SpongeWorthy

We just screwed up a 4 on 1 fast break somehow. Brilliant.

Bump. Golden State might put up 150 on this defense tonight.

The last few years UCLA would go through scoring droughts. I suppose every college team does but I don't know if any other top team puts as much pressure on itself to play 40 minutes of great defense. And I agree about Holliday. He's very smooth and probably needs more freedom to create his own shot. Sadly, he seems a lot further along than Derozan :/

I saw something glancing at the TV about Texas Tech and 167 on the crawler and figured it was a stat for the football team's scoring output in the last 3 or 4 games.

The Ben Howland patented craptacular offensive game. The guy can flat out coach a man to man defense but UCLA has wayyyy too manny scoring droughts given their talent level.

That post is relevant because of all the Pac 10 fanboys on this board constantly pumping sunshine about how great the conference is. Next you can explain the rocket science behind how a 16 team conference ends up with a lot of good teams.

Also, DeRozan is still pretty far away. He has zero confidence in his handle.

Good god USC just gagged against Seton Hall. They were up 43-28 at the half and lose 63-61 because of some of the most putrid offensive basketball I've ever seen (which is saying something because I watched the Bulls game last night).

Bosh would be great. But for whatever free agents we're targeting I think we need to prove that there's more on this current roster besides Rose because they can always stay home for extra dollars. I want to be on the upswing heading into the 2010 offseason and not treading water.

It's not the end of the world because we've got a bonafied superstar in the making. Imagine if we ended up wit the 9th pick like we were slotted to though? We'd be gunning for Kornel David, Khalid El-Amin, Dalibor Bagaric, Dickey Simpkins, levels of putridity.

You guys are just being unreasonable. The Eastern Conference is so much better therefore we should expect 50 point blowouts from Western Conference teams that are even younger than we are.

I'm expecting effort. This isn't baseball--things like chemistry and heart actually do matter. Prior to last season, this was a team that maximized its potential. Now they compound their relative lack of talent by not maxing out on effort. I shouldn't expect Ben Gordon to dribble around dominating the ball and not deferring if he can't get our team into an offense. I shouldn't expect zero hustle on rotations or getting back in transition. And I shouldn't expect a head coach to be demure and defential when things like that are going on. That's unacceptable. I think we all trealize this team isn't nearly good enough to skate by with lousy effort. That's what makes this really frustrating.

The funny thing is that nearly every player on our team has come from one of the very best college programs in the country or had extensive international experience in Noc's case. Thomas played on a Final Four team, Gordon won an NCAA championship, Noah won two, Hinrich and Gooden played for one, Deng played for Duke, Rose played for one as well, Gray played Pitt. The pedigree just isn't there. You'd think with so many guys coming from big time programs theyh'd understand roles and basic principles better. But in a lot of ways this team has the collective basketball IQ of the immediate post-Jordan teams. Even Jay Williams was a Dukie! A lot of that has to fall on Pax.

Yes, they're on their way to a 5-7 record with a rookie coach and rookie point guard vs the 3rd hardest schedule in the NBA. Fold them! The problem with this argument is that the rookie point guard is the smartest player on the entire team by a incredibly large amount. Our supposed veterans play appallingly stupid basketball. As for VDN, I don't see why he should get any sort of slack for being a rookie coach. Will he get better? Possibly. But swhy should fans expect their HEAD coach to receive on the job training. Plus a lot of the lapses, especially defensively, are effort related. No coach, no matter how experienced, at ANY level of basketball should be given slack for that. This is a team that has played excellent defense iwith largely the same personnel.

Portland's full court press has taken Rose out of the game and our adjustment has been to give it to Gordon so he can dribble around for 20 seconds and jack up a long jumpshot. Absolutely horrid interior defense. This team has no recognition of team defensive principles. Just shockingly bad. Del Negro gets an F- for his performane thus far. Has anyone actually sein him uttering words on the sideline towards his players or the referees?

Wow.

Larry Hughes is an absolute nightmare. Why do we feel obligated to play him? I have to wonder what tape VDN is looking at to think that playing Hughes at all is a good idea. Nice effort to start the game, Bulls. You were atrocious in transition and interior D last night and if it's possible you're even worse tonight. Pathetic.

As for Larry Hughes I only have one question: Why? You can take that as "Why does he play at all?" or "Why does such a wretched human being exist on this earth?" He really runs the gamut. What a horror of a basketball player Larry Hughes is. PLEASE stop playing him.

Well we'll see how Bynum develops. He's promising but I think Lakers fans went a little gaga over how well he played last year because he was contrasted to what Kwame Brown had been giving them. Anyone with Bynum's size and athleticism is going to succeed if he can catch the ball at the front of the rim and not screw up. I still need to see how Bynum matches up with physical bigs who can keep him off the block. I still think the Celtics match up great with the Lakers.

As for the game, if someone talks about this being some sort of moral victory I'm going to put an axe through my monitor. This was a very, very winnable game marred by stretches of horrifically stupid play by the usual suspects and Gordon being ice cold. Really a poor effort all around. The Lakers were trying to give us the game by being extremely lackadaisical defensively and we retruned the favor by being even lazier. Pathetic.

The 90s Bulls teams would absolutely curbstomp this Lakers team. The Kobe-Shaq teams would as well. They're talented and they play a very aestheticly appealing brand of ball but they are soft as butter in a lot of areas. But watch this team develop. Shaq had power, but Gasol is smooth as butter. We really haven't seen what Bynum can do with Gasol and Kobe. Yeah. I doubt the Kobe-Shaq teams would destroy this Lakers team. I mean, this Lakers team, like every team, has nobody who could match up with Shaq in his prime. But this Laker team is much, much deeper than the championship teams. The Laker power forwards during the title runs were A.C. Green (82 starts) and Robert Horry with the 99-00 team, Horace Grant (starter), Horry and Mark Madsen with the 00-01 team, and Samaki Walker (starter), Horry and Madsen with the 01-02 team. Odom and Ariza would destroy Rick Fox at SF as well. Kobe is still Kobe and the point guard is equal as well. Fox, Shaw, Fisher, and Horry were very savvy basketball players. Farmar, Sasha, Vlad Rad, etc. are talented but they are pretty awful team defenders. Gasol and Odom look great against space cadetes like Gooden and Thomas but disappeared when they were matched up with physical defenders who understood team defensive concepts in the Finals. The Kobe-Shaq Lakers would obliterate this team.

The 90s Bulls teams would absolutely curbstomp this Lakers team. The Kobe-Shaq teams would as well. They're talented and they play a very aestheticly appealing brand of ball but they are soft as butter in a lot of areas.

The Lakers aren't even playing particularly well and they still put up 61 in the first half. It looked like a layup drill out there for stretches. Rose and Gordon keeping us in it though...Gordon's shot himself into a decent game. He was ice cold to start. And I want to reiterate that most of the players on this team don't desereve to play with a player of Derrick's caliber. Man, he's going to be soooo good when he figures out this game. He already makes it look easy.

Vinny's demeanor out there is very disturbing. Get in someone's face for god's sake. This effot level in transition D and inside is unacceptable.

The effort level in the interior and in transition is pretty awful. Get that fixed Vinny. And this team isn't nearly talented enough to overcome the stupidity of Gooden, Hughes, Thomas, etc. Gooden is one of the very dumbest players I've ever seen. What purpose does Larry Hughes serrve? he's not even a good a midrange jump shooter as Gooden for Christ's sake.