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Yeah, they've gotten ridiculously lucky with the weather so far. It looks like today's the last day of that, although if the rain holds off the next two days won't be bad. Other than the weather, I'm not surprised at all that Indy is putting on a good show. Hosting big events is a big part of what the city is known for at this point. They don't have everything, but they use everything the city has to offer very well.

so, well below the midpoint, right? The midpoint was 10.225 million.

Apparently Garza's side didn't feel too strongly about their case either. That's a pretty fair deal. I'm glad the Cubs didn't push it all the way to the hearing even though they would have won.

If he's polished as the reports say he is, I don't think it is a huge concern. 3 full years in the minors, then the next year in the majors with the possibility of going to the minors if he needs it, and then the 5th year he has to stick. It's certainly not ideal, but it's not a bad scenario also unless he really isn't advanced for his age.

Pointing out that the effort was really poor tonight is not embarrassing themselves. overreacting and taking this as some sort of statement game is pretty embarrassing. the bulls were the second-best team in the east last season and improved in experience and talent-level this season. in a shortened, compressed season, this team's two biggest priorities are: get to the playoffs healthy, beat the heat. unless we're seriously suggesting that losing to the [expletive] sixers before the all-star break is some sort of harbinger of playoff doom, which is pretty silly, then the unmeasured reactions to tonight's loss are a little embarrassing. unless you don't value patience, maturity, or perspective. then yeah, perfectly appropriate. There's quite a bit of difference between treating it as a statement game and just saying that the Sixers will be a tough matchup/tough out for the Bulls. Which they will be-they're young, they're talented, and they are the type of team who seems to give the Bulls trouble (this is also their 3rd straight win over Chicago dating back to last year). They've had a really easy schedule with the home games and bad teams, but they also have the best point differential in basketball. Is Chicago better? Almost certainly yes, but it would still be a tough series. Barring a catastrophe though where Chicago slips to the 5th seed, Philly would be a 2nd round opponent. And in the East this year, you're just not likely to draw an easy 2nd round opponent.

It would be a lot easier to enjoy this season fully if IU had spaced out their big wins. Even going into the Big 10 season I was just rooting for Indiana to get to 9 Big 10 wins and make the tournament. The Ohio State and Michigan wins raised those expectations a little, but that's pretty much where their true talent level is. I'm sure there will be many stories about their collapse or other such things, but they really were just a team that overacheived for a few games and now has underacheived for a few games. They could go 10-8 or 8-10 depending on how the bounces fall, but they aren't a team who's good enough to go on the road to many places and win. It still is a significant improvement though and next year should still be very exciting.

I think you said cap hold, but are you meaning how much a player counts against the cap? Those are different concepts in the NBA. How much a player counts against the cap in the NBA is the actual amount the player is making that year, not the average. A cap hold is something the NBA uses to make sure teams don't abuse the right to sign their own free agents. They assign certain values to each potential free agent, and when you sign a free agent, you have to have enough space under the cap after accounting for those cap holds. The only way to get rid of the cap hold is to renounce the player, which means you don't have the ability to sign them while over the cap any longer. The NBA cap does fluctuate and is set at the beginning of each year. Rose's contract is set at a certain value regardless of league revenues. The cap will go up and down based on revenues, but Rose will get the 30% number calculated based on the cap when he signed the extension. So 5 years, about 94 million in this case. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong here. Hope that helps!

I think that's as much as the Red Sox are willing to add salary at this point (due to the luxury tax) and so are probably just throwing it out at all the best options left and hope somebody bites.

This one is the closest I've seen with D-Rose's contract included. http://www.hoopsworld.com/chicago-bulls-team-salary I've seen those numbers a couple places, but I don't think it's right. The numbers (even when you add in the 5th year) are about 6 million short of what his extension was reported to be. My guess is that they didn't calculate the new Derrick Rose rule correctly.

Yup, it was tough! :-) Seriously though, Smits was always a strange story. For like 4 years after he retired, teams were calling him up in March begging him to come back and play for them in the playoffs (I remember the Shaq/Kobe teams doing it a couple of times at least). But he never would because he enjoyed motorcross racing too much!

It just shows they haven't been under the cap for awhile. Cap holds only make a difference if you are under the cap, so there's no reason for teams over the cap to renounce anybody. Once you get under the cap then you renounce everybody who's piled up over the years. For example, the Pacers just got under the cap this year so this was their transaction list one day: The Indiana Pacers renounced their free agent exception rights to Mike Dunleavy. The Indiana Pacers renounced their free agent exception rights to Tyus Edney. The Indiana Pacers renounced their free agent exception rights to T.J. Ford. The Indiana Pacers renounced their free agent exception rights to Jeff Foster. The Indiana Pacers renounced their free agent exception rights to Tim Hardaway. The Indiana Pacers renounced their free agent exception rights to Lari Ketner. The Indiana Pacers renounced their free agent exception rights to Terry Mills. The Indiana Pacers renounced their free agent exception rights to Andre Owens. The Indiana Pacers renounced their free agent exception rights to Brent Scott. The Indiana Pacers renounced their free agent exception rights to Mate Skelin. The Indiana Pacers renounced their free agent exception rights to Rik Smits. The Indiana Pacers renounced their free agent exception rights to Zan Tabak. The Indiana Pacers renounced their free agent exception rights to LaSalle Thompson. BTW, as SSR said, cap holds are why the Williams thing won't work. Williams will have a maximum cap hold, so they would have to renounce him and lose his Bird rights before signing another maximum player. That's the reason cap holds are there to make sure nobody can do something like that.

NBA is still a soft cap. As soon as Howard is on the team, the Bulls can sign him using their Bird rules (or they could do an extend and trade, but that has extra rules attached to it now). The issues are if the Bulls are willing to go into the luxury tax/how far are they willing to go, and what the rest of their plan is to build the team around the core of Rose/Howard with less picks and not much financial flexibility.

I'm assuming they are talking about Howard correct? Indirectly yes. Turkoglu seems to be the contract that the Magic are demanding anybody take as part of the Howard deal. That might depending on who was in the deal push the Bulls into the luxury tax this year, and if Howard stays they'll be struggling to stay under the luxury tax level in the future (amnestying Boozer would solve that, but then that's a lot of money that has to be paid to a player who's playing for another team).

Make it about the topic, not about me. And that foul was debatable. It wasn't a no doubt call. But if you look at where his right arm was, there clearly was contact.

ARE YOU [expletive] KIDDING ME?? I have very little caring about the outcome of this game. Just watched the play several times and paused the DVR at the crucial moment. Leonard's arm is horizontal and in contact with the Minnesota player as he's going up. They're going to call that most of the time.

That was a foul on Leonard. When the Minnesota player is starting to go up, Leonard's right arm is horizontal and comes into contact with the arm. Then as he continues to go up to shoot the crazy shot, Leonard's arms go straight up. I knew from the first replay when they said the foul was on Paul that it had to be on Leonard because of the initial hack.

Even though the Pacers won the first two matchups fairly easily, I don't feel that great about this matchup. George struggles most defensively with guys like Allen and one of these games both Pierce and Allen will play well. The Pacers have won the first two games by dominating the boards, but while they are a good rebounding team they are inconsistent with it.

I don't know what more it will take to make it a rivalry. The players don't seem to like each other. The fanbases don't seem to like each other. And the teams are not horribly mismatched anymore. The Bulls are still definitely better but the Pacers are coming fast, and both teams should continue to improve in the next couple years. If there was a playoff series between them, the Bulls would be favored but the Pacers would have a shot to actually win the series. Will it actually take the Pacers beating the Bulls in a playoff series to make it a rivalry? I think that's a pretty strict definition that would lead to pretty much no rivalries in the sport. Beat us in a playoff series. Have you ever done that? Until then youll be the team that gets up for us and never beats us when it matters. No, but IIRC they have only played 2 playoff series total. One where the Pacers were the 8 seed and decidedly mediocre, and the other one where they came the closest of any team ever of derailing Jordan's 6 titles. And that's fine if that's your definition of rivalry. But if two teams have to beat each other in a playoff series to be a true rivalry, there are going to be very, very few rivalries ever. Especially because in the NBA once one team starts to tank rivalries tend to go away.

I agree it's just the beginning stages of the rivalry process. But there isn't really any way at this point that it doesn't get heated. Neither team is going anywhere anytime soon, they play in the same division, and there is bad feelings between the players (I wouldn't be surprised if sometime in the next 2-3 years a fight breaks out in one of the games). And they match up really well against one another so most of the games are going to be close. It will probably grow even bigger than the middle 90's, where the Pacers were probably the team in all of basketball who won the most games against the Bulls, but I'm not sure that was a rivalry.

I don't know what more it will take to make it a rivalry. The players don't seem to like each other. The fanbases don't seem to like each other. And the teams are not horribly mismatched anymore. The Bulls are still definitely better but the Pacers are coming fast, and both teams should continue to improve in the next couple years. If there was a playoff series between them, the Bulls would be favored but the Pacers would have a shot to actually win the series. Will it actually take the Pacers beating the Bulls in a playoff series to make it a rivalry? I think that's a pretty strict definition that would lead to pretty much no rivalries in the sport.

IU will have lots of opportunities to move up and down in the next few weeks. They're already done with Ohio State, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Penn State. Only 1 game left against Michigan State and Michigan. There isn't really an automatic win or loss left on the Big 10 schedule for them.

I can't decide if the officiating was horrible in that game, or if Indiana just didn't copy Wisconsin's defensive strategy to guard the 3 point line, and then when people drive past you just hammer them at the rim and hope the officials swallow the whistle. Indiana only attempted 8 3's tonight and yet Wisconsin only got called for 10 fouls the entire game.

Yeah, him and Bianchi. I wonder if Corpas cleared already or we may lose him still. Personally, I kind of figure he'll make our opening day pen, if he's around. I doubt he's got much of a chance to make the opening day roster if he's being outrighted at the end of January. Ahh, good point. Maybe Sonnanstine has the better shot? I just figure we'll have some sort of "veteran presence" hanging around, other than Wood and Marmol. On the other hand, having a pen full of Dolis, Beliveau, Carpenter, maybe Gaub or Mateo, could be fun to go along with Marmol, Wood, and Russell. In a kindasorta throw away season, you'd probably develop 2 of those guys into guys you think of as solid contributors for the future. 1-2 of Samardzija, Wells, or Volstad will likely also be in that bullpen.

Would a Szczur move likely be the corresponding move to Jackson being called up? IOW he'd see one or the other. I wouldn't think so. Szczur hasn't proven himself at Daytona yet. He'll either start at Daytona and likely move up to Tennessee during the year, or they'll be aggressive with him and have him at Tennessee the whole year. He shouldn't be at Iowa (or Chicago) until 2013.

How does that preserve the late-inning excitement? The thing that drives the decisions at the end of a game is that you have a spot with a really poor hitter in it. Keeping a DH in the 9 spot does nothing to help that. Starting pitcher spot. Presumably, once the starting pitcher is removed, he's saying you either let the reliever bat or use a pinch hitter. A home team will be slightly disadvantaged in such a situation if you simply allow them to use the DH until the starting pitcher is removed. If both pitchers goes 6 1/3 then the DH can't bat in the bottom of the 7th, but he would have been eligible to bat in the top of the 7th. Oh, I like that idea. As you showed, it does have some flaws. But it brings even more strategy into the game like picking your DH carefully since he won't be available at the end of the game, and also how long to ride your starting pitcher based on if you're hoping for another bat for the DH. It does seem a bit too out there to ever be adopted though.