ZoomSlowik

Unless I'm missing something, the Bulls actually GAIN some salary for next year in that trade. Gortat and Pietrus add up to $11.6 mil for next year while Deng makes a little under $11.4 mil. Gortat is signed forever too (at least 13/14), and Pietrus has a player option for 11/12. Considering Gortat kinda sucks, that doesn't make much sense to me. Trading a fairly productive $12 mil player for a less effective but better fit $5 mil player and a $7 mil third post player.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 22, 2010 -> 08:20 AM) I could see him potentially getting caught in that nether-world where no one wants to pay him a big salary because of the looming lockout and cap decrease, and thus being forced to take what he can get. I very seriously doubt a 27 year old big man is going to be the one that has to take less. If nothing else the Knicks will give him like $12 mil to stay and claim they wanted to keep him all along when/if they strike out on the big time guys. There are too many teams with cap space for him to not get somewhere around Luol Deng money. Boozer strikes me as the guy that's going to have to take a lot less than he expects, especially since he already opted back into his contract last season in a weaker free agent class.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Jun 21, 2010 -> 06:41 PM) 14 mil wouldn't work anyways if you add a LeBron. I was saying more or less around 10 mil or so. That dude works his ass off every year in any area he is weak at. Depends also on Hinrich and what we do with him. (which you have to assume Deng would be gone in a certain scenario) You're not getting Lee for $10 mil, so it's a moot point.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Jun 21, 2010 -> 04:28 PM) I've said it before too, I would LOVE Lee if worst comes to worst (with a LeBron/Wade of course). Put he and Rose in Thibo's defensive camp and he could be a stud with his work ethic. (he's made a Noah-like progression in improvement in a TON of areas in his game) It will be interesting though to see him as a third-type option on a contending team since he was pretty much the guy in NY. No thank you. Paying $14 mil a year (or more) for a guy that would probably average 14-9 outside of D'Antoni's offensive system doesn't sound appealing at all.

At least I was half-right, offering to take a bad contract (Calderon) off the books for Toronto in a Bosh deal. Mo and Jamison is pretty bad though, they're due $46 mil combined over the next two seasons, plus Mo has another player option year. Toronto would still be mediocre at best and stuck with just as many bad contracts.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 19, 2010 -> 03:25 PM) But then Toronto would be stuck paying $20 million for Shaq, basically with the only real benefit being that $18 million is cheaper than what is left on Turkoglu's contract. And on top of that, the year that they'd be getting out from Shaq's contract, they'd be staring at a lockout. Unloading Turkoglu is a pretty major benefit, he's unhappy there, sucked this past year, and has over $40 mil left on his deal. You're going to have to take back a pretty large contract in most cases anyways to match Bosh. At least Shaq's would be an expiring deal instead of taking someone like Deng or overpaying David Lee for the next 6 years. Bynum is a far better player and probably their best option, but he still makes $14 mil a year and appears to be injury prone. Miami doesn't really have anything to move in a sign and trade, and I believe the Clippers were his last team with Kaman and Davis as the only contracts they could really take. Having an expiring deal entering the lockout could actually be a bonus since in the new CBA max deals are likely to be an awful lot less money, giving them more bang for their buck. As I said, it's far from a good deal, but might be their most appealing option. They'd dump a lot of salary and still get back some relatively useful pieces.

I think the persistent Bynum for Bosh scenario makes far more sense if Bynum's knee is relatively fine. However, it wouldn't totally surprise me if something like this happened: Cleveland sends- Shaq, sign-and-trade for one year to match salaries, something like 18 mil J.J. Hickson, could probably average something like 12-7 if given 30 MPG, about 1.5 mil 2 first round picks Anderson Varejao to add a bit more basketball value, $7 mil possibly some more salary filler like Anthony Parker or Jamario Moon Toronto sends- Bosh, obviously sign-and-trade at max, 16.6 mil I think Hedo Turkoglu, a contract they want to dump anyways, 9.8 mil Possibly some salary filler like Reggie Evans or Marcus Banks Toronto would add some much needed toughness and rebounding in size and would get a ton of salary relief next season when they let Shaq walk. It looks a lot like the Gasol deal, but they don't have as much leverage in a sign and trade. Lineup would look something like this: PG- Calderon, Jack SG- Bellinelli/pick like Anderson/Henry/George/Bradley SF- DeRozan/same as above, possibly Bargs at SF PF- Bargnani/Hickson/Varejao C- Shaq/Varejao/Hickson They'd still kind of suck, but that's likely to happen without Bosh anyways unless they like Bynum. Cleveland would obviously become very tough to stop with Lebron, Bosh and Williams, Jamison and Turkoglu as complementary scorers. They'd probably need to use the MLE on a defensive minded center.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Jun 16, 2010 -> 01:42 PM) Can someone help me here? I am not bad at math, but my numbers don't match this Web site's: http://www.nhlnumbers.com/overview.php?tea...amp;season=0910 When I insert the salaries of the players into excel (with Toews bonus included) I get a cap hit of $64.27 (in millions). However, the site is at $57.566. I used the sites exact salary numbers for next year on my sheet, but we don't match. Anyone wanna check the site for me and see what you come up with? I am just curious about the Hawks' cap situation is all. You're computing it based on their actual salaries instead of their cap hits. I don't know all of the differences off hand, but one of the major ones is that Hossa's deal is very front-loaded, so his cap hit is $5.233 mil instead of $7.9 mil. Keith appears to be another one that fits that mold, with a $5.51 mil average salary/cap hit as opposed to his actual salary of $8 mil.

Even if we assume Spain does get wins the next two games, if Switzerland gets a draw and a win that would put Spain second, meaning they probably draw Brazil in the knockout stage.

I would imagine no one would touch him until they get a better feel for the long term health of his knee. It'd be one thing if he made the same amount of money as a typical 22 year old, but he makes $14 mil next year and $15 mil the year after (plus another team option at almost $17 mil).

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 8, 2010 -> 03:13 PM) On average, it was a full run, or close to 0.9 runs, something like that. After searching a bit more, it seems like it depends a lot on who does the analysis. Here's the NYT quoting 0.9 runs, , here's hardballtimes quoting 0.41 runs. It looks like the former one took only the 57 starters that had at least 20 starts (ie the relatively competent) while the latter used everyone (414 for his purposes). I would imagine that if you truly and completely suck, the difference in leagues doesn't affect your results a whole lot (just a theory though). The latter also used multi-year statistics, which probably eliminates some of the variation.

I'm going to have to concur with Fathom on Barret Loux. The results were good, but I would rather not have the Sox draft him at 13. His fastball was often 88 or lower and fairly straight, and his curveball was all over the place. He did have a nice change and threw a few good two-seam fastballs, but I have a hard time seeing him miss bats with the same kind of regularity in the pros. I suppose it's possible the gun was a bit slow, but FIU did get some solid swings on the fastball.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 3, 2010 -> 11:16 AM) That is one hell of a downward trend though... glad to see steroids really didn't have anything to do with the offensive explosion in baseball :rolly If I had posted 2001-2005, it would look far less pronounced (wasn't relevant to the last discussion)... 2010- .258 2009- .262 2008- .264 2007- .268 2006- .269 2005- .264 2004- .266 2003- .264 2002- .261 2001- .264 Not everything goes in linear trends, there are some random spikes. They're off to a slow start this year, but if guys get hot in June/July/August they can still get back to a more normal total.

QUOTE (BearSox @ Jun 2, 2010 -> 11:33 PM) It is so frustrating. I'm not enough of a stat geek to be able to find this out, but if its at all possible, can someone find out the number of regulars who batted below .250 in the past year and compare that to 10-20 years ago, or even better yet to the 1940's and 50's? I guarantee you the number of players batting under .250 today blows the other years out of the water. /end rant This isn't remotely close to true. League batting averages: 2010- .258 2009- .262 2008- .264 2007- .268 2006- .269 (keep in mind this next set is from the peak of the steroid era) 2000- .270 1999- .271 1998- .266 1997- .267 1996- .270 1990- .258 1989- .254 1988- .254 1987- .263 1986- .258 1959- .257 1956-58- .258 1955- .259 1954- .261 1953- .264 1952- .253 1951- .261 1950- .266 1948-49- .263 1947- .261 1946- .256 1945- .260 1944- .260 1943- .253 1942- .253 1941- .262 I guess there were plenty of "stupid hitters" in those eras too.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ May 21, 2010 -> 08:29 PM) Just to show how no one knows where Henry goes I've seen some mocks with him at #3, but most have him in the early teens, lowest is falling to Bulls. You should read mock drafts that are written by more credible authors. There's no way Henry should go in the top-5.

For the Bulls' purposes, I think Henry is a better fit. Anderson is a capable shooter with a superior all-around skill set, while Henry isn't quite as adept at taking the ball off the dribble but is a lights-out shooter that can finish. That could be a really good fit with Rose and Lebron/Bosh as a guy that can kill opponents on open threes. My only concern with him would be his capability to guard NBA 2's, he's got the bulk of a SF. I wouldn't exactly complain about Anderson though, he's solid.

What a waste of several pages, you can make arguments for pretty much any of the top ten to twelve guys after Lebron.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ May 3, 2010 -> 10:51 PM) Zoom I wanted to ask you personally. What coach would you want the Bulls getting judging by who is available? Would it matter in your eyes? I got my own couple, but I'll reserve judgment since I don't think it's THAT big of a deal. I really don't follow other teams' coaches closely enough to make educated comments. I focus more on players unless they have an impact on my fantasy players like D'Antoni or Rambis (stop giving significant minutes to scrubs like Ryan Hollins and get Jefferson and Love back on the floor damn it!).

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ May 3, 2010 -> 11:30 AM) that's why he is not getting a max contract at 16 million a year maybe he would get a 5 year 55-60 million contract at least he is an all star, if you want to talk about screw up, then look at pitchers in mlb, like Jeremy Bonderman and Kris Benson, guys are not even all stars, but get 10-12 million a year. or look at nfl rookies, guys haven't even taken a snap but gets a 60 million contract and 40 million guaranteed. if you want to talk about screw sports. the nba is not on top of the list Apparently you've never heard of Eric Dampier, Samuel Dalembert or Tyson Chandler. None was particularly close to an All-Star, and all got multi-year deals at over $10 mil a year because they're tall. Bench players like Nazr Mohammed and Dan Gadzuric often get $7 mil a year too, and slightly above average small forwards like Richard Jefferson and Bobby Simmons can easily get $12 mil a year. I also found it funny that you later said people don't pay busts that don't produce in the NBA, specifically in reference to Kwame Brown and Darko Milicic. Both players signed lucrative long-term contracts after their rookie deal (can't find confirmation on Brown right now, but I believe both were around 3-21 for players that have been awful) on top of the $18 mil or so they got over the life of their rookie deals (which is all guaranteed). The NBA doesn't guarantee as much money to rookies as the NFL (about $15-18 mil over 4 years for a top-5 pick), but it still does more than the MLB and they give out as many/more big contracts to marginal players as any other sport. You can also get to the $16 mil+ tier pretty quickly by being the best player on a .500-ish team like Andrei Kirilenko, Gilbert Arenas, Michael Redd or Andre Iguodala. And those are way worse in comparison with the other leagues because the cap is below $60 mil.

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Apr 30, 2010 -> 11:16 AM) I actually think David Lee would be a pretty good get for the Bulls, especially if they can't get Bosh or Wade. Some people may prefer him to Amare for instance. He's prob gonna be asking for max money though. Lee is a tier above the rest of those options, but I'm still not a fan for a few reasons... 1) As you mentioned, someone is going to overpay him. I think if you give him more than $12 mil a year that can easily be a Deng-like albatross. 2) He's not really a difference-making scorer that can consistently create quality shots, he's a guy that gets his points off pick and rolls. He averaged 20 a game this year, but a lot of that is because the Knicks are awful and they play at a pretty good pace (he also shot well above his career norm on long jumpers). I realize Amare is somewhat similar, but he's more explosive, has a history of being a dangerous mid-range shooter, and has put up big numbers for more competitive teams. 3) A lot of his value comes from rebounding, which is something the Bulls already do pretty well with Noah. I really worry that if Lee is the big signing of the Bulls' off-season that they're going to be paying him 15 mil a year to put up 14-9 on a team that actually has some decent scoring options and another big man that already does the dirty work. Having that much money tied up in two good-but-not great players like Lee and Deng is just asking for trouble.

Good god, I really hope that's not who they end up with...

I can't see the Thunder getting more than 2 personally. Gasol should have a monster series considering that OKC doesn't have a decent center and Green plays the 4. Also, I think Westbrook and/or Durant (more likely Westbrook, but I wouldn't put it past Durant in his first playoff series either) shoot them out of at least 2 games down the stretch.

I don't have a strong opinion either way. It gets kind of boring for me when I can totally blow the draft and still finish in the top-5 because I drafted well in 2006, but I won't exactly complain if I can keep starting with Hanley and Utley.

QUOTE (Palehosefan @ Apr 12, 2010 -> 10:58 AM) I'm already preparing myself for the Knicks to magically win the lottery, draft John Wall, and sign Lebron/Bosh. The Knicks don't have their first round pick. They traded a future pick to Phoenix a long time ago to get Stephon Marbury, which was then traded to Utah. This is the first year there are no protections on that pick.

Depends on what style of cooking you're going to use. If you're going to be using mostly direct grilling (anything done on high heat that takes less than 30 minutes) I'd go with a gas grill. Pre-heating the coals and getting a solid high-heat cooking temperature is more time consuming and difficult on a charcoal grill. I've mostly used a gas grill and it's pretty convenient if you're just going to grill some steaks or chicken breasts. However, if you're going to do more indirect, slow roasting style cooking, you should really go charcoal or a smoker. It will take a little practice to get a good low flame going, but you get a really good smokey flavor even using just a standard weber kettle grill. I've done stuff like ribs, pork shoulder and whole chickens with good results on our weber, though for some stuff you really need to make a major time investment (a good pork shoulder or brisket will take 5 hours plus). You can do that stuff on a gas grill, but you'd need to get one with a smoker box to do it (never been a fan of just putting the foil pack full of wood chips on the burner).