the dunk by howard to win it was mighty impressive.
NBA Basketball 2006-07: The Thread
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I think the tony parker block was almost equally as amazing.
namkcuR said:
it has nothing to do with my dislike for what the bulls are doing, but the three most important franchises to the all around ratings success of the NBA are the lakers, the celtics and the knicks. two out of three suck, and one is above average. the nba needs the celtics or knicks to be good, not neccesarily the best, just good, to really bring the east back in a ratings sense.
as far as simply talent wise, yes... chicago is right there, but the same arguments i always use with them still exist... they have zero offensive production from the post and they do not have a go to guy who can put the team on his back and carry them come playoff time. you need that guy. every good team has that guy. could gordon or deng develop into that guy? sure, i suppose they could. but it's getting to the point with them where development is out the window and it's time to simply produce.
pao would help them alot. it would actually make ben wallace much more effective if you could put a 20 point scorer in the post next to him (even though it's still an awful awful contract and a huge waste of money... tyson chandler's having a bigger season for less than half the price and 8 years younger).
the bulls have a lot of chips... now they need to start using them. the east sucks. trade for a legit #1 scorer now and they could very easily be in the Finals in may/june. now hell, the east is so bad it would certainly not shock me if the bulls got to the finals with the team as is... but they'd get blown out of the building once they got there. add that #1 guy and they might actually have a chance to win it.
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i really don't like diane wade
Cubes' blog entry:
I hate Dwyane Wade. Sour grapes from the Finals? You bet. I think he's a good player with a phoney championship. He had no business to even bring Dirk or the Mavericks up, especially considering they're not even playing for another two weeks. Uncalled for.
Fuck that guy.
I hate Dwyane Wade. Sour grapes from the Finals? You bet. I think he's a good player with a phoney championship. He had no business to even bring Dirk or the Mavericks up, especially considering they're not even playing for another two weeks. Uncalled for.
Fuck that guy.
while i don't like diane wade either, his championship is not phoney.
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Cuban is the bigger asshole here, but he usually is. He ought to be above making the smarmy comments he cannot resist uttering and then posting. That aside, though, no need for Wade to say any of that, seems fairly classless.
Calling his championship phony seems like sour grapes to me.
Calling his championship phony seems like sour grapes to me.
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inmyplace13 said:
Sorry...I thought you meant that Wade had sour grapes from the Finals, even though they won.
My bad.
hey, the celtics lost.
30 here we come
30 here we come
phanan
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They were actually leading that game for a bit, too.
Bring on the west coast.
Bring on the west coast.
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Can you imagine if neither Oden or Durant jump??? You guys would feel like Jet fans the day Peyton Manning announced he was returning to Tennessee for his Senior season.
Of course, Durant seems like a lock to jump, Oden, slight chance he'll stay but unlikely. I've read 2 articles now where he's talked about loving the overall college experience, and I did not get the impression that it was him just being coy. I'm sure he'll still jump, though.
As for the NBA needing an East Coast traditional team to become really good again, could not agree more. Things seem to perk up if a Boston or a NY are actual contenders in most sports.
Of course, Durant seems like a lock to jump, Oden, slight chance he'll stay but unlikely. I've read 2 articles now where he's talked about loving the overall college experience, and I did not get the impression that it was him just being coy. I'm sure he'll still jump, though.
As for the NBA needing an East Coast traditional team to become really good again, could not agree more. Things seem to perk up if a Boston or a NY are actual contenders in most sports.
phanan said:
if they get past milwaukee i really think they'll get to 30 straight losses.
i'm pullin' for 'em
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Headache in a Suitcase said:
I'm going to go ahead and disagree with you. I think if you look at this team, they are using "the chips." Heinrich is a great leader. You have said this before so I know you agree. He is not the Mr. Bigshot on the team. I think that falls in the hands of Ben Gordon. And I do think he's growing now into that role more and more this season.
But, the guy I see who's making big plays for this team even without scoring at the end of games is Deng. He is the one grabbing rebounds at the end of the game to seal victory, or get a second shot at a win. Not to mention...He's averaging 18+ ppg, and look at his rebounds in the last 15 games.
I will not sit here and say Big Ben's signing was a great one. But you also have to factor in something. Tyson Chandler was a punk. He had an attitude. You cannot argue that. It's why he's gone, and it's why we didn't keep JR Smith, who we traded for. I will also argue that we should have tried to trade Tyson for more NY Knicks pics.
Also, in fairness. Chandler is making 9,000,000 right now and at the end of his contract, he'll be making 12 mil.
Oh, and...I wanted to mention that the Hawks have a leader and they're no good. So it's not always about having one solid leader...just my thought.
namkcuR
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Phil is right.
Also, as far as the Chandler trade goes...you can't say that we need a go-to-guy out of one side of your mouth and then say the Chandler trade was a bad trade out of the other side. The Chandler trade got us a big expiring contract without which we would have NO shot at landing Pau Gasol, and now he may very well end up with us.
And don't say 'well, if you hadn't given Big Ben that awful contract, you'd have enough cap space to absorb any big incoming contract'. We had that cap space for ONE offseason and we had to use it and Big Ben was the best option for it. Peja would have been a bad signing for us, Drew Gooden would've been meh, etc...you get the idea.
Also, as far as the Chandler trade goes...you can't say that we need a go-to-guy out of one side of your mouth and then say the Chandler trade was a bad trade out of the other side. The Chandler trade got us a big expiring contract without which we would have NO shot at landing Pau Gasol, and now he may very well end up with us.
And don't say 'well, if you hadn't given Big Ben that awful contract, you'd have enough cap space to absorb any big incoming contract'. We had that cap space for ONE offseason and we had to use it and Big Ben was the best option for it. Peja would have been a bad signing for us, Drew Gooden would've been meh, etc...you get the idea.
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Well stupid Paul Pierce has returned from his injury 25 games too early.Headache in a Suitcase said:
if they get past milwaukee i really think they'll get to 30 straight losses.
i'm pullin' for 'em
He dropped 29 last night and they lost at the buzzer, so sadly, 30 straight isn't gonna happen. They might even beat Milwaukee Wed.
I hope not.
Just lose baby.
namkcuR said:
we'll agree to disagree on the other stuff... deng and gordon simply do not excite me when i think of guys who can carry a team to a championship, which is the only thing i care about as a fan... but you are dead wrong on this cap issue.
cap space does not go away if you do not use it. you do not have to use it. if there's no one you want to sign, don't sign anyone. period. if you feel you must sign someone, sign a short contract that is easily tradable and you can get rid of if you must.
how long until the fact that lebron james has taken a significant step back this year becomes front page news?
he's averaging 5 points fewer per game, fewer assists, fewer rebounds, same turnovers, etc. etc. and his team, in a god awful conference, is not exceling as it was thought they would. he's getting to the free throw line less and shooting a lower percentage when he gets there.
too much too quick?
he's averaging 5 points fewer per game, fewer assists, fewer rebounds, same turnovers, etc. etc. and his team, in a god awful conference, is not exceling as it was thought they would. he's getting to the free throw line less and shooting a lower percentage when he gets there.
too much too quick?
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Yes, I'll agree to disagree on Gordon. Not Deng.Headache in a Suitcase said:
I'm going to flip flop on my Ben Wallace talk here. I don't think we had to use the cap space on Ben Wallace. I think we had the cap space and wanted to spend it on Ben Wallace. Score points he does not. But block, and sometimes more importantly alter shots...that he does. Ben Wallace has always been known for his work ethic. The Chicago Bulls under Scott Skiles have always been known for their work ethic. Seemed like a good fit. Better fit than Chandler anyway. I don't really think it was a bad signing. It just puts a lot of emphasis on Tyrus Thomas to become that post scorer.
And hey, he's 19 years old. Deng is 21 years old and Gordon is I believe 23-24. The thing I keep thinking is how young this team is. Maybe it will take a few years to develope the chemistry and "killer instinct" needed to win the big games. If we make a trade now, we could make it to the championship now. If we hold off now, maybe we could have a championship team that grew together.
So in recap, we signed Big Ben b/c we wanted to. We traded Tyson for PJ Brown b/c his 8 mil contract expires. Now we can resign key players this year and the next. And build together a championship team. At least we don't have Steve Francis...
And yes. Lebron...too much to quick.
namkcuR
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Headache in a Suitcase said:
No, cap space doesn't go away, but our rookies aren't going to be on rookie contracts forever....Ben and Luol are up for extensions after this season and Nocioni's deal is up after this season too. Also, at the time of the Wallace signing, Hinrich hadn't been extended yet. We had/have a bunch of players who are going to be resigned, so yes, the cap space wouldn't have gone away, but it would have been used up completely by these resignings. We wouldn't have been able to sign an unrestricted FA for any signficant amount of money this offseason.
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Got Philk? said:
Does he know how to post up yet?
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uh...
I dunno?
I dunno?
namkcuR said:
let's figure this out for the class here.
let's say you didn't spend that 16 mill on ben wallace. so you've got 16 million available. take 3 mill away for the additional money needed to extend hinrich. now you're at 13 mill in cap space.
ok... now nocioni will be an unrestricted free agent at season's end. this much is true. gordon and deng will not be. they are in there third year and thus at season's end are able to have an option picked up by the bulls for 25% on top of their rookie scale compensation. for deng, that's a raise of $544,000 bucks. for gordon that's a raise of $844,000 bucks. so aprox. 1.4 million to keep 'em both. even if they decided to sign them to an extention it wouldn't kick in until after their rookie scale contract.
now we're at 11ish million dollars of cap space. maybe as low as 9 million depending on how much money they gave hinrich.
so let's low ball it... 9 million left.
now add pj brown's 10 million dollar expiring contract, the 1.5 million dollar expiring contract of michael sweetney, and three base salary deals in allen, barret and andruckawookarikidikiicavious... and that puts the chicago bulls summer 2007 cap room, provided they never signed ben wallace, at approx. 21.5 million dollars to resign nocioni and sign whoever they feel, like, oh i dunno, vince carter, chauncy billups or rashard lewis (assuming one of them opts out, which they all could)
now of course they're trying to fix what they could have fixed via free agency with a little patience by trading for pao gasol, and that 10 million dollar chunk of change known as pj brown is going to be part of any deal.
so after wallace, next year's cap space shall be in the negatives. and with real contracts due to deng and gordon down the line, and nocioni being a free agent, and pao's monster contract, and ben's monster contract... the bulls won't have any cap space for a long long time.
thus then, you better hope it all works and gordon and deng become what you hope... or it's gonna suck to be a bulls fan in 3 years.
now of course, my scenario is acting under the assumption that they trade tyson chandler despite not signing wallace, and allowed tyrus thomas a chance to develop by getting even more minutes than he's getting with wallace around (possibly also using hte mid level exemption to pick up some journeyman bigman for a year).
now of course that would hurt the bulls chances to "win" this year... but really... you honestly think chicago's winning a championship this year?
didn't think so.
so i will agree with you in the one sense that tyson chandler needed to go... but ben wallace certainly did not need to come, and they've ruined their cap flexability for years to come by bringing him to chicago.
see it's not always just about cap room... it's about having the ability to create cap room if you have to. that's what the spurs do. the suns do it, too.
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But...how would Carter, Lewis or Billups help us at all?
Carter has never won anything and would want out after 2 years of having to play hard every night. Lewis...he might help, but is he a post scorer? Or a 3 pt shooter? I'd rather have Nocioni getting the minutes.
And Billups. We already have Billups. His name is Ben Gordon. We don't need another 6'3" guard on the team. So Ben perhaps was the right option for this team. Like I said before, this then leads us to Tyrus Thomas.
This is going to sound ridiculous. But here goes. One of the biggest no-signs the Bulls made was not re-signing Darius Songaila. We miss him this year more than people realize.
Carter has never won anything and would want out after 2 years of having to play hard every night. Lewis...he might help, but is he a post scorer? Or a 3 pt shooter? I'd rather have Nocioni getting the minutes.
And Billups. We already have Billups. His name is Ben Gordon. We don't need another 6'3" guard on the team. So Ben perhaps was the right option for this team. Like I said before, this then leads us to Tyrus Thomas.
This is going to sound ridiculous. But here goes. One of the biggest no-signs the Bulls made was not re-signing Darius Songaila. We miss him this year more than people realize.
those were just suggestions of guys who are available... having cap flexability also helps you when trying to make a trade for big money contracts for which ever piece you're looking for.
i'm not saying they had to sign one of those guys. they can always sit on the cap room again.
flexability is key to succesful franchise building. look at the spurs. look at the patriots. you can do it in other ways, but in order to sustain the success, you need flexability (tim duncan and tom brady don't hurt, either )
i'm not saying they had to sign one of those guys. they can always sit on the cap room again.
flexability is key to succesful franchise building. look at the spurs. look at the patriots. you can do it in other ways, but in order to sustain the success, you need flexability (tim duncan and tom brady don't hurt, either
)
how do ya think paul pierce would look in chicago red?
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namkcuR
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Headache in a Suitcase said:
What they could have fixed via free agency? Who in the 06 FA class was as good a post-scorer as Gasol? And if the answer is no one, then how could we have fixed the problem via free agency in the same way we'd be fixing it if we traded for Gasol?
Anyway...if we manage to get Gasol....a Wallace/Gasol frontcourt would be QUITE good.
And maybe I'm wrong - if I am, do tell - but I can't help but thinking that the potential of this Bulls team doesn't excite you because it reminds you at least somewhat of those Pistons teams you hated so much.
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