ZoomSlowik

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Nov 19, 2008 -> 11:16 AM) How is Memphis an offender? Because they traded away Pau? They made it clear what they wanted for him and got that from LA. Marc Gasol has been impressive. They suckered(though it probably didn't take much) Minnesota into taking Mike Miller and Kevin Love for OJ Mayo who is a stud in the making, they have a pretty good player in Rudy Gay, and a developing player in Darrell Arthur. I don't see how you say Memphis is trying to tank. I'm referring to the last two seasons more than this one. They basically GAVE away Gasol, their asking price for him dropped considerably at the last second because they were cheap. It turned into a flat out salary dump when they were previously asking for legit talent. A couple of months before the trade they were still asking for Deng AND Gordon as well as either Tyrus or a pick. They got lucky that the other Gasol has turned out decent, though he's still not a world-beater. They're also sitting far below the cap with no real intention of spending money at the moment. Their team is still one of the worst in the league, the only reason they have 4 wins is a soft early schedule. I don't exactly see what's THAT impressive about Mayo so far either, he's averaging 20 points but on 17 shots and with a weak assist/TO ratio. He's not exactly having a big impact on their record either, their starting lineup is still getting murdered despite 3 above average starters. He's a big asset when he's hot but a non-factor when he's not, much like Ben Gordon (though Ben also turns it over less and shoots more FT's). Hell, Mike Miller put up 16 a game for them last year on 5 fewer shots per game, how much progress is that? He's also already far more advanced skill-wise than most of his peers and doesn't have mind-blowing quickness, so how much better he can get is debateable. He's going to shoot them out of about as many games as he wins them. I'm not saying he sucks mind you, he's clearly a solid scorer, but he's not going to carry that franchise anywhere.

Man, Memphis looks god-awful on offense, basically the only shots they can make are uncontested dunks in transition and put-backs.

In my view Memphis has been one of the biggest offenders of late, they clearly have no intention of winning games any time soon. Boston in the pre-KG year was pretty bad as well, it was nice to see neither of them get the pick they wanted. They really need the lottery in the NBA a lot more than in the other sports because one bonafide superstar can have a massive impact on their win total and players tend to produce far earlier. It'd be chaos without it, just imagine what would have happened in the Lebron year or how much worse it would have been the last two seasons. On a side note, how mediocre does the 2007 draft look so far? It was theoretically supposed to be one for the ages, but Oden has barely seen the floor and will need time to shake off the rust, Durant is virtually just throwing up points in garbage time every game, and arguably the most productive player in the draft so far is a 10-9 big in Al Horford. I guess there's some pretty good depth with Young, Hawes, Chandler and Fernandez all playing well so far, but the top of the draft hasn't been as strong as expected.

I'm not surprised that teams are "interested" in Curry because damn near everyone needs some size, but actually acquiring him for anything other than filler is another story. The guy is totally useless on the floor unless you slow down your offense enough for him to lumber up the court and plant his butt in the post. He's arguably the worst defensive player in the league, he's a subpar rebounder and he's a black hole on offense that turns it over at a high rate. The Knicks were a whopping 10 points better in scoring margin when he was off the floor last year. You're basically looking at a rich man's Michael Sweetney at this point in his career. He's just a bad player with a bad contract, if they can move him for anything interesting Donnie Walsh should be in the running for executive of the year.

I find it hard to believe that anyone would WILLINGLY take Eddy Curry. It'd be one thing if he had an expiring contract, but s***, he has two more years. The guy is awful and has something like 31 mil left on his deal.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 11, 2008 -> 06:25 PM) Gooden as cap space and then one of the young bigs works. But I'm not sure about what that does in terms of pushing the Bulls over the Luxury tax line (If we're not going in to the luxury tax, that would guarantee we couldn't sign Gordon by adding Kaman's contract next year - we wouldn't be able to add anything next offseason without hitting the tax). Considering that the team supposedly (if you believe Gordon and his agent) withdrew an offer in the neighborhood of 5-50 that would have kept them under the projected luxury tax unless my math is off (56 commited, the luxury tax was 71 mil this year and usually goes up about 4 mil a year), I don't think they're strongly considering bringing him back. Even if they were, the trade adds roughly 6 mil to the payroll with or without adding Noc and Mobley, so assuming that they didn't pick up Simmons' option would give them at least $7 mil to work with under the tax and probably closer to $11 mil given the general rate of increase of the cap/luxury tax. Plus after 2010 they'd have an extra 9.8 mil coming off the cap with Mobley's contract. Either way they're not going to have enough money under the salary cap to add a significant player whether they do the trade or not, they would only have the mid-level exception.

Definitely give up what they want for Kaman, he's a great fit. I don't think we can really send them Gordon either besides the previously mentioned BYC for Deng though, IIRC he would have to waive his bird rights for that to happen, which isn't too likely.

Crap, it looks like another long year for NU basketball. They just lost an exhibition game to Robert Morris College.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Nov 6, 2008 -> 10:54 AM) There's a reason why he broke Arvydas Sabonis' spanish league records. He's very skilled, maybe not as athletic, but he's also bulkier and uses his size. He's less finesse than Pau. Just because he excelled overseas doesn't mean he's going to be a star over here, much like how dominating in college doesn't guarantee NBA success either. Luis Scola was a great international player too, you don't see him throwing up 20-10 on a regular basis. Some guys have all of the physical tools to continue their high level of play in the NBA like Manu and Rudy Fernandez, others don't. There's quite a difference in talent level in the NBA, he's AT BEST the third best player on a very bad Grizzlies team over here. He doesn't suck by any means, but it takes a lot more to be an elite level NBA player. He just doesn't have the foot speed/agility, shooting range, low post scoring (he's decent but not stellar) or leaping ability to be a dominant NBA player, things that his brother has. He's a lot more of a grinder at the NBA level than a guy that wins because he's that much better than everyone else. Look at every game he's played in the pre-season and regular season thus far and that 27-16 game sticks out as an extreme outlier. That's after numerous years as a professional in Europe as well, he improved his game considerably to even become this productive. I'm not saying he can't be productive or that I wouldn't want him on my team, but it's HIGHLY unlikely that he as an All-Star game in his future or makes as big an impact as his brother.

Actually, I think the bigger thing with Deng is that he's used to coming off of curls and pin-downs to create space for him in/near the paint and either slashing or shooting from there. Generally by the time he catches the ball he's already open, that hasn't happened much this year. So far he's mostly been getting the ball either in the corner or at the top of the key and is forced to either try to drive himself or shoot a long jumper, neither of which are strengths. Deng is a pretty good player, but he's not good enough to consistently create/force his own shot like that on a regular basis and succeed. He's adjusting to getting his opportunities in a different way and is rushing things a bit with poor results. I suppose you could argue that they're not running that to make room to penetrate like you said, but you can still have him flash into that area once a possession and give Rose plenty of opportunities to drive. I'm not really trying to make that sound like an excuse, a player with his skill set should produce regardless, but the team isn't taking advantage of his ability to get shots with his movement off the ball and that isn't helping. That said, I do think he'll eventually be fine once he adjusts to the new system and playing with Rose, though the rough patch may not quite be over yet.

QUOTE (rangercal @ Nov 5, 2008 -> 11:24 PM) You really know it all don't you? Why don't you just apply to be a NBA scout now. Quit wasting your energy on a forum in a thread where maybe 10 people view every day. This is a pointless argument, so I disagree. It's a discussion thread, isn't that the whole point? To come up with pointless arguments?

QUOTE (rangercal @ Nov 5, 2008 -> 11:07 PM) I disagree. Memphis will give him plenty of opportunities to be a 18-12 guy. Wow, one really good game and people go nuts. He's a fairly solid big man but he's just not that talented. Even if he did have that kind of offensive repetoire it doesn't look terribly likely that Gay and Mayo would give him enough chances to score. Even in his 26 point game he only got 11 shots, that makes it kind of hard to put up great scoring numbers.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Nov 5, 2008 -> 05:16 PM) Marc Gasol is better than his brother IMHO. He's Pau Gasol with toughness. Crittenton is losing value on a daily basis. Um, no, he's nowhere near the athlete and isn't as skilled. He had one great game, but he doesn't have the talent to be much more than about a 10-8 guy.

Orlando just looks decidedly mediocre, I'm really starting to believe that last year was a fluke. The Bulls played horribly, they had no business being in that game. Orlando really let them back in with brutal shot selection, a lot of quick jumpers that missed. Everyone but Dwight is a jumpshooter, so they're extremely hot and cold, that's going to really hurt them against good teams. They don't exactly play good defense either. They desperately need Hedo to repeat his career year, because if Dwight/Lewis/Hedo don't combine for at least 60 they're going to lose an awful lot against decent teams. Luckily for them their division is awful so they'll probably get the 4 seed and play either Philly or Toronto in the first instead of Boston or a Detroit team that beat them in 5 last year.

Orlando looks a lot more suspect than I would have expected. They shoot just as many jumpers as the Bulls, the only real difference is they have Dwight. They really need to add a solid guard (preferrably a point), but unfortunately for them they out-bid everyone else by about $30 mil for Lewis.

Here's another thought: what do they do in the off-season? This could be the last hurrah for Detroit. AI and 'Sheed are both FA's, and if they want to just start over that's over $30 mil coming off the books. Plus Rip only has one year left as well, so it's possible they can go into the 2010 off-season with a Stuckey/Prince/Johnson/Maxiell core and cap space coming out of their ass for the Lebron/Wade class.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Nov 1, 2008 -> 07:54 PM) I can't imagine there being a worse player in the NBA than Marc Gasol. Thanks to Darko he might not even be the worst player on his team.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Oct 29, 2008 -> 01:07 PM) Well to be honest, he is more than just the backup. He is insurance against injury as well as the rookie wall. As a plus, if Kirk goes back to what he once was, he is a decent back court partner with Rose against teams with smaller guards. He is a bit overpriced, but he is a pretty valuable asset mostly because of the drop off behind him in that role. His deal is also back-loaded, so his salary is 10 mil this season and decreases to 9.5/9/8 the next 3 years, so it gets more tolerable. Considering how many mediocre-to-poor players out there are making 6 mil or more that's not too bad at all. The only problem is they're also paying Noc 7 mil a year to be a backup and Hughes 13 mil to take up space. Besides, in the deal in question we'd be picking up a 10 mil backup forward for this year and the next, where you actually have 3 viable options already that are making around 20 mil combined, so you're not really making any progress. Any benefit Harrington brings is entirely related to the potential cap benefits in 2 more years, I would think we can do better than that once the 10 mil a year portions of Kirk's contract are gone.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 29, 2008 -> 11:03 AM) The logic here would be pretty simple. Al Harrington has a 2010 expiring contract worth just under $10 million a season. If you can move either Preferably Hinrich or alternatively Nocioni in a deal for him, suddenly we're holding 2 different big 2010 expiring contracts worth $25 million or so, in addition to Gooden's this season worth $7 mil. Nocioni and Hinrich have deals that run a couple years longer. Move one of them for an expiring contract, and suddenly there's the space under the luxury tax to sign Gordon if that's how you want to spend the money...or alternatively you're $20 million or so under the salary cap after 2010 and you have the money available to make a max run at D-Wade. We'd still have to go into luxury tax territory for next season regardless if they did that since Harrington actually makes more money than Kirk. Considering that they could already be under that threshold in 2010 with Hughes and Gooden coming off the books (something like 36 mil in committed salaries/options that are likely to be picked up not counting Gordon or extensions to Tyrus and Thabo, but the luxury tax rate will be close to $75 mil by then) I don't think that really changes the thinking at all. His contract definitely has value in 2010, but for basketball reasons that deal sucks. Hinrich is the only other player on the roster capable of playing the point, he has an actual role on the team. I don't know what the heck they'd do with Harrington, to me it's basically like adding another Larry Hughes. Sure, he has some ability, but we already have Deng, Tyrus and Nocioni at the forward spots. Taking minutes away from those 3 does nothing for me, he doesn't really add anything new to the team other than another forward that needs minutes. Yes, he's a bit better than Nocioni, but he fills essentially the same role and won't/shouldn't take any minutes from Deng and Tyrus. Sure, he has some ability, but we don't really need four 30-minute type forwards.

Besides the ugly margin, Oden is in the locker room, apparently getting X-rays on his ankle.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 23, 2008 -> 04:34 PM) The problem is, I'm not sure that even Hughes's expiring deal gets us far enough under the cap to really make a run at Wade if we're still holding Hinrich and Nocioni and Deng. Especially if we somehow resign or replace Gordon. You have to turn Hinrich/Noc in to an additional expiring contract to really make a LBJ/Wade run. I don't really think that's the case unless my math is off. Unless I'm mistaken, the cap will be somewhere between $60 and $65 mil. For the purposes of this discussion I'm going to assume that they let Gordon walk and renounce Simmons' rights rather than make the $3.7 mil qualifying offer (obviously if they re-sign Gordon things change drastically, but I digress). The salaries work out like this for 2010/11: Hinrich- 9 mil Deng- roughly 11.4 mil Nocioni- 6.85 mil Rose- 5.55 mil option Noah- 3.2 mil option Thomas- 6.3 mil qualifying offer (cap hold) Thabo- 3.8 mil qualifying offer (cap hold) That comes out to just over $46 mil for those 7 players, so if the cap is around $63 mil (it seems to go up about $2 mil every year and was at about $59 mil this year), then it's pretty close to being able to offer him $17 mil for the first year, and that's the only one that matters for cap purposes. They'd probably have to release some scrubs and/or renounce Thabo's rights, but they can make a competitive offer even without unloading Hinrich or Noc. However, it's obviously easier if they move one of those two, and JR would have to go WELL into luxury tax territory. Re-signing Gordon would basically kill any chances, but that seems unlikely at this point. Edit- Crap, I forgot to factor in 1st round picks for each of the next two seasons, which could be quite a chunk of change depending on where the Bulls end up (assuming they keep the picks of course). That's probably at least $5 mil and could be close to $10 mil if the Bulls really suck or get lucky again. Alright, I concede, unloading Hinrich or Noc would be necessary (that or renouncing Tyrus, which seems unlikely), though that will be easier with both deals being front-loaded.

I never was plastered when I went to class, not even on Unoffical St. Patrick's Day (usually had an exam or paper I had to finish/turn in). However, my favorite lunch once I became legal was 3 tacos and a Corona or two.

QUOTE (rangercal @ Oct 23, 2008 -> 02:39 PM) exactly. Like zoom said, no point of him even being on the roster. But I have to disagree with him having NO trade value. I think any expiring contract would have trade value. But, he won't be a free agent until the summer of 2010. (there's that number again) He'll obviously have trade value once his contract gets closer to expiring, but I have zero faith in the Bulls actually MAKING a deal for a star player that would make having Hughes' $13 mil salary on the books worth it. I'm not even sure who we would target, the big name players I can think of that would be available don't make a ton of sense unless Utah thinks they're going to lose Boozer (and that would require giving up actual talent) or possibly Michael Redd. Guys like AI, Carter and Marion don't really make a whole lot of sense for money, age and/or position reasons.

Larry Hughes has absolutely no business on the active roster, so this injury is a blessing in disguise. I kind of hope it lingers and they end up buying him out, but instead they'll throw him back out there when he's healthy and keep him on the roster as a "bargaining chip" for a major trade that never comes.

I would recommend doing Puerto Rico and going nuts with the rum drinks. Captain Morgan and Bacardi are both made/headquartered in Puerto Rico (though technically the Captain started in Jamaica and Bacardi started in Cuba). There are plenty of drinks you can make with rum and fruit juice and if you want to fudge it a bit you can do Mojitos (technically Cuban).