Jake

Good lord is our political process f***ed up

I'm not a huge fan of Shabazz, honestly. Seems like the typical undersized guard that goes off in college and is forgotten as a pro

GarPax have been masters of the mid-round and the fact that the good version of McDermott makes perfect sense for this team means I think there's a good chance we get the good version of him.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jun 26, 2014 -> 07:52 PM) Isnt the cap only an issue if they get Melo or Lebron? They just picked McDermott, not a SG who could play with those guys. Instead of a rookie, well get some average old player. It just doesnt make sense. He is a much more realistic option for 4 than 2. With scorers of Rose and Melo's caliber, there's a ton of value in having a dead-eye shooter on the court to spread the floor

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jun 26, 2014 -> 03:30 PM) Microsoft's corporate direction is to get software OFF of users devices, starting with rolling everyone off of office. They are playing right into google's hands. I don't know exactly what you mean by that

There's only one stat to look for with Beck - strikeouts. He'll never cut it if he can't increase the strikeouts significantly

Can someone fill me in here - they have almost, but not all, of the emails? Or none? Why can't they get the emails from the recipients? How do they know which ones are missing? Can the NSA help?

I got a chuckle out of the notion that the government would hold Goldman Sachs's feet to the fire over something

Here's what I'll say about Embiid - I think there's a disturbingly high bust potential, but I'd still endorse the Bulls giving their left nut to draft him

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 26, 2014 -> 12:46 PM) Reality states he is a 26 year old waiver claim. Let's not confuse him for a top prospect. Hopefully, he does well, but expectations should be low. Reality also states that he's clearly the #6 starter in the system. Given that #5 is Scott Carroll, I'm not a big fan of jerking #6 around so that we can get a lefty out every other night. The last season Surkamp started at full strength, he won the AA pitching triple crown. He now has a better K/BB, K/IP rate in AAA. Nobody said he's Jesus Christ, but there's a good chance we'll need him in our rotation at some point. As someone who has pitched and watched a handful of pitchers have their development sidetracked by bouncing between rotation and bullpen (Santiago), it's just a stupid move IMO. There are more stupid moves to be made, to be sure. Hopefully, likely not a big deal. I still think it's wrong and unnecessary.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jun 26, 2014 -> 08:49 AM) In what way? Hosted software? Maybe. Microsoft and Google are locked in a cloud software battle that Apple will never participate in since they want to control all aspects of the user experience. But make no mistake, when it comes to personal devices, Apple is still what companies aim for. Yes, I don't think Google is as worried about Apple because Google (I think) is content with a world where Apple has its own corner of the market selling their own devices. Google started out by being the eminent web service, but now sees that intimately intertwined with being the default software provider. Just like it has long been Microsoft unless otherwise specified on PCs, Google sees a convergent mobile-tablet-PC web-software world as one in which they want to be the dominant force. They want people to say about Microsoft and Apple what many people say about Apple now (though not nearly so much as they used to, and for good reason): "I just want all my favorite programs/services/apps to work." If you've pretty much only used Chrome, Gmail, Google Search, Google Drive, Android, etc., suddenly those are the things you can't live without. I'd imagine we may eventually see Google with a fairly "closed" ecosystem, which will be pretty interesting since I see no interest in making hardware. For now, though, Microsoft is on all but 15% of personal computers and that gives them a big advantage. Google wants to snuff out any additional advantages Microsoft could get, such as allowing people to continue using half-baked Google services on Windows Phone or W8 Metro. I'm totally dumbfounded as to how this will all sort out. I think all three companies are doing a fabulous job right now, but Microsoft is clearly the one with the most troubling trajectory. Apple has never gone for total market domination, so their success is a little more difficult to measure...but I think they're doing fine if not better than ever. The low end of their personal computer line is better than it has ever been. They still own the high end of the tablet market and are winning the upper echelon of the US smartphone market. Still, Google seems to be doing best and it sort of scares me. There's got to be a dystopian novel/film/comic where the same company sells everything. The worst part is that it's hard to say that Google is doing anything especially wrong; as far as giant companies go, they don't seem any more evil than anybody else. Perhaps less so. Still, we are entrusting a lot of stuff to them between our personal information and a growing number of services that power our everyday lives. I find myself rooting for Microsoft as the underdog, which is sort of hilarious. They've kind of branded themselves that way of late, too. "Get away from evil Google and Apple! Stick with the little guy, Microsoft!"

If I'm Paxson, I call up Phil Jackson and just start speaking in code. "So, Coach, who do you like in this draft? Oh, Wiggins? Of course. Who are, say, your 15-20th favorite players? Oh, interesting. Wait, wait slow down I'm writing this down."

It irritates the hell out of me that we call up our best minor league starter to make his first career relief appearances as a lefty specialist. It's like we were just hoping to sabotage him. If Carroll has a bad outing tonight, Surkamp needs to go several innings and get the next turn in the rotation

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jun 26, 2014 -> 12:34 PM) When posters talk about the Knicks S&T for Melo and how we could lose to Houston because they could offer Harden, everyone needs to remember that Melo is going to pick where he wants to go and then the Knicks can decide, will we do a S&T or not. The Knicks aren't in a position to force him to Houston so the fact that Houston would offer more in a S&T really doesn't matter as Knicks basically have options of accepting something or nothing from the team he choses. That's true, except if neither team can do it without S&T, Knicks can just refuse to do business with Chicago

K.C. Johnson ‏@KCJHoop 1h Knicks-Mavs trade and Bulls passing on low price tag for Afflalo could be good signs for Melo derby.

There's a difference between making some mistakes, saying an off-color joke, maybe not realizing the ramifications of your words and some of the stuff these people have done. As we have said before, there's a difference between saying "f**" in anger after a history of public and private actions that suggest you don't often use such a word and telling your wife that you hope she's "raped by a pack of n*****s." There's also a difference between immediately accepting all responsibility and admitting fault and... Well let's just look at Mel Gibson's body of work: -1992: what are your thoughts on gay people? He does say "I like them" but then insists that "they take it up the ass" and then goes so far as to stand up, point to his ass, and say "this is for s***ting only." He fought hard against the blowback for this one. In 1999, he finally said he regretted it, saying, "I was tickling a bit of vodka during that interview, and the quote came back to bite me on the ass." -2006: Hey police officer pulling me over for a DUI, are you a f***ing Jew? Because "the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” He said through his publicist that he said bad things that he doesn't believe to be true and he's going to rehab. -2010: Tells his partner, among a whole hell of a lot of other stuff, that he hopes she's "raped by a pack of n*****s." Mel responds by accusing her of extortion. -2010: Deserves its own line. Mel Gibson, at the least, punched his partner in the face twice and knocked her teeth out. -2010: Former latino employees complain of being called "wetbacks," a recording is produced to prove the assertion. I'll just leave it to the Rabbi who reacted to Gibson's first crazy anti-Jewish comments: “If it’s true what’s reported, frequently hatred, bigotry and prejudice, which is controlled, explodes at moments of stress and crisis. Liquor loosens the tongue of what’s in the mind and in the heart, and in his mind and in his heart is his conspiracy theory about Jews and hatred of Jews.”

Bulls fans are funny. MAKE BIG MOVES ... Y U NO AFFLALO

I'm not going to freak out about missing out on Arron Afflalo. He would have been nice to have, but I'm not going to miss him.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 26, 2014 -> 09:53 AM) Would ANYONE fire Hahn and keep Ventura instead (in one of those hypothetical situations where you have no choice but to lose one or the other)? I bet those in favor of that would be comprised of....well, who exactly would take that position? The question there is just whether you think Hahn is doing a good job. The GM has infinitely more influence on the team's success than the manager. You only pick the manager if you like the GM

There's nothing like a bad bullpen to make a manager look inept

I'm unmoved by Downs's peripherals because his walk rate was too high. I take the low HR rate less seriously than the high BB rate, especially given how much the BB rate is a departure from career norms. Makes it seem like he's actually, legitimately playing worse and not suffering from poor luck

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 25, 2014 -> 12:49 PM) I agree I think it's good design...but only to a certain point. I felt I enjoyed it more when all three had their own look and feel...now that they're all converging into something very similar...meh. Honestly, I don't really see Windows Mobile as a valid choice...at least with Apple you get Google stuff, as Google doesn't support windows mobile much at all, and with Google you get the openness of having a lot of choice available. What exactly do you get with Windows Mobile aside from being stuck on Bing and IE? I would really like to test drive a Windows Phone for a while to see if the shortcomings are as glaring as they might seem. I love the interface and a lot of MS is doing, but not enough to pull the trigger on a WP and gamble on years of owning one. I think Google is really targeting MS in various ways. They don't see Apple as much as a serious competitor, because Apple is less interested in market domination as much as niche domination. Google obviously doesn't want Apple to dominate its market segments, but that's more tolerable than MS, who has always been more Google-like in their desire to be in as many places as possible. Google wants to knock out Windows on desktop, in mobile, and in enterprise (which includes desktop/mobile, but also office applications, hosted services, etc.). By not supporting MS products, Google makes MS much less appealing. IMO, it doesn't make MS a worst choice in many situations (no way in hell am I abandoning MS Office), but it makes both choices have flaws instead of Google looking like an obviously inferior choice.

Why the f*** would you trade a first round draft pick for Omer Asik? Good god is that stupid. NBA GMs never fail to baffle me

Good guy, but I'm not going to waste too much breath arguing the move.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 25, 2014 -> 03:27 PM) I think Smith needs to have time taken with him to work on defense. On the bright side, it's literally impossible for him to be a worse defender than Phegley