illinilaw08

QUOTE (ChiSox59 @ Dec 7, 2016 -> 04:28 PM) I'd love to get our hand on David Dahl. If the Rockies are going for it (and with the Desmond signing, it looks like they are), I'd have to think they would have interest in Quintana. Not only is their rotation pretty poor, but I'd think Q's stuff would actually play well in Coors. With either Dahl or Rodgers (unlikely, but he is blocked by DJ Lamahieu and Story), they have a top end piece that would look good in the Sox organization, Tapia looks like a solid second piece, and they have pretty good organizational depth to get a deal done - maybe McMahon and a late lottery ticket arm?

QUOTE (ChiSox59 @ Dec 7, 2016 -> 12:31 PM) As of now. They could easily move Blackmon or Dahl for pitching. Dahl, Tapia and Murphy would be a real nice foundation for a Q and Robertson deal. They also would still have interest in Frazier and Abreu under this scenario. Desmond has a lot of flexibility, and the early sense here in CO is that the Rockies have more moves planned. The interesting thing for the Rockies is that Rodgers is blocked at the MLB level (depending on how you feel about Story's ability to sustain a .900 OPS at the MLB level). Could you get a package for Q and Robertson that starts with Rodgers and Tapia +? I tend to think that the Rockies management isn't the brightest in the league...

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Dec 7, 2016 -> 12:51 PM) Trading a guy who is an ace with 4 years of cost control left seems like a pretty risky proposition. I'm open to it, but Q is probably the last of all the guys I'd move. I'd move Eaton, Melky, Robertson, Jones, and Abreu first (again depending on value). It depends on the package that you get back. Q in '17 and Q in '18 - at a minimum - is irrelevant to the Sox next window of contention. In a best case scenario, Q gives you two years at the back end of his deal when the Sox are relevant, and the Sox contending in '19 is being really, really optimistic. The FA market for pitching this offseason is abysmal. Q may never have more trade value than he does today, and if you are getting offers back at that value, I think you have to move him.

QUOTE (bighurt574 @ Dec 7, 2016 -> 12:09 PM) If they signed Desmond to play 1B, they'e presumably out on Abreu. I don't see where Desmond has ever played 1B. Rockies have a surplus of OF, and, other than 1B, their IF is set. I don't know what they are thinking, but I wouldn't be overly surprised to see them try to move Blackmon somewhere and then try to make a push for Abreu. They would be an interesting landing spot for Q as well, and definitely have the prospects to get it done.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Dec 6, 2016 -> 09:31 PM) And they're stinking it up against IUPUI. #Groced Frankly I'm amazed he was able to get Tilmon to sign. He's been terrible at developing big guys. Mav and Thorne are truly awful. Softest bigs in the entire conference. A win is a win... Thorne can't be pinned on Groce. I'd say most of his softness at the moment can be chalked up to being tentative after the injury last year. Mav has really improved offensively, but man he's bad defensively. I've been really impressed with Black over the last three games. Regardless of that, this Illinois team needs JCL to be a legit second scoring option on a nightly basis. If he can't fill the hole from the Nunn departure, then this team is going to have a really low ceiling in B1G play.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 6, 2016 -> 07:02 PM) That really isn't true. Municipalities lose businesses to Mexico and Asia all of the time and in fact do negotiate incentive packages to keep them from doing so. I know for a fact in my hometown this is exactly how we lost ANCO wiperblades to Mexico. Do you really think that's sustainable federal policy to keep jobs here? Negotiate on a case-by-case basis? I understand how this works at a state or local level, I really don't see how it works as national policy.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 6, 2016 -> 06:29 PM) Totally agree here. These deals are done on a daily basis. Hell Rahm just blew himself today about getting the McDonalds ground breaking on its HQ started. Tax incentives to get businesses to move a town over, and to stay in a town are incredibly common. Hell as a part of a local board, I have personally voted on approving parts of some of them in a town of 30k people. It's not an economic platform to actually keep companies from moving jobs overseas. Sure, states and towns do this all the time. Do we really want Trump's economic policy for keeping jobs here to be negotiate with companies on a case-by-case basis? The issue for me isn't the fact that Carrier got this deal, but that it's being touted as evidence of Trump keeping jobs stateside in any sort of sustainable way.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 6, 2016 -> 05:14 PM) I don't think that really helps long term. I would want more quantity than that, even if I had to give up one of the star players to do it. If I trade those two in a package, I want two or three front line guys, plus a lot of a teams top 10 besides. This. The point of this rebuild is to turn a poor farm into a really, really good system. The Boston package got you your headliner, now let's get 8-10 guys for Q and Eaton.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Nov 29, 2016 -> 03:42 PM) He's gonna make it worse by calling out Muslims publicly, which will help ISIS convince a few more Western Muslims that it's Islam vs. the West. This x 1000000.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Nov 29, 2016 -> 02:54 PM) Good move if it's for our elite talent. Their success hurts the Sox an incredible amount, whether people here want to accept that or not. I don't get this argument at all. The Cubs success doesn't hurt the Sox. The Sox inability to put a winning product on the field hurts the Sox. It's one thing to tell the Cubs that they will have to pay a premium for Sale. But by not agreeing to work with the Cubs period, the Sox are cutting off their nose to spite their face.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Nov 29, 2016 -> 11:35 AM) JFC has trump picked one person for his Cabinet that doesnt have a conflict of interest? DRAIN THAT SWAMP!

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Nov 22, 2016 -> 02:34 PM) The fact that he relies on Tate so much kills me. Why the hell is Tate in control of the offense in crunch time? Why isn't Groce screaming for Hill or Abrams to handle the ball at all times to get a bucket? After the game Groce actually said Tate did a good job on Johnson, the dude that put up 38 on them with a cramped foot. WTF is that? That's how far this program has fallen. Not only do we lose, we lose at home and we lose at home to 100+ ranked teams. Oh, and f*** Groce for saying this is a good thing, they needed it. No, you didn't need a loss or a close win as a reality check. You haven't been to the tournament in 3 years and your team is led by a senior and 2 guys that have been around for 5-6 seasons. That's "reality" enough. If you haven't instilled a desire/effort to win every game and get back to the tournament with this group, the majority of which are 4 star guys with experience, then nothing will. He's a total embarrassment. I loved the hire, I think he's a good guy at heart, but for f***'s sake he's Jay Cutler. Excuse after excuse after excuse is given to him. How many of these losses do we have to take before we just finally admit he's not a good coach? I'll stop paying attention if they miss the dance this year and he's allowed back for yet another season of mediocre basketball. And that really sucks because Illinois bball is the only team I watch 99.9% of games even when they suck. I've had it with the program if this nonsense remains acceptable. Saw it last year with Austin and the year before with Ekey. Groce hasn't recruited/built rosters well enough to have two way players he can rely on at the end of games. So when he has to choose between Austin and JCL or Tate and JCL at the end of games, he's going with the guy he trusts more defensively.* It is beyond frustrating as a strategy. I'm fine with the postgame comments. I'd rather a coach be excessively positive in the press conference than throw the players under the bus. The proof of whether this game got through to the team or not will be how they play against WVU on Thursday. * I thought Tate did ok on Johnson at times. The kid hit some ridiculous shots where you just have to tip your cap. Off the top of my head, the only possession where I was really mad at Tate defensively was in OT at 80-78 with under 5 left to shoot, Tate bit on a fake, got himself completely out of position, and allowed Johnson a basically uncontested layup.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Nov 22, 2016 -> 02:26 PM) Klinsmann probably had more talent on this team than any USMNT manager before him. You gotta give him credit for that. He's responsible for getting Fabian Johnson and John Brooks on this team. The fact that we have a decent amount of players getting regular playing time in the Bundesliga is in part due to Klinsmann. He did a decent job with development. Only problem is that he was a horrible manager tactically. I wish he could have stayed in a non-managerial position, but that definitely wasn't going to happen. Arena will put a higher emphasis on the MLS, which Klinsmann ignored for the most part. But as we've seen with the development of Pulisic and Wood, we need players to develop in Europe. MLS is absolutely critical to the future of the national team. Ideally, you have both guys taking the Euro route and developing, and guys developing through the MLS academy system or the draft. The washout rate for Americans in Europe - particularly those who go through the academy system in Europe - is extremely high. The best players of the last generation of US Soccer - Dempsey and Donovan - don't reach those heights without MLS (my opinion on Donovan, a fact re: Dempsey). Over the next 16-20 years, the quality of the talent pool in the US, and therefore the quality of MLS, needs to rise to the level where as a soccer nation, we aren't dependent on European development to succeed at the national team level.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Nov 22, 2016 -> 12:29 AM) Ugh I have to just give up on Illini athletics, it's just too painful. Here's my eternal optimist take on things. JCL is still shaking off the rust from the hand injury. Black is getting back up to game speed. Those are the two most important, non-Hill, non-Abrams, members of this Illinois team. JCL needs to be the second scorer to complement Hill. Black needs to be the rebounder, and guy that makes jumpers in the midrange game. If both of those guys come along, the ceiling for this team goes up. Yes, losing to Winthrop is bad. No, it's not catastrophic. Margin of error gets a lot thinner. Need to win at least 2 of the next 4, and ideally 3 of the next 4, and Illinois is still ok.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Nov 21, 2016 -> 05:09 PM) On this board alone SS calls any Trump voter a racist. Hillary called them deplorables. You really don't think that happened/happens? Forgot about the deplorables thing - got anything else? Throughout the course of the campaign, Trump said racist things about Mexicans and Muslims. Trump mocked a report for having a disability. He was accused of sexual assault by a number of women. People at his rallies were chanting "Lock her Up" with respect to Trump's presidential opponent - and he encouraged that. A large part of his appeal was that he was "not PC." So "deplorables" vs. every insane thing that Trump said and did on the campaign trail... I'm certain that a large number of Trump voters are not racist. Those people may not have voted for Trump because of the racist, sexist, and other terrible things that he said. But those comments were not a deal breaker for Trump's presidency to them. Meaning they didn't think that those comments and actions disqualified him from the office of the Presidency. Objectively, Trump's campaign was embraced by and endorsed by white supremacists. His election seems to have emboldened those same groups. I'm sure there are Democrats that are a-holes and have called all Republicans racist. That doesn't equate to that being the Democrats national policy platform. And that doesn't excuse the election of Donald Trump. ETA: I just want to re-iterate - this discussion began with SS2K stating that the Democrats "holier than thou, anyone who isn't with us is a racist attitude just isn't effective as a political platform." There's no evidence that this is, or has ever been, the Dem's political platform. And even if it was, what does it say about the country that the racist platform beat that platform...

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 21, 2016 -> 04:45 PM) They are losing all over the country. http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/30673...te-legislatures If your thesis is that the divide between rural and urban has never been greater, I can get behind that argument. And it's worth fleshing out why that divide continues to grow. However, you still haven't provided any evidence in support of your argument that Democrats have been calling everyone racists, or that they campaigned on insulting the ordinary people in this country.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 21, 2016 -> 04:26 PM) It totally misses the party in charge being out of tune with the ordinary people, and leaving the door open to this crap. Again it misses that instead of seizing what was available, and identifying with them, they mocked and lost them. 2K - the Dems won the popular vote by 1.5M voters. They picked up seats in the House and Senate. They lost the Presidential election because Donald Trump promised to bring jobs back to a depressed portion of the country - promises that he can't possibly keep - and flipped the Rust Belt Red. Clinton didn't pay enough attention to the Rust Belt. She didn't articulate her policies to that part of the country well. She took for granted that they would vote for the party of Labor rather than the party of management. I don't see how you can say that the Dems lost the election because they mocked ordinary people. The guy that mocked ordinary people actually won the Presidency...

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 21, 2016 -> 03:52 PM) And this is exactly the attitude that has relegated the Democratic party to a secondary role in this country as they have lost the federal stage, and the vast majority of the states as well. This holier than thou, anyone who isn't with us is a racist attitude just isn't effective as a political platform. All you have to do is look at the results of where the party is right now to know that. Eventually one of these two parties will become disaffected enough with lowest common denominator politics to realize that in order to be truly effective it is the high hanging fruit that will be the most productive. But if you want to keep engaging in the Trump style of politics, then you will continue to get these results. The party that campaigned against the politics of fear and hate for so long has fallen into that trap, and has this Presidential election to show for it. Again, congratulations for electing our worst nightmare as President. I'm not really sure how to respond to this. Systematic racism is a real thing - should we not draw attention to it as a society? Denying equal protection to the LGBT community is an issue. Should we stop drawing attention to that? The Black Lives Matter movement really says "Black Lives Matter, Too." Should they stop protesting issues in law enforcement? I guess I'm perplexed and can't think of examples of the "anyone who isn't with us is a racist" attitudes that you seem to attribute to the Democrats...

QUOTE (Deadpool @ Nov 18, 2016 -> 02:16 PM) Two final fours, one National Championship loss in that time. Illinois fans act like that comparatively weak resume is enough to compete with Duke, KU, UK, etc. That's quite the strawman argument there. I'm not sure what Illinois fans you talk, but I don't think anyone sees the Illini's ceiling as anything close to Duke, UK, KU, etc. But it's not unreasonable for Illinois basketball to return to where it was from '82-'07. During that time they also had a couple Elite 8 losses ('84 and '01). Littlehurt is right on with expectations for the program. Make the tournament every year, be in the Final Four conversation every 4 years. There's no reason the program can't get back to that level.

QUOTE (Boogua @ Nov 18, 2016 -> 11:54 AM) Yeah, clearly everyone would be released from their NLI. Also, recruiting only goes so far. LSU got Ben Simmons and Antonio Blakeney last year and didn't even make the tournament. Should lsu fans like Johnny Jones? Every single Illini coach since I've started following has been able to get a 5 star/mcaa, I would expect the next to be able to do the same That's historically true, but also requires some context. The Henson years are evident enough. Henson was able to pull top talent out of Chicago, but landed the program on probation (thanks Bruce Pearl...). Kruger came in and was black balled in Chicago, but was fortunate enough to have a massive amount of downstate talent with Griffin/McClain, Frank Williams, and Cook in three straight years. Self was a really good recruiter, but the only McDonald's All-American he signed was Dee (also requires context - different era with much of the McD AA game comprised of straight to the NBA guys). The point here is that for the last 20 years, the most reliable bed for Illinois recruiting has been Central Illinois. Self was able to successfully recruit in Texas (Deron and Warren Carter being the two most obvious examples), and Groce has had some success regionally in the Midwest (JCL and Black). But Illinois is never going to lock down Chicago or the Chicago suburbs, which means that, unless the new coach is able to consistently recruit regionally, the Illini will be dependent on the ebb and flow of talent in Central Illinois.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Nov 18, 2016 -> 10:17 AM) Yea but if you're evaluating Groce you need to consider if he recruited to make the tournament once every 3/4 years or if he's building a consistent winner. Making the tournament, while tough in 2018, will be essential to proving that he can coach and build a winner. No disagreement from my end there.

Rabbit, Mike Pompeo, Trump's pick to head the CIA, in his own words on the NSA from December of last year. Thought you would find this interesting. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/4288...tional-security

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Nov 18, 2016 -> 10:01 AM) Yeah, I'm still not sure that next year is going to be any better. Really have to see a jump from Black and JCL I think. Next year will be worse. You lose 5 Seniors, including Hill and both your centers. If Black and JCL make leaps this year (1) this team will comfortably make the tournament; and (2) I'll feel much better about next year, but '18 is going to be a really young and unproven roster.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Nov 18, 2016 -> 09:39 AM) Ok, Ron Guenther. Haven't we learned that keeping coaches around for an extra season or two is a terrible way to go? Turner, Zook, Weber. All program killers. You don't wait to fire the coach until you hit rock bottom. You try to salvage a decent roster with a new coach and hope they can swing it around without having to do a full rebuild. And that's what sucks about Groce - he had decent players and then recruited decent players right away. And yet they've still sucked. Groce should be fired after this season if they don't make the tournament. Plain and simple. He's done poorly his last 3 seasons. And it's not even just missing the tournament, it's getting worse year by year. He's had some tough recruiting losses, he's had a bevy of awful injuries and he's had some s***ty off the court drama to deal with. All sucks for him, but making the tournament should not be hard for this program. Missing a tournament bid is bad enough, missing it three seasons in a row is unacceptable. Here's the only rationale I can consider for why you keep Groce around until 2018, regardless of results. The '17 class is a large recruiting class for Illinois in terms of numbers - right now it's a 4 man class, and there are still two open scholarships. The '18 class, by contrast, is going to be small. To the extent that you are worried about losing not just Tilmon, but Frazier and Williams as well if Groce is fired (and this is all speculation on my part), then you go into the '17-'18 season with a new coach and 9 scholarship players. Plus hypothetical new coach is behind on the '18 class, and you are talking about a long rebuild. Once the kids are in school and have to deal with a sit out year, they are less likely to transfer. If Williams and Frazier are solid regardless of coach, then the above is probably moot, but you can't end up with an empty '17 recruiting class. I don't know that is a good argument, but it's certainly something to take into account when deciding on Groce's future. Hopefully this is all moot and this team comfortably makes the tournament...

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 17, 2016 -> 03:36 PM) It is amazing how on election day this literally changed in an instant of who talks about taking responsibility and who makes excuses for people. One minute the question is taking the election results no matter what happens, then five million people less vote, and there are protests in the streets over who won. One day the talk is about Obama getting preached to by radicals, people make excuses, then the right wing gets in office, it is all OK again. It is insane. Are you seriously comparing Obama's relationship with Wright - who had no place in the Obama administration - to Trump picking Bannon as his Chief Strategist? That, my friend, is insane. * If I'm misreading your post, please explain... ** There have been many posts on this board stating that, no matter the disagreement with President Elect Trump, or with the unnecessary and archaic electoral college, Trump won the election, and any attempt to alter that result would be dangerous to our democracy. So I'm fairly certain that's a false equivalency.