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Hmm. Let's see: -26 years old -.897 OPS at age 24 -elite BB/K ratio with 50 walks to just 51 Ks -leads the league in doubles -power stroke is coming back as he had 24 doubles thru June 30, with only 3 HRs, but has hit 3 HRs since and only 4 doubles -baseball reference lists Carl Yaztremski as his 3rd best comparable thru age 25, who just happened to blow up and put it all together at age 27. There's a ton of appeal for Markakis and I think it's well worth paying $10Mil/year and trading prospects that may never make it for a LH hitting, plus defending, corner OF entering his prime year. Markakis is a bad defender. I'd take him, but he's not that great. It's hard to get too excited about a corner outfielder who doesn't hit for a lot of power, doesn't steal bases, and isn't a good defender. Where do you get he is a bad defender? That's the reputation he's gotten, and the UZR backs it up, so I tend to believe he's not very good out there. What does Fukudome have to do with Markakis? Except for this year, where he's on pace to hit 11. Also, this is the 4th straight year that his home runs have gone down. The only reason he even hit 18 last year was because his walks were way down and he got 642 ABs because of it. His power is getting worse, not better. Markakis is a fine player, I'm just saying he's not that great. He definitely hasn't turned into the great player that it looked like he was going to a few years ago. His power is going the opposite direction, and he completely stopped stealing bases.

Rose said in an interview like the day before "The Decision" that he talked to LeBron a couple times and also texted him a couple times during FA, so why are we even talking about this? Becuase some writer made an ambiguous statement about how Rose didn't try to "recruit" him?

Hmm. Let's see: -26 years old -.897 OPS at age 24 -elite BB/K ratio with 50 walks to just 51 Ks -leads the league in doubles -power stroke is coming back as he had 24 doubles thru June 30, with only 3 HRs, but has hit 3 HRs since and only 4 doubles -baseball reference lists Carl Yaztremski as his 3rd best comparable thru age 25, who just happened to blow up and put it all together at age 27. There's a ton of appeal for Markakis and I think it's well worth paying $10Mil/year and trading prospects that may never make it for a LH hitting, plus defending, corner OF entering his prime year. Markakis is a bad defender. I'd take him, but he's not that great. It's hard to get too excited about a corner outfielder who doesn't hit for a lot of power, doesn't steal bases, and isn't a good defender.

Yeah I wanted him back, but I can't blame him for taking that. That's ridiculous

Nothing Rose said would have ever gotten LeBron here. So with that in consideration... do you want our franchise player to be a guy begging for the services of an ego-maniac, or do you want him to be a guy saying "[expletive] that, I'm the man and I'm gonna show everybody by doing it myself" Rose has the attitude of a real competitor, just like Durant. They want to beat the best, not join them. Now, can Rose be that guy? I don't know, but I'm really glad he thinks he can be. I'm not saying Rose getting involved would have gotten LeBron here, but just [expletive] do it if it could help. There's a huge gulf between begging and what the article describes, though who gives a [expletive] if he had kissed some ass? Do what's best for your team and the bottom line is that getting LeBron would have been great for the Bulls. The confidence is great, but really, whoopdy-[expletive]-doo. [expletive] this [expletive] of "oh man, it's so awesome he didn't kiss LeBron's ass." [expletive] it, he should have been licking LeBron AND Wade's taints even if it just seemed like a sliver of a chance they would come to the Bulls. If he did that and this still went down as it did, oh well, go and kick the [expletive] out of them on the court. Doing nothing was just dumb, and all this talk about his 3-point shot better not be [expletive]. So you want your superstar to be a begging bitch. Rose DID talk to LeBron (unless he's lying, which I doubt). He just didn't beg him.

Once again, Lou chooses to intentionally walk the bases loaded with a wild Marmol.

Another reason to love Kevin Durant... we get to see awesome tweets like this

Nothing Rose said would have ever gotten LeBron here. So with that in consideration... do you want our franchise player to be a guy begging for the services of an ego-maniac, or do you want him to be a guy saying "[expletive] that, I'm the man and I'm gonna show everybody by doing it myself" Rose has the attitude of a real competitor, just like Durant. They want to beat the best, not join them. Now, can Rose be that guy? I don't know, but I'm really glad he thinks he can be.

i'm glad derrick didn't want to wash lebron's nuts. that's the guy i want on my team.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/os-penny-hardaway-miami-heat-20100715,0,893417.story HAHAHAHAHA

So with all this money to spend and all the guys available this offseason, we're going to end up having Ronnie Brewer as our starting SG? l o l And we still have no 3 point shooting. Korver hoisting up 2 or 3 a game doesn't fix that

Bulls are goin to be strugggglin at the 2

yup, im still dumb about hockey free agency

well, that's gotta all but seal it that the hawks will fit under the cap and probably be able to bring back niemi. unless someone signs him to a nice offer sheet. i'd still be shocked if we could end up getting niemi at around 2 mil

Isn't that last part redundant? Which of the other cities were ones where he WOULDN'T be "running" them in terms of being a celebrity? lebron being in new york or chicago is not even close to what it's going to be like with the "superteam" in miami. different types of city, different team situation. seriously, if you're young and rich, miami is probably about as good as it gets.

yep, lebron is getting exactly what he wanted. everybody is talking about him, and he';ll get a few easy titles. plus those 3 guys are going to absolutely run that city. he was never jordan. for better or worse, he's different. like i read in some article, he definitely is the king of "something"

i just looked at capgeek, and we're ALREADY over the cap if you leave huet in there, and that's 6 players short of a full roster. so, yeah..

I thought that was out of question anyway. Aren't all the salary cap projections already figuring that Huet will be sent to the minors or elsewhere, thereby removing him from the cap picture? yeah, i don't know why he keeps talking about huet like it's a possibility. seriously wilson, go look at our roster on capgeek. there is no chance whatsoever they can keep huet. none.

He might be the biggest star on the planet, but that stardom could diminish if you aren't even the biggest star on your team. LeBron has got a ton of press, but a lot of it has been bad. all press is good press for lebron. i don't really think he minds being the villain, at all. and i do think he'll have the reputation of not even being the man on his own team and that might hurt him when talking about he where he ranks with the greats, but he is still the biggest star. he'll get talked about the most, just like he is right now.

another thing with hjalmarsson is that i don't think people realize how much he masked campbell's deficiencies last season. if you take away hjalmarsson, our defense would have been a complete mess for the 30 minutes a game that Keith/Seabrook are off the ice. I mean, I think it would be REALLY bad, and Niemi isn't the type of goalie that is going to mask poor defense either. he gives up a lot of rebounds and is out of position a lot. the great defense we had last year (well, for most of the year) really made niemi look better than he was. hjalmarsson was just solid, solid, solid. i may be overrating him a tad, but that's only because i think he didn't get enough credit last season. keith/seabrook got all the love, but in reality i think hjalmarsson was almost as good as seabrook last year. he doesn't add much offensively, but he was our most consistent defensive player last year in my opinion. always in position, never caught too deep, great on the PK, excellent shot blocker, and he laid people out when the opportunity presented itself. he wouldn't go looking for hits, but he would devastate you if the timing was right.

has this been posted yet? this video actually makes me kind of like them

yeah, lebron just wants to pad his resume. he doesn't care how it happens. we all keep comparing him to MJ/Kobe and saying he doesn't have that killer instinct to be like those guys, but i don't really think he wants to be like those guys. he doesn't want the challenge. he just wants to be "the king". he wants to me the most famous athlete in the world. he doesn't care if people are saying he's not jordan, he's happy that they're talking about him. the more and more i think about it, the more i think this is a good decision for what he wants. i really don't think he cares about the people saying he's not like jordan. he just wants to be the biggest star on the planet, and really this will work out well. he gets to play in a glamorous city (well, parts of it), gets to probably win some championships, and gets to play on a team that will be the most talked about NBA franchise over the next half decade. look at how much press this whole thing has gotten. he loves it.

going by points and GAA is like going by RBIs and batting average in baseball umfan's post was really good

never gonna happen, especially considering what amare has already signed for. the miami thing was just a perfect storm of contracts ending at the same time and miami having the massive cap space.

stupid? you know, i could have easily called the stuff you said stupid, but i didn't. HUET IS BEING SENT DOWN AND WONT BE OUR GOALIE NEXT YEAR. seriously, go on capgeek and take 2 minutes to look at the roster and it's completely obvious he's being sent down. this is njot an issue. oh, and Niemi didn't have the 4th best save percentage in the NHL. he wasn't even close. he was tied for 19th, right behind MARTY TURCO http://espn.go.com/nhl/statistics/player/_/stat/goaltending/sort/savePct/year/2010/seasontype/2 edit: and btw, hjalmarsson is not our 4th best d-man. he's third, and would be second on most teams.