use Gasol in the post than mid range, and I don't think it's hard to see that Gasol at this stage of his career has a lot of trouble backing down other post defenders.

QUOTE (Tex @ Jan 31, 2015 -> 07:11 AM) May I suggest that pictures would be a very interesting addition to this thread?

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 31, 2015 -> 05:21 AM) His PER and TS% is right in line with Michael Jordan. The Wizards version. He's been painfully inefficient. Let's not even get into his defense. Um no. His defense the past 2 weeks has actually been very good. But the rest of his game is awful to watch. It's like watching a blind artist trying to paint a picture or in basketball terms, watching Javale McGee trying to play point guard. He is the opposite of being cerebral. There are only 2 things he is zoned in on, getting to the basket and throwing up wild acrobatic shots (refs arent doing with favor with the whistle) or keep chucking up ill-formed three point shots without regards to human life. His mid range game is gone, which is sad since he's still a good mid range shooter. The part that annoys me the most is whenever he gets in the painted area, he's always looking to score instead of dishing it off for easy baskets or dribble around the paint to break down the defense. When he does look to dish it off he, without failure, always throws these erratic jump passes that more often that not leads to turnovers. I think his basketball acumen this season has gotta to be the worst I've seen from a point guard ever since I started watching basketball. I don't understand why they don't run the Rose and Gasol pick and pop play more often. That to me is the most effective play for this team.

This team is not the physical team they once were. Opposing offense just takes they want from them

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 29, 2015 -> 02:57 PM) Quintana has been a 200 inning guy both of the last two years. He doesn't have any more of a problem going deep into games than any other guys in the league now. Also, the logic is flawed -- in a short series with lots of off days, going deep into a game is LESS important than in the regular season, where day-to-day durability and rest of the bullpen is concerned. You're right, bullpen is important in the playoffs, but you are not looking at this in context. Many say that this team is built better for the playoffs because our top 3 is among the best in the league. But come playoff time, are we really comfortable saying we have an edge in our starting pitching if Q can only go 4 or 5 innings for us and we have to rely on a shaky bullpen to hold down the fort? If you're the Royals, sure, if you're the White Sox, no. That, along with no playoff experience, and Sale's second half fatigue really poke a lot of holes in the claim that "we are built for the playoffs".

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Jan 29, 2015 -> 11:14 AM) And once again, the Sox are a team that is set up better for the playoffs than they are for the regular season. So if we can sneak into a Wild Card spot, we'll be extremely dangerous. Nitpicking a little bit here. But I don't think you can really count on this yet. The trio of Sale, Q and Shark has exactly 0 playoff starts at the moment, it isn't the biggest concern in the world, but it matters to a certain extent. On top of that, Sale has looked gassed in the last month of the season each of the past 3 years. We'll need some creative planning to keep him fresh in the postseason, but that will come at the cost of valuable regular season wins, and that matters a lot to this team as it stands. Lastly, I am not convinced Q is a quality playoff starter, at least not one where I would say he a clearly a better number 3 than the other team's number 3 in a series. Without opening a can of worm, Q doesn't go deep in games, and always seems to blow up in the 5th or 6th inning because hitters hit him better the second time around. It's hard to trust a guy like that, especially if he has to pitch 2 games in a series.

QUOTE (oldsox @ Jan 29, 2015 -> 07:23 AM) Can Soto hit lefties any better than Viciedo? I don't think so. This whole Beckham/Viciedo charade is crazy. Hahn is taking a big chance here. If LaRoche doesn't hit this year, if he turns into an old guy real fast, if he is the 2015 version of Adam Dunn, Sox are in trouble. Viciedo at least represented a RH DH alternative, now it's Soto? Sox are now a weaker team than they were a week ago, and we take back Gordo to clog up the infield even more? Where does this leave Bontifacio and all his speed? If Hahn wants to use Gordo as a RH third baseman because Gillaspie can't hit lefties, why didn't he do that last year? Sorry, I don't get it. Looks like a Forrest Gump move to me. If they do not acquire a more capable RH OF/DH to platoon with LaRoche, then Soto is a better candidate as a backup catcher than Kottaras because he could get some looks vs. lefties DH. Again, nothing is set in stone, we still have to wait and see who they bring in as the backup OF, and how both Kottaras and Soto fare in ST. Now, is Soto a better option to backup DH than DV? Let me put it this way, the upgrade in defense, position flexibility, and the salary saved in swapping DV for Beckham is more significant than the drop off in production with Soto as the backup DH than Viciedo there. I also don't think you should have expected DV to take more AB's if LaRoche doesn't hit. For as bad as Dunn was he was still getting regular AB's vs righties, because you simply don't sit a player with that type of contract or reputation in favor of a bench player. I think LaRoche will be better than Dunn, so we wouldn't have used Viciedo as much as you thought we would.

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Jan 28, 2015 -> 07:18 PM) Soto may get the job, but he doesn't have more power than Kottaras. Soto can spell LaRoche against lefties, Kottaras can't. That's the key.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 28, 2015 -> 05:03 PM) I had forgotten about Taylor, and I have a mancrush on him. I think his swing is a little long and he lacks good contact skills, but he can hit the ball a long ways, and as I recall, he's a lot better than Viciedo in the corners in that he appears to actually know what he's doing, even if he's athletically limited. I'd be on board the Taylor train. I was one of Taylor's biggest supporters too. But after his cup of tea last year, I don't think he could ever make the adjustment to hit big league pitching. There's a reason he's already 29 years old and only has 100 AB's in the big leagues.