Steve9347

QUOTE (Yoenis Cespedes @ Jan 21, 2016 -> 09:23 AM) You all are out there - ain't no playas here. Pretty strange peeps in ChiTown. I'm signing somewhere else. Two fingers. This type of crap really brings the quality of this board down.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 21, 2016 -> 07:16 AM) lol, says the guy with three consecutive posts What does that have to do with anything? Some of us play catch up and can't just be posting 24/7.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 21, 2016 -> 07:05 AM) another one of Lance Briggs high end vehicles crashed and ditched http://wgntv.com/2016/01/20/porsche-belong...nto-bar-school/ How ridiculous. I guess if it worked the first time?

QUOTE (Brian @ Jan 20, 2016 -> 04:03 PM) 7 months. I'm like you. I thought it was always slated for Dec 2017 so I'm not too upset. I can wait another 6 months for them to get it right.

The fact that this thread is titled anything "per Rabbit" tells me Soxtalk has officially lost it.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Jan 20, 2016 -> 01:02 PM) We are officially in the most replied to thread in soxtalk history. Didn't think anyone would beat peavy. The fact that this is lasting forever is the problem.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Jan 20, 2016 -> 12:51 PM) I'm still very enthused by the tweets from the CSN cameraman (maybe) and raBBit. A cameraman regurgitating a false tweet and an emoji of eyes?

I have very little doubt that Cespedes is going to sign with some random team out of nowhere.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Jan 20, 2016 -> 12:28 PM) https://www.instagram.com/p/BAvansoIC2U/ Some Mets fan just posted that Cespedes just liked this instagram post. I can confirm the person who runs the Yoenis Cespedes Instagram account did indeed like that post.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Jan 20, 2016 -> 10:23 AM) Bulls should've offered up Noah for Love. They refused to though Gasol was already in the bag. Denver flat out moved on from the Bulls when they stated they flat out wouldn't offer Noah for Melo. Bulls wouldn't offer Deng for prime Gasol from Memphis. Bulls wouldn't offer Asik for Courtney Lee. They flat out aren't offering s*** to teams. Here, have our 8th best player and some worthless picks... You mean Tyrus.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 20, 2016 -> 09:54 AM) There's nothing you can do! They offered max contracts to all of the available top FA's out there. Wade, Lebron, Melo, etc. If they don't come here, they don't come here. It's not for a lack of trying or GarPax being reactionary. They set up those FA pushes seasons before so that they could at least be in the conversation. They made roster moves so that they could do the exact thing you're complaining about. You're faulting them for not convincing guys to give up tens of millions or to play with their buddies in a set-up championship roster in Miami. GMAFB. As to the second bolded, you clearly don't understand the NBA. That's how the NBA works. Other leagues don't work like that. There isn't much parity in basketball. Either you get lucky and draft hall of fame players and you compete annually or you don't. Rarely do teams win through free agency. Let's look at the progression here: They draft Rose in 2008. They make the Salmons/Miller moves and make the playoffs. Rose wins Rookie of the Year. They have the epic series against Boston but lose. Rose seems like an all star caliber player. In 2009 that's what happens. They make the playoffs again, lose to Lebron. 2010 season. Rose becomes MVP. They're the best team in the regular season. They lose to the Heat in 5 in a closer series than the number dictates. (also should be pointed out that because Lebron & Co went to Miami, there were slim pickings in terms of FA. They got stuck with Boozer. They should have gone after Lee instead, but that's in hindsight.) 2011, off the MVP season, Rose signs his new max deal. Bulls look even better than 2010. Luol Deng goes from decent starter to All-Star. First game of the playoffs Rose tears the ACL. Gone for a season. Bulls lose. 2012 - no Rose. Bulls still win a playoff series. You can't give up on Rose at this point. One knee injury. It happens. Gotta keep him in the plans for the future. 2013 - Tears his MCL early in the season. Again, no Rose. Noah ends up 4th in MVP voting. At this point you could potentially start planning for a replacement, but you still owe him tons of money. And now you have a seemingly all-nba center, along with an emerging Butler BTW, the job finding replacement PG's on the scrap heap was amazing. You ignore that. 2014 - Again, Bulls back to being pretty good. Hoping that the return of Rose, return of Noah, Pau Gasol and Butler are enough to win. It's not. They should have won that series last year, but didn't. Now is arguably the only time where it was reasonable to start thinking about a post-Rose Bulls roster, and that's pretty much what they do. They get rid of Thibs for Hoiberg because their toilet bowl offense was atrocious and cost them the series. 2015 - Still near the top of the East. Still stuck paying Rose 25 million or whatever for his limited production. Have dealt with injuries to Noah, McDermott, Rose and others. Still winning every game against the top competition. The lone exception is GSW on the road. To me there are a FEW areas where GarPax failed. VDN wasn't a good hire. It didn't kill them since they weren't winning a title with Rose as a rookie anyway. And they were smart enough to switch gears pretty quickly. The Boozer signing wasn't great. They were forced into it given the Lebron debacle, but I still would have preferred Lee and they had a shot to get him. The biggest one to me was not tanking the 2012 season. Talk about a Spurs-like potential future. You have Rose (Robinson) and a shot at Anthony Davis (Duncan). That would have been epic. But really, could the Bulls have done that? They had Noah already. They may have gone SG since that was the big complaint at the time (so maybe Beal or Dion Waters). But is that better than what they eventually got in Butler? No. Big picture, I just don't see what more they could have done. They got stuck with a broken Rose. That's it. If he's the MVP Rose for his career, they probably get past Lebron at least once and get to the Finals. But, he's not, and they were stuck and still probably are because no one would want to take him with that salary. Well done.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 19, 2016 -> 08:26 PM) It's interesting how people can see the "Kobe had the right to veto any trade and wouldn't accept any trade where the Bulls gave up enough for the Lakers to let him go" so many times and then continue to type "They had a shot at Kobe and declined". If you want to rip them, I could get that. If you want a convincing case, stop repeating things that are incorrect and have already been pointed out to be incorrect. I still haven't seen a response to the Butler thing, but fine, I'll even ignore that. How you're going to find "alternatives" to an MVP I don't know, but I'll even ignore that. Just stop repeating the Kobe thing until you can tell how it would work given that Kobe would veto the deal if the Bulls gave up the Lakers price. Replace the Kobe gripe with the "traded LaMarcus Aldridge for Tyrus Thomas" grip or the "had a shot at pre-prime Pau Gasol and declined in order to keep the same Tyrus Thomas".

QUOTE (Frank_Thomas35 @ Jan 20, 2016 -> 11:18 AM) He's Sticking to it: @cronebender I'm aware of people's issues but I don't see what I did wrong. It's true. Report will come out soon. Just watch. https://mobile.twitter.com/JakeBauer21/stat...855725254922240 Do you not understand how worthless these posts of yours are to this thread? You're sharing complete garbage. Stop.

QUOTE (shysocks @ Jan 19, 2016 -> 03:07 PM) Didn't read the piece, don't know what the criteria were, but if 10-year attendance decline is a factor, then you're starting the Sox at an unusually high bar for them. Nailed it. Start it the year we win a World Series and end it after another s*** season.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jan 19, 2016 -> 11:47 AM) How good is Pau playing right now. I realize he is expiring, but if the Bulls are going to look to retool, I'd have to think their'd be a contender out there who would give up something pretty solid for Pau. Reports say he's available. That said, I'd be shocked if they made a move to punt the season.

QUOTE (ozzfest @ Jan 16, 2016 -> 05:10 PM) John Paxson and Gar Forman have been running this team for over 13 seasons now. They have not gotten it done. They should be fired. I simply cannot recall this type of blind support and protection (from the Chicago media) when it came to Jerry Angelo, Phil Emery, Jim Hendry, or any other executive in Chicago sports. (At least Kenny won a World Series) The fact is--Continuously, GarPax has failed to provide talented, championship caliber rosters. it'll never happen

Kane is 2 goals away from his career high and it's only mid January.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Jan 15, 2016 -> 05:59 PM) Yea if there's anyone on this board who knows a thing or two about "real basketball analysis" it's you Steven. Agreed.

QUOTE (Chi Town Sox @ Jan 15, 2016 -> 12:53 PM) As good as PG is, he's a tad inefficient. Butler gets to the line more, shoots a better clip and shoots less. Paul George be chuckin'!

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 15, 2016 -> 11:11 AM) Anyone that doesn't take steph curry with their first pick is a horrible GM. Are you Vlade Divac? LOL ok.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 15, 2016 -> 10:29 AM) Excellent post except for one thing. Steph Curry is the best player in the world atm. This is not debatable. When you're more accurate from 35-40 feet than a lot of guys are from 20 feet then it's just done. And dude's got a +/- of 22.0. Nobody, not jordan, shaq, magic, lebron, etc, has sniffed that. I always look at best player in the following ways... - who do I take as the 1st pick in a one game playoff with my life on the line (LeBron) - who do I take as the 1st pick if I'm starting a franchise today (Kevin Durant) Curry is cute. He bombs threes. He also has an amazing supporting cast and still got taken to 6 games by the King without Love or Irving. GTFO with the flavor of the week and give me some real basketball analysis.

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Jan 15, 2016 -> 10:37 AM) You probably spent a week coming up with this post. That said, well done! 10 minutes, honestly. I'm a marketer - brain to keyboard comes fairly quickly.

Ok, so let's talk about Jimmy Butler. For whatever reason, he's not being recognized as the complete stud he is. I'm actually trying to come up with the reasons that both the national and local media aren't talking about Jimmy Butler enough. Here's my best attempt to explain. - DERRICK ROSE: A huge majority of Chicago still wants him to be the man. So anything Butler does is just looked at as "sidekick" work for when Rose comes back to being great. The national media cannot get past the downfall of Rose and would rather use that storyline than the rise of Jimmy Butler - JOAKIM NOAH: Just watch the highlights in the clip a few posts above to see what I'm about to talk about - Jo doesn't want Jimmy to be the man. Jo's bench role coupled with the downfall of Derrick is killing him. See how the entire bench goes bananas for Butler all game and Jo stands there, stoic, expressionless, with the rage building inside of him. He misses the glory days of his "little brother", the youngest MVP in league history, and his playing 40+ minutes per game. He does not want a changing of the guard. - THE NBA F*CKED UP: Jimmy Butler went at the end of the first round. He is now a top 5 NBA player. There, I said it, Jimmy Butler is a top 5 NBA player. The NBA, the talking heads, and all the experts will never see Jimmy as a guy performing at or above other guys taken in the top 10 of the NBA Draft year in and year out. The Top 5 are: 1. LeBron James 2. Kevin Durant 3. Steph Curry (I don't want to hear it) 4. Kawhi Leonard 5. Jimmy Butler I also don't want to hear about AD until he actually factors in W/L's, and I don't want to hear about Russell Westbrook because he's a sidekick who shoots a low percentage. - USAGE RATE: Jimmy Butler's usage rate falls well below the above studs mostly because when Derrick's on the floor, he hogs the ball. A man of his talents should NOT be 41st in the East in usage rate. But he has a f***ing BALL HOG on his roster who his spineless coach runs the offense through when he decides to actually suit up. Derrick's usage rate is 31st in the NBA. Derrick Rose: 250th in PER, 31st in Usage Rate Jimmy Butler: 17th in PER, 41st in Usage Rate Makes a ton of sense, right? Nope. Players with a higher usage rate than Jimmy freaking Butler include: Dennis Schroder, Reggie Jackson, Isaiah Thomas, DeMar DeRozan, Derrick Rose, Marreese Speights, Emmannuel Mudiay, Zack LaVine, Brandon Knight, Jeff Teague, Alec Burks, Markieff Morris, Nikola Vucevic, Trey Burke... need I go on? The only guy on the PER list above Jimmy with a lower usage rate is a center who can't handle the ball (Hassan Whiteside) whose PER is boosted by 4+ blocks per game. So, in summary, as long as Derrick's worthless ass is on this roster, Jimmy won't get the usage or respect he truly deserves as a superstar in this league. Oh, and Fred Hoiberg is a dunce.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 14, 2016 -> 10:32 PM) Don't get all the "if we had this butler with 2011 rose" we would've won the title talk. it's a ridiculous hypothetical. One, butler wasn't even in the league in 2011. to look at him now and try go back five years is dumb. What if Hakeem, Drexler and Barkley had all been in their primes when they teamed up? wtf cares. they weren't. anyway, butler is a legitimate stud and was amazing tonight. good win against an awful team. they still have no chance whatsoever against cleveland and until rose and noah are gone they'll never be able to build a legit contender. Preach

Damn, Jimmy.