UMFan83

For some reason, I don't think Kitna is that bad. He's probably one of the better backups in the league. Does that mean they aren't going to miss Romo? Of course not, Romo is much better. That said, I think Kitna will keep them in games with the weapons he has to throw to. Of course as old as Kitna is, I reserve the right to blame any crappy performance he has on his age regressing him. However, I thought he was really old and done when Palmer got hurt in the playoffs in 05 and he took over, and for the next 2 years started for Detroit and was actually decent.

Definitely Kitna.

The Heat did look out of sorts on offense and looked like they didn't know who should take the shot. It looked exactly like a team that hasn't played together much. Which is a bad sign for the NBA that a team that looked that disjointed was within 3 of the EC Champs in their building with 90 seconds left. It was weird seeing the Heat come out of TOs and have plays drawn up for LeBron and then Wade. It was just alternating between them. The idea that whoever is the hot hand will take the shots down the stretch might actually happen. I'm not trying to overreact to one game but I wonder if Wade is going to be a sideshow in this offense. LeBron looked like LeBron in Cleveland. A lot of isolation a lot of holding the ball. The man obviously needs to completely dominate the ball on offense to be effective. It will be interesting to see how Wade handles it, because he's not a guy that can thrive by having the ball kicked out to him or whatever. Overall they will be fine, but it's extremely interesting to watch the little things in each Heat game. Also, Boston's bench is awesome. One of the best in the NBA.

for real?

Here are reasons why the Bulls should have no trouble getting over 46.5 wins: -Best player is going to turn (i think) 22 during the season and clearly still has room to improve -Thibs theoretically should be a much better tactician than VDN, but I have a hard time thinking coaching makes much of a different. -They won 41 games last year and signed one of the top 3-4 PFs in the league, who has similar numbers PER and efficiency wise to players like Bosh and Amare. Should fit in well with a guard who shoots a lot and a Center who can play help defense to minimize his own defensive efficiencies -They had absolutely no one who could shoot a 3 last year. And while only getting Kyle Korver is not exactly filling that need, just having at least one dominant 3 point shooter should help the team when he's on the floor. Also Deng has been hitting 3's like crazy in the preseason. If you watched Deng closely, he came into the league shooting 3s, Skiles told him to stop shooting them in order to get the rest of his game going, and for 3-4 years he barely shot them before last year shooting them at a respectable clip. -They have pieces to make a move in season if one arises. Noah is probably no longer considered a great piece since he signed his extension, but other than Boozer, the guys they signed in the offseason all have reasonable contracts, most of them 2 years with an option. -Thibs has been able to positively affect the defense of every team he's been on. And the Bulls were an above average defensive team last year. -They won 41 games last year despite a 10-17 start plagued with Rose hobbling around with 1.5 ankles, and also despite a 10 game losing streak in march where Rose (4 games i think),Deng (6 games) and Noah (10 games) all missed significant time. So the record last year is probably not indicative of the type of team they were at the end of last year. Reasons they might fall below the mark: -There are pretty good injury concerns on the team. Noah and Gibson have that stupid injury that never fully heals and could reappear somewhere down the road. Boozer is already hurt and has been oft injured his career. Brewer is already banged up, Kurt Thomas is old and easily banged up, etc. Even Rose has dealt with minor injuries his first couple of years. Leads me to my next point -As good as they'll tell you the Bulls improved in the offseason, this team still lives and dies with Rose. If Rose gets hurt, even with Boozer in there to weather the storm, the Bulls are done. Boozer is a solid scorer but my impression of him is that he needs a playmaker to get him the ball to be most effective. Without Rose in there, who is your playmaker? Deng? Watson? Brewer? Bogans? Korver? There is none. Deng is a nice 3rd option for a team, Noah is a great energy guy, Watson will be a useful backup guard, but this team only works if Rose is in place. -Thibadeau for all his praises as an X and O guy, has never been the head coach of a bball team. Sure he might be able to teach defense or diagram the perfect play, but how is he going to handle it when a player comes to him complaining of PT. How is he going to keep his team going on the 4th night of a 4 in 5 after blowing a 10 point 4th quarter lead the night before. Like I said earlier, I don't see coaching having a ton of effect on W-L, but I'll add an EXCEPT when the coach doesnt have the trust of his team. -Addressed earlier but there are a lack of guys who can create their own shots. Rose can, Boozer can to an extent, Deng and Watson a bit, havent seen enough of Brewer and Bogans but maybe a little. Overall, they just don't have many pure scorers on the team. Can they get around this? -They will be a good defensive team but they lost a bit of their talent with Hinrich leaving, and 30 mins of Gibson being replaced with 30 minutes of Boozer -The top half of the East is pretty good. They will play teams like the Celtics, Heat, Magic, Hawks, Bucks 3-4 times each this year. -The big one is the start to the season. This isn't anything new, but the Bulls have a very very tough schedule to start the year, as someone above pointed out. This year seems to be even more formidable than past years. Now your looking at a young team, with a new coach, trying to work in 7 new players from last year, and your best new player is out a month and you start the season with an extremely tough schedule. Most years the Bulls have rebounded from their slow starts. will this team be able to? Should be interesting. I have them at about 48 wins. Don't go on RealGM, the Bulls board has plenty of posters that get pissed if you don't predict the Bulls to have more than 50 wins.

See what playing in Toronto does to people?

I'm almost positive I remember Ryno saying that he wouldn't take a job as a bench coach.

I'm getting sick of all the OKC hype so I almost hope they suck, even though I love durant. Durant is really the only one i like. I strongly dislike Westbrook, as I do all young point guards who are not Derrick Rose (Rondo, Wall, Westbrook, hell even Augustin).

I'm assuming league pass has a free preview this week? there are a lot of teams I'm looking forward to watching. For some reason the NBA is second only to baseball in sports where I love to watch other teams besides the Bulls.

I'm all for a 7 game LDS. Helps eliminate the crapshoot of the 1st round.

Yes and no. I do think our infield defense would be awful if we signed him. Castro might have 40 errors with Dunn at 1st. Ramirez had a period where he was actually decent at 3rd, but is now back to being bad...more likely because he's old. DeWitt is meh defensively. But overall including his defense, Dunn is a net positive.

But I thought you guys dug yourselves in a hole you probably can't dig out of. And that was BEFORE last Sunday night Well that was the Bell's Two Hearted Ale talking. Acceptable :)

I think they could be decent. Brooks, Martin, Battier, Scola, Ming with players like Lowry, Courtney Lee, Budinger, Jefferies, and Brad Miller off the bench. Assuming Yao is only healthy for half the season at 25 MPG, that team could win 50. Oh and I decided to root for the Heat in this one tonight upon learning a few weeks ago that 2K rated Rondo 2 ratings points higher than Rose in NBA2k11

But I thought you guys dug yourselves in a hole you probably can't dig out of. And that was BEFORE last Sunday night

Uh oh

It didn't have to come to that scenario. Lovie has a history of incompetence with replay challenges. It is part of the game and he sucks at it and the team lost because of it. I really don't think this has to be a referendum on the system itself, that takes far too much away from where all the blame should be, on Lovie's shoulders. I have no problem with putting the blame on Lovie. I've always been a fan of giving coaches 3 challenges a game regardless of how Lovie chooses to waste them.

I personally think there should be 3 challenges a game, regardless of whether you get the first 2 right. It doesn't make sense to me to reward someone who got 2 challenges right with another one. I understand its so that coaches don't slow down the game and use their challenges when they aren't sure if something is going to get overturned, but considering the coaches most of the time can't see the play they are challenging (especially on the road) and are relying on their coordinators opinions, I think its rough to penalize them for trying to get a big call correct. I understand the need to limit challenges to not slow down the game, so I'm all for keeping the number of challenges reasonable, but I don't think any fans, coaches or players mind stopping the game 5-6 times a game to make sure the calls are correct. It should never come to a scenario where a coach doesn't challenge a goalline TD play in the 3rd quarter because they fear not having a challenge for a bigger play later on. That said, from my perspective, I do not recall many games where running out of challenges has been an issue. It has happened some but not enough for a public outcry for more challenges per game. Edit: Also, Lovie is 1-5 on challenges this year in 7 games. The chances of him needing to use a challenge later in the game are not big. The chances of him needing to challenge a play bigger than one where 6 points is the result of a successful challenge is zero.

That league lets you pick up players on FA that soon? In mine all players are on waivers until Wednesday, just to prevent players from doing this kind of stuff. (Unless of course you have waiver priority.) I used to play in a league like that where you could pick up players at any time. It only works in leagues with dedicated players so that it becomes first come first served when an injury occurs.

this quote is really moronic to me- i'm all for trashing lovie over not challenging that, but what is this clown talking about? it was a mistake by the refs before it was a mistake by anybody on the bears sideline. defending refs by saying the bears screwed up by not challenging their screw up is pretty funny. Yeah but refs screw up multiple times in each football game played during every week of every season. That is the reason that the challenge system is in there, as a way to limit the damage done by ref mistakes. I agree that the refs called that wrong, but Lovie has got to neutralize the impact of a mistake. And in a situation where you are talking about a potential TD and a potential reversing of a turnover, it makes no sense to not challenge it.

Because he doesn't want Bradshaw to beat me. Fine give it to Jacobs, I don't care. He steals half of Bradshaw's carries anyway even though he's a poor sport and throws his helmet into the stands.

omg why are the Giants throwing up 18 in the 4th quarter against a team that looks like it's given up. I am going to kill Coughlin. The fumble helps tho.

I know no one cares about fantasy, but I came into the night with a 65 point lead AND Bradshaw going, he had Smith, Manning and Giants D. The lead is down to under 15 points. Just run Giants.

I think its playoffs or bust for Lovie and Jerry probably has enough leeway to stick around if their season ends like last year with a positive finish.

Eh. No doubt he had a poor day. But I can't give up on him because everytime I do he has a game where he completes a bunch of passes that 90% of the qbs in the league can't. I need to see what he can do with an average line and competent receivers before I start regretting his hire. I have no doubt orton would have looked just as bad out there yesterday.

An odd move? The Bears didn't want to hire Martz. Nobody but him wanted to be OC. Hell, they couldn't get a DC either, and Marinelli had to go from D-line to DC. It's not an ideal coaching staff because none of the top assistants wanted to come in and coach under a lame duck HC. It wasn't like they hired Martz cuz they thought he was the right man for the job. I'm sure there was someone else that could have taken the job....even if you have to dig down a bit and get someone who isn't considered a hot OC prospect. The question is, would u rather take the chance of having your OC being overwhelmed by the position, or hire someone whose offensive philosophy is the complete opposite of what the Bears need with their talent dispersed the way it is and is also known as being extremely stubborn and unwilling to change much of his scheme to fit a team's strengths. It's a tossup...the Bears probably had some assurances that Martz would make some adjustments to fit the Bears personnel so they went with him.