UMFan83

I can't wait until a week from now when we are pounding the Mets and are laughing about how bad we looked a week ago

It just sucks that the starters stsrt to struggle as most of our offense is hurt. Baseball gonna baseball

All of the sudden none of our starters can get past 5 IP

Probably gonna need more than 4 today

Finished with 7 and lost

Either this umpire is terrible or (much more likely) the WGN pitch trax this is somehow worse than TBS' last postseason.

Against all odds the Cubs have somehow overcome their 1 run 1st inning deficit and are back even!

Something something wife with cancer

https://twitter.com/vilsonb_/status/746733449264926720

I love how not only did Maddon go out and get Zobrist, he basically turned 2 of his better players into Zobrists as well.

Supposedly with Shaw gone Ladd or even Brian Campbell is in play

They've simply played us too many times this year

6...Fowler, Zobrist, Rizzo, Montero, Schwarber, Soler

watching Contreras in the handshake line he looks like he's been on the team for awhile and is one of the team leaders.

Bryant is 2 true outcomes tonight

I guess signing Panarin to an extension was a higher priority?

Did anyone see DRose's press conference? I am sorry but that man is the worst interviewee ever. I don't think he has any idea what he's about to say as he's saying it. First of all, he dropped an f-bomb and said sh-t in a PC that was carried live on TV. But then there are the answers to his questions...2 examples: Then earlier in his press conference he says something about changing to number 25 so he can bring something from Chicago with him to NY. OK fine, but I'm guessing most Knicks fans, if not the media itself, has no idea that 25 was his number at Simeon and also the number Ben Wilson wore. So later a reporter asks him to elaborate on why the number 25 and his answer was like 'yeah umm just like want to bring something from Chicago with me, umm that's why I did that' Random rant I know, I'm in a ranty mood today

I hate everything about the Marlins org. The owner, the empty stadium with ugly ass walls that look like green screens, the fact that their logo is as colorful as it is but still somehow boring as horsefeathers, the fact that they've never lost a playoff series yet have never won their division, trading us Juan Pierre, 2003 obviously

If we'd had better luck in coin-flip games we'd have a chance still, but at this point the injuries are starting to pile up. Schwarber, Soler, Fowler all have hit the DL (none back yet), LaStella, one of the major fill-ins for the three DL'd guys, is himself on the DL, and if this Rizzo thing results in a DL stint (I doubt it will, but who knows), that's yet another key piece on the shelf. I guess there's some sort of irony here that we've had essentially zero pitcher injuries and so many of our hitters have gotten hurt. Don't forget Montero was on the DL once, and is currently injuried but not on the DL, and in between was a shell of himself, likely due to injuries

Joe is going mad scientist

I have been an acknowledged Simmons fan for awhile, but it took me a long time to realize I just don't like Simmons the personality at all. The podcasts are ok, but anything he has done on TV is not very interesting. I haven't watched his show, I never watched the Grantland Basketball thing, etc. I think the only thing I truly like him for is his columns, and he has only written 1 in the past year and change and the ones he did write before his exile lost all the little gimmicks that made his columns interesting and different.

as much as i wanted to believe that at the time and shortly thereafter, i don't anymore. In the most abstract sense I think it was true, but not actually. We lost Asik and someone else important was banged up I think. After that season they were able to round out the ancillary pieces they needed and even our upgrades couldn't have outpaced their improvement. Yeah, the Heat were starting the corpse of Mike Bibby and Joel Anthony in that series. If there was a year the Bulls were equipped to take them it was that year, and they could have.

This is a whole different argument but I think the 10-11 Bulls were a legit contender. The Heat were better but the Bulls absolutely could have won that series, especially when they were up 1-0 with HCA. In game 3 they led in the 4th quarter, in game 4 they went to OT, in game 5 they had a 12 point lead with 3 minutes left and folded. Because the Heat did the little things to win that game they proved they were better team, but the margin wasn't large enough to make me believe the Bulls couldn't have won the series and were not contenders. Most NBA playoff series there is a clear favorite and that clear favorite usually wins. That was not the case in this series.

Not as disagreeable now that you spell it out like that. And my point isn't that we should tank, my point is that it is unlikely that we become a legit contender without a star that is better than Jimmy Butler. Now if the Bulls had a lot of intriguing assets that could either develop into an attractive team, or be used as trade bait for either a star or lottery picks, then yes I am completely fine with not blowing the whole team up. But this team is Jimmy Butler and a cast of mediocre role players basically. We are not going to improve our long term outlook by drafting high floor, low ceiling guys like McDermott and Valentine. We are not going to improve our long term outlook by trading Rose for a packaged headlined by Joakim Noah lite (I know Rose's trade value wasn't high and they did get a potential high ceiling low floor guy in Grant, but I'd rather have the cap space than a 3 year commitment to Lopez at 14 per). These are marginal assets for future transactions. So if we are a 50 win team with no hope of the title, that's fine if we are building toward something or accumulating assets, much like the 05-09 Bulls or the last 2 Celtics teams. But every move I've seen the Bulls make lately has been designed to keep the Bulls in that 42-47 win range without much long term upside and no asset accumulation. So yes I would prefer to blow it up and bottom out for what hopes to be a year or two than watch a team led by Jimmy, Taj and Robin Lopez struggle to make the playoffs. I understand the risk that it will make the team unwatchable and I understand 1-2 years could turn into 5-7 years, but at this point I am having a hard time finding other ways to compete long term.

I had a lot of fun too, but it was always with the hope that they were going to take the next step, and it was always based on the hope that next year Derrick was going to turn into some semblance of his former self again and we could be a legitimate contender in the East. how much fun did you have watching this game? http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/200504240CHI.html Because I had a lot of [expletive] fun that day and I'm OK with admitting that. I was there. On that team we had 2 promising lottery picks, Deng in particular had a superstar ceiling or was thought at the time. There were still people that believed Curry and Chandler had some superstar potential left in them. Gordon was looking like a really good number 2. They were in really nice shape with the salary cap. Yes that team in particular was not going to win a title, but there was a ton of hope that they had their superstar developing and they were on a legit road to the title. And if they didn't want to wait they had assets to swing a deal. Most of that core was allegedly good enough to swing a deal for a still in his prime Kobe a couple of years later. This particular team building is Jimmy Butler, whose ceiling we know, then a bunch of low ceiling role players (Valentine, Lopez, Taj, Doug, Niko, Snell, Calderon). Grant is the only player that you might argue could have a ceiling as a star but its also isn't a particularly likely ceiling to achieve. So the Bulls are in a situation where they have 1 star, albeit closer to a top 10-20 in the NBA star, and a roster of role players with low ceilings. They don't have a ton of valuable assets outside of Butler that we can use to get better via trade. Can the team win 45-50 games and win a playoff series? yes. But I am not sure how they can improve much beyond that picking 15-20 every year and making modest FA improvements (because they aren't enticing a superstar with this roster).