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QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 20, 2015 -> 11:33 AM) Without knowing the internal team dynamics its hard to say 100% "this should/shouldn't be private", but I lean towards the "This is DRose, I can't remember him calling out anyone, so if he's getting on people there's a reason why" side. The true test will be whether it matters in wins and losses of course. If it's clearly his teemmates not pulling their weight then I would have no problem with that. But he's part of the issue just as much as the anyone else on the team. This is going leave a sour taste on their mouth, especially those who kept saying the right things to the media on Rose's behalf for the better part of he last 3 years.

But why should his teammates listen when Rose himself isn't leading by example. I understand he's quiet off the court, but if you know the problem is guys are not talking on court, then start enforcing the habit himself before calling guys out. Being the highest paid guy and having your name called at last during player introductions comes with a little bit more responsibility. I am reading that the internally guys are dividing and some are not pleased with Rose's leadership. It might just be rumors, but pulling off s*** like this isn't going to help. The TNT crew last night thought that this should be something Rose should have said internally to his teammates, and I agree with that.

Derrick needs to stay away from the media. He needs to keep his mouth shut and lead a player-only meeting. He's the highest paid guy on the team and the whole team did nothing but support him and defend him from the media the past 2 years. He complains about guys being quiet out in the court, maybe if he looks into the mirror, he'll know why.

No Chris Sale.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 19, 2015 -> 07:53 PM) Are you the new me? I post this and all hell breaks loose. You're more pessimistic now than you were from '11 to '14 when the Bulls had NO chance of beating Miami. I think as long as guys aren't dead come April the Bulls have as good a chance as any to win the east. This was supposed to be the best Bulls team yet, and it's looking like the same s*** all over again. It gets at you. I never thought the Bulls could beat this Cavs team from the get go and I will stick by it, and until I see it happen, I will say Bulls will not beat Lebron in the playoffs.

This is going to be a pessimistic post for y'all. Don't want to overreact but this isn't a title contending team, and it isn't just because of the last 2 weeks. This team is very much above average, but they have not been dominant and blowing teams out at ANY POINT this season. Even in wins, they were barely winning, and championship teams don't do that. The point differential is simply bad for a team with a 27-15 record. This team has a lot of players who are good at what they do, but has tremendous flaws in other parts of the game. Watching Gasol play defense makes me puke. Brooks is one of the worst defenders in the league. Noah probably couldn't score with a 6 foot rim. Hinrich had his moments but is horrendous otherwise. You can use "when healthy" as a condition all you want, but with the injury history of this roster, "when healthy" would be wishful thinking.

QUOTE (shipps @ Jan 19, 2015 -> 02:51 PM) Does this effect the next Samardijza contract in any way good or bad? Hahn would probably think outside the box on this one too. Pay the man in bitcoins.

That's why Chris Sale is near the top of every trade value list. Seriously, imagine what he would be worth in the open market. It's also unfortunately Rodon is a Boras guy. If we could work out an extension for him in a couple of seasons, we would continue to enjoy incredible cap flexibility.

Why the hell did GB call the timeout so soon. Leaving too much time for Seattle.

WAR sometimes doesn't agree with the eye test, but FWIW, Flowers had a 2.3 bWAR and 1.8 fWAR last year, so he's considered to be a league average catcher. $2.7 mil for a $10 mil value ain't bad at all.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 15, 2015 -> 05:15 PM) I actually really liked what I saw from Surkamp out of the pen. I know about his profile but admitted I only watched him pitch maybe twice last season and nothing stood out for me. What did you like about him?

QUOTE (Charlie Haeger's Knuckles @ Jan 15, 2015 -> 04:50 PM) I think I read somewhere he had the worst "inherited runners allowed" stat on the team with Zack Putnam having the best on the team, last season. He might have, but those things varies greatly from season to season. He's pitched respectably 3 of his 4 seasons in the majors, and does have a good fastball. So I wouldn't hold it against him yet. QUOTE (Mike F. @ Jan 15, 2015 -> 04:50 PM) What about Eric Surkamp? Does he not make the team? The guys he's competing against clearly are better or have better track records. With his repertoire, he profiles better as a 6th starter anyways. If we need an emergency starter, he or Beck will get the call from Triple A.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Jan 15, 2015 -> 04:38 PM) I wonder when the last time we actually went to arbitration? I think it's a good thing to settle amicably. But, what role will Guerrra hav with this team? I like it, his arb was projected to be $1.3 mil. He didn't do bad last year, we could do worse with $900K. Robertson, Petricka, Duke, Putnam, Webb, Guerra, Jennings/Garcia. Guerra bumps out Cleto.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 15, 2015 -> 11:42 AM) Jax is obviously terrible, but Bradley deserves 5 years there with the roster they gave him. Put it another way, nothing Bradley has done so far would endorse the hiring of a Seattle assistant based on their success, which I think is attributed to the talent and the competitiveness of the players as much as it's on the assistants themselves.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 15, 2015 -> 11:00 AM) And it has forced Jimmy to play a ton of minutes. Not sure if sarcasm. Jimmy has been playing big minutes all season, he probably played less since Dunleavy went down.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jan 15, 2015 -> 10:45 AM) All of the assistants are a crapshoot. Even experienced head coaches can be one too, depending, but in terms of experienced HC's, unless you are looking at Cowher / Dungy / Gruden, Fox is that next class of experienced coaches (along with Shanny). Shanny should be in the breath of the 1st three coaches, however, the stink that happened in Washington still follows him (and he might actually deserve more credit than he ever got for Washington given what a disaster Snyder is). The reality is, you know what you have and that is a good NFL coach who can hire good assistants on both sides of the ball and help you win football games. He is still going to need talent to win, he can't turn water into wine or part the red sea. He needs talent but if you give him talent, he'll get you their and won't get in the way. At the end of the day, that is a rare commodity and when you have that known, go get it. He instantly establishes a winning culture and overall stability to an organization which has lacked it, really since Lovie got additional roster control after the superbowl (albeit Angelo / Lovie did bring one of the more successful Bear windows and periods...one where we contended every year...didn't make the playoffs as much as we'd like but we contended). Fox is a class above Lovie, mainly because he has demonstrated the ability to hire offensive talent. Fox also has a long history of being able to work with his GM's, etc, which is a really major plus and the way he handled the last year in Denver despite Elway being a prick, is also pretty admirable, imo. Quinn has only been a DC for 4 years, and only 2 years at NFL level. To go from College DC to NFL head coach in a matter of 2 years is a pretty big leap, the skepticism for his ability is not uncalled for. You are right that he needs talent to win, and he was given the best deck of card in Seattle. Those boys in Seattle had the talent and had the drive to win. Sherman is about the most competitive guy out there and Earl Thomas is as hardworking anyone guy you will see in the NFL. The Seattle defense was already top of the line before Quinn took over. (Interestingly, Gus Bradley, the DC Quinn replaced went on to Jacksonville and that's been a failed experience so far) If we are looking for Quinn to do his magic with this Bears team, I am afraid it's going to end up in a disaster because one, we don't have nearly the talent nor the competitiveness or pride in the defensive side of the ball as Seattle does, and two, his track record, especially for other parts of the game is very limited. Unless they see more in him, like you mentioned, the "it" factor, it's hard to not be skeptical about the move.

Quinn seems like an attractive name based on the Seattle connection, but I am not sold he's ready to be a HC.

The Bulls have too many one way players outside of Butler. Every lineup Thibs puts out there there's a weakness that could be exploited by the other teams. The Wizards starting 5 are just more complete than ours at the moment, I think their starters have outscored ours by 40 points the past 2 games. It's not hard to see why, all of them are respectable scorers and are capable defenders. We need Rose to show up on defense, Dunleavy has a lot of value in stretching the defense and he needs to play, we need Noah playing on 2 legs not 1. Even then I am starting to warm up to the Gasol-Gibson front line.

Someone with Synergy subscription can back me up here, the Bulls are just awful this year against the pick and roll plays.

We plateaued after the Rockets win. Everything was downhill from there.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 14, 2015 -> 04:58 PM) Of course no team in NBA history under .500 this far into the season has won an NBA title so....history is against them. Think of all the teams in the east with legit big guys that will destroy them. Wizards, Hawks and Bulls... The thing is you could name weaknesses from all the top teams in the East. Washington doesn't have reliable perimeter scoring, Atlanta lacks rebounding and legit sixth man, Toronto doesn't have front court depth and is 1-4 against Bulls and Cavs, and we all know Bulls have their own issues. OTOH, the Cavs have as much strengths as any teams in the East. I feel like the issue here is there were such high expectations for that team to be good right out of the gate, even taking into account the adjustments they need to make in learning to play in the new system with new players, but no one expected them to fall below .500. If you look at it objectively though, they went through an adjustment period for the first 10 games or so, then went out a 13-4 stretch before Lebron went down. Then they lost Varejao for the season and locker room starts to divide during their losing streak. I feel like a lot of the panic right now is just overreaction. Objectively, they aren't that far from our original predicitions. When healthy, this team is still one of the best teams in the East, and there's no reason to write them off now. P.S. I think Shumpert could be the glue guy for their team. He will bring skills to the 2 guard position that Miller and Marion just doesn't have.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 14, 2015 -> 04:30 PM) Meh, but their offense is better than those teams. Who knows, we're just playing theoretical matchups right now. Until they've proven they can't win when they are healthy, writing them off would be premature.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 14, 2015 -> 04:10 PM) Atlanta's D is pretty damn good. They are good, but they aren't shutting down the firepower of Cleveland for 7 games kind of good. We aren't talking about the Pacers of the past 2 years, the 2011 Bulls, or the great Celtics or Pistons D of the past decade here.

The addition of Mozgov and especially Shunpert will help their defense a lot. With guys like Mike Miller, Marion, Thompson, and JR. coming off the bench, that isn't the definition of "no depth". Locker room is a concern, but winning solves that. Look, if LeBron wasn't injurred the last 10 games or so and they went on to go 1-8, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation. If they continue to fall into mediocrity with a healthy Lebron for an extended period of time, then yea we could write them off.

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Jan 14, 2015 -> 02:04 PM) No they won't. A healthy LeBron can't change the fact that the Cavs have weak bigs, a healthy LeBron won't help Kyrie and KLove not suck on defense, a healthy LeBron can't change the fact that the East top teams are actually good this year... They won't be winning playoff series with their defense, but their offense had a chance to be best in the league, and still does. It isn't like any of the top teams in the East are defensive juggernauts and could shut down their offense. Let's not forget they went on a 13-4 run before Lebron went down 2 weeks ago. Counting out a team with that much talent while they are just going through injuries is a little premature.