ZoomSlowik

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Apr 3, 2015 -> 05:04 PM) Don Alfredo's has the best carnitas tacos ever. First ave and lake. How do you actually get them to give you a carnitas taco? It seems like every time I go there, it's "we're out". One time I ordered carnitas and got carne asada. Is it because I'm a gringo?

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Apr 3, 2015 -> 04:34 PM) I'm now craving a Pete's gyro, if you haven't gone there, then go there tonight. Best gyro in the city. Ha, I drive by that place every day coming home from work. Never tried it.

QUOTE (shysocks @ Apr 3, 2015 -> 03:28 PM) I get the sense you live in the West Loop maybe? Since Cemitas Puebla is on your radar and the Malnati's there only opened about 6 months ago. It's about a half a mile from our place and we have a rule that we only walk there - never drive or order delivery - to prevent said 400-lb benchmark. Oak Park area actually. Always gone to the original Cemitas Puebla in Humboldt Park. Paco's is a frequent stop on the way to White Sox games.

I still say Pizzeria Uno/Due are the best, though Lou's is quite good. They put one in about 4 blocks from home. I'm amazed I don't weigh 400 pounds yet. Nuevo Leon has been good the few times I've been there, though they were shut down by the health department fairly recently (since re-opened). Best tacos I've had by a fair margin are at Paco's Tacos. They're delicious and huge. Another favorite is Cemitas Puebla. There's one in Humboldt Park and one in the West Loop now. The Atomica Cemita is amazing.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Apr 2, 2015 -> 01:32 PM) If you play extra innings, there's probabilities for what players you'll get after you win the game. I don't think online gives you much better probabilities, especially since you're in the lowest division right now. I played one online game. Pitching is way too easy, hitting is way too hard (no guess pitch online), and there was fielding lag all over the place. I think I'll stick to playing against the CPU for now. Yeah, I was talking about the odds. When I do it against the CPU, it's something like 18.8% for silver, I think 4 or 5% for gold and 1% for Diamond. I guess the easier answer is just try them when I boot it up later.

Noob question here: do you get better rewards if you play Diamond Dynasty online instead of against the CPU? I'd prefer to hold off on online because 1) I'm terrible. I have about as much plate discipline as Juan Uribe after doing an 8-ball, 2) The best players on my team right now are Patrick Corbin, Brandon Crawford and Jarrod Saltalamacchia and I start multiple hitters in the 60's.

Diamond Dynasty definitely looks like it will be addictive. Not to mention the special equipment for RTTS. Even when I escape from Destiny, I still have to collect loot!

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Mar 31, 2015 -> 01:40 PM) You gotta remember that Russell was the entire focus of the offense for opposing teams. Good teams literally tried to make the rest of the team beat them, and most often they did not. I think he's a really good complimentary piece on an NBA team. Passing, shooting, ball handling with a good work ethic. He's a very solid pick, but he's not a guy you build around IMO. I was definitely impressed with his passing this year. It will be interesting to see if teams try to use him as a PG. I see him as a guy that could average like 16-4-5, but I'm not sure you'll get much more.

The top of this draft is a bit weird because none of the top college guys are mind-blowing athletes. Towns is solid but not explosive and a bit awkward with his footwork, Russell is "smooth" but not a leaper or uber-quick, and Okafor is slow and mostly earth-bound. One thing I found pretty amazing from the DraftExpress videos was just how much better Russell is against sub-.500 teams. He still puts up stats either way, but his efficiency nose-dives. Against sub-.500 teams, he shot 56% inside the arc, 50.6% from 3 and had a TS% of 67.8. Against teams over .500, that plummeted to 44%, 35.4% and 52.6% respectively. I know that guys are going to be better against bad teams, but that's a HUGE gap. The more I watch Okafor, the more concerned I get about his D and rebounding. So many times he just stands there when the ball goes up. If you look at his rebounding, over 3.5 of his 8.7 come on the offensive end. Whoever said Brook Lopez might be right, though I think he has the potential to be far more dangerous in the post. I think Russell is the safest to be a solid starter, but that efficiency could be an issue. I think I'd take Towns because he has the potential to be the most complete player, and he should at least be useful.

Ugh, of course it's a slideshow. It is on Bleacher Report after all...

Meh, apparently Jack McDowell is the "legend" for the White Sox. Frank Thomas would have been about 1,000 times cooler.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Mar 19, 2015 -> 04:12 PM) If there is a worse McD AA than Amir Williams in the history of the game I would like to see it. Michael Thompson? Never really played at Duke and had maybe 10 games of mediocrity at Northwestern.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Mar 19, 2015 -> 03:25 PM) That's one of the worst foul calls you'll ever see. Reggie Miller does not agree.

First glance, I definitely want Kentucky and Arizona. Other two I'm not totally sure yet. Leaning Gonzaga (ISU as my alternate), and I guess Virginia? I don't love anyone in the East. I've watched way less basketball than usual this year, so this will probably be either my best or worst bracket in a while.

As usual, the committee puts all the teams I actually like in one bracket (the west).

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. It's more that the difference between a great one and a lower tier one isn't all that large. Any PG with a pulse is going to get 3 boards a game and the absolutely elite PG's are in the high 5's or occasionally low 6's (outside of rare freaks like Magic/Kidd/Robertson). Your rebounding is still going to be carried by your bigs; a PG isn't going to totally fix the issue if you have someone like Bosh or Brook Lopez inside.

I'm not one to pick on Barkley. People just like pointing out the "no ring" thing and clearly it's entirely the star player's fault at all times. Barkley's percentages are sick. The stat-nerds love him. It's also fun to watch a chubby 6'4" guy make insane athletic plays like this... Apologies for crappy formatting, I suck with technology.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Feb 15, 2015 -> 08:53 PM) This is a good point. For all the nostalgia over 90's centers. Other than Shaq, who played like a truly dominant post guy? Certainly not Robinson or Ewing. Hakeem to a lesser degree. But all these guys were shooting a lot of jumpers. Hakeem was a monster in the post. He had a ton of moves down low.

QUOTE (Boogua @ Feb 15, 2015 -> 08:48 PM) I always thought guys like KG and Robinson had more trouble in the playoffs because they were big men that weren't true post players. Relying on shooting makes things harder in the playoffs. Meh, he did shoot a fair number of jumpers, but he got inside too. IMO, it wouldn't have been an issue if his best teammate had more juice than Terry Cummings or Sean Elliot. Similar thing with Garnett. Keep in mind Wilt and Barkley are two of the supposed "un-clutch" guys and they didn't rely on jumpers a ton.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Feb 15, 2015 -> 08:30 PM) Being better than Dwight was not my point. Robinson routinely under-performed when it mattered. Think about if twitter was around in 1995 after getting bent-over by Hakeem the way he did. It'd be brutal. Yeah, for whatever reason he had several disappointing playoff runs. He had a couple decent postseasons, but there were wasted on iffy teams twice early in his career and another time they ran into the Jazz. He also missed the postseason in his 3rd year. He had a golden opportunity in 94-95.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Feb 15, 2015 -> 08:11 PM) If Twitter, etc, had been around in the 90's - Robinson would've been roasted the same way people roast Dwight today. He was a great player. But he was lacking quite a bit compared to other greats of his era. He wasn't as good as Hakeem or Shaq, but few are. It didn't help that Hakeem punked him in the playoffs (he was just as good as Olajuwon in the regular season). His teams also sucked until they got Duncan. He was considerably better than Dwight.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Feb 15, 2015 -> 07:54 PM) He wouldn't do much more (if any) than he did during his time. With no illegal defense/zone defense you can do things with post guys you couldn't in 1994. He'd be great. But if you think he'd average nearly 30 you're crazy. I'm speaking more about the playoffs. He was arguably one of the best regular season players of all time, but he repeated lost to guys like Hakeem, Barkley and Malone in the playoffs, frequently playing poorly. He'd destroy pretty much anyone if he played 10 years later or 15 years earlier.

I've probably gone on this rant before, but I shudder to think what David Robinson would do in an era with fewer good centers. I mean look at some of this s***...

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Feb 8, 2015 -> 03:55 PM) So if Reggie Miller is in the HOF, the Hawks DO have a future HOFer, Kyle Korver anyone? Commence crapping of pants fellow Bulls fans... I hope you're kidding. Reggie averaged 18 a game for his career and cracked 20 six times. Korver's career high is 14.4 back when he was still a Sixer. Reggie as a higher career TS% too. The Hawks' closest is probably Horford, which isn't terribly close unless he wins several rings.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Feb 8, 2015 -> 02:26 PM) I can't ever remember watching SportsCenter and having them talk about someone being inducted into the NBA HOF. There isn't an NBA HOF, which may be part of the issue. There's just a "Basketball Hall of Fame". They lump the NBA guys in with college coaches/players, foreigners, contributors to the game, female players and referees. Hell, there are 10 TEAMS in the basketball HOF.