David

that was my first year watching sports (pretty much spurred by the jordan comeback) and i was so horsefeathering mad about that. between the nick anderson play and then that, i HATED the magic as much as I've hated any of my teams' rivals since. i imagine the satisfaction i felt at that sweep the next year is the closest thing I have to what people felt about beating detroit in 91.

That scene was so great. "I'm not mad. Why would I be mad?"

I had not heard this before. This is for real? That's nuts.

i remember being damn near tears thinking they were going to lose late in game 7 (losing game 6 crushed my confidence)

KC did a great job with this. I really like this guy.

yup and i remember people bitching on the espn boards (umfan was probably there with me) about not wanting a tweener guard. that was also like a week after jay williams crushed his pelvis.

I don't follow college, but can it really be worse than 2000? I don't think it'll be worse. From Wikipedia Going to be damn tough to beat that, but this year's group could actually come close IMO. This class is pretty damn bad. that was the year krause's rebuild had 2 top 10 picks (he didn't do too poorly picking jamal crawford given the rest of that draft). i still get mad at the fact that after 4 years of being absolutely miserable, the damn 02-03 bulls managed to nudge their way to being just mediocre enough to not land a hall of famer or all star in that draft, and end up with horsefeathering captain kurt instead. damn you jalen rose...and jamal for having a spurt of great games at the end that won some games too.

This is going to be arguably the worst draft of all time at least. There’s so little talent. Or at least star/impact talent. I don't follow college, but can it really be worse than 2000?

Kind of like that weird Michael Jordan hiatus and practice/warm-up season in 95 interrupted our 6 peat.

if fans aren't there at least in elimination games, i think it's a bad idea. and if you change the playoff format, will it ever really be as revered as a normal championship anyways? like imagine if the cubs had finally won the world series in some watered down playoff format in empty stadiums. it would never feel real. I don't know. I think we all kind of know where we are this year and the whole world is in this together. We'll take what we can get sort of thing. The fans thing doesn't matter to me at this point. With the MASSIVE caveat that this is assuming this can be done safely and responsibly and that testing is already widely available to the public before they're using a bunch of those resources for this, I kind of love all the experimental angles the different leagues are willing to go with (potentially this tournament, in baseball the realignment is fun and wacky, etc.). Yeah, it's being driven by money (desperation to put any sort of product out there that will bring in revenue), but that's fine. The legitimacy thing is a non issue to me. It'll be viewed through the appropriate lens and everyone had to deal with the same thing. And maybe some permanent good changes to the sports will come of it. I mean, I don't disagree that it would've sucked to break our drought if it were this season, but that's not enough to get me to say I'd rather see them do nothing (again, assuming they can find a reasonable and practical way to do this safely - which is a tall order).

Season and then playoffs I'm assuming? I'm sure they're going to have a week or 2 of practice to get back in game shape. They won't get done til August. Maybe even Sept. Draft/FA like 2 days after Finals end then training camp/pre season like 2 weeks later. They're just better off just ending the season as is and start with playoffs. From my own experience following that account, I'd say that their info is pretty good but their sports knowledge is probably not much to non-existent. My guess is that they go right into the playoffs. Seems like trying to continue the regular season would make things much more of a mess than it already is.

I actually remembered the bit about the iPhone being released that day. I was in Miami on vacation with my family and didn't get to see the game, so I was just following along on a non-smart phone's "internet" updates (think it was a Motorola SLVR). Ironically, I remember thinking the iPhone was probably dumb but I also didn't know much about it. I did end up getting one that fall when the entry level 4gb price got slashed heavily (think they were phasing it out), though.

A heads up for those of us who get Marquee. Seeing as how this decade is basically NSBB's wheelhouse, I figured I'd pass it on. I know this game, in particular, is a favorite around here: Monday will have the September 2001 game where Sammy waved the flag as he rounded the bases. Tuesday is the 2003 Cubs beating the Pirates to clinch the division. Thursday is Zambrano's no-no in 2008 and Friday is the 2008 division clincher against the Cardinals.

can we not do the whole trying to prop jordan up by minimizing lebron thing? coming from a lebron hater (mainly because he didn't come here and he beat us so many times), mj doesn't need the help

yeah i'm already bummed that we're through 40% of it

I don’t really think you understand he was a top ten pick. If your top ten pick doesn’t make it to his next contest with you, it was a bad pick. Yeah this doesn’t make sense. He didn’t get cut because he’s a bad player, he got cut because he isnt worth the money. You got 4 years of cheap production out of him. It’s a B/C at worst. B- I think was pretty spot on. Many first rounders are out of the league after their rookie contract. Those are Fs. As someone else brought up, what would you rate the Amos pick? He wasn’t resigned after his rookie deal, so also an F? right...even if you say first rounders are curved differently than someone like amos (i don't disagree), the fact that floyd isn't with the bears is because they saw an opportunity to upgrade and they chose to do that. they could've just as easily kept him and been fine. and neither outcome changes the fact that the pick just doesn't merit an F by any remotely sane standards.

what the hell is a C then?

yeah, a D seems really harsh for Floyd. he's at least a solid starter. C+/B- range is where I'd be.

Haha I always spell it wrong whoops you're not the only one on the past couple pages i noticed myself doing that at one point and wondered where the hell i picked it up. had to have been here lol

Was Maholmes drafted in the same draft as Trubinsky?

You've graded a draft a total failure one year removed from said draft? Okay. Come on. Montgomery, Ridley, Shelley, Whyte, and Denmark. How does that get better with time? I guess if you really feel Montgomery still has something to offer above random replacement RB. Both Montgomery and Ridley could both easily be valuable players. What? Montgomery had flashes and was overall disappointing but probably was also misused and the victim of an offensive line (and a QB) that didn't let the offense do anything. I was disappointed in his first year but I wouldn't declare him a bust yet. And Ridley just did what pretty much any mid-late round rookie wideout would do. I didn't think he was particularly good or bad given the circumstances and how much playing time he was likely to get. I'd at least wait until I see if he makes any sort of meaningful contribution in year 2 before declaring him a nothing (again, operating under the overall mindset that, yeah, most of these guys are going to be nothings anyway). They barely even played, which is pretty much what you'd expect from a team that was expected to contend for a Super Bowl going into the season and was always wishfully hanging around enough that they didn't go into an all out tank mode with doling out reps and there were too many guys ahead of them anyway. I have no idea what someone like Duke Shelley is. Supposedly had a pretty good camp last year but he was never going to see the field much barring a complete decimation of our secondary by injury. Do I think they'll amount to much? No, but that's because they're mid-late round picks and that's pretty much all we know about them. It was always going to be a surprise if most of those guys amounted to much and that's still the case just like it will be with any late round guys we take this year, but beyond that reasoning I'm not sure why we'd declare them to be any more nothing than any other guys that get drafted that late onto a team expecting to contend with a bunch of guys with established positions and roles.

Is that the one where the 3rd championship montage capping with Paxson hitting the 3 was soundtracked by super cheesy "and then a hero blah-blah-blah" song? If so, then horsefeathers yes. the mariah carey song?

i was so close to naming harden and felt stupid and didn't