thxfrthmmrs

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Feb 17, 2015 -> 02:09 PM) Don't get into the rebounding debate with thxfrthmmrs. He's been adamant on that for some reason for a while because Rose isn't Westbrook or Rondo with his athleticism when he has had Noah/Boozer/Gasol etc. big men for years. I remember Zoom arguing with that not mattering for a PG. I have my own opinions, but I generally lean heavily towards Zoom on that debate. I personally still feel VDN stunted his development a bit as a rookie, but that's another discussion. Rebounding is just one of the areas WB does better Rose. I am not going to split hair on how much better or whether rebounding is important for a guard or not. I think in the end it all ties back to hustle and effort plays, and Westbrook definitely puts more effort in all areas of the game, that's why I said back then "Rose could learn a thing or two from Westbrook". And the moment you were referring to I think came after Rose got out rebounded by Kidd 11-0 in a loss to the Mavs. Noah was out that game and that was pre-Boozer I believe. Coming out of college, Rose was often compared to Kidd and thought to be a nightly triple double threat. Needless to say I was disappointed that his rebounding left something to be desired, but I have accepted the fact that he's not going to be an all around guy like Kidd, Rondo or Westbrook but instead makes his mark on scoring the ball and playing within himself. To flip this back on you guys, I think I was one of the first to hop on the Westbrook train and thought he could be better than Rose, but no one took it seriously at the time. I think even had Rose not been injured, Rose vs. Westbrook would certainly be a fun and legitimate debate today.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 17, 2015 -> 12:05 PM) I'd be willing to bet that Rose would have improved his passing and defense a ton had he actually been on the court working with Thibs for the past 3 seasons. Rebounds maybe not, but that'd be in part because the Bulls have had Noah and Gibson as their main rebounding guys so Rose would actually be out of position a lot of times to clean things up. I won't argue against that. But what made Westbrook the well rounded superstar he is today is he is an effort player and almost never takes a play off and plays hard on both ends of the floor. He has always been that way and now his skills finally caught up to his talent and demeanor. Rose on the other hand has a tendency to coast for parts of the game, for whatever reason. I still remember in early parts of his career he was invisible for prolonged stretches of the game and was benched by Vinny in a game against the Pacers for not playing defense. Again, that's another part of the Westbrook's game I admired over Rose's at the time.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 17, 2015 -> 09:47 AM) Because obviously you knew that Rose was going to miss around 3 years of basketball with two catastrophic injuries. No, because I believed that the 2010 Westbrook had potential to become something close to the 2014 Westbrook that 2010 Rose couldn't, even had he stayed healthy. In 2010, I saw Westbrook as a guy who would contribute to every aspect of the game and could do everything well if he plays with the right attitude. At that time, he was superior to Rose in terms of rebounding, drawing fouls, defense, and passing. Rose was better as a scorer, shooter, and floor general. Not saying WB was better at the time, but there were aspects of his game that I admired and would have liked Rose to adopt.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Feb 16, 2015 -> 06:09 PM) This. You could replace LeBron with '91 MJ or '00 Shaq and the Heat still get dusted by the Spurs. They were that good. The same Jordan that averaged like 30-7-12 against the Lakers that year? The Spurs that lost to Heat in 2013 was largely the same team in 2014. Give me the '91 Jordan who's also better defensively than the 2014 Lebron and I will pick the Heat. Also, I don't see how a 37 year old Duncan, Splitter, Diaw or Donner could contain a prime Shaq. A Shaq and Bosh front line would be the ultimate pick your poison if I've ever seen one. I don't blame Lebron for that Finals loss, but that Heat team could definitely beat the Spurs with a God mode Jordan or Shaq.

QUOTE (SleepyWhiteSox @ Feb 15, 2015 -> 08:39 PM) It still wouldn't make sense Yea right.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Feb 15, 2015 -> 08:21 PM) Remember when Rose/Westbrook was a debate? Westbrook is the Shaq of pgs. I remembered back in 2009-10 I said Rose could learn a thing or two from Westbrook and I was toast by pretty much everyone on this board. But that was back in the days when Rose could do no wrong in the eyes of everyone in Chicago.

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.