Am I wrong in thinking that people may be over-reacting to the Thomas Robinson/Patrick Patterson trade?

I'm not a fan of Robinson's. I do not think he's a great loss. I'm surprised they weren't able to convince another team that he had more redeeming value than Patterson, so I suppose that still makes it a bad trade.

What's the talk about the Bulls not putting talent around Rose? That's clearly not true. Even in that quote, the brother admits that Deng and Noah are good running mates. Boozer might not be living up to his contract, but they put the money on the table for the best guy who would take it from them. The one year he was healthy, they gave Miami a good run in the playoffs. They're a really good, well built team. The complaining should wait until they start doing unnecessarily cheap stuff again, not when they're re-signing Gibson, paying to keep Thibs, and not dumping Hamilton's salary.

Assuming that non of the GS / Utah / Houston completely tanks and play .300-.400 ball the rest of the way, the Lakers would need to play at or over a .700 pace to HAVE A CHANCE to catch them. the odds are against them to be sure. even if you assume Utah / GS to be overrated they can still most likely play around .500 the rest of the way.

Robinson / Patterson trade : yeah it could turn out ooook for the Kings, since Patterson is a MUCH more polished shooter and player in general than Robinson is. it's just that he has a rather weird skill set for a PF. but that might actually work in SAC since he can shoot over smaller players on outside shots quite well. and yes Robinson is amazingly unpolished for a 3 year college high pick though the energy and athleticism is quite evident and obviously playing in Sac doesn't help.

Still, taken in the entire context of them sucking for a year to draft him, then essentially bench him after like 10 games and play him like the last guy on the bench for half a season, then give up on him only 2/3 of the season in for financial reason for a player who is solid but not much else. is a huge train wreck. of course if he actually develops then it's a trainwreck + an massive explosion afterwards.

Does Rose's brother actually know what happens in the NBA? If the bulls were able to magically add someone who could be a legit 2 scorer and get them over the hump I would have to think they would have done so already. It's not easy to find guys like that.

If LeBron had made that running left-handed 3 they would have canceled the 4th quarter. Ok, maybe not.

Collectively, those trades moved the needle on future NBA championships 0.0%.

Hakim Warrick has made $17.2 million in his career. It's pretty amazing how much money you can make in the NBA or MLB simply by sticking around.

I feel lucky to watch LeBron right now.

tony doin' work

I only watched the first quarter of the game but that was a pretty impressive win for the Spurs. They just steamrolled the Clippers in LA and Parker looks to have ate up Paul. The Heat and Spurs look like they are on a collision course.

I never thought I'd say this, but he's arguably the best point guard in the league this season.

853. Meatwad for Pope Posted: February 21, 2013 at 10:33 PM (#4373707)
Does Rose's brother actually know what happens in the NBA? If the bulls were able to magically add someone who could be a legit 2 scorer and get them over the hump I would have to think they would have done so already. It's not easy to find guys like that.

Short answer: Probably not.

Longer answer: He's probably a mouthpiece for Rose, and this is just a thinly veiled way for Rose to air his frustrations and still look like a 'good guy'.

I didn't watch the Spurs/Clippers game, but what on earth happened? The box score suggests that Chris Paul had maybe the worst game of his career.

Hakim Warrick has made $17.2 million in his career. It's pretty amazing how much money you can make in the NBA or MLB simply by sticking around.

Went to a Sixers/Grizzlies game a while back & we were marveling at the fact that Hamed Haddadi has made (including this year) $7.4 million in his career (and were making fun of his shooting in the warmups before the game). That's $9,013 per minute played or $27,407 per point scored. In summary, I wish I was 7'2".

It's misleading to look at those career earnings without at least attempting to adjust for the fact that those lifetime NBA earnings may have to last those guys for all of their post playing days.

I never thought I'd say this, but he's arguably the best point guard in the league this season.

He clearly dominated Paul last night, but let's not go overboard. Paul is still clearly better defensively, and Paul also leads Parker this year is nearly every advanced stat - PER, ORtg/DRtg, WS/48, Simple Rating - hell, he even leads him in WoW's garbage stat.

Short answer: Probably not.

Longer answer: He's probably a mouthpiece for Rose, and this is just a thinly veiled way for Rose to air his frustrations and still look like a 'good guy'.

Reggie was "managing" or whatever Derrick going way back, he was pretty much the only way the media got anything from the Roses during Derrick's college recruitment. So while it's easy to make fun of him because he's just Derrick's brother - like Marv and Steve did during the game - he clearly isn't just speaking his own mind without Derrick knowing.

As for the comments themselves...

What's the talk about the Bulls not putting talent around Rose? That's clearly not true. Even in that quote, the brother admits that Deng and Noah are good running mates. Boozer might not be living up to his contract, but they put the money on the table for the best guy who would take it from them. The one year he was healthy, they gave Miami a good run in the playoffs. They're a really good, well built team. The complaining should wait until they start doing unnecessarily cheap stuff again, not when they're re-signing Gibson, paying to keep Thibs, and not dumping Hamilton's salary.

As we went over in the offseason, every move they made was because they were being cheap. Letting Asik go, trading Korver for nothing, not picking up Watson and Brewer's options. They only didn't trade Rip because no one wanted him (and they didn't want to pay someone a first round pick to take him). So there's definitely reason for concern if you're following what they're doing and saying. They did make Thibs sweat his deal too.

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Gosh, the Bulls are just flat out unwatchable now. I'm getting sucked in big time to the Blackhawks, so at least I don't have to watch college ball <shivers>.

You think the Bulls are unwatchable? The Wolves beat Philly the other night while making only their first FGA in the 4th quarter. They won the game after shooting 1/13 in the 4th. It was atrocious.

It's probably a little too early to do this, but given most seem to think that Utah and LA will be the two teams competing for the 8th seed, these are my wild guesses about how their remaining games will go:

Utah: @LAC L, BOS W, ATL W, CHA W, @ MIL L, @CLE W, @CHI L, @NYK L, DET W, @OKC L, MEM W, NYK W, @HOU L, @SAS L, @DAL W, PHI W, PHO W, @POR W, BKN W, POR W, DEN W, NOR W, @ GSW L, OKC L, MIN W, @MIN W, @MEM L. 17-10

LAL: POR W, @DAL W, @DEN L, MIN W, ATL W, @ OKC L, @NOR W, TOR W, CHI W, @ORL W, @ATL L, @IND L, SAC W, @PHO W, WAS W, @GSW W, @MIN W, @MIL L, @SAC W, DAL W, MEM W, @LAC L, NOR W, @POR W, GSW W, SAS L, HOU W. 20-7

That would get Utah to 48-34 and LAL to 46-36, but those records look overly optimistic when I look at them. I might not have built in enough schedule losses.

You think the Bulls are unwatchable? The Wolves beat Philly the other night while making only their first FGA in the 4th quarter. They won the game after shooting 1/13 in the 4th. It was atrocious.

The Bulls scored 67 points on 37% shooting and had 26 turnovers. They scored 13 points in the 2nd and 4th quarters. In that Wolves game you mentioned, they won, they scored 94 in the game and 18 in the 4th*, and only had 15 TOs. So while your team's season has clearly been worse and more disappointing, I still say the Bulls were a worse watch.

Damn, 44 FTA. That's not fun to watch, for sure.

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As for your W/L projections, right now, the Bucks are bad. I wouldn't assume they're going to beat either team. I also see more W's that could be L's on the Utah line.

#865 - Yeah, I think both those predictions are a little optimistic. You pretty much predicted them to win every game that they statistically SHOULD win, but neither of those teams are consistent enough to win all the games they should (but they both absolutely could LOSE all the games they should).

That said, I've thought all along that the two Jazz wins vs the Lakers early in the year when LA was struggling that gave Utah the tie breaker were important beyond just the joy of seeing my team beat a hated rival. Likewise, I have March 20th in Houston (Rockets lead 2-1) and April 7th in GS (tied 1-1) circled on my mental calendar. All four of these teams could finish with virtually identical records and it could very well come down to tie-breakers to determine who misses out on the honor of getting pasted in the first round.

The Magic bench tonight is Kyle O'Quinn and DeQuan Jones. The starters are going to log a lot of minutes.

Joakim Noah has more assists per game than Nate Robinson.

Rose needs to remember that he decided he didn't need to recruit players to come to chicago, and that he could take them there on his own. If like his brother said doesnt think the bulls havent done enough to help him.

So both Lin and Harden didn't play well in Brooklyn... of course then Delfino catch fire and their undermanned bench shot 15 for 20.

Not having Joe Johnson obviously hurted them , but boy when things go right for Houston they really go right.

[871] Refs swalllowed their whistles on a lot of Harden's drives. He played better than it looks.

Saw a few minutes of the GS/SA game, and I couldn't get past one thing - are those the Warriors real home uniforms? T-shirts? Really? My hell, what a JV looking eyesore...

i guess the plan is to make it so bad that it distract their opponents...

If the Nuggets are going to be doing #### like losing to the Wizards, on the road or not, they ain't going to be catching the Grizzlies.

Edit: Says a man whose team beat a short-handed Magic team at home by 6.

If the Nuggets are going to be doing #### like losing to the Wizards, on the road or not, they ain't going to be catching the Grizzlies.

[876] Yeah...granted, the Wizards have been solidly mediocre since Wall's return, but point well made.

Simmons has a pretty good podcast up with Bill Fitch. Fitch's coaching prime was before my time, but I enjoyed listening.

864 - yeah Parker's argument over Chris Paul this season would be based entirely on the minutes advantage. Parker has played around 20% more minutes than Paul. Might be enough to erase the rate differences between them. I think in this season it does.

I'm okay with the sleeves, but they're bad uniforms.

864 - yeah Parker's argument over Chris Paul this season would be based entirely on the minutes advantage. Parker has played around 20% more minutes than Paul. Might be enough to erase the rate differences between them. I think in this season it does.

well, there's also the 5 points per 36 minute advantage that parker has over paul, in addition to shooting 54% from the field compared to chris paul's 48%.

881 - yeah, but their true shooting percentage is basically identical .598 to .594 (Parker with the slight edge). The more points per 36 is nice and is another point in favor of parker.

I watch a lot of Temple games and it seems like 80% of their players wear sleeved Under Armour things under their jerseys, but still it's surprising to see sleeves as part of the official uniform.

I heard someone make the point that the sleeved jerseys are a marketing movement because you can sell more t-shirt replicas to fans than you can tank tops. It makes sense, but it is too bad that the first ones they introduced are hideous, sleeves or no.

864 - yeah Parker's argument over Chris Paul this season would be based entirely on the minutes advantage. Parker has played around 20% more minutes than Paul. Might be enough to erase the rate differences between them. I think in this season it does.

I think that's a slightly different argument though - value, I guess. Paul's still the better player - again, it's not really that close on the defensive end. And for what it's worth, even with the minute difference they both have exactly 8.8 win shares. It's still just a race to 3rd place at best in the MVP voting for the 2 of them.

well, there's also the 5 points per 36 minute advantage that parker has over paul, in addition to shooting 54% from the field compared to chris paul's 48%.

And Paul has a 2/ast advantage per 36, but so (he also gets more steals, more rebounds and turns it over less)? They're all just components of the other stats that all favor Paul.

Wizards are turning into a real playoff team killer aren't they, they just beat Houston again tonight by 1 point.

Granted, part of that was Lin and Asik completely going ice cold and that playing under manned 3 strait game is bound to catch up to them, but boy....

At least Montejunas continues to impress, he even grabbed 6 boards today. and a 7 footer with a quick 3 is pretty close to being undefendable.

I watched Rockets-Wiz tonight (am now watching closely the games of teams in front of the Lakers), and I'm really, really impressed with Bradley Beal. He looks like Eric Gordon to me, and if that's the case then Beal + Wall is going to be a lot of fun to watch.

I asked this question before the season started.

Does anyone else think that LeBron is going to have a significantly better year than he has ever had before? He's in his prime with arguably the most talented team he's ever been on. There's no question who "The Man" in Miami as there may have been the past two years. He's more comfortable in the post where he could be unstoppable. No pressure regarding winning a championship. I know this is a lot of armchair psychology and I am wondering if anyone else was thinking that way.


I'd like to revisit it. I think if he plays the rest of the season the way he has played the last month or so, I think I would say that this has been his best season.

That's a lot to ask, though. And, by ws/48 and per (among other über stats), his #s this year are a bit behind what he did in 08-09 with Cleveland.
This might be LeBron's best season, but that's not obviously apparent.

By the way, on the recent Rosé comments... could it be that fear of upsetting Derrick was the reason they kept Rip (and will now pay tax)?

Jazz swept in the season series vs the Clippers. Never thought I'd live to see that happen. Kinda hard to win when 3 of your starters go scoreless.

And why in the name of all that is good and holy is Marvin Williams still starting over Hayward or Favors?

That is all.

885 - yeah, I think this season it's very close between paul and parker with westbrook a distant third. It will be interesting to see which of them finishes best the end of the season. Agreed that it is really a race for 3rd, as Durant and James are pretty clearly 1A 1B at this point (I'd take james with the slight edge, but again it's pretty close and how they finish the season will largely determine who gets the nod). More interesting would be if Paul was healthy all season. He might've been right up there and by ws/48 he is nipping at Durants heels...

By the way, on the recent Rosé comments... could it be that fear of upsetting Derrick was the reason they kept Rip (and will now pay tax)?

is there anyone who would actually want him?

If you price him right, yup. Only a mil of Rip's contract next year is guaranteed and the Bulls looked as if they've been setting themselves up all year for that move (to not pay tax).

Given Mark Cuban's comments on amnestying Kobe this week, the ending of today's game was wholly predictable.

Also, GSW's had two really gritty wins in a row now while Utah and Houston lost last night (a good weekend for LAL). There was a lot of talk about GSW perhaps slipping backwards after the break, but so far so good for the Warriors. Yeah, it was just the Wolves, but that's still a road win, and all road wins are extra good.

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38 secs Kobe Bryant ?@kobebryant
Amnesty THAT

Golden State does in fact deserve credit for getting their most recent two wins. On another note, while I see the marketing value of them, count me as aesthetically opposed to the sleeved jerseys. I am basically a get-off-my-lawn guy when it comes to uniforms. Don't like alternates, don't like visiting team wearing home unis etc. Have never liked the Lakers' Sunday home whites.

Mike Tirico, at least I think it's Tirico, was just talking about the Grizzlies and the Rudy Gay trade during this MEM-BKN game. He's asking Hubie what he thinks and sets it up by saying roughly "a lot of people think that Chris Wallace had really put something together with the defeat of the #1 Spurs and taking OKC to 7, that the Gasol-Randolph-Gay group was really a special group." Now, if you think that the Grizz gave up some sort of shot at making a run by trading Rudy, fair enough, I don't really think so, but it's certainly one interpretation. But the run they made 2 years ago cannot be your only data point in favor of that argument, because it has nothing to do with the Rudy Gay Grizzlies. Rudy missed that entire postseason. That run was actually made by what I think of as a less deep version of this team they have right now.

Anyway, doesn't really matter, but it irritated me to hear a national TV guy make some sort of point about the Grizzlies worsened playoff chances without Rudy Gay by referencing a playoff run that they made without Rudy Gay.

double post

This bulls thunder game will get ugly soon...bulls dont stand a chance against them.