Mr. Sports Know-It-All

Joltin' Jo

2012-01-28T00:12:00.007-06:00

Ok, I admit I didn't watch the Bulls' 107-100 win over the Bucks on Friday. And I also never write anymore, so I'm rustier than a bike pump. But given those caveats, I'm sure you can agree that something pretty monumental must've happened to get my ass a-bloggin'. And that monument was Joakim Noah's stat line.

Now remember, this is the same Noah who just two weeks ago was the subject of several articles along the lines of ESPN.com's There's something wrong with Joakim Noah. A sentiment that I, despite my general distaste for the sentimentee, actually agreed with. Except I took it even further, believing Noah's subpar play went beyond this year, and dated all the way back to his thumb surgery last season. While I discovered the numbers didn't quite support that position (at least not on a per-minute basis) there is no arguing that Noah began the year slowly.

But since January 13th -- coincidentally(?) the day after the ESPN piece and a similar blurb in the Tribune ran -- Noah had been on a bit of a mini-tear. In seven games, he'd posted double-digit rebounds six times after doing it just four times in the season's first 12 games. He'd also scored in double figures four times after topping 10 just once in the first dozen contests. But all of that was tiny taters compared to Friday, when Joakim Noah went America all over everybody's ass:

Now, you might say to yourself, 'Sure, a double-15's nice, and I guess the steals and blocks look good, but why the furious reach around? It's just a good game." Well, yourself, you couldn't be more wrong. It's a GREAT game. And a rare one too. Or at least I thought it absolutely had to be.

So I used Basketball-Reference.com's awesome (and surprisingly free) Play Index Game Finder to investigate just how rare it actually was. Before I reveal the answer, I want you to get the number in your head for how many times you think a player has hit the following marks since the '85-86 season (as far as BR's database of boxscores goes back):

Once. It had happened all of one other time. Now granted, I sort of stacked the deck in Noah's favor by setting the thresholds at (pretty much) exactly his numbers, but still. And even if I lower the assists to, say, three, that only adds another four games.

You have to admit that what Noah's stats were, at the very least, uncommon. And thankfully, I'm not the only one trumpeting the unique performance -- in order to do them justice, I'm going to reprint the entirety of the Associated Press' gushing comments on Noah in its game recap:

Joakim Noah added 15 points and 16 rebounds.

Jeez, AP. Get a room.

Silver Bullet

2011-10-31T18:43:00.005-05:00

This slice of wisdom from JaMarcus Russell in Jon Wertheim’s Sports Illustrated profile of the former Raiders quarterback and quintessential draft bust: Russell, according to Wertheim, “likes Drew Brees [though Russell says he throws off his back foot too much].’ ” ... On behalf of Brees and all other NFL quarterbacks of the past decade who’ve devoted more attention to developing their craft than Russell – which is to say all of them – one final thought: Yo, JaMarcus – have some more Purple Drank.

The above is from Mike Silver's weekly NFL piece on Yahoo; although I trimmed out a trio of lame jokes -- apparently, when Silver was taught the comedy rule of three, no one told him that the shit should be funny -- you get the gist of it. Anyway, I have nothing against Silver -- in fact, we seem to have a lot in common, not the least of which is our esteemed alma mater -- but I do have a major problem with him ripping Russell.

The average blogger/sportswriter didn't grow up dreaming about covering sports; they dreamt of playing them. But at some point, they just weren't good enough to compete. Maybe they realized it as far back as Little League, or were told as much as they got cut from the varsity, or when they didn't get a scholarship, but somewhere along the line it became abundantly clear that they couldn't hack it. And so they found another way to get themselves in the game -- by writing about it.

But no matter how successful sportswriters become, they constantly have one thing thrown in their faces by the players (and even some fans) -- that is, that they couldn't possibly know what they are talking about because they never played the game. Which is what makes Silver's angle so appalling to me: basically, that Russell isn't allowed to have a take on a quarterback's tendencies because he was a terrible NFL quarterback.

Apparently, Silver has no idea what the implications of this are: That the players are right -- if you can't play the game at the highest level, you can't have an opinion about it. In taking down JaMarcus Russell's critique of Drew Brees' foot, Mike Silver has managed to shoot the sportwriting community in theirs.

Fire Mike Quade!

2011-07-21T18:29:00.014-05:00

One thing is certain: the guy flat-out cannot manage. This team is absolutely stacked, and Quade is making them look like they're the 2011 Cubs for God's sake.

Let's start with the bats. Cubs general manager Jim Hendry has cannily assembled a lineup replete with stellar offensive producers. I mean, you've got guaranteed 40/40 man Alfonso Soriano -- currently on pace to fall a mere 17 homers and 38 stolen bases short of that lofty standard -- batting 7th most days! And Soriano is still a top offensive player in numerous categories. Categories like average annual salary. And walk avoidance, where he is currently 10th in the league among players with 290+ PAs. Sure, that's impressive, but he only ranks fourth on the Cubs, as he is outundisciplined by Aramis Ramirez (7th in NL), Starlin Castro (6th), and Darwin Barney (2nd). With bases this unclogged, how are the Cubs not leading the league in runs scored? Mike EEEE, that's how.

And you want to talk about pitching? How about a starting staff so brimming with talent that Quade insisted Hendry trade away a rather serviceable 28-year-old back-end guy in Tom Gorzelanny, just to save a cool $2.1 million while replenishing the A-ball disabled list (two pitchers) and corner-outfield talent pool (a 22-year-old High-A repeater whose recent hot streak sent him soaring past the Mendoza line). Yes, it's safe to say that the Cubs have a very, very good rotation.

What more does this guy need?

Then there's the bullpen... Oh, that bullpen. Let's begin with the back end. The one thing every team looks for in a closer is the ability to block out the pressure and come into a game and just pound the ball zone. And nobody can throw balls like Carlos Marmol. Sure, he's regressed a little from his '09 peak of 7.91 BB/9, but he still leads the league at 5.98, so don't even try to tell me Quade doesn't have a reliable guy to hand the ball to in the 9th.

And the rest of the bullpen falls right in line behind Marmol, smartly avoiding strikes -- these are MAJOR LEAGUE hitters they're facing, you know -- and commanding their way to an NL-leading 4.46 BB/9. Be it Jeff Samardzija, Kerry Wood, or John Grabow, bases empty or sacks packed, the Cubs bullpen is committed to walking men regardless of game circumstance, a crucial skill for relievers to have, and one that Mike Quade seems intent on squandering.

Plus, he's not Ryne Sandberg!

Did Quade spend four whole grueling seasons as a minor league manager, where he was often a bigger draw than either team and was showered with adulation as a Hall-of-Fame ballplayer somehow managing in the sticks? He did not. Instead Quade spent just 17 years toiling in anonymity as a manager in the minors. Call me when you've paid your dues, Mikey.

And you know what the worst part is? Not only is Quade not a Hall of Famer, nor a former Cub, but he never even played in the major leagues! Yes, just like fellow managerial midgets Joe McCarthy, Jim Leyland, and Earl Weaver -- who combined for fewer than 5,200 wins and barely cobbled together 20 playoff appearances between them -- Quade never even made it to the bigs.

The bottom line is, despite a mere $134 million to work with, Jim Hendry painstakingly constructed a perfectly good 70-win team, and Quade is shitting all over it on his way to 65 wins.

Fire Mike Quade!

Mr. SKIA's Bad Ideas*, Vol. I: Fighting a Red-Light Camera Ticket

2010-05-15T08:46:00.000-05:00

* By popular demand -- okay, one person kind of semi-intimated that she'd like me to write about topics that are non-sports related -- and to celebrate the one-year anniversary of this blog, I present to you a real-life story from my real-life life.

For years now, I've been telling anyone who would listen (and believe me, there's not many of those people left) that there was no way I would ever pay any sort of automatically-generated traffic ticket, keeping in line with my distinguished record of self-important, half-assed antiestablishmentism. I would make my usual poorly-formulated arguments based on a vague familiarity with constitutionality -- It's a violation of due process! and the like -- and would contend that I was actually hoping to get one so that I could fight it to the bitter end.

The end comes quickly, as it turns out.

Bitterly too.

A few months ago, Mrs. SKIA (we've been a one-car family for almost two years now) received a violation notice in the mail. I'm sorry, make that a VIOLATION notice, because that's how ominously it was written on the envelope.

According to the VIOLATION notice, there was a video of our often-calamitous rolling-right-turn-on-red transgression available at www.RedLightViolations.com. Shockingly, each time we tried to watch it -- and regardless of the seemingly infinite number of recommended software/codecs I downloaded -- we got an error message and could never see our alleged misfeasance. I, of course, took this to mean that it was entirely unprovable.

Given my oft-stated stance on these things and my continued unwillingness to just throw away a hundred dollars, I decided to fight it. And not via the milquetoasty Contest by Mail option -- I have no faith whatsoever in the power of my words to persuade -- but by choosing to Request a Trial, as I felt like I could be oh-so-compelling in person. Plus I wanted to make it as costly as possible for the dickwads trying to screw me.

And so I researched (about an hour ahead of my scheduled court date, naturally) how to fight these tickets. Unfortunately, everything I found was either A. In regards to California law (and Illinois is still stubbornly refusing to be in California); or B. Said they were basically impossible to beat.

Undeterred, I set out for Mrs. SKIA's 3 p.m. court date -- she has a real job and can't be bothered to pursue such trivialities -- at 2:53. My original plan was to walk, but in a development strangely out of character, I was running late, so I had to drive the 3/4 of a mile down the street to the hard-earned-tax-payer-money-extraction zone, or as it is more commonly known, the courthouse (which is really just a room in the police station.)

As I strode haughtily into the courtroom, Judge William H. Rainonmyparade (note: not his real name) announced, "All of you are here -- well, 99% of you, anyway -- because you didn't come to a complete stop when making a right turn on red," immediately neutering my typically-false cocksurety, which had been entirely predicated upon 'Well I didn't run a red light; I was making a right turn.'

Stripped of my greatest weapon -- and, yes, I'm so misguidedly delusional that I thought I was turning right was an unimpeachable defense -- I glumly listened to people being called to the bench only to have their justifications and entreaties fall on deaf ears.

However, about 10 people in, the summoned guy flashed a badge to the bench. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but Judge Ruth Bader Favoritesplayer responded, "Well how would that go over in Chicago?" The guy -- apparently a city cop -- answered in a way the judge must have found pleasing, because he said something in low tones and let the guy walk out of the courtroom without stopping at the currency vacuum set up in the back. A murmur arose from the rest of us. "Mur-mur," we said.

The next person was called up, and in the face of the video evidence -- Did I mention there was a big screen TV facing the judge, and the court lackeys queued up the incident for the judge and accused to see? -- proclaimed with a heavy Latin-American accent that his car had, in fact, stopped. Said it more than once, and forcefully so. But Judge Sandra Day O'Yourefullofcrap wasn't buying, and after some back-and-forth found him guilty. At this point, the guy went off; I'm going to quote him directly here, because you weren't there and I defy you to dispute the accuracy of my transcription:

I guess if you flash a badge, then it's okay. You're going to take a hundred dollars from me in this economy? It takes me a week to make $100 right now! This isn't right.

The judge tried to explain himself, but the guy kept interrupting him with either the badge comment or the not-right thing, until Thurgood Marshalllaw finally said, "If you don't let me finish, I'm going to find you in contempt of court. I let you say your peace, and if you don't stop interrupting me, you're going to go to jail."

Now, I don't think this poor fellow had a very good grasp of the machinations of the judicial branch of his adopted nation, because here he got really upset and really, really loud. "You're going to throw me in jail for a ticket! You just let that guy off! This is bull-."

Thankfully the defendant thought better of appending that with shit, and his father -- who I don't think spoke English, and I'm guessing was the actual accused red-light violator -- then began ushering him out of the courtroom, although you could still hear him lamenting his fate and the unfairness of it all in the adjoining entry area, to the extent that the court-appointed officer was sent out in order to shut him up/shoo him away/throw his ass in jail. But it was then that I began to accept how fruitless trying to fight this thing would be. They'd have video evidence that our car slowed to 3 mph instead of zero, I'd sound just as pitiful as that guy, and I'd be hopelessly screwed.

I tell you, I stood up a broken man when I heard Mrs. SKIA's name called, but as I walked up to the bench, some of my cockcertainty started to return. I can do this, I thought. I'm smart, I'm charming, I'm convincing, I'm ...

Dead wrong.

That thought occurred to me in the midst of what I fancied as a remarkably compelling argument. I began by pleading not guilty -- telling my new bro Oliver Wendell Homes about my video-based internet travails, and that I could not in good conscience say I was guilty of something I couldn't see -- and then I was shown the video, in which I (or the missus) clearly did not come close to stopping.

Mr. SKIA: Yes, but I remember there being an green arrow.

Judge: But there is no arrow there.

Mr. SKIA: Well where would the arrow be?

Judge: (pointing) In that area there. And there is no arrow.

Mr. SKIA: But there's so much light behind it. How do I know it's just not getting washed out?

Judge: Because I've seen the arrow before, and I'm telling you that it's not there.

Mr. SKIA: But how do I know the camera was functioning properly? Can you show me a video from that night with the green arrow on?

Judge: No, but it never turns green in this video.

Mr. SKIA: (more to the A/V tool controlling the feed) Can't you queue another one up that shows the arrow?

Judge: No, I'm telling you it's not there.

Mr. SKIA: I understand that, but how do I know ...

And it was here that I thought to myself, What the hell am I doing? They don't have to prove jackshit to me. I was acting like I could just deny it forever, and as long as I never capitulated, I wouldn't have to pay. I realized at that moment the utter futility of my whole approach, so I abruptly shifted gears, adding, "I mean, not that it matters what I think, you're the one that's important."

Now I meant this as a sign of respect for the court and this man's position. But Charles Evans Hugestickuphisbutt, perhaps inflamed by previous insolence, instead took offense. "Now hold on there. Don't just say that. There's a reason you can have this trial, because I am not the only one that matters. You're wrong if you say that."

And at that point, I just gave in. I had a semi-pissed off judge, had lost any chance of garnering sympathy, and didn't even care that my attempt at prostration was totally misinterpreted. There was no burden of proof to show me the camera picking up a properly-functioning arrow, so I just wanted to cut my check and get the hell out of there. Judge Byron "Whizzer" Whitenoise said a few more things that I don't even remember, and I dejectedly shuffled off to fork over the hundred bucks.

I suppose I should have realized that You can't beat City Hall didn't become a common refrain by accident; that shit's true, man. But I did learn one very important thing, a lesson I'll take with me for the rest of my life, and one I hope you will too: You can passive-aggressively stick it to City Hall via check ...

A Tale of Two Kiddies

2010-05-08T12:21:00.003-05:00

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times (for me to be late in posting).

Starlin Castro burst onto the scene in Friday's 14-7 win in Cincinnati, making much of my analysis of his promotion moot. I was planning on applauding the Cubs for trying something bold yet relatively low-risk, with little potential downside. If a team needs a shot in the arm -- and the Cubs no doubt did -- digging into its prospect pool is a much better way to do it than, say, sending one of your best starters to the bullpen. And while even my favorite baseball writer, Rob Neyer, criticized the Cubs for not waiting a little longer just to avoid Castro getting Super-Two arbitration-eligibility after the 2012 season, I thought it was refreshing to see any front office -- let alone the Cubs -- make a baseball decision based on what it thought was the best interest of the team instead of its finances.

I was also going to beseech the Cubs and their fans to be patient with Castro, and to exercise caution sibce he wasn't going to be some sort of savior. Obviously, the second part of that is surely out the window, as expectations are likely through the roof.

But while some might end up saying that Castro's 3-run homer / 3-run triple performance is the worst thing that could've happened, I'm going to take the opposite stance. It was absolutely the best possible scenario for the kid, his future, and the organization.

Because what that performance has bought is a little bit of patience, which is exactly what the Cubs need and have lacked in the past. It might sound like some sort of crazy oxymoron telling a team to be patient when they've undeniably rushed a prospect, but that's exactly what the Cubs need to be now that he's here.

I hear all the time -- and as a cautionary tale with Castro -- that Felix Pie's flame-out arose because he was rushed. The fact is, he wasn't. Pie spent a full season at each level -- although he did miss half of his AA year with an injury -- and held his own despite typically being one of the youngest players in his league. At the time of his initial call-up, Pie had 1,973 non-rookie-ball plate appearances, 931 of them at AA or AAA. Castro's had 630 and 243, respectively.

No, Pie's issues had nothing to do with being rushed; the problem was that the Cubs were completely impatient, and never really gave him a reasonable opportunity to establish himself.

In Pie's first time up with the Cubs in 2007, he was given 11 starts in his first 12 games, and posted a .233/.250/.419 line in 44 plate appearances. While certainly not great, it's a tiny sample size, five of his 10 hits went for extra bases, and he struck out only eight times. The main reason he "struggled" was that his BABiP was .265. Given his (supposedly) plus defense in centerfield, the Cubs undoubtedly should have given him more time. Instead, he came off the bench for the next ten games or so, went 1-for-6, and was sent back down to AAA.

In Pie's second go-round (also in '07), he started 19 of 20 games and went .228/.295/.354 in 89 plate appearances. Again, it's a very small sample size -- and not all that impressive -- but there were some positive indicators. For one, he drew eight walks, and yes, he was hitting eighth most of the time, but he still had to have the plate discipline to take the pitches (none of BBs were intentional), which is hardly a given with a hitter as young as he was. Plus he stole six bases in seven attempts and still wasn't striking out at an alarming rate. But the Cubs had seen enough, and started Pie in just two games over the next two weeks before shipping him back to Des Moines.

It should be noted that on these return trips to Iowa, Pie annihilated AAA pitching to the tune of 362/.410/.563. He returned to Chicago for good in August of that year, and started all of six games the rest of the way. Apparently, the Cubs decided they'd rather develop 32-year-old Jacque Jones in center, and while Jones did outproduce Pie -- .286/.333/.432 as a CF in 313 PAs -- he also had one 20-plus-game stretch (from May 16 to June 20) in which he went .173/.241/.253. And yet the Cubs, for the most part, stuck with him; he was still the beneficiary of regular playing time, which he used to show off both his XavierNadyPostTommyJohnSurgeryesque throwing arm and his remarkably circuitous routes to flyballs.

Thankfully, Pie was penciled in as the starter in '08. Unfortunately, that penciling lasted all of four games -- after going 3-for-15 with four strikeouts, Pie was in the lineup for just seven of the next 26 contests. On May 5th and 6th, Pie was given back-to-back starts for the first time since those four season-opening games, going 2-for-7 with a walk, which apparently earned him a third start. In that game, he went 0-for-4 with 3 Ks and that was pretty much the end of his career with the Cubs. He only got three at bats over the next handful of games before getting sent down, and by the time he came back up in September, Jim Edmonds was pretty much entrenched in centerfield; Pie was traded to Baltimore the following offseason.

And that should be the cautionary tale in regards to Felix Pie, not some claptrap about him being rushed, which is based not on the facts but rather him being 22 when he was called up. Castro, 20, has been rushed, but as his skill level -- and performance, for the most part -- has warranted it, I don't have much of a problem with it. But I will have a problem if the Cubs don't give him a legitimate shot to get settled in as a big leaguer.

Which is why his huge debut was, well, huge. Because it bought him a whole lot of rope.

Before Friday's game, my notes for this post included that the Cubs should write Castro's name in the lineup every day until the All-Star Break at the very least, regardless of the results. If you are going to bring a player up that quickly, you have to be ready to weather the storm of his struggles.

But there is no doubt in my mind that had Castro started 1-for-20, there would've been a whole lot of wailing about the Cubs jumping the gun, Castro requiring more seasoning, and him needing to be sent back down. I've referenced this before, and it's one of the main causes for my deep-seated hatred of his work, but look at what Paul Sullivan wrote about Pie on August 25, 2007:

Pie has not been able to translate the success he has enjoyed at Triple A to the Cubs, despite being given several opportunities. He hit .362 at Iowa but came into Friday's game hitting .217 in three stints with the Cubs, including a .121 average against left-handers.

Pie's "several opportunities" amounted to all of 174 plate appearances spread out over five months as a 22-year-old. So Sullivan surely would've been leading the Castro's-not-ready charge, and the fans -- for reasons I don't fully understand -- would've been just as eager to label him as yet another over-hyped Cub prospect bust, just as they did with Pie based on Corey Patterson's failings.

In short, Castro wouldn't have stood a chance had he struggled. But because of his huge game, people will now cut him a hell of a lot more slack. Even if he goes through a rough patch, they'll believe he can pull out of it based on that one good game. It sounds ridiculous, but there is no doubt in my mind that it's true.

Still, I beseech Lou Pinella and the Cubs to at all costs just let the kid stay in the lineup. If two weeks from now he's gone from 2-for-5 to 2-for-50, please just leave him alone. Give him a real chance. Because with Geovany Soto quietly putting together a spectacular opening to the season (.362/.516/.594 with an insane .484 wOBA), the Cubs could suddenly be very strong up the middle for years to come. I can't help but wonder what might've been with Pie because it looks like the Cubs are very close to having an eerily similar core of homegrown up-the-middle players to the one that keyed the Yankees late-90's dominance; I'm still hopeful that Brett Jackson can replace Pie into the Bernie Williams role. Sure, that sounds heady stuff, but it's backed up statistically, as Derek Jeter's career .317/.387/.459 line looks like an unabashed pile of shit next to Castro's .400/.400/1.400.

Go Cubs.

Mr. SKIA's post-draft ideas

2010-04-29T23:07:00.008-05:00

One of the unintended consequences of the Bears trade for Jay Cutler -- and the ill-advised one for the late Gaines Adams -- was that it forced the Bears to act in free agency. That is, coming off a horrendous 2-14 year -- What? They went 7-9? Sure as hell didn't feel like it -- the Bears in seasons past would've tried to fill their multitude of holes cheaply and through the draft. But without a pick in the first two rounds and knowing that the beyond-disappointed fan base was clamoring for improvement, the Bears actually went out and spent.

And really, this is the second consecutive offseason where they made bold moves with no regard for cost. No one can accuse the Bears of being cheap anymore, although several people still will. Case in point: the reaction to the jettisoning of Alex Brown in the wake of the Julius Peppers signing. Look, Brown has been a solid player and a good soldier, but he's never recorded more than seven sacks in a season and will be 31 next year. The combination of Mark Anderson and Israel Idonije, both younger and cheaper, should be able to at least match Brown's production.

While I believe the Bears might have signed the relatively-inexpensive Chester Taylor as a complement to Matt Forte regardless, I'm confident that there is no way they would've opened the vault for Peppers if they were still holding the 11th overall pick. Instead we would've gotten an assfull of Jason Pierre-Paul or Derrick Morgan's upside, and while either (or both) of those guys might end up being a force, Peppers is one. Sure, he's also aging, but this team's window of opportunity is small -- the Bears have more old men in prominent positions than the Ft. Lauderdale Wal-Mart -- so they need players who can make an instant impact.

With the Bears still holding five mid-to-late round choices, they hadn't quite pulled a Mike Ditka, and decorum dictated that GM Jerry Angelo attend the draft and make their remaining selections. And considering their limited number of picks, most pundits gave the Bears positive reviews. Because I consider him the authority on all things NFL Draft, here's what Mel Kiper Jr. had to say:

I liked the Bears draft. I liked the pick [of Dan LeFevour]. I think 3-4 years down the road he can help you. ... I like the [Major] Wright pick, they needed help at safety. [Corey] Wootton was a first round pick a few years ago, but had the injury. I gave them a B grade.

And I generally agree with Kiper; basically, I like all the Bears picks but one. What follows is my selection-by-selection breakdown.

Round 3, Pick 75: S Major Wright, Florida; 5'11½", 206 lbs.
NFL.com #105, Scout.com #67, NFLDraftScout.com #134
The best thing about this guy? The name. Absolutely love it. Then again, I'm still wondering how the hell Major Harris didn't become the previous Michael Vick. Anyway, doesn't Major Wright just sound like someone who should be a badass headhunter back there?

In terms of his performance, I like this hit, and he scouting reports on him are generally positive. Most importantly, he brings a straight-ahead speed component that all the Bears safeties save Danieal Manning currently lack.

Best case: Mike Brown
Worst case: Craig Steltz
Money quote: "When you don't pick for the first time until 75, getting a coverage safety in Major Wright to band-aid a position of big need is a good job." -- Peter King, Sports Illustrated

Round 4, Pick 109: DE Corey Wootton, Northwestern; 6'6", 270 lbs.
NFL.com #42, Scouts.com #42, NFLDraftScout.com #71
The Bears best pick, in terms of value. Wootton likely would've gone at least two rounds higher if not for a catastrophic knee injury 18 months ago; while players can return from those kinds of things in eight or nine months, it's usually not until the following season that they round back into form.

Additionally, you can never have too many quality defensive ends, and given the relative uncertainty of both Anderson and Idonije, Wootton was a very good pick. Keep in mind, too, that the Bears are now at a net zero for defensive ends this offseason: They lost Brown and Adewale Ogunleye, and picked up Peppers and Wootton.

Best case: Richard Dent
Worst case: Dan Bazuin, Claude Harriott, Michael Haynes, Karon Riley, Pat Riley, John Thierry; and the list goes on and on (Henry Melton?)
Money quote: "I love the choice of defensive end Corey Wootton in the fourth round. ... He could be a steal." -- Pete Prisco, CBSSports.com

Round 5, Pick 141: CB Joshua Moore, Kansas State; 5'10⅞", 188 lbs.
NFL.com #273, Scout.com #198, NFLDraftScout.com #154
I didn't like this pick at the time, and I like it even less now. I don't think it made any sense from a standpoint of need -- I would've nabbed an offensive lineman here* -- or as the so-called best player available, as the respective rankings show. Is this guy really going to be any better than Corey Graham, Tim Jennings, Woodny Turenne, or last year's drafted Moore, D.J.? I'm skeptical. Meanwhile, I am certain the offensive line could use an infusion of both youth and talent.

* Which brings me to my biggest issue with Jerry Angelo's draft strategy. This was Angelo's ninth draft as GM. In the first year, he drafted two offensive linemen: Marc Columbo and Terrence Metcalf. In the intervening years, he has often used a seventh rounder on a lineman, doing so in each of the last four drafts, but guys drafted in Round 7 rarely crack an NFL roster. Beginning with the '03 draft, do you know how many picks Angelo has used on offensive linemen in the first six rounds? Three. Chris Williams ('08, first), Josh Beekman ('07, fourth), and Tyler Reed, ('06, sixth). Denver and New England, two franchises that consistently have very good offensive lines, have taken 13 and 11, respectively, over the same period.

In my opinion, a team should use at least one mid-round pick on an offensive lineman every year. That's how you build a good offensive line. But the Bears, in the last eight years, have instead selected 13 defensive backs in Rounds 1 through 6 (12 if you don't count Devin Hester). Putting aside that even if you consistently ran the nickel, you would only play as many d-backs as offensive linemen, does Angelo really think this is the way to build a football team, from back to front? As someone so obsessed with getting defensive linemen -- he's selected 13 in the first six rounds since '03 -- it would appear that Angelo believes in the games-are-won-in-the-trenches axiom. I have no idea why he'd adhere to it on one side of the ball, and completely ignore it on the other.

Moore doesn't seem like much of a ball-hawk -- just six interceptions in his career -- but his tackle numbers were strong, and he was honorable mention All-Big 12 the last two years. He supposedly lacks top-end speed, but that's less important given the Bears' scheme than it would be elsewhere.

Best case: Nathan Vasher
Worst case: Roosevelt Williams
Money quote: "Josh Moore has a chance to be a nickel corner in their defense. He has nice cover skills." -- Prisco

Round 6, Pick 181: QB Dan LeFevour, Central Michigan; 6'3¼", 230 lbs.
NFL.com #115, Scout.com #70, NFLDraftScout.com #100
This appears to be the more contentious pick than the Moore one, but I disagree. Quarterback is basically the only position where a guy can increase his value league-wide while on the bench, and LeFevour was a significant bargain at this point. Plus, the Bears were one of the few teams in league that ran with only two quarterbacks last year, so this is a solid selection from a roster-makeup standpoint.

LeFevour, who went to high school just a few miles from where I grew up, put up huge numbers playing in the spread, and most believe that it going to an NFL offense will be a huge adjustment. But that's true of almost all college QBs, and LeFevour supposedly has the arm-strength, size, and athletic ability to at least be a serviceable backup. Considering that sixth-rounders are relative longshots anyway, getting a guy at this point who will almost certainly make the team is a sound investment.

Best case: A mobile Kyle Orton
Worst case: Craig Krenzel
Money quote: "LeFevour was considered by some to be one of the best quarterbacks in the draft, and was a good value at this point." -- NFL.com

Round 7, Pick 218: OT J'Marcus Webb, West Texas A&M; 6'8", 335 lbs.
NFL.com NR, Scouts.com NR, NFLDraftScout.com #267
Who the hell knows with this guy? Obviously, neither NFL.com (whose rankings went 350 players deep) nor Scouts.com (520) thought much of the cousin of longtime-Dolphin Richmond Webb, but I'm thinking that at this point, they might as well gamble on some enormous kid. Even though it has yet to work out in Angelo's first several attempts.

Best case: James "Big Cat" Williams
Worst case: Kirk Barton
Money quote: "He has the size to play at the NFL level, but its going to take a significant amount of coaching for him to realize his potential." -- ESPN.com

And those are your five newest Chicago Bears. If they are lucky, the Bears will end up with two impact players from this class. For obvious reasons, the smart money is on Wright and Wootton. But the real money's on Peppers and Cutler. If both of them don't play like superstars, it'll be far more devastating to the franchise -- and the fanbase -- than this draft ever could be.

*****

A few other draft thoughts:

Gotta admire what the Lions did on Day 1, getting the best prospect in the draft (Ndamukong Suh) and then trading up into the back end of the first to nab Cal's Jahvid Best, a great kid that I covered when he was in high school. Getting impact players on both sides of the ball was huge for a Lions team that has been mostly devoid of talent in recent years. This should mark a huge upgrade for them, and I also liked the Amari Spivey pick.

I didn't understand why the Jets basically gave away Leon Washington (and a seventh rounder) in that deal with Seattle for a fifth-rounder. I know that he had a pretty severe leg injury, but Washington's extremely quick and relatively young. Maybe New York decided there weren't enough snaps for a three-headed monster in its backfield, which just means that not only did the Jets waste significant dollars on a badly-fading LaDanian Tomlinson as a complement to Shonn Greene, but also that the ill-advised signing cost them a productive player in Washington.

Finally, I enjoyed the hullabaloo over the Broncos picking Tim Tebow, a move pretty much universally panned by those not affiliated with the University of Florida and the non-bible-thumping populace alike. I'm no Tebow fan, but here's my question: If the traditional way of evaluating quarterbacks results in a failure rate of roughly 50% among first rounders, then what, exactly, did Denver have to lose? Allegedly sound first-round selections -- guys who didn't have questions about where they held the ball, or the length of their release -- such as Ryan Leaf, J.P. Losman, and JaMarcus Russell have been abject failures. So I just don't get raking a team over the coals for ignoring criteria that are clearly broken. Especially considering that with Tebow there's essentially a stop-loss, as pretty much everyone agrees he would make a very good H-back or tight end. And so even if he fails as a quarterback, the Broncos will still have a useful player. That, to me, completely mitigated any additional perceived risk, and made him a highly defensible first-round selection.

More than a speed bump, Bulls becoming contenders

2010-04-25T11:24:00.005-05:00

Although the ending no doubt lopped off several decades from my life, I was thrilled to see the Bulls hang on for the 108-106 win in Game 3 over the Cleveland Cavaliers, who after last season's playoff flame-out will be feeling a ton of pressure in Game 4. Unfortunately, the Cavs probably witnessed the Western Conference's No. 1 seed losing a Game 4 on Saturday night, when the Oklahoma Thunder blew out the Los Angeles Lakers 110-89 to tie that series at 2, so there will be no underestimating the threat Chicago poses in this one.

But you have to be happy with the way the Bulls have played thus far. While they might not have looked very good in Game 1, when they never really threatened and spent far too much time preoccupied with the officiating, since then they've been a lot like the scrappy, resilient bunch that gave the Celtics everything they could handle in last year's playoffs.

One of the biggest reasons: an engaged Luol Deng. After a disappointing Game 1 (12 points on 5-for-15 shooting), Deng, who missed that series against Boston with one of his many ailments that I can no longer keep track of, has found the range over the last two games, combining to go 16-for-31. He had a nice all-around performance in Game 2, with six rebounds, five assists, and no turnovers, and the Bulls might've stolen a win had Cleveland not made half their 3s while LeBron James (16-of-23 from the field) nailed a series of extremely difficult shots down the stretch.

After earning a reputation for disappearing into the background during crunch-time, Deng came up huge defensively down the stretch of Game 3, drawing an enormous charge on LeBron that easily could've been an and-one, and then getting a steal on the Cavs' next possession. Because Deng looked so lost for a good portion of the latter part of the season, the Bulls -- as I mentioned in my series preview -- really needed for him to deliver, and for the most part he has.

Joakim Noah's importance was also obvious in Game 3. After a 25-point, 13-rebound performance in Game 2 that still resulted in him being a team-worst minus-15 (and showed the limitations of the plus/minus stat in small samples), Noah was a team-best +13 in 33 foul-plagued minutes in Game 3. The Bulls were clearly a different team with him on the floor, and while his 10-point, 15-rebound, 5-assist line was terrific, I was disappointed by some of the terrible fouls he picked up, especially his fifth. Which is why it bodes well that after the game Noah acknowledged that they were "stupid, stupid fouls." As I said before the series, the Bulls absolutely need Noah out there, and if they are to have any hope of winning Game 4, he has to stay out of foul trouble.

Game 3 had me having flashbacks of this 109-108 win over the Cavs, the final matchup in the regular season that James conspicuously sat out. In both games, the Bulls were extremely lucky that poor free-throw shooting down the stretch didn't completely doom them, although in the regular season one the Cavs simply couldn't convert on the other end, while here they merely ran out of time. And yet, Cleveland's near-comeback also opened a scab from Game 2

In that 112-102 loss, the Bulls played exceptionally well, and entered the final quarter tied. The Cavs slowly pulled away throughout the quarter, opening up a 10-point lead with 2:17 remaining. However, with 58.7 seconds left, a pair of Deng free-throws drew the Bulls back within seven at 107-100. Inexplicably, the Bulls did not foul on the ensuing possession; when I screamed (okay, typed, but I was furious) on the Blog-a-Bull game thread, Why aren't they fouling? I got a few The game's over-type responses. Yes, the game was likely going to end up a loss. But this is the playoffs. Why were they conceding anything?

Seven points in under a minute is a lot to overcome, but teams do it with relative frequency. Hell, exactly 10 days earlier, the Bulls lost that terrible game in New Jersey after blowing a seven-point lead with less than a minute to go in the first overtime. In basketball terms, a minute can be an eternity, and some hot shooting combined with a few missed Cavs free throws might have resulted in an improbable win.

Which was very nearly what the Cavs pulled off in Game 3. A pair of Kirk Hinrich free throws put the Bulls ahead 104-96 with 38 seconds to play, but Cleveland didn't throw in the towel, and a trio of made 3-pointers combined with the Bulls' 4-of-8 shooting from the line resulted in the Cavs having a shot to win the game at the end. Sure, the 40-footer by Anthony Parker wasn't a great look -- had the Cavs held any timeouts, they likely would've gotten a better one, taken by LeBron -- but they had a chance to steal the game because they extended it by fouling, which made the Bulls failure to do so a game earlier all the more galling.

But honestly, I don't have many other qualms with coach Vinny Del Negro's tactics in the series. In Game 3, he even realized that he should be giving minutes to James Johnson, one of only six Bulls under contract for next year, at the expense of Hakim Warrick and Jannero Pargo, neither of whom played. Johnson has been foul-prone and not all that effective, but he has brought energy, and the experience he is getting will be invaluable down the road.

Speaking of which, this series has reinforced just how important making the playoffs was for the Bulls' future. There's plenty of obvious benefits, most notably the postseason reps for the young core. But for this team, which is clearly lacking another scorer, to play so well against what's possibly the best team in the NBA just has to help their chances in free agency. If I'm Dwyane Wade, and I see a team with me getting dismantled by a so-so Boston group while another that wants me gives an elite squad all that it can handle, it would have to make me think twice about my commitment to Miami. Plus just being in high-profile, nationally-televised games helps too. The TNT studio crew has raved about the Bulls; with Kenny Smith calling Rose his favorite player in the league and Charles Barkley reaffirming his love Noah, it's like an infomercial for prospective free agents.

Plus, the Bulls genuinely seem to like playing with each other. Noah's post-game comments almost always contain glowing references to Rose, and how much he loves him. In this one, noting how Rose was unfazed when LeBron decided to try to D him up in the fourth quarter -- to me one of the most encouraging images of the series was seeing Rose go right at LeBron -- Noah said, "D-Rose played huge for us. ... I'm glad he's on my team."

Before the series, I heard quite a few pundits say something along the lines of, "The teams split the season series, but that's not really representative because LeBron James sat out the last regular season game." Unfortunately, they failed to note that one of the Cavs' wins is equally deserving of an asterisk. On March 19, Cleveland beat the the Bulls -- playing without Rose, Noah, and Deng -- 92-85. As far as I'm concerned, they split the regular season 1-1, and the Bulls and Cavs have now played five games with the season series at 3-2. Clearly, this matchup is not the blowout that it was perceived to be, and although I'm not necessarily expecting the Bulls to win Game 4, it wouldn't surprise me, either. As Rose and Noah continue to develop, this team is getting better every day. And the future, regardless of if they are able to sign a marquee free agent or end up conserving their cap space to use in trades, is indeed very bright.

Go Bulls.

Panic move: Cubs send Zambrano to bullpen

2010-04-22T00:25:00.009-05:00

Share

With the Cubs bullpen off to a predictably terrible start -- if you think it wasn't predictable, click here -- I have been fretting about general manager Jim Hendry handing out several Brandon Lyon-esque contracts next offseason, or, worse yet, having him really panic and pull the trigger on a worthy successor to the Jon Garland-for-Matt Karchner / Kyle Lohse-for-Rick Aguilera / Jose Ceda-for-Kevin Gregg deals that have literally shaved years off my life -- that's right, each of those transactions came to my apartment in the form of a razor, and with patented lift-and-cut technology smoothly removed time from my existence in a single stroke. Sure, it sounds exceptionally efficient, but the whole process is, in reality, quite painful.

Anyway, the upshot is, I've been dreading the story coming off the wire of an Andrew Cashner-for-Tim Byrdak deal, or perhaps a Jay Jackson-for-Takashi Saito swap. And then I saw this headline on ESPN.com:

Cubs moving Zambrano to bullpen

Now, I probably would've gone with something a little flashier, like Panic Move: Cubs send Zambrano to bullpen, but I do admittedly have a flair for the dramatic.

Still, that's what this is: a $53.75 million panic move.

Continuing from Bruce Levine's ESPNChicago.com report:

The Chicago Cubs confirmed reports that manager Lou Piniella is moving struggling starter Carlos Zambrano to the bullpen, in a move that may not be temporary.

"I told him we really needed him in the bullpen," Piniella told reporters.

Now granted, with Ted Lilly returning, someone had to move to the bullpen, and Zambrano could really help there, as he clearly has the greatest chance of becoming an ace reliever. Why? BECAUSE HE'S THE BEST GODDAMN PITCHER of the guys they supposedly considered: Carlos Silva, Tom Gorzelanny, and him. Which is why you want him throwing 200 innings, instead of 70.

I know the choice couldn't have been easy; unlike the bullpen, the rotation has actually been very good. Take a gander at these numbers (through 4/20):

Starter	ERA	FIP	xFIP	BABiP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9
A	0.69	2.01	3.38	.218	5.54	0.00	0.00
B	1.93	2.48	3.79	.266	6.75	2.89	0.00
C	2.45	2.41	3.68	.362	6.38	2.45	0.00
D	3.15	2.81	3.32	.274	9.90	3.60	0.45
E	7.45	4.72	3.37	.435	12.10	4.66	1.86

Without a doubt, Pitcher E has ostensibly been the worst. But more tellingly, he's also been the unluckiest; while his earned run average and fielding-independent pitching stick out like Matt Stairs' belly, his expected fielding-independent pitching -- using a formula that removes the home run component, which can be profoundly influenced by luck in a pitcher's home run per fly ball rate (HR/FB) in a given season -- is solidly near the front of the pack.

Pitcher E, not surprisingly, is Zambrano. Not that any of this should matter, though, because the whole stupid chart serves as an exemplar for why you don't make decisions like these based on three or four starts.

Does anyone think that Pitcher A (Silva) is not going to walk a guy all season? Or allow a home run? Or that he can maintain a .218 BABiP? None of those things are even remotely sustainable; while Silva is an excellent control pitcher, his career walk rate is 1.69 BB/9, and more importantly, he has allowed 1.12 HR/9 and a .312 BABiP. Furthermore, how much longer can we expect Starters B (Gorzelanny) and C (Randy Wells) to not allow a home run? Four innings? Five?

Moving Zambrano to the bullpen shows the same type of horribly-myopic thinking as those prospects-for-middling-reliever deals I so dread. Given the rotation's respective bodies of work the last few seasons, I don't see how Zambrano can be any worse than the #3 starter on this team, behind Ryan Dempster (Starter D) and Lilly, provided the latter is actually healthy. If I were to prioritize which of the five current starters I'd move to the 'pen, I'd go Silva, Gorzelanny, Wells, Zambrano, Dempster.

And really, just how much is Zambrano "struggling"? He undeniably had a disastrous Opening Day, and a quick glance reveals that his traditional stats through four starts -- which I think we can all agree is a totally-representative sample size, and should by all means be taken as the true measure of his ability while his 238 other career starts are completely ignored -- are pretty bad: 1-2, 7.45 ERA. But over his last three games, he's actually 1-1, 4.00, going at least five innings in each while allowing three earned runs or fewer.

More importantly, though, his K-rate has been superb, with 26 in 19.1 innings. As always, he's walking too many guys, but his BB rate isn't that out of line with his career mark (4.1). So Zambrano's struggles are basically a function of two things over which he has varying degrees of control: home runs and hits allowed.

Yes, the home run is one of the three true outcomes, but as I mentioned earlier, there is still an element of luck involved in how many a pitcher yields, especially when you're talking about such a small sample size. After being remarkably stingy with the gopher ball for most of his career, including allowing just 10 homers in 169.1 IP last year, Zambrano has already given up four in 2010. But that's four lousy pitches; if two of them had turned into warning-track outs instead of clearing the fence, Zambrano's home run rate would be more or less in line with his career mark. And so this is largely the product of bad luck, which is borne out by his HR/FB ratio: it's at 21.1%, compared to his career mark of 9.1%.

Zambrano's inflated BAA (.317) is a function of that absurd .435 BABiP, which is 54.3% higher than his career mark of .282. Now I suppose it's possible that he's suddenly become eminently hittable. There are, after all, some disturbing trends in his numbers. Since posting a phenomenal 54.4% ground ball rate in his first full season in '03, Zambrano's GB% has declined every year but one (in 2008, when it rocketed to 47.2% from 46.8%), reaching the low-water mark (44.7%) last season. This year it's at 39.3%, and although it's still plenty low enough to succeed, combined with his increasing line drive rate -- at 26.8% this year, compared to 18.7% for his career -- there are some causes for concern.

But in looking at his strikeouts, it's clear that Zambrano's stuff is still plenty good enough to get major-league hitters out. Given the minuscule sample size -- and the inordinate effect one bad start has on overall numbers just a few games in -- it's infinitely more likely that he's merely the victim of some unfortunate early-season flukiness.

And now the Cubs' entire season has become a victim of it, too. Because reducing Zambrano's workload by 120-or-so innings undoubtedly makes the team worse. I am painfully aware of just how bad the bullpen has been, but how much impact can one player can have on a seven-man relief corps?

Besides, this is a horrifically bad allocation of resources. As best I can tell, no non-40-year-old-Panamian reliever has a deal that averages more than $12.5 million per season, and all the guys in that range are closers. Zambrano, owed the aforementioned $53.75 million over the next three years, basically makes one-and-a-half times that; he's paid the big bucks to log starter innings, and that's what the Cubs should have him doing.

If Zambrano were pitching atrociously, I'd applaud the Cubs for finally grasping the concept a sunk cost and moving him to the 'pen. But he's not. To this point, it's been three decent starts, one horrible one, and whole lot of bad luck. To demote one of your best pitchers based on that, whether it's because you're dissatisfied with him, the bullpen, or a combination thereof, flat-out doesn't make sense. And what happens if Zambrano, who hasn't pitched in relief in eight years, gets injured because his body doesn't handle the sudden transition well? This is just awful on so many levels.

You know, kind of like the Cubs.

Rough Draft: A (Not-So) Brief History of the Chicago Bears

2010-04-20T08:34:00.003-05:00

Revised -- and shortened! -- from an entry originally posted 3/31/2009
Share

Typically the NFL Draft is my favorite time of the year. Because while I'm usually a curmudgeonly pessimist when it comes to sports, the draft is a time when anything seems possible and even I can be positive. Unfortunately, with the Bears having traded away their first round pick in the Jay Cutler deal (which I agreed with) and their second rounder to acquire Gaines Adams (which I didn't), I just haven't been feeling it. Even last year, when they were also without a pick until the third round, they had all their slotted choices for most of the offseason -- the Cutler trade didn't happened until April 2 -- and so this is really the first time since I was introduced to the internet that I haven't spent an insane number of hours researching potential Bears draftees.

But the Bears not having a pick in the first two rounds can actually be a good thing, as it's usually those selections that leave me depressed. In a lot of ways, first rounders can only disappoint -- if they're good they're just living up to their draft status, and if they're terrible I end up devising different ways to accost general manager Jerry Angelo to deliver a kick in the teeth. Players from the later rounds, however, can only be pleasant surprises; anything you get from those guys is gravy, and so the potential is almost limitless. Traditionally, Day 2 -- and with the revamped format, Day 3 -- is a time when I can dream of a seventh-round selection like Marcus Monk becoming the next Marques Colston, before the reality of his actual skill level gets in the way.

The Bears were once one of the best-drafting teams in the NFL. They drafted Hall-of-Famer Bulldog Turner with the seventh overall selection in 1940, and Turner was All-Pro seven times; every other selection in that year's 22 rounds combined for one All-Pro season. Eight time All-Pro Bill George was a second-round pick, as was fellow Hall-of-Fame middle linebacker Mike Singletary. The Bears selected Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers in the same draft, for crying out loud. Their 1983 class yielded an astonishing seven starters -- Jimbo Covert, Willie Gault, Mike Richardson, Dave Duerson, Tom Thayer, Richard Dent, and Mark Bortz -- on a team that won the Super Bowl just two years later. That's essentially 1/3 of a championship team's starting lineup from a single draft. Dent and Bortz enjoyed 15- and 12-year careers, respectively, after being selected in the now-defunct 8th round.

From that '83 draft, however, there was nowhere to go but down, and that's exactly where the Bears have gone. It's been especially bad since '87, when snot-nosed Halas family scion Mike McCaskey canned general manager Jerry Vanisi. Then the organization lost its final link to greatness when Mike Ditka was fired in 1993, which is when I'll begin my analysis.

After originally setting out to look at the Bears first round picks, and then later their first three selections, I ultimately settled on their first four picks. This is because I believe that the first four picks are where a team is really looking to fill its needs -- despite the best player available rhetoric everyone spouts -- and they are also the source of a huge majority of a team's impact players.

You're going to have to click on it unless you've set up your electron microscope, but please look at the table below. And really look at it, because the goddamn thing took forever to compile. Anyway, all the players' names are preceded by their draft slot and followed by their position. Reading left to right, the first column has the Bears selections. The second contains what I have deemed to be the best combination of players at the same four positions using the picks the Bears had. Note that the positions do not have to be selected in the same order, just that the same four positions must be represented. The third column is the best overall combination of players the Bears could have had with those picks, regardless of position, while the fourth contains other possibilities they could/should have considered. The fifth column -- headed 'I was prayin' for...' -- has the player I personally wanted that year,* while the last one contains miscellaneous tidbits.

* Let me just preemptively stress that the players in the "I was prayin' for..." column really are the guys I wanted at that time. It seems a tad bit convenient, that someone who calls himself Mr. Sports Know-It-All allegedly liked the guys who ended up being the best players. But in at least two of those cases -- Warren Sapp and Randy Moss -- everyone knew they were exceptional talents, and they only dropped because of marijuana-based "character" issues, which I couldn't care less about. And it's not like I was alone in wanting Sapp and Moss; besides, I was also prayin' for Rickey Dudley and Mike Williams, so it's not like I'm going to make anyone forget Bill Polian any time soon.

What follows is the yearly breakdown. The assigned grades are based more on how well the Bears maximized the talent available in the specific draft, rather than the quality of the players they actually chose; that is, getting two decent starters in a terrible draft rates higher than getting three in a great one.

1993: Curtis Conway was actually pretty effective for some time, but considering the quality of this draft -- and the trio of All-Pros taken consecutively behind him -- it wasn't a very good pick. Carl Sampson and Chris Gedney gave the Bears nothing, and while Todd Perry had some pretty good years, Will Shields is a no-doubt Hall of Famer, assuming they're still letting offensive linemen in. Grade: D-

1994: The Bears picks weren't exactly great, but the entire draft wasn't either, with hardly any stars to be had. John Thierry did nothing but spawn horrible puns like this one: My Thierry on John is that he sucked. I loved Raymont Harris' UltraBack persona, but two quality RBs (Dorsey Levens and Jamal Anderson) were chosen after him, and he couldn't stay healthy. Jim Flanigan recorded an impressive-for-a-DT 40.5 sacks in his six years with the Bears, a span in which he started every game. As for the hoped-for Shante Carver, let's just say that I may have overrated the skills of Pac-10 players a tad during my Cal years. Grade: C-

1995: Some thought it a steal when Heisman Trophy winner Rashaan Salaam fell to the Bears. It wasn't. He just didn't have enough speed to play in the NFL. As a defensive tackle. And sorry Todd Sauerbrun, but unless a guy can average 75 yards a kick with 14 second hang time, I ain't drafting a punter before the sixth round, "HANGTIME" vanity plates notwithstanding. Which is why I didn't in my draft re-creation, taking a guard (which the Bears selected fifth) instead. Grade: F

1996: The Bears actually did a pretty good job here, in terms of getting long-time starters; unfortunately, most of those starts came for other teams. Now 14 years in, Walt Harris and Bobby Engram were still first-string until recently and Chris Villarrial started 148 games in his 11-year career. Even Paul Grasmanis played nine seasons. But the Bears didn't select any stars and this draft was loaded with 'em. Grade: C

1997: As a longtime Notre Dame hater, I wanted to kick Touchdown Jesus in the balls when the Bears blew their first rounder in a trade for Rick Mirer, who'd already proven he was a bust in Seattle. Granted, there weren't a whole lot of great QBs available -- Jake Plummer (29,253) was the only one to even top 3,000 career yards -- but still. At least Mirer actually played, which is more than their three picks can say. Grade: F-

1998: This was billed it as a five-player draft -- Peyton Manning, Ryan Leaf (umm...), Andre Wadsworth (ditto), Randy Moss, and Charles Woodson -- and the Bears were picking fifth. Most people thought they'd get Wadsworth, and I actually would've been happy with that. But I wanted Moss, whose playmaking at Marshall had become a SportsCenter staple. When the Cards took Wadsworth and Raiders Woodson, Moss was practically wearing a Bears uniform. Instead they chose Curtis Enis** and Moss fell all the way to the Vikings at 21, ensuring we'd all have to watch him humiliate the Bears twice a year.

** The only upside was I spent most of his brief career saying "Curtis Enis hurt his penis," which never actually happened but should have. At around the same time, my friend Peter liked to say, "Ow, that's my Dick Jauron." It was all very mature, really.

Tony Parrish and Olin Kreutz were both very good selections -- really, Lance Schulters and Matt Birk over them was a total toss-up, and at least partially included for variety's sake -- but you've got to nail those Top-5 picks. Grade: C-

1999: Rex Tucker was the only one who gave the Bears anything. Russell Davis was let go way to early, and D'Wayne Bates was chosen because scouting him at Northwestern was much cheaper than booking a flight out of state. In the first round, the Bears were originally on the board at seven, where early projections had them getting local kid Donovan McNabb, whose workouts shot him up the board for the right to be booed by Eagles fans. So the Bears traded down to select Cade McNown, while their original pick became Champ Bailey. Let's just say that history has not been kind to that trade. Grade: Z-

2000: Although I loved his name, I actually wasn't crazy about Brian Urlacher when the Bears drafted him, mostly because the highlight package ESPN showed just wasn't that impressive. (I later realized that this was because all the clips came from the one New Mexico game they had the rights to.) Urlacher ended up being the best sideline-to-sideline MLB I've ever seen. And while Mike Brown ultimately couldn't stay on the field, that's still two top-quality starters from a draft that wasn't all that good. Grade: A

2001: David Terrell was a receiver who couldn't catch, but boy did he look good not doing it. What's particularly egregious is that 2001 was an unbelievable draft for receivers -- Santana Moss, Reggie Wayne, Chad Johnson, Chris Chambers, Steve Smith, and T.J. Houshmandzadeh all were picked after Terrell. Anthony Thomas had a good rookie season and briefly captured the city's imagination courtesy of his cool moniker, but Angelo was right: The A-Train was not a "special back." Plus, taking two players from the same school (Michigan) with your first two picks just reeks of scouting laziness to me. Grade: F+

2002: In a terrible year with very little depth, Jerry Angelo did about as well as could be expected in his first draft. Marc Colombo is a starter for the Cowboys, but had 62 major injuries in his three-plus seasons in Chicago. He was like Kerry Wood and Mark Prior rolled into one, and I mean that literally, too -- he's about the size of both those guys combined. Just a gigantic human being. The Dwight Freeney thing was a complete pipe dream, once again fueled by the experts early projections; he would've looked great in a Bears uniform had he fallen that far, although recently-released Alex Brown gave them excellent value as a fourth-rounder. Grade: B-

2003: The Bears ended up flipping the fourth overall pick to the Jets for a pair of firsts, missing out on perennial Pro Bowlers Terrell Suggs and Kevin Williams in the process. Instead they got Michael Haynes and Rex Grossman.^ Haynes started just four games in his career, but Grossman's the one universally reviled as a bust.

^ I should add that in another overt act of scouting dereliction, the Bears somehow managed to select four players -- Grossman, S Todd Johnson, and DTs Ian Scott and the somehow-wasn't-a-superstar-despite-the-kickass-name Tron LaFavor -- from the University of Florida. I mean, there is NO WAY four guys from the same school could have been the best player available at each spot. That's like a quadrillion-to-one shot.

The Bears did, however, do very well with their next two picks, Charles Tillman and Lance Briggs, both of whom have been top-notch starters from the get-go. They also got some contributors in the later rounds, but whiffing on two top-25 picks in a draft that yielded as many studs as this one really hurts. Grade: C

2004: The Bears did extremely well here in the short term, but this class has aged worse than Nikki Cox. I preferred Vince Wilfork's power over Tommie Harris' quickness, but his agility made him a better fit for Lovie Smith's scheme. Tank Johnson was a great tag-team partner for Harris, but his off-the-field issues derailed his Bears career. Like Harris, Nathan Vasher was very good before durability issues ruined him, and Bernard Berrian's given me almost as much pleasure as a free-agent bust with the Vikings as he did as the Bears' deep threat. Grade: B-

2005: I was absolutely furious when the Bears passed on can't-miss WR Mike Williams in favor of Cedric Benson. Not only did they not have any viable receivers, they also had signed running back Thomas Jones to a four-year deal just a season earlier. Plus, I thought Benson would suck. And his infamous crying on draft day -- when he basically admonished anyone for having the audacity to question his checkered past -- was so appalling that I was wholly convinced he was Curtis Enis 2.0. Of course, now that he's gone, he's turned into Earl Campbell. Perfect.

Mark Bradley wasn't a disappointment when he wasn't injured, which wasn't often. The Bears paid Adewale Ogunleye superstar money for super-so-so production, and Orton's now in Denver, familiarly trying to fend off a guy with a better draft pedigree. Grade: D-

2006: This draft probably got the worst immediate reception, but it actually was one of Angelo's better efforts. With the entire fan base clamoring for more offense -- in 2005, the Bears had finished 26th in points scored and 29th in total offense, and first in points allowed and second in total defense -- Angelo arrogantly used his first five picks (including DE Mark Anderson, who recorded 12 sacks as a rookie in limited playing time) on defensive guys.

Devin Hester was an once-in-a-lifetime force of nature on special teams, but the Bears decided to trade that guy for an overpaid receiver with middling production. Danieal Manning is also very good in the return game, but five years in, the Bears still haven't decided on his position. Dvoracek looked pretty good when healthy, which, like fellow Sooners Tommie Harris and Mark Bradley, was never, and Jamar Williams has shown flashes in his limited opportunities. Grade: C+

2007: Finally, the Bears took the guy that everybody wanted. Unfortunately, Olsen's been a mild disappointment; while productive, he hasn't quite had the breakout many predicted last season. And the rest of this draft was downright terrible. In a rarity for a second round pick, Bazuin has yet to play a game in the NFL. Neither has Michael Okwo. And while Garrett Wolfe is a microscopic dervish on special teams and has improved as a ball carrier, his durability's an issue. Add it all up, and you've got an awful ROI on three top-100 picks. Grade: D

2008: The Bears got their whole 2008 offense in Matt Forte. However, this is what I said last offseason:

Though he was undoubtedly productive, his yards per carry (3.9) worry me a little, and there were a ton of good RBs in this draft.

Chris Williams appears to be the future at left tackle (though he hardly looked dominant last year) and I wouldn't have ignored the medical reports on his back, which has already cost him one season. I like Marcus Harrison, but I thought he would've taken a bigger step forward last year. And while Bennett started last year, he shouldn't have; that amazing chemistry with fellow Commodore Cutler yielded all of two touchdowns. Grade: C+

2009: I liked the Bears draft a lot in the immediate aftermath, but thus far they've gotten far more from their fifth- and sixth-round picks (Johnny Knox and Al Afalava, respectively) than any of their first four. In fact, Henry Melton and D.J. Moore never suited up last year, Juaquin Iglesias played in one receptionless game and Gilbert made one tackle. Still, given they had no picks in the first two rounds and it's still early, I'll withhold my scathing judgment for now. Grade: I

Cumulative Draft GPA: 1.5

And that's the Chicago Bears, not exactly the NFL's honor student. But while the Bears rarely did well as they could have, the same is true for every single team in the league. No organization ever drafts perfectly, or even comes close. Because even when a team gets a 6th-round Pro Bowler, they still passed on him five times just like everybody else. In fact, the key is not to never miss, but to hit home runs just a little more frequently than the competition. Because if you can serendipitously land a Tom Brady every so often, you just might build a championship team.

Reduced to the most basic of terms, the Bears just haven't found enough impact players via the draft. Their 1993-2009 drafts produced four players -- Kreutz, Urlacher, Briggs, and Tommie Harris -- who have earned multiple Pro Bowl berths with the team; as a comparison, the Colts, Patriots, Eagles, and Steelers, have all found at least seven of those guys, and the Lions and Raiders just three. Just like in the standings, the Bears have been much closer to the bottom than the top. Hopefully, even without a pick until the third round, that can change in 2010. It is, after all, the NFL Draft. And anything is possible.

Lucky 7: Bulls-Cavaliers

2010-04-17T10:39:00.004-05:00

Well, the Bulls did it. They're in the playoffs, which seemed a virtual impossibility just a few weeks ago. They showed a remarkable amount of resiliency and gumption in pulling off a comeback from near-oblivion, which is why I don't think they will be satisfied with merely making the postseason. And so here are seven things I'd like to see in their best-of-seven first round series with the Cleveland Cavaliers:

1. Joakim Noah staying out of foul trouble
If I were the Cavs, I would hammer the ball into Shaquille O'Neal in the early going in hopes of picking up fouls on Noah and getting him out of the game. Because as we saw during the Bulls' 10-game losing streak when Noah was sidelined with his plantar fasciitis recurrence, that would have a devastating effect on Chicago's ability to compete.

The Bulls are completely reliant on Noah's defense, rebounding, and energy. Plus, his game on the offensive end has become increasingly valuable, with crisp interior passing and an improving outside shot and post game. The upshot is, they need Noah out there for as many minutes as possible; if he's limited by foul trouble, the Bulls long odds become nonexistent.

2. Derrick Rose taking over in crunch time
I'm still not sure what to make of Rose as the Bulls' end-of-game alpha dog. Sometimes he seems like he's ready to seize that role, and others -- like the recent loss to the Nets -- he seems to shrink from the moment. I am very curious to see how he does in this series. I don't expect him to be able to go shot-for-shot with LeBron James -- whose sheer force of will should prove to be the biggest difference in this series -- but I'm hoping he at least shows he wants to try.

In last year's first-round epic with the Celtics, Rose deferred to Ben Gordon in the big moments. Was that because of Gordon stepping up, or because Rose stepped aside? This series will be a real litmus test of exactly where Rose is as a player: Can he carry a franchise, or is he better suited to being the league's best second banana?

3. A shortened rotation that includes James Johnson
Johnson deserves to play for a few reasons:
A. He is possibly the only player on the Bulls -- and certainly the only one on their bench -- with the size/strength/quickness combo to at least be a minor distraction for LeBron when he's defending him.
B. He played very well in the 92-85 loss to the Cavs -- 16 points on 11 shots, 8 rebounds, 2 steals and a block with a best-among-starters minus-1 in 36 minutes -- when Rose, Noah, and Luol Deng were all sidelined with injuries.
C. The reps he (and fellow rookie Taj Gibson) get in the playoffs now could be invaluable in the future. The Bulls have virtually no chance at winning the series; so why play someone like Hakim Warrick -- who's not a part of their plans going forward -- at the expense of Johnson, who is?

4. Jannero Pargo glued to the bench
It wouldn't be one of my list posts without an item referencing Pargo's enduring crappiness and Del Negro's steadfast refusal to keep him from the court. And yet, in a triumph of the human spirit, I continue to dream of a Pargo-free world.

5. A Game 5
While I certainly don't think the Bulls will win the series, I do believe they can at least win a game. Everyone -- I'm speaking nationally here -- is looking at them as nothing more than sacrificial lambs; all seven of the TrueHoop Network's legitimate contributors are predicting Cavs in 4. But I'm hoping for just a bit more. As good as Cleveland is, I'm guessing the Bulls will show plenty of fight, and given that they are actually pretty formidable themselves when healthy, should be able to steal a game at some point.

6. A Game 6
Alright, so I'm greedy.

7. A Game 7 Luol Deng
In the Bulls final three games -- all must wins in the playoff push -- Deng appeared to be lost when he wasn't completely disinterested. Despite playing 35 minutes per contest, he averaged just 10.7 points on 40% shooting. In 104 total minutes, he did not block a shot and had just two steals. Call me crazy, but I generally want to see a bit more production from The Six Million Dollar (Per Half-Season) Man.

I don't expect Deng to recapture the magic he showed in the Bulls shocking first-round sweep of the defending champion Miami Heat in 2007 -- for whatever reason, he's no longer the player that averaged 26.3 points on 57.9% shooting in that series. But he needs to be a player. The Bulls infinitesimal chances of shocking the world hinge on Deng being an engaged and productive #3 behind Rose and Noah.

Series prediction: Cavs in 5.5

I wish someone would grab Reggie Miller's tie

2010-04-14T19:22:00.003-05:00

A coupla things knocking around the ol' thinkblob:

Relax Pax: Attacks Lacks Facts, Impacts Axe; Syntax Lax

My first reaction to the story about an altercation between VP John Paxson and coach Vinny Del Negro was a smart-ass one: Who hasn't wanted to punch Vinny Del Negro?

But that's not really fair. The story, if true, speaks badly of Paxson's management style, but it's also something that I don't think is all that uncommon in the testosterone-fueled world of professional sports. Be it Billy Martin challenging Reggie Jackson to a fight, or Buddy Ryan taking a swing at Kevin Gilbride, this is the kind of stuff that happens among the alpha males who dominate athletics.

Let's take the story -- the original one, not the transparent subterfuge the Bulls PR department has apparently planted in response -- as true on its face; that is, that Paxson was angry that Del Negro again went over the medically-prescribed minute limits for Joakim Noah.

Seeing as how the previous over-usage of a recuperating Noah -- in the 115-111 OT win over Portland in February -- caused a recurrence of the injury and led to Noah missing the next 10 games (all losses), is it any wonder that Paxson would be furious that Del Negro did it again? I would be.

For those (like Reggie Miller) that are saying the coach should decide playing time, that cannot be the case when it comes to injuries. I'm old enough to remember Michael Jordan coming back from a broken foot in the '85-'86 season, and his minutes were rigidly scheduled. In the beginning, he played like four minutes per half, then six, then eight, etc. A coach almost never has the player's best interest in mind, so when it comes to situations like these, the front office -- who works more closely with team doctors -- has to intervene.

Still, trying to fight your employee is probably not the best way to resolve your differences. Terminating him would be. Which I'm sure will be the end result once the season is complete. The question is, will Paxson be around to do the firing?

I have no idea how Jerry Reinsdorf is going to react to this, but it certainly hasn't made the Bulls look very good at a time when they need to be seen as a first-class organization in order to lure a marquee free agent. And it's not like Paxson has been any better at his job than Del Negro is at his: Paxson has assembled a fringe-playoff team, and as coach Del Negro has them on the fringes of the playoffs. While I want to see Del Negro let go because I believe a high-profile job like Bulls head coach deserves someone elite, he is no more incompetent than anyone else in the organization.

And that's just sad.

Marv Albert + Mike Fratello > Any other broadcast team > Marv Albert + Mike Fratello + Reggie Miller

That's how bad Miller is; he makes the entire audio broadcast borderline intolerable. He takes totally indefensible positions -- regardless of what the team doctors may have said, Del Negro should have played Noah because Noah wanted to play more; first KC Johnson shouldn't have sat on Pax-VDN story only to release it, then when Craig Sager clarified Johnson's role, he shouldn't have confirmed the original report by Adrian Wojnarowski -- and pontificates endlessly about them in a most inarticulate way, because he's roughly 37 billion times less intelligent than he thinks he is.

And I actually enjoyed Miller's antics as a player. But he should not be in a nationally-televised broadcasting role. He adds absolutely nothing; instead he merely enrages me when I'm forced to listen to him instead of hearing some actual insight / witty banter between Albert and Fratello. That TNT thought there was something wrong with the Marv-Czar pairing is inexplicable. Those guys don't need a third man, and TNT's execs have failed to heed one of sports' most inviolable precepts: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

With this Bulls team, you never know

2010-04-14T18:58:00.004-05:00

Tuesday's 101-93 dispatching of the Boston Celtics was a huge win for the Bulls. But their work in claiming a playoff spot is only partially completed.

Yes, it was great to see Derrick Rose really come through in crunch time, scoring 17 of his career-high 39 points in the fourth quarter, and even hitting a pair of (semi-)clutch free throws. And Kirk Hinrich had a superb shooting game in scoring 30, although it would be foolhardy to think that it is something he could do consistently.

But even though the Bulls are ostensibly that much closer to the postseason, for some reason I am not feeling very confident today. Actually, I know the reason: This season, the Bulls have too often followed a big win with an even bigger loss, as I've seen several great performances succeeded by some major defecation in their pantaloons. To wit:

Big Win	Next Game
vs. GSW, 96-91 (OT)	L vs. BOS, 106-80
vs. ATL, 101-98 (OT)	L vs. SAC, 102-98
vs. ORL, 101-93	L vs. OKC, 98-85
@ NO, 108-106 (OT)	L vs. LAC, 90-82
vs. PHI, 122-90	L @ WAS, 101-95
vs. POR, 115-111 (OT)	L @ IND, 100-90
vs. HOU, 98-88	L vs. MIA, 103-74
vs. CHA, 96-88	L vs. MIL, 79-74
vs. CLE, 109-108	L @ NJ, 127-116 (2OT)
vs. BOS, 101-93	??? @ CHA

Quite simply, the Bulls can't afford a similar letdown. Regardless of who is/isn't playing substantial minutes for the Bobcats, Chicago needs to have another performance worthy of a playoff team. Hopefully, I'm just worrying over nothing, but it would be just like this team to get everyone's hopes back up only to crush them with a pitiful showing.

8 keys to the 8 seed

2010-04-13T17:10:00.008-05:00

With 80 games down and two to play, and despite everything that's come before this, the Bulls control their own playoff destiny. Sunday's 104-88 win in Toronto assured that.

However, the picture is not as rosy as you might think. After the Raptors surprisingly-easy 111-97 win in Detroit on Monday, the Playoff Odds are not in the Bulls' favor. And they're not even close, really. ESPN.com's John Hollinger gives Chicago just a 28.5% of edging the Raptors, which falls between Basketball-Reference.com's odds (29.5%) and CoolStandings.com's (28.2%).

I believe the Bulls' chances are, in reality, slightly better than that. For starters, their final opponent, Charlotte, has its playoff seeding locked in, and with nothing left to play for is likely to rest its regulars, regardless of any claims to the contrary. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of tonight's opponent, Boston. The Celtics still have an outside shot at grabbing the Eastern Conference's 3-seed -- they need to win their final two and Atlanta would have to lose to a Cavaliers team that only cares about staying healthy. Plus, after last year's hard-fought and sometimes acrimonious first-round playoff series, I'm sure Boston would love to knock the Bulls out of the postseason yet again.

Meanwhile, the Raptors play the Knicks at home, a game everyone (but me) is talking about as a gimme. I actually think New York will win. I have a few reasons, other than it's what I'm hoping will happen: 1) The Knicks' style is very similar to Toronto's, only they do it better. 2) While the Raptors are working on a sweep of the season series, they've won the games by eight, six, and two points, and all but one of those was with the injured Chris Bosh playing. 3) Mike D'Antoni is so superior as a coach to Jay Triano that I really think he'll have his guys amped up for the game, and the Knicks will treat it like their playoffs, while the Raptors will think they can just skate to the win.

Having said that, the Bulls can't count on getting any help, and have to assume that they need to win both games to get in. They can't do anything about the winnable games that they've dropped down the stretch; they have to look forward and do whatever it takes to come out on top in these last two. Here's a helpful list of things they can do to ensure they walk away with the eight seed:

1. Limit the turnovers
The Bulls have won four of their last six. In the losses to Milwaukee and New Jersey, they had 16 and 17 turnovers, respectively. In the four wins, they've been remarkably consistent, turning the ball over 10 times twice and 11 times in the other two. That's a difference of six turnovers per game between the wins and the losses. Keep the turnovers to 13 or less, and the Bulls will have a very good chance of winning both games.

2. Play Joakim Noah in crunch time
Look, most of these are going to fall into the Duh category. But the more I watch, the more that it's clear to me that this is not Derrick Rose's team -- it's Noah's. Noah is the leader, it's Noah's energy the team feeds off of, and it's Noah who's their best crunch-time performer.

So he needs to be out there. None of this ridiculous offense/defense thing at the end of games with Brad Miller. Sorry, but Noah is the more productive offensive player. Sure, Miller might be the better shooter, but Noah does so much more offensively, most notably crashing the boards for tip-ins. At this point, Noah is the superior player on both ends.

Besides, Noah is about the only guy on the team that doesn't wither in the clutch, making him one of the players I'd trust most with late-game free throws. And at .754 overall from the line, he basically shoots the same as Rose (.761), Luol Deng (.766), and Kirk Hinrich (.750) even when there's no pressure on.

3. Use newly-signed Rob Kurz to pull a Gillooly on Jannero Pargo
I don't know how many times I've said that Pargo needs to stop playing, but he continues to get his 15 minutes a game. So if horrible shot selection and all-around ghastly play can't take Pargo out of the lineup, maybe a lead pipe to the shins will.

4. Stop focusing on the officiating
The Bulls veteran "leaders" -- I'm thinking of Hinrich and Miller -- are two of the biggest whiners in the league. According to them, they've never committed a foul, and every whistle against them is an injustice of the highest order. When they're not arguing the calls made against them, they're badgering the refs for non-calls on their missed shots / turnovers.

Unfortunately, this attitude has rubbed off on the rest of the team. Especially Rose.

Yes, the questionable calls in the Nets game hurt, but a bigger reason for the loss -- and the Bulls blowing a 7-point lead in the final minute of the first overtime -- was that they allowed their focus to be overcome by the officiating. Instead of putting any no-calls behind them, the Bulls allowed them to fester, and in the process lost track of the important thing -- doing whatever it took to come away with the win.

5. When Derrick Rose gets frustrated, take him out of the game
More than anyone else, Rose clearly let the way the game was officiated get to him. It started with his foul-plus-flagrant early in the fourth, and continued more or less until the moment he fouled out.

I understand that he's still a kid, and prone to getting frustrated. Shit, if I were him, I'd be frustrated too. One of the great mysteries to me is how Rose can go to the hole so often, and yet draw so few fouls. Last year, I would've chalked it up to him being a rookie, except the Thunder's Russell Westbrook got to the line with nearly twice the frequency: 428 attempts in 2668 minutes (0.160 FTA/min) for Westbrook, versus 250 attempts in 3000 minutes (0.083 FTA/min) for Rose. I have no idea what it is, because they also have pretty much the same body type; all I know is that I see Rose take a ton of contact and not get the whistle.

And in the Nets game, a number of questionable calls were made -- or not made, as the case may be -- against Rose, especially on his back-to-back turnovers in the first overtime. But while his frustration is understandable, it doesn't mean that he should stay on the court when he's clearly overwhelmed by it. He's still young. Pull him out of the game briefly, talk to him, get his mind right, and put him back in there.

You know, coach him.

6. Play like champions
Just kidding. But they need to at least play like a playoff team, as opposed to one that chokes at home to the Andrew Bogut-less Bucks, loses to New Jersey (twice), and blows a 35-point lead against the Kings.

7. When a lineup isn't working, change it
In a perfect world, I wouldn't even have to say this. But in the loss to the Nets, Vinny Del Negro stubbornly kept the lineup of Rose, Hinrich, Deng, Miller, and Taj Gibson out there for basically the entire first overtime -- Noah came in for defense for all of 13 seconds -- and beginning of the second, until Rose fouled out. This was despite the fact that from the final minute of OT until that point, the lineup was outscored 11-0.

Even if Del Negro thought Noah was unavailable, he needed to make a move. Miller, who had completely expended himself in helping the Bulls come back from a 12-point, fourth-quarter deficit, had clearly run out of gas -- he missed badly on a pair of 3s in the first OT, either of which would have sealed the win -- and could have used the rest. Del Negro either should have gone small with Flip Murray or brought in Hakim Warrick. Or he could have pulled Gibson (3-of-10 shooting, plus-minus of -16) for either of them.

The point is, he shouldn't have just done nothing when the game was starting to get away from them. And he can't afford any similar inaction the rest of the way.

8. Seriously, don't play Jannero Pargo
I can't emphasize this enough.

A win's a win

2010-04-09T03:41:00.002-05:00

And boy did the Bulls need a win.

Playing at the United Center on Tuesday night against a Cleveland Cavaliers team that decided to give it a go without an ostensibly healthy LeBron James, the Bulls overcame some late-game free throw dry-heaving to eke out a 109-108 victory and pull even with Toronto in the race for the final Eastern Conference playoff spot.

With Chris Bosh likely done for the season, it appears that even without the tiebreaker Chicago has the edge over the Raps. Of course, the Bulls (38-40) absolutely have to beat the RuPaul-of-big-men-free Raptors in Toronto on Sunday. However, with the way the Bulls just played in consecutive games against teams missing their respective best players -- Milwaukee minus the injured Andrew Bogut, Cleveland without a resting LeBron -- I wouldn't even consider calling it a gimme. Nor would I say that about their next game, Friday in New Jersey (the Raptors will be in Atlanta). The Nets have already beaten the Bulls once, and have been playing respectably of late, going 4-4 in their last eight games.

Unlike Tuesday's 79-74 loss to the Bucks, the Bulls played Cleveland (61-18) with a sense of urgency and the appropriate level of intensity. Derrick Rose dished out 10 assists and scored a team-high 24 points on 10-of-17 shooting, while Joakim Noah consistently delivered when Chicago needed a big play, finishing with 17 points, 15 rebounds, 4 assists, and 4 blocks.

Just as importantly, Noah spearheaded an inspired defensive effort -- although you wouldn't know it from looking at the box score, the Bulls played a much better game on that end than they did versus Milwaukee, despite allowing nearly 30 more points. The Cavs were just hitting difficult shots; they were almost always long and contested.

Neither team led by more than five in the first half, which ended with the Bulls up 60-56. While I would have liked to have seen the Bulls annihilate the shorthanded Cavs (who were also without Shaquille O'Neal, Delonte West, and Daniel Gibson), my biggest complaint was that coach Vinny Del Negro again went five-deep with his bench. And that included yet another appearance by Jannero Pargo, who inexplicably continues to get minutes in his valiant attempt to drive his field goal percentage into the 20s.

In the third quarter, the Bulls built and blew a 12-point lead, and Cleveland eventually went ahead ahead 85-84 early in the fourth. The Bulls then reeled off a 12-4 run to grab a 7-point lead with 7:01 to go, but the Cavs responded by scoring 11 unanswered, highlighted by a pair of long 3s by Mo Williams, the second of which put Cleveland up 100-96 with 4:45 remaining and had LeBron turning the hardwood into his own personal dance floor. Again.

But this time, instead of rebuking LeBron from his seat on the bench, Noah let his play do the talking, and took it to the Cavs on the court. On the Bulls' next possession, he went hard to the hole and got an and-one to pull them back to within 100-99. After Jamario Moon and Kirk Hinrich (23 points on 8-of-12 shooting, rock-solid D) traded baskets, Luol Deng converted a three-point play of his own to give the Bulls a 104-102 lead.

With Williams briefly going cold -- he sandwiched a pair of off-target 3s around an airballed one by Moon, with Noah controlling the boards to limit the Cavs to one-shot possessions -- the Bulls missed a chance to take a two-possession lead when Hinrich drew a shooting foul just inside the 3-point arc and hit only 1-of-2 free throws.

Unfortunately, that would be as good as it would get for the Bulls at the line.

Trailing 105-102, Williams briefly got loose in front of the Bulls bench, and nailed a 3 just ahead of the close by Hinrich and Taj Gibson. But on the ensuing possession, Noah found himself alone a foot below the top of the key, and without hesitation buried an 18-footer to regain the advantage. As TNT's Doug Collins said:

I'm sure that Cleveland will live with Joakim Noah taking that shot -- under two minutes, game tied -- but you've got to give the young guy credit, he stepped up.

Following that, Williams used an Anderson Varejao screen to get the tiniest sliver of space on Hinrich and Gibson, and drilled yet another 3 -- that's four in a span of 3:53, and 35 points for the game -- to give the Cavs a 108-107 lead with 1:31 left to play.

Derrick Rose responded by knifing through the Cleveland defense with a strong take, and although his hanging bank shot rimmed out, Noah was there to tip it home for a 109-108 lead.

Neither team would score the rest of the way, the Cavs because of some inspired Chicago defense, and the Bulls because they treated the free-throw line like a herpes-riddled groupie.

Even though the Williams 3s were the only baskets the Bulls allowed in the final four minutes in holding Cleveland to 2-for-12 shooting, it was in the final 30 seconds that the Chicago D really put the clamps down.

After Rose missed a forced 3 with the shot clock expiring, Williams took an outlet pass and tried to beat the Bulls down the floor. But he essentially had to go 1-on-4, and his layup was blocked out of bounds by Gibson, who battled foul trouble and missed his last eight field goal attempts, but still managed to log some productive minutes (three blocks, two steals).

Williams got the ensuing inbounds and missed a 16-footer with Hinrich draped all over him. Deng (22 points, 10 rebounds) grabbed the board and was fouled with 14.4 seconds remaining, and proceeded to miss both free throws.

Cleveland then had a few chances to regain the lead, but suddenly looked completely lost without James to turn to in crunch time. Varejao deer-in-the-headlightsed a 17-footer, and Moon had his attempted putback swatted away by Noah. The ball ended up in Anthony Parker's hands, and he found Varejao, who by this point had fecal juices running down his legs, and he chunked a reasonably-open jumper from 15 feet. Rose grabbed the rebound and was fouled with 1.3 seconds left.

He then went to the line and missed both free throws. These weren't in-and-out jobs, either; he completely short-armed each of them as if he were playing Kansas. But on the second miss, Noah made an extremely heady play, back-tapping the rebound so that the clock expired without the Cavs ever getting another possession, letting out a scream as he did so to celebrate what was a huge win for the Bulls.

Some might call it a moral defeat; others prefer immoral victory. But it goes in the W column all the same.

A number of reasons to be depressed

2010-04-07T20:35:00.004-05:00

Beaten and broken down.

That's how I feel after the Bulls' 79-74 loss the short-handed Milwaukee Bucks at the United Center on Tuesday night.

Knowing Toronto had already lost, the Bulls blew a chance to pull even in the race for the final Eastern Conference playoff berth; with the Raptors owning the tiebreaker, the Bulls just can't afford to miss opportunities like this one. And yet they did, meekly succumbing to an inspired group from Milwaukee.

The reasons to be bummed out by the outcome are almost innumerable. But not quite, as I'm taking it upon myself to examine some of the critical numbers from yet another painful loss:

7: Bulls turnovers in an otherwise very good first quarter that ended with them leading 27-14. The carelessness was indicative of a team playing without a sense of urgency; despite everything at stake, the Bulls couldn't match Milwaukee's intensity and focus, and were completely out-worked by the Bucks, whose playoff berth was all but assured coming in and therefore had very little left to play for.

5: Bulls reserves on the court to start the second quarter. At a time when the team is healthy and in the homestretch of the regular season and most coaches would be shortening their rotation, Vinny Del Negro emptied his bench to start the second quarter. The unit immediately let the Bucks back into the game, giving them a glimmer of hope when the Bulls should have been putting their foot on their throats.

0: (tie)
A) Assists by Kirk Hinrich. Hinrich also shot 4-for-16 (1-for-6 on 3s), had two rebounds, one steal, no blocks, and didn't get to the free-throw line in a 44-minute stint highlighted by nine points. Unfortunately, his atrocious performance was nearly matched by Luol Deng. Sure, Deng had a double-double, but he required 17 shots to get 16 points, had just one assist as he consistently tried to go one-on-one, and played listlessly throughout, missing a number of easy buckets and getting toasted by former Bull John Salmons defensively.
B) Minutes played by the Bucks best player, Andrew Bogut. I told my friend Art before the game that I'd be more confident if Bogut -- out with a grotesquely-injured elbow -- was playing, because Scott Skiles is such a good coach that he no doubt would use it to get his troops fired up for the game, and would be completely unwilling to acccept the injury as an excuse for poor play. You know, unlike the Bulls did when Joakim Noah was out.

7,000,000: The approximate number of dollars the Bulls paid to Skiles through last season to NOT be their coach.

11: Bulls free throw attempts. Despite Bogut's absence in the middle, the Bulls continually settled for outside shots instead of trying to get to the rim.

36.2: The Bulls field goal percentage -- thanks to all those jumpers -- after a hot first quarter (11-for-16, 68.8%).

26-0: Points scored by Salmons against those by Hakim Warrick and Joe Alexander, the players he was traded for.

I suppose you could argue that it's an unfair comparison, given that Salmons played 44 minutes while Warrick played just four and Alexander wasn't even active. But the minutes alone are indicative of the disparity in the talent exchanged, and the game served as Exhibit A for why you shouldn't make a cap-clearing deadline deal with a team you are jockeying with for a postseason berth.

Was there any doubt that Salmons was the Bucks best player? That if he hadn't been on the team, the Bulls would have won the game? Salmons scored a game high 26-points -- twice as many as any other Buck besides Ersan Ilyasova (17) -- and despite being their primary ballhandler in crunch time, didn't commit a turnover in a team-high 44 minutes.

As Art wrote in a post-game email, "I'm so glad we got rid of Salmons and can now sign Joe Johnson to a horrible contract this summer. Awesome."

3: Offensive rebounds the Bulls grabbed after the first quarter. One of the biggest reason the Bucks were able to completely turn the game around and prevent the Bulls from making any sort of sustained run was that they limited Chicago to one-and-done offensive possessions.

2: Points the Bulls were attempting to get, down by three with 7.9 seconds left when Brad Miller got whistled for traveling. Why in the world weren't they setting up to shoot a game-tying 3 when the team is down 77-74? And why is the ball in the hands of the backup center instead of the team's only star, Derrick Rose, who also just happens to be a point guard? Even renowned homer Stacey King pointed this out:

And nothing against Brad right there, but there's a situation you're down 3, with about 15 seconds [actually 13, when the ball was inbounded] to go in the game, and you would think that there would be some kind of pick-and-pop situation. Not to take anything away from Brad handling the ball, but that's the last guy you want to be trying to dribble and trying to create something off the dribble.

Keep in mind that this all occurred coming out of a timeout. I can't even fathom what might've been discussed at that during that stoppage in play. But I suppose it must've went something like this:

Del Negro: Alright everybody, this is exciting. I'm beginning to think that we could actually win this game. I mean, I doubt it, but maybe. Okay Derrick ...

Rose: I'll take the inbounds, go hard to the hole while Miller and Deng set a series of screens on the perimeter, and then find the open man for the game-tying 3?

Del Negro: Hold on there, professor. You're going to be a decoy. We're going to inbound it to Luol. Lu, you're going to act like you're the last person who wants to be near the ball at this point, and you'll find Brad beyond the arc. Now, Brad ...

Miller: Coach, I can make it.

Del Negro: Take it easy, Jimmy Chitwood. You're not going to shoot it, or even think about trying to tie the game. We have to play to our strengths here, so you've got to immediately put the ball on the floor and CREATE. Lose on three, lose on three, LOSE!

I'm always amazed when I look at the stats and Miller isn't averaging 41 turnovers per 48 minutes, because it seems to me that he is constantly losing possession while trying to create something, either by throwing a terrible bounce pass, getting the ball stripped, or just flat-out losing his dribble. Remarkably, Miller averages fewer turnovers per 48 than Rose and, more surprisingly, Noah.

13.9: The percent chance the Bulls now have of getting into the playoffs, according to ESPN.com's John Hollinger, which is pretty much right between CoolStandings.com (15.1%) and Basketball-Reference.com (12.8).

4: The typical number of hours I squander finding/editing photos and creating captions. Which is why, in my depressed state, you're not getting any here. Sorry.

The (hopefully enduring) legacy of Butler

2010-04-06T11:06:00.007-05:00

Share

*** NOTE: I don't care how late this is. I had some lingering thoughts on the NCAA title game and I wanted to express them. If you don't care anymore, I promise I won't be offended. ***

Much to my surprise, the 2010 NCAA Tournament kept up the thrilling pace right until the very end.

In a fitting climax to a fantastic two-and-a-half weeks, Duke held on for a 61-59 win and the championship when a buzzer-beating half-court shot by Butler's Gordon Hayward caromed off the backboard and then the front of the rim before tragically falling harmlessly to the floor.

This followed Hayward narrowly missing a Keith Smart-esque fade-to-the-baseline rainbow on the previous possession with five seconds to go and the Bulldogs trailing 60-59. With the camera right behind him, the shot looked dead-on, and visions of it going down as one of the greatest in college basketball history flashed through my mind, but it ended up being just a touch too strong.

Butler immediately fouled Brian Zoubek on the rebound, and with 3.6 seconds left and the Bulldogs out of timeouts, he made the first before intentionally missing the second, a strategy I disagreed with. Even though it meant Butler wouldn't be able to set up a play on the inbounds, and the running clock pretty much ensured frenetic disorganization, it also put Duke in position to lose if the Bulldogs hit a miracle 3.

Which they damn near did.

Immediately after Heyward's prayer rimmed out, I couldn't help but think of a bullshit charge that was called on him midway through the second half that erased two points, when it really should've been an and one. Could have been a totally different outcome had that sequence been called properly. Still, it could not take away from what was an absolutely riveting contest.

During the course of the game, I became so amped up and nervous as the massive tension continued to mount -- the differential between the two teams was never more than five points in the second half -- that I kept thinking, I cannot even imagine how badly I'd be freaking out if I was a Butler alum. I mean, seriously. You go to some tiny school in Indiana that no one's ever heard of, and then 10 or 15 years later they're playing for the NCAA title? I was completely losing it and I have absolutely no ties to the school; if I did, I'm pretty sure I would've had multiple heart attacks and/or aneurysms.

Still, in the end it was hard to be disappointed. It was such a great, exciting game and the finish was so close that I still had a goofy grin on my face long after it ended. I also thought about how Hayward came within a hair's breadth of immortality. I really think that if his half-courter had rattled in, it would have gone down as the greatest play in sports history. Think of all the legendary finishes in sports: Bobby Thomson's Shot Heard Round the World, the Lorenzo Charles dunk to win the '83 tournament, Bill Mazeroski's homer, The Play, Kirk Gibson's blast, Doug Flutie-to-Gerard Phelan, Jerry West's 60-footer in the '70 NBA Finals, Dwight Clark's catch, or any of Michael Jordan's buzzer beaters. None of them turned a certain loss into a title; most of them didn't even occur in a championship game (or a Game 7, as the case may be.) Charles' dunk and Maz's homer did, but both of those games were tied. Given the length of the shot and the magnitude of the upset, Hayward's heave would have topped them all.

I sincerely hope that he doesn't spend the rest of his life thinking about that. All of the kids from Butler should be exceptionally proud of what they did, and realize that the entire country (of non-Duke alums) was rooting for them. They might not have come away with the title, but I'll remember that team long after the championship is lost among the many in Duke's annals. So congratulations, Butler Bulldogs. That was a hell of a run.

80 Is Not Enough

2010-04-05T10:56:00.002-05:00

Alright, I'm back with the second half of my season preview. Since I inundated you with four billion words yesterday, let's just dive right in, and I'll try to keep it brief. But keep in mind that I always try to keep it brief, and rarely -- okay, never -- succeed.

NL Central
St. Louis Cardinals	89-73
Cincinnati Reds	84-78
Chicago Cubs	80-82
Milwaukee Brewers	79-83
Pittsburgh Pirates	73-89
Houston Astros	71-91

Unless Chris Carpenter has one of his injury-plagued years, between him, Albert Pujols, Adam Wainwright, and the emerging Colby Rasmus, it's difficult to envision a scenario in which the Cardinals don't win the division.

I like the Reds a lot; their defense is rock-solid -- best in the National League last year, according to FanGraph's Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR), and they'll add a full season of Scott Rolen -- and they have lots of good, young pitching for Dusty Baker to destroy.

As for the Cubs, the biggest problems are their defense and bullpen. There's not much they can do about the D at this point; they basically have all the same players as last year's 21st-ranked unit, although they should improve up-the-middle when Starlin Castro arrives. And the outfield should see a slight uptick with Marlon Byrd taking over in center for the better-suited-in-right Kosuke Fukudome.

But any defense is rendered moot when a pitcher is walking everybody in sight. And that's the problem with the Cubs' bullpen: too many bases on balls.

For the bullpen to have any chance of being successful, Carlos Marmol has to regain his form from '07-'08, as his already-high walk rate jumped to an insane 7.91 per 9 innings pitched last year. Luckily, he managed to up his groundball/flyball ratio to 0.74 (from 0.62), and that -- combined with what must've been a huge dose of luck -- helped him quarter his home-run rate, from a far-too-hefty (and equally fluky) 1.03 per 9 IP in 2008 to 0.24.
Still, put it all together and Marmol's FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) was 4.06, much worse than his 3.41 ERA. It's worth noting, however, that Marmol has out-performed his FIP significantly in each of the last three years. Mariano Rivera consistently does likewise, and manages to do so while mixing in the occasional strike every now and then.

Marmol is so utterly unhittable that he can get away with a very high walk rate, but not as astronomical as last year's. He needs to get it back under 5 per 9 IP, which isn't asking too much. If he can't do that, the Cubs are in big, big trouble, because they don't have a whole lot behind him.

As I mentioned yesterday, their top lefty, John Grabow, has been very hit-lucky the last few seasons, with a completely unsustainable .265 BABiP, and walks a batter every other inning. Their top-right-handed set-up man, Angel Guzman, is out indefinitely, embarking on his annual spring migration to the disabled list. Esmailin Caridad's unproven, and is coming off a 4.17 ERA (and 4.26 FIP) in Triple-A. Justin Berg has a 1.04 strikeout to walk ratio in over 300 innings in Double- and Triple-A. Jeff Samardzija had a 7.53 ERA last year.

I do like Sean Marshall, and James Russell looks promising in that he at least has proven to be somewhat stingy with the walks -- 2.6 per 9 over the course of his minor-league career -- but they're both lefties and likely to be used situationally.

Pretty much the only redeeming factor about the bullpen is that it's cheap. I don't believe in allocating too many resources for relievers; a team typically is better served using some of its organizational arms instead of signing veteran middle men to 3-year, $16.5-million deals. I just wish the pitchers the Cubs elevated had better track records.

The rotation, however, will be better than the 'pen. I expect Carlos Zambrano to win more than nine games, as his peripherals were actually pretty respectable last year -- his FIP (3.77) was his lowest since 2006, and he upped his strikeout rate after it had been in steady decline. A big part of the perception of Zambrano as a disappointment last season -- other than the single-digit wins, which he has little control over -- can be traced to a .308 BABiP that was about 30 points higher than his career number. And that should come back down this year.

However, any Zambrano improvement will likely be offset by some regression by Randy Wells. Wells came into the year having spent parts of three seasons in Triple-A, and allowed BABiPs ranging between .325 and .371. But last season against major-league hitters it was just .294. While that's not insanely low by any means, I'd be surprised given his track record if that's his true level. Because of that and his relatively low K-rate, I'm not expecting very big things from him. If he can somehow match last season's performance, I'd be very happy.

Ryan Dempster shocked me for the second straight year in '09, actually giving the Cubs some value on their 4-year, $52 million investment, which is starting to look much less bat-shit crazy than I originally thought. The most amazing thing is, Dempster has become almost a completely different pitcher since returning to the rotation. Through the '07 season, he had given up 4.7 BB/9. But over the last two seasons, he's dropped that to 3.1, in the process increasing his K:BB ratio from 1.60 to 2.55. It's a remarkable transformation, and as BABiP last year (.307) was right in line with his career mark, Dempster's success might actually continue.

I like Tom Gorzelanny enough, but he has to prove that he can limit his walks, which was the primary reason he fell out of favor in Pittsburgh. And I'm not going to get into it again after yesterday, but I'm not exactly sanguine about strikeout-averse Carlos Silva's chances of being a successful starter, which means the quick return of Ted Lilly will be crucial.

As for the offense, I do like the Cubs bench, especially Chad Tracy and Xavier Nady. Tyler Colvin will not be able to sustain his spring training success, but he's young and cheap so no harm done. It's not like Sam Fuld is a transcendent player anyway, and I expect him and his solid glove to be up soon enough.

In terms of the starters, Byrd should be pretty much what he's always been: a league-average offensive player whose glove in center is also precisely average -- he has a UZR/150 of 0.0 in 4,266.1 innings.

As long as fans can accept Fukudome for what he is -- a middling-average, high-OBP guy with little power and lots of strikeouts -- and the Cubs sit him against lefties, I think he will have a stealthily nice year, and his defense seems to play better in right (UZR of 18.2) than it does in center (-13.5).

In left, while he's one of my all-time least-favorite Cubs, there's almost no way that Albatrasso Soriano can be as bad as he was last year. His BABiP was a career-low .279, and if fortune allows that to return to his career norm (.306), he'll have a much better season. But I don't think anyone knows what to make of his faltering D. Luckily the Cubs aren't even halfway through that magnificent contract of his, so we'll all have plenty of time to figure it out.

Moving to the infield, I expect more of the same from Derrek Lee (not quite as good as last year, but not as bad as the two that preceded it), Ryan Theriot (who hopefully will go back to taking the occasional walk instead of trying to blast home runs), and Aramis Ramirez (highly-productive when in the lineup, which is far too infrequently.)

Geovany Soto will bounce back from an extremely unlucky (.246 BABiP) 2009, as his walk and strikeout rates were almost identical to his Rookie-of-the-Year season's. Although his line drive rate dropped from 21.0% to 18.1% (almost all of which became ground balls), I expect that after having donated those 25 pounds to Tyler Colvin, he'll rejoin the offensive elite among catchers.

Mike Fontenot will also be much improved. (And as the only Cub on my NL-only fantasy team, he'd better be.) His BABiP, an unsustainably-high .353 in 2008, plunged to .276 in '09, and hopefully will settle somewhere in the middle. Fontenot's production fell off notably after he moved to third base -- a position he had very little familiarity with -- in the wake of Ramirez' annual ailment., and while he never used the position switch as an excuse for his struggles, I nonetheless expect him to rebound now that he (hopefully) has a permanent home.

And that's about it. Really, the bullpen and defense are the only things keeping me from predicting a win total in the mid-to-upper 80's. If they can get some good luck with both, I could actually see them being right there with the Cardinals.

The Brewers don't have enough pitching, I like what the Pirates are putting together but they're still a ways away, and the only positive I expect from Houston are a potential break-out years from Felipe Paulino and maybe J.R. Towles.

As for the rest of this stuff:

NL East
Philadelphia Phillies	91-71
Atlanta Braves*	86-76
Florida Marlins	83-79
New York Mets	78-84
Washington Nationals	73-89
NL West
Arizona Diamondbacks	86-76
Colorado Rockies	83-79
Los Angeles Dodgers	82-80
San Francisco Giants	78-84
San Diego Padres	65-97
AL East
Boston Red Sox	98-64
New York Yankees	93-69
Tampa Bay Rays	90-72
Baltimore Orioles	77-85
Toronto Blue Jays	72-90
AL Central
Chicago White Sox	86-76
Minnesota Twins	84-78
Detroit Tigers	78-84
Cleveland Indians	75-87
Kansas City Royals	69-93
AL West
Seattle Mariners	87-75
California Angels	85-77
Texas Rangers	78-84
Oakland A's	77-85

* Wild card

NLDS

St. Louis over Atlanta

Philadelphia over Arizona

ALDS

Boston over Chicago

New York over Seattle

NLCS

St. Louis over Philadelphia

ALCS

Boston over New York

World Series

Boston over St. Louis

And finally, the award winners:

NL Rookie of the Year: Jason Heyward, Braves

He'll be playing a key role on a team I have making the playoffs. As good of an offensive prospect as there's been in recent years, with a minor-league track record that compares favorably to just about any current star's. To me, he has to be given the edge over Steven Strasburg, who not only has never faced professional hitters in a real game, but also is starting the year in the minors.

AL Rookie of the Year: Brian Matusz, Orioles

Matusz is the best of what appears to be a weak crop of AL rookies.

NL Cy Young: Roy Halladay, Phillies

Moving from the toughest division in baseball -- and a third of his games against the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays -- to the National League should make Halladay's already-elite numbers even better. Although I didn't like the Phillies companion deal involving Cliff Lee -- I thought they should have kept both -- Halladay will be the NL's best.

AL Cy Young: Felix Hernandez, Mariners

He was damn close last season, but Zach Greinke had a historically great year and got a ton of (well-deserved) early attention.

NL MVP: Chase Utley, Cardinals

Inevitably, voters are going to get tired of picking Albert Pujols every year -- for proof of this phenomenon, look no further than Michael Jordan's mere five MVP's -- and I think this is the year that happens. After a half-decade of being overlooked by voters in favor of his grossly-inferior teammate Ryan Howard, I think Utley finally gets his due this year, in a close race with Pujols and Hanley Ramirez.

AL MVP: Joe Mauer, Twins

Now that voters realize that a catcher with a .340 batting average and 425 OBP is more valuable than his first-base-playing teammate with the gaudy RBI total, I expect Mauer to run away with the award once again.

One final thought: I've read the proposal for floating realignment, which seems completely ridiculous. But something needs to be done, because the set-up as it stands now is totally unfair to the Rays, Orioles, and Blue Jays. It's one thing to not have a shot at a division title because of having one power team in your division, but they've got to deal with two. Because of that, they are the only teams that come into every season with virtually no chance of making the playoffs.

For the third straight year, I think that the AL East will have the three best teams in baseball. But only two of them will be among the eight playoff qualifiers, and it's really unfair to the Rays especially. Not only is their path to the wild card blocked for all intents and purposes, but they have to play the Red Sox and Yankees 36 times to get there, whereas a team like the Twins or White Sox only has to play those two 12 times. Yes, the unbalanced schedule is bullshit too.

Also, as poor as the NL Central is, it's unfair for an organization like Pittsburgh to have to compete with five other teams for the division title, while the fellow small-market A's only have to go against three others in the AL West, but that's small potatoes compared to the injustice that is the AL East.

Since moving an NL team to the AL and having ongoing inter-league series throughout the year would be too radical for Bud Selig, and it appears that the unbalanced schedule and the seemingly weekly nationally-televised Red Sox-Yankees games it produces aren't going anywhere, here's my solution for the poor, downtrodden also-rans in the AL East:

If the third-place team in any division finishes second in the wild-card race and has a better winning percentage than the division titlist with the worst record, they would meet that division winner in a one-game playoff to determine who actually gets to go to the Division Series.

Over the last 10 seasons, this would have come into play only twice: in the AL in '08 -- when the Yankees finished behind the Red Sox and Rays and would've faced the White Sox under the terms of my proposal -- and the NL in '07, with would've seen the Padres taking on the Cubs. But it would serve to give teams in the AL East just a sliver of hope, and isn't that what all fans deserve?

Getting off academic probation: Your 2010 Cubs

2010-04-04T21:52:00.004-05:00

Because this gimmick was so overwhelmingly successful last year -- if I recall correctly, I got at least 11 hits that week -- I am bringing back my Cubs' off-season report card. As this off-season was significantly less active -- and by active I mean littered with godawful moves -- than last year's, I don't have a whole lot to work with here. This covers every major transaction the Cubs made, although I might be missing something as neither ESPN.com nor the Cubs' own site has the Jake Fox trade/Aaron Miles jettisoning listed. In fact, it's not listed among the transactions anywhere I could find. I don't know what kind of conspiracy this might be, but it most certainly is shadowy. If because of shadowy conspiracies such as these, this list is not comprehensive, you have my sincerest insincere apologies. I'll also add that I tried to go chronologically for reasons even I don't understand.

10/22/2009 Named Rudy Jaramillo hitting coach

The ultimate much-ado-about-nothing move. While Jaramillo might be a great at what he does, from everything I've seen a major league hitting coach has very little impact on a team's overall offensive attack. Sure, he can get results here and there, but for the most part, he'll help some guys while others regress. It's just the way it works.

Remember when Sammy Sosa's dramatic improvement was attributed to Jeff Pentland? Assuming Pentland was unable to write prescriptions, I think we can safely give the credit elsewhere. But that's not the point. Pentland did not have the same impact on the rest of the Cubs. A hitting coach's approach is going to work for some people, and have little (or negative) effect on others. More importantly, luck and randomness will be much bigger factors to any individual Cubs' statistical improvement this season.

We won't see any lasting offensive improvement until the Cubs organizationally commit to an approach centered around patience and plate discipline. Hiring a new major-league hitting coach is just Hey, look at us, we're doing stuff to get better! as long as they keep promoting guys like Tyler Colvin based largely on an insanely hit-lucky (.576 BABiP; career minor league mark: .313) 77 spring training plate appearances in which he's drawn zero walks.

On the other hand, decorum dictates that the Cubs must have a hitting coach, and Jaramillo's supposedly as good as they come. Just don't expect anything earth shattering. And if the earth does happen to shatter, please look at contributing factors like BABiP before giving Jaramillo the lion's share of the credit. Grade: B+

11/19/09 Traded RHP Aaron Heilman to the Arizona Diamondbacks for 1B Ryne White and LHP Scott Maine

Also known as, Let's All Forget Last Off-Season Happened (LAFLOSH), Part I.

Acquiring Heilman was a terrible idea, and I'm not about to give Jim Hendry an attaboy here because he realized a year too late that Heilman's free-pass-issuin' ways (5.4 BB/9 IP the previous season) would be a terrible fit in the Cubs bullpen. Here's what I wrote of the deal to acquire Heilman in the first place:

Heilman was a mere throw-in to the Mariners in the J.J. Putz deal, but the Cubs couldn't wait to get their hands on the 30-year-old with the 5.21 ERA. Why? Supposedly because Jim Hendry had been an admirer since Heilman's days at Notre Dame. Hey, Jim, here are some other college pitchers you admired: Bobby Brownlie, Ben Christensen, and Grant Johnson. How 'bout we try going with major league track record instead, alright buddy? Thanks. Grade: F

Man, I was a real a-hole last year. Oh how times have changed!

It turned out that Heilman was serviceable last season -- his FIP (fielding independent pitching, which is scaled like ERA) was 4.37 -- although not real popular with the Wrigley faithful. Because of his "success", the Cubs were actually able to get some a little bit of value in return. White is a stocky first baseman with good patience and little power who posted a .266/.371/.356 (BA/OBP/SLG) line as a 22-year-old in High-A ball. I love the walks (65 in 491 PA), but as a 1B at that age in a hitters league, the slugging percentage is just awful. As White was born in Chicago in 1986, I think it's pretty safe to assume he was named after Ryne Sandberg, but I've been unable to unearth any confirmation thereof.

Maine, 25, whose parents were undoubtedly huge Scott Sanderson fans, was actually the bigger prize, a low-arm-slot lefty with excellent peripherals -- FIPs of 2.88 in AA and 2.59 in AAA last year -- who does walk a few too many guys. He's got an injury history, but has already had Tommy John surgery, which in many ways is a good thing because he's gotten it out of the way and performed well since. He strikes out about a batter an inning, and looks like he'll be a decent lefty out of the pen within the next couple of seasons.

All in all, I'd say it was a pretty good return for a guy the Cubs likely would have non-tendered. It's basically the polar opposite of last season's Kevin Gregg trade, although I'd rather have (the subsequently injured) Jose Ceda than Maine. Grade: B+

11/20/09 Signed free agent LHP John Grabow

I didn't like this signing when it happened, because I thought it was way too much money ($7.5 million over 2 years) for a pitcher of Grabow's stature. But after reading thi s, I changed my tune just a little. If you believe the Hardball Times projections, the Cubs essentially paid $5 million for a win, which was the going rate. And given how thin their bullpen appears to be, that's not a bad allocation of resources.

However, Grabow has seriously outperformed his FIPs the last two years, posting ERAs of 2.84 and 3.36 despite FIPs of 4.54 and 4.20. Of course, the differential was due too absurdly low BABiPs, .251 and .279, respectively; Grabow's marks the previous two seasons were .325 and .319. Because he walks far too many guys (nearly 5 per 9 last year), Grabow's inevitable BABip regression is going to have a huge effect on his overall numbers. Hopefully, the Cubs will get one more lucky year out of the next two. Grade: C

11/30/09 Declined arbitration on Chad Fox, Kevin Gregg, Rich Harden, and Reed Johnson

Unlike the incomprehensible failure to offer Kerry Wood arbitration last year, all of these actually made sense. Fox and Gregg were no-brainers, although I'm thrilled that one fabulous year of Gregg cost the Cubs Ceda. I don't care if Ceda's now injured; that trade was inexcusable.

Declining on Harden was also the right move, as he likely would have accepted; he ended up getting 1-year at $7.5 million from Texas, which is probably right around what he would have gotten in arbitration after making $7 mil last year with the Cubs. Given the (much cheaper) options at hand, that would've been a significant waste of capital for an unreliable arm that seemed to slip a whole lot last year, even when healthy.

Johnson made $3 million last year and salaries rarely go down in arbitration. Considering he only got a 1-year deal for $800,000 on the open market, declining was the right move. Instead of spending $3 million-plus on Johnson, the Cubs used it to sign fellow righty Xavier Nady, who is the better offensive player and is two years younger. Of course, Nady can't play center, but according to FanGraph's UZR, Johnson's no great shakes there either, highlight-reel diving catches notwithstanding. Grade: A

12/3/09 Traded IF Aaron Miles and 1B/3B/OF Jake Fox to the Oakland A's for RHP Jeff Gray, OF/1B/3B Matt Spencer, and RHP Ronny Morla

Hey, what do you know ... it's LAFLOSH, Vol. II.

Look, the Aaron Miles signing was horrible. Everybody (not working for the Cubs) knew it. I said the following last year:

This is our DeRosa replacement? Sure, Miles is a reasonable facsimile of DeRosa, provided you won't quibble over 100 points of OPS. Additionally, Miles made Ronny Cedeno obsolete, even though Cedeno was the better (and much cheaper) player; call me crazy, but even in this day and age two years, $4.9 million seems like an awful lot of money for a utility guy. Grade: D

In the deal with the A's, the Cubs also threw in $1 million dollars, to partially pay Miles' freight. So there's two ways of looking at this:

1. For the privilege of one season of Aaron Miles' .185/.224/.242 line, 20 OPS+, .212 wOBA (weighted on base average), and -1.4 WAR (wins above replacement), the Cubs paid out $3.2 million.

2. Assuming everyone agrees that Miles' is worthless -- and I mean that literally, as in he had no trade value, but it also works in the pejorative sense -- then the deal becomes Jake Fox for the 3 A's and $1.7 million (the balance of Miles' contract). So was that a good deal?

Well, Gray posted a 3.82 FIP in the Big-Boy League last year, and has proven himself to be pretty stingy with the walks, averaging just 2.1BB/9 IP in the minors. The Cubs bullpen has had all kinds of problems with bases on balls over the last several seasons, so I would've thought that Gray would've been a nice alternative in there. But despite what I consider a paper-thin relief corps, Gray -- who did battle a groin injury (thankfully, not to the death) in spring training -- is starting the year in Iowa.

The other two guys are a few years away, if they're lucky enough to make it at all. Spencer, a big corner outfielder, posted a respectable .294/.347/.461 line as a 23-year-old in AA, but it was fueled by a mostly unsustainable (for him at least) .342 BABiP. Morla is the more interesting of the two, however. Now 22, he's had terrible luck in two seasons in in low-A ball, striking out 150 in 138.2 IP, but yielding 157 hits thanks to a BABiP allowed of .382. His ERAs were 4.88 and 4.86, but his FIPs came out to 3.36 and 2.99. I'll be watching to see if he's incredibly hittable or incredibly unlucky. I'm guessing it's the latter.

But I really liked Jake Fox. I did wish his plate discipline was a little better -- and really wished he could've stuck behind the plate -- but he had no position, either on the Cubs or in the National League. I thought he did a very good job at third when Piniella finally gave him a shot there, but everyone seems to think that he can't play anywhere except possibly first base long-term. So for his sake, he needed to be moved to the AL. Given all that, this wasn't a bad deal for the Cubs; still, I can't give it a good grade because it was completely necessitated by the unforgivable Miles signing; it'd be like giving Citigroup credit for turning a profit from investments capitalized by TARP funds. Grade: D+

12/18/09 Traded RF Milton Bradley to the Seattle Mariners for RHP Carlos Silva

Hoo boy. Do I even need to say this is LAFLOSH, Vol. III?

Look, the Bradley signing just flat-out was not a good one, spurred by the Cubs' inexplicable compulsion to become more lefthanded. But to a much greater extent than people gave him credit for, Bradley actually lived up to expectations, not only in the crazies but also on the field.

Everyone knew Bradley wouldn't be able to play 110 games in the outfield; he started 109. No one thought he'd get over 500 PAs, something he's done only twice in his career; he finished with 473. But for all of Bradley's woes, he did post a .378 OBP, the 3rd-best mark on the team (among players with 100 or more ABs), trailing only Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez. His career mark is .371.

Aside from the lack of power (30 XBH) the problem with Bradley was the problems with Bradley. He's a malcontent, he's got a persecution complex, he's nuttier than squirrel turds, all of it. None of this should have been a surprise. But somehow it was to Cubs management.

Still, the most damaging aspect of the Bradley saga was the Cubs' suspension of him. It completely destroyed any remaining trade value that Bradley might have had, because it told every other team that the Cubs absolutely would not be taking him back. It was just like the Sammy Sosa thing after 2004; the organization did everything in its power to destroy the guy's worth while he was still in its employ, and it's a horrendous business practice. Suspending Bradley at that point in the season wasn't going to propel the Cubs into the playoffs because of some enormous boost in clubhouse chemistry. It only served to minimize the return when they finally found a taker for him.

To wit: Carlos Silva.

Silva -- wielding his own indefensible contract (4-years, $48 million) that began in 2008 -- had a nice spring, but I'm not buying. Like some other spring training phenoms (yes, I'm picking on Tyler Colvin yet again), with prolonged exposure Silva will be, well, exposed. As someone who doesn't strike anybody out (3.8 / 9 IP), Silva needs three things: an extreme groundball rate, a good defense behind him, and a home park that's pitcher-friendly.

That's nope, not even close, and Are you kidding me?, respectively.

Supposedly Silva's working on the groundball rate, but over the last four years, he's had a 0.84 groundball/flyball ratio, which is only slightly better than average. Meanwhile, the Cubs D was (and likely still is, as most of the key players are the same) below average in '09. FanGraphs has them as 21st in all of baseball, and team UZR over a single season is much more accurate than individual, owing to relative sample sizes. And over the last three years, Wrigley has been the 3rd-, 8th-, and 2nd-best hitter's park in the major leagues.

The only thing in Silva's favor is that he's going to the easier league. But I don't think that's going to be enough. At the absolute best, Silva will be a league-average 4th-starter, and at $8 million a season -- which is the net after deducting the Mariners $9-million contribution -- that's no bargain. Grade: D+

01/02/10 Signed free agent CF Marlon Byrd

I didn't like this signing much at the time, believing it would fall right in line with Hendry's other hideous 3-year deals to overrated 30-something outfielders (Bradley, Jacque Jones). But I'm starting to come around at least a little bit, mostly because of the same Hardball Times piece, wherein Byrd (3-years, $15 million) was listed as the third-best buy among all free agent position players.

Sure, Byrd benefited from one of the best hitters' parks in the American League, but Wrigley is at least the Ballpark's equal in that regard, plus he should get a boost by moving out of the AL. Besides, $5 million a season isn't a whole lot of money -- Jesus, did I really type that? -- so there's not a whole lot of risk. If someone like Brett Jackson proves he's ready earlier than expected, Byrd's contract won't be much of a hindrance to his progress. Grade: C+

01/27/10 Signed free agent 1B/3B/OF Chad Tracy

I liked this deal a lot. Tracy was a highly-regarded hitting prospect who never quite lived up to all the hype. Over his first three seasons -- during each of which he had at least 530 PAs -- he posted a .291/.348/.470 line for an OPS+ of 106. But injuries and the emergence of other players in the Diamondbacks system, he hasn't had as many as 300 PAs in any season since, and his numbers have dropped across the board. In 2007, he had a .wOBA of .342. In '08 it was .313. Last year, .296. Looking on the bright side, though, he is trending more positively then Alfonso Soriano (his wOBA's down .066 over the last three seasons) at exactly 1% of the cost.

And for just $900,000, the Cubs, unlike last year, now have a legitimate backup they can plug in when Ramirez has his annual nagging-injury acquiescence. I believe Tracy will prove to be very valuable coming off the bench Grade: A-

01/29/10 Signed free agent RF Xavier Nady

I really liked the Nady signing too, and not just for his Cal pedigree.

Okay, it was mostly for his Cal pedigree.

While Nady's probably not as good as his stellar 2008 campaign (.305/.357/.510), he does have a lifetime wOBA of .342, which is slightly above league average. He also killed the ball in his last go-round in the NL, during the first half of that 2008 season (.330/.383/.535), and I'm guessing there's a chance that the Cubs and their sabermetric-eschewing tendencies didn't realize those numbers were fueled by a wholly unsustainable .363 BABiP, 50 points higher than the mark over the rest of his career.

But as fourth outfielder/first basemen types go, Nady is definitely high end. He has murdered left-handed pitching throughout the course of his career, going .307/.382/.470 for a .370 wOBA. That's appealing with Kosuke Fukudome doing his Neifi Perez impression against lefties (.324 SLG; .304 wOBA).

There is some significant downside. The first is that Nady is coming off of Tommy John surgery on his throwing arm, and right field is not the place to stick a guy with a bad wing. The second is that he's making $3.3 million. Not a ton of money, but not cheap either for an incapacitated part-timer. Grade: B

02/04/10 Signed free agent 1B Kevin Millar

I liked the Millar signing too, but as a first baseman who doesn't play passable defense in the outfield (he's got a career -17.2 UZR/150 out there), he was just too redundant with Tracy and Nady. Although with Nady unable to reach second base on four hops at this point, I would've liked to have seen them start Nady on the DL with Millar taking his place. But I'm guessing the Cubs figured an injured Nady was still better afield than Millar, and as the latter didn't have a guaranteed deal anyway, cutting him lose didn't cost them anything. Except perhaps the additional karmic expense of letting go of a guy largely credited with helping the Red Sox break their own championship drought/curse. As we all know, that's exactly what the Cubs needed, more bad karma. Grade: Incomplete

03/27/10 Traded 2B Andres Blanco to the Texas Rangers for a player to be named later or cash

When it became clear that the Cubs weren't going to have a spot for Blanco, they had to do something because he was out of options. That surprised the hell out of me, because I was under the impression that he was a rookie last year, but no. He played (rather sparingly) for the Royals in 04-06, his age 20-22 seasons, totaling just 249 PAs but consuming his options.

Since Blanco is never going to hit enough to warrant any playing time -- he's got a career .264/.319/.352 line in 1143 AAA plate appearances -- the PBTNL will either be organizational flotsam or monetary jetsam. While everyone seems to agree that Blanco's a nice glove man, in the age of the ridiculous 12-man pitching staff, there's just not a place for a guy like that on a big-league bench anymore. I find that to be a little sad. Grade: B-

Cumulative GPA: 2.7

By the Cubs' standards, a solid B- is pretty damn good. Coming off a severely disappointing 2009, it was a reasonably productive winter in which I believe the Cubs at least accomplished most of their goals, although the same could have been said after last off-season. The difference is, their agenda this time was much more logical in the baseball sense, as opposed to being fueled by an inane desire to become more left-handed due to a 3-game-long flame-out after a 97-win season.

So what does it all mean? Find out early tomorrow, when I'll be back with my season preview.

Mail-a-Bull II: The return of (my half-baked theory on) Phil Jackson

2010-04-01T19:48:00.002-05:00

This was originally intended as part of my last "mailbag" column, but it became so long that I decided to break it off into its own post. It's been sitting as a draft for a while now, and it's pretty thin on its own, but whatever; this is what happens when the Bulls drop to 2 games back with eight to play.

Phil Jackson? Did I miss something recently? I don’t see ANY scenario where he would come back to Chicago. Doesn’t make basketball sense (for him), money sense (for either), or common sense.

-- NormVanBeer on Mar 9, 2010 1:31 PM CST

Aw, come on, Norm. Come over to the other side and live a little. In order to enjoy my admittedly-flimsily-premised Phil Jackson post, you have to suspend what you call common sense just a tad, and allow yourself to dream. But I will nonetheless try to bolster my case for Phil so you can more readily consider the possibilities.

There are only 3 places I can see Phil Jackson next year

1) Lakers
2) His home
3) Coaching LeBron – yeah because a guy who coached MJ and KB would want no other. I’d still like him to coach him a MJ/Kobe-less team before passing judgement on how great he is.

-- JustAnotherFan on Mar 12, 2010 8:59 AM CST

If Phil is going to leave the Lakers (which I think is becoming increasingly likely) and he doesn't decide to retire, there aren't a whole lot of places he could conceivably land. He's not going to be interested in a place like Sacramento or Minneapolis; he'll want to go somewhere big, like New York, Chicago, or Boston. Maybe Miami. But the Knicks and Celtics aren't likely to have an opening, and I can't really see Pat Riley and Phil getting together in South Beach. So that leaves three teams: the Bulls, Nets and Clippers.

I think we can eliminate the Nets because 1. They're a long ways away from moving to Brooklyn; and 2. In spite of Brook Lopez, Devin Harris, and cap space, they're a 10-win team and as close to contending as they are to moving to New York. Assuming they don't get one of the top-2 picks this year, Phil's going to want to have more chips if he's going to sit down and play a few hands.

Which brings up the crucial part of this whole scenario: How much of a draw does Phil think he is? If Phil thinks that he could lure a LeBron James or Dwyane Wade to whatever team he goes to, then he's probably just going to go where he likes, provided the team has the requisite cap space. The Bulls, Nets, and Clippers all do.

But only the Bulls can say they're not the B-team in their own city.

Still, the Clippers are an interesting possibility, in that they have a lot of talent and cap space, and it would be the best way for Phil to stick it to the Lakers if he's so inclined. But they're the Clippers, and could he really work for Donald Sterling? And moreover, would Donald Sterling really be willing to pay him?

Now I know what you're thinking: Well neither would Jerry Reinsdorf. In fact:

I don't see any way the Bulls pay a premium for coaching and Phil is on his own tier.

-- your friendly BullsBlogger on Mar 9, 2010 11:25 AM CST

-- OR --

I would enjoy a universe where Phil Jackson takes a coaching job that doesn't involve one of the 5 best players in the NBA. Or a management that doesn’t care about spending a lot of money.

-- Ozzie Montana on Mar 9, 2010 3:30 PM CST

Over the course of the last several years, the perception of Jerry Reinsdorf has gone from The only good owner in Chicago to Heartless tightwad. How, exactly, did this happen?

The main cases against Reinsdorf -- or, better yet, for his cheapness -- are the following:

1. He broke up the dynasty.

2. He hired Vinny Del Negro instead of an actual NBA coach

3. He steadfastly refuses to pay the luxury tax

As for point 1, Reinsdorf and Jerry Krause were not responsible for breaking up of the Bulls, and I'm tired of hearing that they were. After they won Title No. 6, it was clear it was over -- you could even see it in the team's celebration after clinching. Michael wanted to retire. Scottie, a free agent, didn't want to come back after feeling like he'd been dissed by the organization's ongoing refusal to renegotiate a guaranteed contract that he willingly signed. And Phil had tired of Krause's ways and didn't want to coach the team anymore, especially without Michael and Scottie. The problem was, none of them wanted to be the guy who broke up the biggest party in Chicago's history. So they all dragged their feet on announcing anything, and the organization -- knowing full well that none of them wanted any part of coming back -- was forced to make alternative arrangements, because unlike Michael, Scottie, and Phil, they couldn't afford to just wait it out. Now if the Bulls' braintrust had played its cards right, they would have publicly begged all three to come back, because it would have had zero effect, and then they wouldn't've been the bad guys. Instead, they were too proud, and were unjustly vilified for blowing up the team.

Point 2: Somewhat legitimate. However, I think it's odd that no one seems remember that Reinsdorf also signed off on a lucrative extension for Scott Skiles just a few years before, and had targeted Mike D'Antoni and Doug Collins before settling -- and never has that word been used so aptly -- for Del Negro. Once he realized that neither D'Antoni or Collins was interested, who exactly should he have paid top-dollar for? Avery Johnson? His micro-managing ways would have been terrible with this team, especially considering they were just coming off of the similar (but superior) Skiles. Given his remaining options -- and that he was still paying Skiles -- I don't blame Reinsdorf at all for trying to get someone on the cheap. Now granted, it hasn't worked. But there's no reason that it couldn't have; it's like everyone forgot that Jackson also had an extremely low NBA profile when the Bulls hired him. While Reinsdorf was thinking with his wallet, I'm sure he also thought, Hey, maybe lightning will strike twice.

In terms of No. 3, I'm sorry but not wanting to pay the luxury tax does not equal cheap. I personally don't think going over the luxury tax is a prudent investment either; does anybody honestly think that getting a dollar's worth of value for $2 is a good deal? Especially given the kind of team the Bulls have. This isn't a championship-caliber group. If I recall correctly, Reinsdorf paid through his bespectacled proboscis for several years to keep the dynasty alive; I seem to remember Michael getting $30 million -- every penny of which he deserved -- one year. Reinsdorf was willing to pay, when the product on the court was worth it.

Besides, it's not just that a team has to pay double for every dollar spent over the tax; they also lose out on the disbursement of the tax money to the below-the-threshold teams. So say a team is $3 million over the tax line and has a somewhat valuable asset making $3 million a year -- like a Hakim Warrick, only good. Last season, the teams that didn't pay the tax received a payment of $2.9 million from the teams that did. So now Warrick's $3 million a year is actually costing you $9 million. Does that seem like a sound investment to you, $9 million for a Hakim Warrick-type? I personally would be trying my damnedest to give that guy away just to get back under the tax line, because that money could be better utilized elsewhere.

Like on a coach, for instance. Remember, money paid to non-playing personnel is not included in the cap/tax calculations.

So I just don't buy that Reinsdorf's unwillingness to pay the tax is evidence that he's cheap. Though you'd barely know it given the general attitude towards ownership, the Bulls are far over the salary cap -- nearly $12,000,000 according to ESPN.com -- and if they were as tight as their reputation, they'd be hovering around the minimum, not several million dollars over the "max".

Now that reluctance to over the tax threshold certainly doesn't put him in Mark Cuban, money-is-no-object category, but it doesn't make him a tightwad either. Considering that he's paid a premium to have a great team before -- and that a coach's salary has no impact on the tax -- I think Reinsdorf would pay a hell of a lot for someone like Jackson. Maybe not as much as Phil would want, but a figure that would still leave him at the top of the coaching heap. Because that would be a sound investment, and I believe that's what Reinsdorf is all about.

If you accept on its face that Reinsdorf might pay, it again becomes a matter of how confident Phil would be in his (and the franchise's) ability to lure a star Top-5 guy via free agency. Since I don't think anyone's ever accused Phil of having a tiny ego, I'm guessing he thinks he could bring a LeBron or Wade to Chicago. Which would put him in the kind of position, talent-wise, that he is known to prefer.

Is this whole thing highly unlikely? No doubt. But it's certainly no more implausible than the Bulls overcoming a 3-game deficit (for all intents and purposes, given the tiebreakers) over the final eight games and making the playoffs, something I think many Bulls fans still believe could happen. So chew on that -- and perhaps some of these -- before you pessimistically dismiss the possibility of Phil.

Excitement becoming routine

2010-03-31T14:12:00.003-05:00

A typical Mr. SKIA brainshart led to me saving this entry as a draft instead of posting it, which I just now realized. So up it goes, only five days late.

Another day, another Holy Crap game in the NCAA Tournament.

The Kansas State-Xavier tilt had everything you could want. Comebacks. Controversial calls. Overtime. Clutch baskets. Another overtime.

The most amazing part of Kansas State's 101-96 win is that they somehow did not get totally demoralized. Seemingly everything went against them. The end of both regulation and overtime had to have been just devastating for them, and the fact that they didn't crumble in the face of all that adversity really speaks well of their chances going forward. (Editor's note: Oops.)

A Jacob Pullen 3 with 28 seconds left in regulation put K-State up 70-67, and after a Jason Love basket Pullen hit a pair of free throws to regain the 3-point edge. And that's when the old foul-so-they-can't-launch-a-game-tying-3 strategy backfired.* Instead of the ref's calling the foul when Terrell Holloway was grabbed, they called it on Chris Merriewether when Holloway was in his shooting motion 40 feet from the basket, which he only did because he knew he had already been fouled and was hoping to get three freebies instead of the one-and-one. And it worked, because the ref totally blew the call.

* I should mention here that while I know it's conventional wisdom that the foul is the smart play, I still don't like it. I've seen it backfire too many times. For one, if you just allow the team to shoot the 3, in general the worst thing that can happen is overtime. But I've seen teams make one free throw, get the rebound on the second, and hit a 3 to win. And fouling elongates the game, which is generally what the leading team wants to avoid. I've seen the foul come too early, the opponent makes its two free throws to get within one, fouls on the other end and the guy chunks both, then they hit a 2 for the one-point win. Plus, there's always the chance of a glitch like this one, where the guy gets three free throws. An 79.4% free-throw shooter -- not a ridiculously high number for a guy handling the ball/itching to shoot a 3 -- has a 50% chance of making all three foul shots. Considering that at best the same guy is probably a 45% 3-point shooter -- and the 3, unlike the free throws is an all-or-nothing proposition -- I prefer to keep the excessive strategizing out of it, play tough D, and let the chips fall where they may. Plus, game-tying 3-pointers are among the most exciting plays in sports, and I selfishly want to see more of them, not less.

After Holloway drained three clutcher-than-clutch free throws, Pullen missed a long 3 for the win to send the game to OT. The Wildcats had to be stinging, and Frank Martin was about as pissed off as I've ever seen any coach, and I suspect if the game/moment weren't so huge that he would've picked up at least one technical.

K-State bounced right back though, and built a four-point lead with 2:30 left. But Holloway sandwiched a 3 and a layup around a Curtis Kelly basket to pull Xavier back within one. Down 84-81 with under a minute to go, Holloway hit yet another 3 to tie it, but Pullen responded with layup. Holloway then missed a 3, and Merriewether got fouled with 19 seconds to play and a chance to ice the game. Merriewether split the pair, which in retrospect seems like the only time in the entire game that a player failed to completely deliver in the clutch.

Speaking of which, Jordan Crawford -- best known for this PR-disaster of a dunk -- then drilled an insanely deep and equally clutch, minimum-30-foot 3-pointer that tied the game at 87 with 7 seconds left. K-State then missed a chance to win at the OT buzzer.

At this point, I was convinced the Wildcats would fold. How could they not? By my count, there were three completely devastating moments -- the BS foul and Holloway's and Crawford's 3s.

But K-State refused to yield. Trailing by two with a little over a minute left in the second OT, Pullen gave Xavier a taste of its own medicine. He hit a 3 to put the Wildcats up 94-93, then hit another after a Love free throw to give them a 3-point edge, and Pullen and Denis Clemente made all four of their free throws down the stretch to seal the win.

All in all, one of the best college basketball games I've ever seen. And I feel like I've thought that about 17 times in this tournament.

My bracket update

2010-03-27T17:58:00.005-05:00

Because I know you're all dying wondering what is going on with my picks.

Incidentally, I have to post this right now, because with Ohio State losing yesterday, I'm going to start dropping like a rock.
I don't know if you can make that out, but I'm currently in 5,569th-place. I know I was joking about my standing the other day, but there are nearly 5 million brackets on ESPN.com, and because of that I"m in the freakin' 99.9th percentile.

Now who's Mr. Sports Know-It-All?

Wait. I guess it'd still be me. Anyway, here's the rest of my bracket, if you're interested and have unbelievably acute vision:

Stupid Midwest Regional. I've missed 11 games in that one alone; in the other three combined I've only gotten nine wrong. I knew there had to be a reason why I've always hated the Midwest. Damn you region of my birth/residence!

Total Bullshart

2010-03-25T23:34:00.002-05:00

Just when I was feeling pretty good about Chicago's basketball team pulling off the impossible and squeezing into the playoffs in light of Toronto's 113-87 loss to the Jazz on Wednesday -- Playoff teams don't lose home games that badly, I thought -- the Bulls proved they are not, in fact, a playoff team by losing a home game that badly on Thursday, succumbing to the Heat in pitiful fashion, 103-74.

I gave up watching the NCAA Tournament for this?

The only thing preventing me from saying It's all over but the shouting is that terrible effort by the Raptors against Utah. Still, with the Bulls down by 2 1/2 games with just 11 to play, I'd give them about a 1-in-20 chance of sneaking into the postseason at this point. I'm not even going to bother with my usual Hollinger-B-R.com-CoolStandings Playoff Odds chart; they looked so bad that it's almost impossible envision them winning the eight or so games they'll need.

Yes, it was only one game. But to be so amazingly uncompetitive and utterly flat in a game that was so important to their postseason aspiration was a hell of an indictment of the Bulls' chances. There was nothing positive to take out of that game. Not one thing.

The atrociousness of the Bulls' effort was matched only by that of their defense. Apparently nobody on the Bulls bothered to tell Jermaine O'Neal what year it was, as he time-machined his way to 18 first-half points on 7-of-11 shooting, and finished with 24 points in just 25 minutes. Joining him in turning back the clock was Quentin Richardson, who absolutely abused the Bulls in the first quarter, going 4-for-5 while showing an impressive array of post-up moves, as Heat coach Erik Spoelstra exposed yet another Chicago 3-guard lineup. Which led to me writing the following between the first and second quarters:

I understand that Luol Deng's injury (and our beloved front office's trades) have left the team woefully short at the 3, but what I don't get is the compulsion to only let a guard slide over to small forward. If it's not working, how about trying one of your 4s there? What difference does it make if you are getting killed on the matchups anyway?

Well, to Vinny Del Negro's credit -- not a phrase I type very often -- he tried to go big to open the second quarter, running with Chris Richard, Taj Gibson, and Hakim Warrick* in the front court. And that didn't work either. At all.

* During Warrick's brief Bulls tenure, he has gone from a guy who I admired from a distance (in box scores) to someone I can't stand seeing on the court. I now understand why he garnered so little interest on the free agent market last off-season; when you watch him regularly, you realize that while there are some things he does well, he's a very limited, one-dimensional player. He also plays with a lack of urgency reminiscent of Tim Thomas, though not quite to those putrid depths. While I can't quite put my finger on it, Warrick just somehow seems to be a drain on the team.

Among the more disturbing lowlights was the Bulls managing to make a Hall-of-Fame case for the Heat's 15-minutes-per-game backup center Joel Anthony. While Anthony is a very good shotblocker -- he came in leading the league in blocks per 48 minutes, with 4.18 -- his five blocks in seven first-half minutes put him into Manute-Bol-defending-me territory. But the Bulls kept shoving shots directly into Anthony's mitts, as if they had no idea that the guy coming off the Heat bench was a good defensive player.

It's reassuring to know that the advanced scouting is as useless as the rest of the organization's non-playing personnel.

Not that I'm giving the players a free pass on this one. In fact, to me the most disappointing aspect of the game's first half -- which ended with the Bulls down 63-33 -- was that the Bulls did not get booed off the floor. Their performance was as godawful as anything I've ever seen from an NBA team. The boos should have been cascading down so powerfully as to form a gale that would've literally forced the Bulls into the locker room. Instead, I could barely hear any. Talk about taking the crowd completely out of the game; the Heat even rendered the United Center faithful unable to express their disgust.

They'll get another chance to voice their displeasure on Saturday, when the Nets come to town. Because with New Jersey riding a one-game winning streak and having a previous UC triumph under its belt, I wouldn't take anything for granted.

Just when I thought I was out ...

2010-03-25T00:20:00.005-05:00

The NCAA Tournament pulls me back in.

You might remember this post from last year -- and I'm sure you do, as all of 11 people read it -- wherein I discussed the reasons for my nearly-nil interest in college basketball. But as play in the Sweet 16 begins today, I'd be remiss if I didn't write about the incredible opening rounds of the tourney, and how much I enjoyed them. I happened to be working out of the house last Thursday, and I can't imagine anyone not loving that day of basketball.

Huge upsets. Heart-stopping finishes. Buzzer beaters galore.

All of it in a twelve-hour period. And while Friday was a bit anticlimactic -- at least in comparison to the previous day -- the weekend might've even topped Thursday's excitement.
And sure, there would be a higher level of play if Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Stephen Curry, Brook Lopez, Ty Lawson (seniors), Derrick Rose, DeJuan Blair, Blake Griffin, Kevin Love, O.J. Mayo, Michael Beasley (juniors), Tyreke Evans, Brandon Jennings (sophomores), et al were involved. But the games themselves really could not have been any more entertaining.

I loved every minute of it. Well, except for these 40.

But it's not like I expected Cal to knock off Duke again (that's right, it happened a mere 17 years ago), so the loss didn't take a whole lot of luster off of my enjoyment of the first two rounds. And so I present to you my Final Four countdown of the best moments of the tournament thus far:

4. The first four games
Two one-point upsets by double-digit seeds [(11) Old Dominion 51, (6) Notre Dame 50; (13) Murray State 66, (4) Vanderbilt 65], an overtime escape by a high-seed [(2) Villanova 73, (15) Robert Morris 70], and a double-OT thriller in which a recent-national power fell [(7) BYU 99, (10) Florida 92]. I mean, that was just the first four games! Jesus.

While I always revel in seeing Notre Dame die an untimely death in any sport, the highlight of this group was the buzzer-beating 15-footer by Murray State's Danero Thomas to beat Vandy. Watched it happen live and you just can't top that sort of thing. At least that's what I used to think (SPOILER ALERT!) ...

3. Overtime
(9) Wake Forest 81, (8) Texas 80
Just a remarkably exciting game, and it came in the final contest of opening day. Wake led by 10 early (20-10, 10:52 in the first half), only to find themselves down six (36-30) just 9 minutes later. At the half, the Longhorns led by one.

In the early going of the second half, Wake again built a lead, this time up to 54-42 with 13 minutes to play. But Texas chipped away at it, pulling within a point at the 2-minute mark. Following a pair of free throws by the Deacons Al-Farouq Aminu, J'Covan Brown hit a huge 3 to tie the game at 67 with 55 seconds left. After Wake's C.J. Harris hit one of two free throws, Damion James had a chance to put the Longhorns ahead with a pair of free throws with nine seconds left. But he also made 1-of-2 -- he did then force a turnover to prevent Wake from getting a game-winning shot off -- and the game went to overtime.

And that's when this thing got really exciting. With the team's trading misses on the first three possessions of OT, Texas finally broke through on a Brown 3 with 3:48 remaining. The Longhorns Avery Bradley then got a steal in the backcourt off the press, and Jordan Hamilton hit another 3. Following yet another Wake turnover, James hit a pair of free throws, and Texas was ahead 76-68 with 3:05 to play. Between Demon Deacon shots -- a miss by Ishmael Smith, the guy that had committed both turnovers, finally broke the string of FG-attempt-less possessions -- they had gone from tied to an eight-point deficit. It looked hopeless for the Deacs, to the extent that my friend Art stopped watching. But Tony Woods converted a putback of Smith's miss, and Wake went on a 10-2 run to pull within 78-76 with 35 seconds left. Brown then drained a pair of free throws, before Ari Stewart hit a huge 3 at 19 seconds remaining to get Wake within one. Texas then missed two free throws before Smith -- the very same guy whose turnovers put the Deacons into the huge hole -- hit a 17-footer with 1.3 second left to give Wake a 81-80 win.

And the perfect end to a great day of basketball.

2. Final two minutes
(5) Michigan State 85, (4) Maryland 83
This game was on in the background for me throughout -- I had one matchup on my TV, and was toggling between games on my laptop -- and MSU had a 16-point second-half lead; they were also up 74-60 with under seven minutes to play, and that's when I really started paying attention. Maryland was able to chip away at the lead, but when the Spartans' Korie Lucious hit a layup for a 80-71 lead with 2:09 left, the game appeared to be over.

To everyone to Greivis Vasquez, that is.

Vasquez responded with one of his emotionally-charged three-point plays, then stole the inbounds pass which led to a Sean Mosley layup, giving the Terps a quick five-point run and pulling them back to 80-76 with 1:48 to play. Vasquez then hit a 3 to get the Terps within one.

Ho-hum, right? Well, compared to what would follow, it actually was.

Off an MSU turnover -- their fourth in a 59-second span -- Vasquez hit a leaner to put Maryland up 81-80 with 39 second left. So that's lead change #1 (LC1).

Tom Izzo then called timeout -- which would be, shockingly, the last timeout called during the game -- and the Spartans Draymond Green responded with a 17-foot jumper at the 22 second mark for a 82-81 advantage (LC2).

At nine seconds, Vasquez hit another short shot -- that's 10 points for him in the last 2 minutes -- after wheeling into the lane (LC3) before Korie Lucious took a pass from green at the top of the key and drained a 3 at the buzzer (LC4) for an 85-83 win.
Four lead changes in the last 40 seconds. Only one timeout, and I relished seeing a game that completely lacked any over-coaching. When are more coaches going to realize that end-of-game timeouts to diagram plays end up helping the defense more than their offense? A free-flowing game keeps the D on its heels, and it also doesn't allow the offensive players a chance to over-think what they need to do. Without the unnecessary stoppages, it's all just basketball. And it's unbelievably entertaining to watch.

1. Ali Farokhmanesh 3-pointer, 35 seconds remaining,
(9) Northern Iowa 69, (1) Kansas 67
The most dissected play of the tournament, and by far my favorite moment. Farokhmanesh's UNI squad had seen a 12-point second-half lead whittled down to one, and its seven-point advantage (63-56) with 1:18 left had almost entire evaporated when Farokhmanesh found himself wide open at the arc after the Panthers had broken the KU press. Instead of dribbling out the clock in hopes of getting fouled, Farokhmanesh -- who you could actually see hesitate while deciding what to do -- went for the jugular, and buried the most audacious shot I've ever seen.

Had Farokhmanesh missed, he likely would've been a huge goat. Conventional basketball wisdom says to try to play keep away and burn off as much clock as possible before the inevitable Kansas foul. But Farokhmanesh -- showing absolutely zero fear of failure despite having missed seven consecutive shots to that point -- saw a chance to win the game and took it. I really admire his boldness, and wish I could have his mentality with the things that I try to do.

I thought ESPN.com's Pat Forde, not someone I read regularly, had a great take on Farokhmanesh's shot:

Consider this argument for why it should go down as the greatest early-round shot in NCAA tournament history:
When Bryce Drew, Tyus Edney, Ty Rogers, James Forrest, Drew Nicholas and Rolando Blackman hit their famous shots, there was no choice involved -- it was either shoot now or go home. There was no real risk of failure -- nobody was going to hold a miss against those players, given time and score implications. Greatness was thrust upon them.

Ali? He chose greatness -- and the potential censure that would have come with a miss. He made a completely voluntary decision to tee up a 3 with 30 seconds on the shot clock and 35 seconds in the game and his team holding a one-point lead. While on a personal seven-shot miss streak. With nobody there to rebound offensively. And the biggest tourney upset in years hanging in the balance.

What a badass. Which is why Farokhmanesh gets the number one spot on my list.

While I'm not expecting the same volume of thrills from the rest of the tournament, I will be planted firmly in front of my TV/PC. And that's something I never would've predicted just eight days ago.

Speaking of predicting, on Wednesday of last week, I filled out my bracket, the first time I've done so in I don't even know how many years. And, despite all the upsets, I think I'm doing pretty damn good; even though I only got 10 of the Sweet 16 right, I still have seven of my Elite Eight, and all of my Final Four. I mention this not to brag, but because I think this will mark the high point for my bracket. After seeing all of my Final Four teams play, I'm much less optimistic about Ohio State and Butler's chances. So I've got to crow when I can. Caw, caw.

Huge game for the Bulls tonight

2010-03-24T16:17:00.004-05:00

And yes, I realize they aren't playing.

But if the Bulls are going to have any shot at somehow snagging a playoff spot, they need Toronto to lose games like the one tonight against the Jazz.

Utah is a very strong team, albeit less strong on the road. Nevertheless, the Jazz are one of the better all-around groups in the league, and with the Bulls three games back in the loss column -- and the Raptors owning the tiebreaker -- they're going to need a whole lot of help. So who better to give it to them than Jerry Sloan?

The Bulls playoff chances: Do they still exist?

2010-03-22T07:26:00.002-05:00

Yes.

But they aren't very good. The current playoff odds:

	Hollinger	B-R.com	CoolStandings	AVG
Bucks	100%	100%	99.9%	100%
Heat	98.8%	99.6%	99.2%	99.2%
Bobcats	98.4%	98.4%	98.4%	98.4%
Raptors	72.9%	86.0%	86.3%	81.7%
Bulls	30.0%	16.0%	16.2%	20.7%

But as the Bulls' season was irrevocably altered by Saturday's earth-shattering, 10-game-losing-streak-snapping 98-84 win over the mighty Philadelphia 76ers, could they actually overcome the 1-in-5 odds and catapult themselves into the playoffs?

For starters, let's put this in proper perspective. The projected wins of each of the other contenders:

	Hollinger	B-R.com	CoolStandings	AVG
Bucks	46-36	45.7-36.3	45.6-36.4	46-36
Heat	44-38	44-38	43.6-38.4	44-38
Bobcats	44-38	43.5-38.5	43.2-38.8	44-38
Raptors	40-42	40.3-41.7	40.2-41.8	40-42

The Bulls are currently 32-37. I'd say to get themselves clear of the Raptors -- who already own the tiebreaker thanks to a 2-0 mark in the season series -- they'll need to finish with 42 wins, so that's 10-3 the rest of the way.

The Bulls have not picked up more than 9 wins in any 13-game stretch this season.

Still, they've also rarely been healthy for that long; if they are, 10 wins seems improbable yet doable. Granted that's a huge caveat. Given the semi-emergence of James Johnson, I think the Bulls can overcome Luol Deng's continued absence provided Derrick Rose is able to play major minutes and Joakim Noah is back to stay, even if he's slowly worked back into the rotation. But since Noah's already had one false start in his recovery, well ...

Nevertheless, here's one road map to 10 Bulls wins, given their remaining schedule:

3/22 vs. Houston, W

For the Bulls to pull this off, they absolutely have to take care of business at the United Center, especially against the semi-decent teams. That means they must beat the Rockets, who they topped in Houston in the midst of that 5-game road winning streak in late January. They'll have to find a way to do it again, even though they aren't playing nearly as well now as they were then. They'll be helped by the Rockets being on the second half of a back-to-back.

3/25 vs. Miami, W

Along wiith the Houston game, one of the two more important tilts on the schedule. They'll need to beat Miami and a seemingly-healthy Dwyane Wade for the second time this year (they are 1-2 against them). The good news is, the Bulls won the only previous matchup at the UC, 95-91 on Feb. 6.

3/27 vs. New Jersey, W

God, would anything be more embarrassing than getting swept at home by the Nets? If the Bulls somehow lose this game, don't even bother with the final 10.

3/28 at Detroit, L

While this is obviously a winnable game, it's also the second-half of a back-to-back, and I just don't think the Bulls will sweep the season series against the Pistons. I have a feeling that Ben Gordon might have his I'll-show-you game in hopes of playing spoiler for the Bulls chances.

3/30 vs. Phoenix, W

There is one thing that Vinny Del Negro has done well as Bulls' coach: beat the Suns. The Bulls haven't lost to Phoenix in two years, but the Suns are a very good team, one that shouldn't lose to a team like Chicago that many times in a row. The Bulls can afford to lose this game -- which is a distinct possibility -- if they beat the Pistons in Detroit.

4/2 at Washington, W

I wasn't happy the last time the Bulls played in Washington and lost, and they simply can't afford to let it happen again. After seeing the Wizards front line run amok in that game, Chicago really needs Joakim Noah healthy enough to log significant minutes, and keeping rookies Johnson and Taj Gibson out of foul trouble will be crucial too.

4/3 vs. Charlotte, W

The long-awaited return of Tyrus Thomas. This one, from Tyrus' perspective, could go either way. He might have a monster game that would include around eight blocks, or he's going to try to do too much and he'll end up sitting on the bench after going 0-for-4 with a pair of goaltending calls in 13 minutes. Regardless, I'm sure he'll get booed in one of those inexplicable UC crowd reactions. And before you say that the booing would, in fact, be explicable, keep in mind that Tyrus' greatest transgressions were:

1. Being a supposed lottery flop (even though his per-minute and efficiency numbers were solid)

2. Getting benched (because of injury)

3. Teeing off on a coach (that most of the UC faithful consider a joke)

4. Getting traded (without requesting/demanding one, at least publicly)

5. Doing well since the deal (mostly a function of more consistent playing time)

4/6 vs. Milwaukee, W

One game after Tyrus' chance at redemption, John Salmons gets his in yet another must-win game that the Bulls could easily lose. They've dropped 2 of 3 in the season series thus far -- with the three games being decided by a total of seven points -- but have won the only other one at the UC. The problem is that Milwaukee has been on fire since the trade deadline, going 14-2 since Feb. 19, while the Bulls, as you may have heard, have been headed in the opposite direction.

4/8 vs. Cleveland, L

A game the Bulls might steal against a slumming Cavs team. But come on, it's LeBron. I'm not picking against him.

4/9 at New Jersey, W

Home or away, playoff teams have got to take care of business against (potentially) the worst team in NBA history.

4/11 at Toronto, W

The must-win game in the whole stretch. Since they'll be going head-to-head with their primary competition, this one amounts to a 2-game swing. The Bulls can still make the playoffs with a loss here, but losing this game likely would result in them needing to get to 43 wins instead of 42, which would mean picking up two additional wins (say, at Detroit and vs. Cleveland) to make it in.

In other words, they have to win this game. And they've already lost twice to the Raps this season, in pretty convincing fashion. Luckily, Toronto is one of the few teams that has been playing nearly as poorly as the Bulls, with just three wins in its last 13.

4/13 vs. Boston, W

The Celtics will be looking to avenge this ugly loss on their home floor, but they also (hopefully) won't have a lot to play for, as their seeding -- they're currently a half-game ahead of the Hawks for third in the Eastern Conference -- may be decided by then. If so, the Bulls should roll. Regardless, I expect the UC crowd to be engaged playoff-style in this rematch of last year's epic seven-game first-round series.

4/14 at Charlotte, L

If both teams are still fighting for positioning, I just don't see Chicago beating a Bobcats team that currently holds the fourth-best home record (25-8) in the Eastern Conference. However, if Charlotte's seeding is already locked and the Bulls still have something to play for, then they could get very lucky.

And that would be 10-3. Unfortunately, looking at that stretch I'd say five wins are far more likely than 10. But it is at least possible.

Really, I think the next two games are key; the Bulls simply have to put together a little momentum if they are going to make a playoff run, and it has to start by winning a few games that aren't gimmes. If they can do that, who knows? It might be a long shot, but I'll take it over no shot at all.

Mail-a-Bull*

2010-03-18T07:46:00.004-05:00

* This post (and its title) made a lot more sense in its original spot on BlogaBull.com. Basically I'm responding to comments made on my posts there.

Because the last handful of games have been completely hopeless -- as my friend Art said following the Orlando game, it's like watching a 1-seed versus a No. 16 -- I decided to scour the comments of several posts and respond to them as if I had a fan base. Enjoy.

WHY IS HE TAKING A FUCKING TIME OUT????

-- jamaica876 on Mar 16, 2010 9:32 PM CDT

This was in reference to Vinny Del Negro's attempt to stem the momentum in the Bulls 104-97 loss to the Grizzlies on Monday that extended the losing streak to eight games. Unfortunately, the momentum he was trying to stem was the Bulls'. Beginning with Memphis leading 93-80 in the fourth quarter, these were the plays prior to the timeout:

4:54	Acie Law makes driving layup	93-82
4:48	Mike Conley bad pass
4:37	Brad Miller makes 23-foot three point jumper	93-85
4:18	Zach Randolph makes 1 of 2 free throws	94-85
4:11	Hakim Warrick makes slam dunk	94-87
3:47	Ronnie Brewer misses 19-foot two point shot
3:39	Jannero Pargo makes driving layup	94-89
3:39	Jannero Pargo makes free throw 1 of 1	94-90
3:15	Grizzlies shot clock violation

With your team on a 10-1 run over the prior 1:39, what could possibly possess you to call time out? Even Chris Webber cannot imagine a situation where you would want to call a timeout less than right there. The home team is reeling. The crowd is getting tighter than Eddy Curry's warmups. Memphis was in the process of blowing a 25-point late-third-quarter lead, as the Bulls weren't just on a 10-1 run, they'd also scored 27 of the previous 36. Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins should have been jumping out of his suit trying to get a T.O., but instead Vinny calls one and completely lets them off the hook.

Not surprisingly, Memphis put the game away by scoring the next six points after Vinny's rally-killing decision. Look, I'm not saying the timeout lost the game, one a Bulls team minus four starters had no business being in. But they did have a tiny sliver of a chance to steal it there at the end, and the timeout sure as shit didn't help. So to answer your question, Jamaica: I wish I knew. I wish I knew.

Is Bosh the Answer? (What's the Question?)

-- leeac on Mar 14, 2010 6:32 PM CDT

Alright, so I stole that from someone else's actual blog entry; I'm sorry that I can't even abide by my own ridiculous premise. Anyway, unless the question is, Who would be your third choice among the soon-to-be free agents? then I don't think Chris Bosh is the answer.

No, that's not entirely fair. Bosh would be a great guy for them to land, someone who, while not a super-duper star, is still worth the max in a league where lesser guys like Rashard Lewis have gotten it. But I'd still want LeBron James and Dwyane Wade first.

LeBron is the no-doubt-about-it #1. No matter what a team's roster looked like -- I don't care if they already had Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant -- they'd still have LeBron as their first priority. Because LeBron is not only far-and-away the best player in the NBA, he's also one of the most versatile. Regardless of the current depth chart, LeBron would find a place to fit in and instantly make any team a legitimate title contender. He's the first choice, and it's not even worth discussing.

Although I get the feeling the general perception is that Wade is much older than Bosh, it's only by a little over two years. Wade will be 28 at the beginning of next season, Bosh 26. Neither guy has exactly been a paragon of health; Bosh has played more than 70 games in just one of the past five seasons, while Wade has missed at least 20 games in three of his seven years. Bosh would be a great fit position-wise -- I wish he had a bit more of a low-post game, though that's quibbling, really -- but that and the age are about the only things he has over Wade.

Now I understand that Wade isn't the ideal fit next to Derrick Rose, who would be better served having a Ray Allen-in-his-prime type shooter next to him. But what's best for Rose isn't necessarily what's best for the Bulls, and Wade would them far better than a Joe Johnson ever could. He is a transcendent player, a true franchise-carrying guy. Bosh, for all his talents, isn't; he's surrounded by far better players in Toronto, yet Wade's team has the (slightly) better record.

I think most people would rank Bosh somewhere in the 10 to 15 range if they were asked to list the NBA's best players. But you'd be hard pressed to find a single NBA observer that wouldn't have Wade in his/her top five. In his contract-drive season, Bosh has a career-best 25.60 Player Efficiency Rating this year; Wade has finished with a PER of 27 or better in all but one of the last been five seasons, an injury-plagued '07-'08.

So no, I don't care that Wade can't shoot the 3 and has a game somewhat similar to Rose. A good coach would figure out how to make it work. And hopefully a good coach is exactly what the Bulls will have come next season.

You watch games in your bedroom!?

-- CrashDavis on Mar 11, 2010 7:55 AM CST

Yes.

Yes I do.

Though I am not morbidly obese, I do most everything from my bed: watch Bulls games, eat meals, write inane blog entries, yell at my dog to leave me alone, all of it. That's just how we SKIAs roll.

Why does everything always have to be Tyrus vs. Taj? Weren't they on the same team?

-- MrSportsKnowItAll.com on March 17, 2010 6:06 AM CST

Well would you look at that! A comment that so perfectly encapsulates what I want to write about, you'd think I posted it just for this piece. Well I resent that implication, sir. (Or madam, I suppose. Do I have any women reading this crap?) It was a perfectly-appropriate comment in regard to this post, and that thread in particular.

Anyway, I think one of the worst developments of this Bulls season is that if you liked Tyrus Thomas, circumstances dictated that you became anti-Taj Gibson, because Gibson was the one that took his job, and received a ton of praise for supposedly having all of the desirable attributes that Tyrus was perceived to be lacking.

And that was entirely unfair to Taj. You know, kind of like losing your starting job to injury.

Say what you will, but people that didn't like Tyrus had their reasons; I would say they were misguided, but there were at least reasons. Things like, he plays too out of control and makes stupid decisions. Or he's a lousy help defender and disappears for stretches on offense. I don't agree with most of it, but I can at least see why thinking that would make someone dislike a player.

But most Tyrus fans -- okay, my sample size is one -- dislike Taj for basically four reasons:

1. He's not as good as Tyrus

2. Vinny insisted on starting him, the lesser player

3. They've had an assfull of the hard-hat-and-lunch-pail crap

4. They find the Taj backers to be insufferable

And really, those could be combined into two reasons; regardless, none of them are Taj's fault. All Taj has done is gone out and played hard. It's not his fault that Stacey King yammers on and on about how workmanlike he is, or that others talk about how smart he plays. Taj never proclaimed that he was better than Tyrus, or that Vinny needed to start him lest he demand a trade. He's just a young player trying to establish himself in the league, and it's tragic that he's largely viewed as the villain among us Tyrus fans.

Ideally, the Bulls would've found a way to make it work with Tyrus and Taj, and there was no reason why they shouldn't have. Given that so many teams go small in today's NBA, I thought those two and Noah would've make for a pretty good three-man rotation at the 4 and 5. But it didn't work out that way, not because of the players necessarily (and certainly not because of Taj), but because of failures of the organization and coaching staff. That's who completely gang-raped the pooch on this one.

As I've said before, good organizations value players based on what they do well; crappy ones only see them for what they can't do. So the Bulls focused on Tyrus' flaws instead of his assets, and decided he wasn't worth the trouble. This is what leads to mediocrity, as well as big contracts for guys like Luol Deng and Kirk Hinrich -- even though neither of them do anything particularly well, they don't have any glaring weaknesses, either -- while someone with a legitimate NBA skill (shot-making) in Ben Gordon is let go.*

* For the record, I supported the Bulls' decision not to re-sign Gordon. First off, even though he is a great long-range shooter, I didn't think that he was a particularly good fit next to Rose because of his defense and tendency to dominate the ball and/or lose control of it while attempting to dribble, and $58 million for five years was ludicrous. But more importantly, since the Bulls already had Deng and Hinrich under crazily-termed contracts, signing yet another non-elite player to a lucrative long-term deal didn't make a whole lot of sense, not with the looming extensions to Rose, Noah, and (ahem) Thomas. Now if you had asked me to pick one of Deng, Hinrich, and Gordon, it definitely would've been Gordon. But the organization had already made its bed with Deng and Hinrich, and it just didn't make sense to have over $30 million per season committed to a trio of barely above-average players.

If you had told me that Taj Gibson would be averaging eight-and-a-half points and seven rebounds 66 games into his rookie season and a huge chunk of fans (including me) wouldn't like him, there's no way in hell I would've believed you. It sounds totally insane. The truth is, we should all be reveling in his surprisingly-productive rookie season, but instead too many of us are letting our affinity for Tyrus get in the way.

This same sentiment goes for the other side of the coin (the Taj backers) too; just because you like the way Taj plays doesn't mean that Tyrus was a flaming turd. You may think that Tyrus had the dreaded low basketball IQ, but you should also acknowledge that did some things very, very well. Because he did, and to deny it just makes you seem horribly biased.

May you please post less?

-- Super-Structure on Feb 23, 2010 11:01 AM CST

By the time I saw this comment, some people had already jumped in to defend my posts, which I really appreciated. But I believe Super-S was misinterpreted. As his subsequent comments still rather-cryptically indicated, I don't think he wanted me to post with less frequency, but rather wanted my entries to be shorter.

To be honest, almost every time I sit down, I say to myself, Well this'll be a nice, short one. Then eight hours and several thousand words later, I've got yet another 15-minute-commitment piece. Sorry for that.

But to answer your question: I'm trying.

Come back tomorrow (or whenever the hell I get to it) for Part II, which was originally supposed to be included in this entry before it ran far too long.

Paul Sullivan: The Miracle Worker

2010-03-13T23:32:00.002-06:00

As in, it's a miracle this guy's still working. Quoth Paul:

Because of circumstances beyond his control, Tyler Colvin is blocked in right field until 2012, in center field until 2013 and in left field until 2015.

Poor Tyler Colvin and his .318 OBP in nearly 1200 Double-A plate appearances. When will he ever get a legitimate shot to prove himself?*

* Keep in mind that this is the same Paul Sullivan who wrote on August 25, 2007:

(Felix) Pie has not been able to translate the success he has enjoyed at Triple A to the Cubs, despite being given several opportunities. He hit .362 at Iowa but came into Friday's game hitting .217 in three stints with the Cubs, including a .121 average against left-handers.

Pie's "several opportunities" at that time amounted to a grand total of 174 plate appearances spread over five months when he was 22. For what it's worth, in Pie's one half-season in Double-A, he put up a .304/.349/.554 (BA/OBP/SLG) line as a 20-year-old. Colvin's composite AA line (over his age 21-23 seasons): .276/.318/.461.

Look, I know the same Colvin-related pap appeared on the Cubs site, but does Sullivan really have to gorge at whatever trough the Cubs put in front of him? Given their inexplicable compulsion to become more lefthanded -- to the extent that they traded away a versatile, relatively-inexpensive fan favorite so they could pay $24 million for one season of Milton Bradley -- does he actually believe that if anyone within the Cubs thought Colvin had a shot at being a starter in the majors that he wouldn't have been given a chance? If Colvin had previously performed well -- and I'm relatively certain his performance would have to be categorized largely as a circumstance within his control -- the Cubs wouldn't have felt the need to sign that centerfielder to a 3-year deal. In theory at least.

The only people who still believe in Colvin as a prospect are the ones within the organization still defiantly standing behind their reach-pick of him in the 2006 draft. Apparently Sullivan -- who's previously shown a bizarre preoccupation with fellow great-tools-middling-results draftee Jeff Samardzija -- only looks at signing bonus when evaluating a minor leaguer.

The perception of Colvin as a non-prospect isn't just my own. This crazy site -- put together by some magnificent bastard who divined that ranking the top-2000 prospects in baseball would generate a whole lot of traffic/publicity for his little blog -- has Colvin listed as the 915th-best prospect in all of baseball. And if you prefer reputable sources, Baseball America doesn't have Colvin in their Cubs top-10. Nor does ESPN.com's Keith Law, and Colvin's not on Baseball Prospectus' top-15, either. And John Sickels ranked him as the Cubs 19th-best prospect -- keep in mind that the Cubs system is more top-heavy than deep -- and graded him as a C, saying, "He made some progress last year but looks more like a fourth outfielder/extra bat than a future starter to me."

Well, of course Sickels, he has to be a fourth outfielder: Because of circumstances beyond his control, he's hopelessly blocked!

*****

Now even if Colvin played Franklin Gutierrez/Willie Mays/Andruw Jones-40-pounds-ago caliber defense in centerfield -- unlikely given that BA named Sam Fuld the best defensive outfielder in the Cubs' system -- as of now his bat just will not play at the major league level. Courtesy of this site, I found these slash stat projections for Colvin as a Cub this season:

	BA	OBP	SLG
Bill James	.264	.303	.424
CAIRO	.242	.289	.398
CHONE	.258	.300	.407
PECOTA	.258	.302	.424
ZiPS	.249	.287	.394
AVG	.254	.296	.409

Now granted, those numbers are on par with the Cubs' $17-million-a-year-until-he-turns-62 leftfielder, but in general that is not starting-caliber production. Speaking of which:

Long-terms contracts to Kosuke Fukudome, Marlon Byrd and Alfonso Soriano, respectively, have clogged the outfield picture for the foreseeable future.

With the possible exception of Soriano -- and I exclude him only because Jim Hendry seems wholly unable to grasp the concept of a sunk cost -- none of those guys are blocking Colvin; Colvin's lack of production is. Besides, in the Cubs' eyes, this is make-or-break time for Fukudome. If he doesn't produce this season, they likely will eat his contract next year, either paying someone to take him or moving him for someone else's onerous deal -- Hey, Milton Bradley will still have a year left. We gotta get more lefthanded! And Byrd is making "only" $16.5 million over the next three years; believe me, if the Cubs have a hot-shot prospect forcing his way into the lineup, ol' Marlon will not be an impediment.

Actually, the Cubs just might have such a prospect, only his name is Brett Jackson (No. 2 by Law and BA, No. 3 by Sickels, No. 4 by BP). Jackson, incidentally, is never mentioned in this article either because A) Nobody with the Cubs has felt the need to pump him up to Sullivan, since people who actually know what they're talking about are already saying he's a legit prospect; or B):

Colvin, a first-round pick in 2006, has been one of the most impressive players in Cubs camp, hitting .556 after going 2-for-3 with a triple in Friday's 12-3 loss to Milwaukee.

Wow, in a whole 18 plate appearances! In other news, if Derrek Lee can just get 600 PAs in 2010, he will undoubtedly shatter Barry Bonds' single-season record with the first-ever 100-home-run season, because he has two homers in 12 spring training trips to the plate.

The Cubs project Colvin as a corner outfielder and he figures to take over in right when Fukudome's contract ends after 2011. But he has been playing center most of the spring and could make the team as a fifth outfielder.

If anyone in the Cubs' hierarchy really thinks that Colvin's bat will ever play in a corner outfield spot, seriously just shoot me now and get it over with.

Could the Cubs get Colvin enough playing time as a reserve outfielder, or is he better off going to Triple-A, where he would play regularly? A week ago, the answer was easy.

But suddenly Colvin has jumped into the picture.

For the love of God, Sully -- and I call you Sully because I feel like we've really bonded over the course of this post -- please don't tell me the Cubs are evaluating personnel based on a week of stats put up against mostly non-major-league pitchers who aren't even in game shape yet. I mean, there's only so much I can take.

The Cubs are expected to send a dozen or so players to minor-league camp early next week, but Colvin is likely to stay a little longer. He bulked up in the offseason, and it's paying off. ...

Colvin was on his way to play in Mexico before the Cubs asked him if he wanted to take the offseason off and train with strength coach Tim Buss at the Cubs complex in Mesa, Ariz. Calling it a "no-brainer," Colvin put on 25 pounds through lifting and "eating my fiance's cooking every night."

Two questions: 1. Was his fiance cooking HGH? 2. Is her maiden name Conte? If the answer to both of these is no, then forget it. Because unless what he's done can actually enhance his performance instead of just increasing his bulk, Colvin still will not be a productive major leaguer.

Look, I don't want to wish ill on Colvin; still, I'd prefer he sustain a good performance -- I don't know, for a prolonged period of time, maybe. In, let's say, games that actually count -- before we start lamenting his not-really-all-that-blocked path to big-league stardom.

But if the Cubs are making decisions based on a single week's performance then this organization is in more trouble than even I believed, and they're going to have to do more than just replace GM Jim Hendry; they'll need to bring in some sort of miracle worker.

Vinny Del (insert derogatory phrase Italiano here)

2010-03-10T16:38:00.003-06:00

It didn't take long for the Bulls to fall apart. I'm not just talking about the five-game losing streak that has dropped them from the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference (a half game out out of fifth) on Feb. 26 to entirely out of the playoffs at this moment, but the way they unraveled in Tuesday's 132-108 loss to the Utah Jazz.

This was a game that was 77-77 with just over five minutes to play in the third quarter before the Jazz went on a 13-1 run.

Still, an inspired start to the fourth quarter had pulled the Bulls back within six. And that was when Vinny Del Decisione Discutibile dropped a deuce on his team's chances, ultimately leading to the Jazz scoring 11 straight points in the fourth quarter..

Here were the Bulls' possessions to open the fourth quarter:

Hakim Warrick 3-point play*

James Johnson dunk

Jannero Pargo misses 3

James Johnson draws shooting foul

* This was another one of Warrick's plastic-man dunks, and it really seemed to get both the crowd and the team back into it. Watching Warrick go over two guys to throw it down from a pretty good distance, I decided that he has to possess the most inexplicable physical gifts of all time. It's a sort of awkward athleticism, or perhaps an athletic awkwardness, I don't know. He just doesn't look very coordinated or explosive, and yet he's able to pull off these unbelievable dunks. I really have no idea how to describe it, other than that he appears to have limitations that would make such feats impossible.

At this point in the quarter, Warrick had both of the Bulls defensive rebounds, and a lone C.J. Miles free throw was Utah's only point. After Johnson missed his first foul shot, Vinny must've said to himself, "You know what, we might be building some momentum here -- I better do something!" and so in came Brad Miller. For Warrick, who to that point had been the most productive player on the floor.

Basic Coaching 101: When you have a lineup that's working, you shouldn't do anything until it no longer is. You have to ride it out as long as possible, especially when your team as a whole has been struggling so badly. And even if Vinny for some reason felt like he just had to get Brad Miller in there, why take out Warrick when Chris Richard -- who the organization didn't even deem worthy of a roster spot just two weeks ago -- was still in the game? Look at their respective lines:

	Min	Pts	FG	FT	Reb	Ast	Stl	Blk	TO	PF	+/-
Warrick	29	11	5-6	1-3	5	1	2	0	3	1	-3
Richard	17	0	0-0	0-0	2	0	2	0	0	5	-17

I've been critical of Warrick's play of late, but this was a game where his production demanded more minutes. (And Richard's less, for that matter.) On the ensuing possession, Richard committed a foul on Mehmet Okur, not surprising as it was somehow his third personal in the first two minutes of the fourth quarter, which showed an admirable level of determination to singlehandedly put the Jazz into the bonus as quickly as possible. At that point, Vinny Del Allenatore Orribile mercifully decided to pull Richard from the game.

But instead of bringing Warrick back, he went to Taj Gibson.

It's worth noting that the foul-prone rookie had already picked up five personals (in just 12 minutes), and was now being re-inserted into the game with over 10 minutes to play. Predictably, It took Gibson just 39 seconds to draw his sixth foul. Although I should mention that he did do so with inexcusable flair.

I don't want to turn this into yet another Taj-Tyrus comp, but for all the talk of Tyrus Thomas' low basketball IQ, I feel like Gibson gets a free pass for his frequent stupid fouls. And what Gibson did in fouling out went beyond stupid. It's a horrible play to foul a 3-point shooter under any circumstances, but for Gibson to leave his feet after an Okur ball fake when he already had five fouls was the definition of a rookie mistake. And knowing Taj was having one of his foul-fest games, why did Vinny go back to him so early in the fourth quarter, especially with Warrick playing so well?

With Gibson now out, Vinny still didn't bring Warrick back -- at this point I was extracting pieces of my remote from my bedroom wall -- and instead turned to a gimpy Luol Deng, who'd earlier added a calf injury to his long list of ailments. But I suppose when you're second-best player's already out, why not risk losing your #3 for a prolonged period of time too?

With 8:33 remaining and the Bulls trailing 99-91, it became clear that Deng couldn't continue, and yet Vinny still gave Warrick the Tyrus Treatment™ and opted to sent Kirk Hinrich in. I had already begun furiously composing this section.

Finally, at 102-91 with 7:45 left, Vinny re-inserted Warrick, but did so at the expense of James Johnson, who was one of the few players on the Bulls showing any sort of pulse.

Before that, I'd been happy to see James Johnson get some quality fourth-quarter minutes. I even liked the play on which he got called for goaltending, which looked a little questionable (the ball might've been at its peak, not coming down). And so I was disappointed to see Vinny yank him after a sequence in which he missed a tip-dunk and then committed a frustration foul in the back court, if only because he'd been so active. Given that the Bulls were (once again) getting killed on the boards, Johnson should have been left in and Hinrich pulled instead.

And somehow, my rage over Vinny's substitutions still had not yet reached its apex.

That would come with 3:26 remaining, when down 120-106, Vinny threw in the towel (Acie Law) and removed Derrick Rose from the game. Yes, the Bulls were down by 14, but there's three-and-a-half minutes remaining. While a comeback is highly unlikely, that's still an eternity in the NBA. During the stoppage of play when Rose was removed, the Bulls were facing a jumpball. Let's say they had gained possession, then sandwiched back-to-back 3s around a defensive stop (and I'm aware of the improbability of that last part alone); now you're down by eight with just under 3 minutes left, which means you've got a real chance. So why are you telling your team that the game is over, when two plays can put you right back into it? This isn't a veteran group that needs to save their legs for the playoffs. This is a young team whose playoffs are right now, a group that hadn't played in three days and has a day off tomorrow. Why just say, We give up when the outcome is still, however slightly, in doubt? I cannot think of a worse message for a coach to send to a young team fighting to stay in the postseason picture.

Not surprisingly, the remaining Bulls displayed no effort the rest of the way, allowing the final nine points of that 11-0 run which made the game seem like much more of a blowout than it was. And once again the coach proved himself to be Vinny Del Sopra La Sua Testa.

A few more notes on the game:

1. After running a layup drill in the third quarter (nine by my count), the Jazz -- or more specifically, CJ Miles -- went on a 3-point tear in the fourth, as Miles buried four in the period including three in a two-minute stretch to keep the Bulls at bay. Miles' display once more put a spotlight on Chicago's dirty little secret: Derrick Rose is still a lousy defender, and isn't really committed at all on that end. Rose had one of the best all-around offensive games of his career, but was a total sieve defensively, and was late getting a hand in Miles' face on several occasions.

Much to my surprise, at the four minute mark of the fourth quarter, Stacey King actually pointed this out:

"The one thing Derrick Rose's game that I'd like to see better [alright, perhaps it wasn't the height of silver-tongued allocution, but stick with it] is his on-the-ball defense. I think watching Deron Williams, and seeing how he approaches the game defensively, I can see Derrick Rose being that type of player defensively. Because he's too good of an athlete, and that's the one part of his game you'd like to see him improve on, and I thought he's gotten better from his first year. He's still got a lot of work to do on that on-the-ball defense. ...

His game is evolving: the jumpshot now is falling. A lot of people said he couldn't shoot the basketball, he's showing he can shoot the basketball now. Teams are no longer able to go underneath the pick and roll and allow him to take that little 18-foot jumpshot, he's making them pay. Now the next step for his game to evolve is to be a very good on-the-ball defender, because he's big, he's strong, he's athletic, and watching a guy like Deron Williams and how he approaches the game, and fights over the screens, Derrick can be that same type of player on the defensive end, and I think he will get there."

Of course later, when Rose sat down for good, King added:

"You know what? Derrick did all he could do. I mean, 25 points, 13 assists."

Uh, didn't you just allude to the fact that he could've done a little something on defense? Like, I don't know, playing some?

2. The Jazz' Wes Matthews had an extremely productive first quarter, during which I heard his name so much I started looking for Ennis Whatley to come in and replace him (kids, ask your parents to explain).

3. Utah's 13-0 run was highlighted by an impressive dunk by Williams over a stunned Rose. I knew Williams was a great player, but I didn't know he was that kind of athlete. Neither did Rose, apparently, as it looked like he didn't really jump his highest. That did, however, result in him getting a very good view of an opposing point guard making the type of explosive play that has become his calling card.

Just 20 more games 'til Phil?

2010-03-09T07:29:00.007-06:00

A mere week ago, -- and keep in mind this was after dropping a rather winnable game in Indiana -- the Bulls' playoff odds looked like this:

	Hollinger	B-R.com	Coolstandings	AVG
Bucks	89.0%	83.7%	82.5%	85.1%
Raptors	77.5%	89.7%	83.4%	83.5%
Heat	82.7%	80.4%	76.0%	79.7%
Bobcats	75.0%	77.0%	79.1%	77.0%
Bulls	74.9%	69.2%	78.7%	74.3%

Unfortunately, after three straight home losses, now they're something like this:

	Hollinger	B-R.com	Coolstandings	AVG
Bucks	97.6%	96.3%	96.0%	96.6%
Heat	93.8%	95.4%	92.4%	93.9%
Raptors	80.7%	90.4%	85.6%	85.6%
Bobcats	79.2%	81.6%	79.5%	80.1%
Bulls	48.6%	36.3%	46.5%	43.8%

And as much as I dislike Vinny Del Negro, this team in its current form just does not have the talent to win enough to get to the postseason. The trades of John Salmons and Tyrus Thomas gutted the Bulls' depth, to the point that they no longer have enough viable bodies to weather the storm of an injury to someone like Joakim Noah.

Not only that, but the deals also have propelled the Bucks and Bobcats solidly into the playoff picture. And if you don't think it's the ex-Bulls that are their teams' driving forces, think again Mark Schanowski.

Here is the Bobcats' roster, in order of productivity as calculated by 82games.com:

That's Tyrus Thomas on top there, FYI. Meanwhile, these are the Bucks' rankings:

Why that is John Salmons in the first position, in case there was any confusion. So how have the Bulls' acquisitions fared?

In giving two of the their closest competitors players who immediately became the most productive on their respective teams, Chicago received its 5th and 10th best players in return. Actually, since they traded away Nos. 2 and 4, I suppose they're actually #3 and #8, but what's a few middle-to-low-end slots between friends?

Alright, let's say you don't buy into 82games' valuations. Fair enough. Well how about Player Efficiency Rating? Since the trade, Tyrus' PER is 21.36 in 27.1 minutes per game; Salmons' is 19.96 in 36 mpg*. Meanwhile, Hakim Warrick has given the Bulls a 14.83 in 25.1 mpg, while Flip Murray is at 10.16 in 24.5 mpg. Factoring in the minutes played, the Bulls got back roughly half the value of what they gave up.

* To make matters worse, Salmons is playing so well that there's at least a decent chance he'll exercise his player option and leave on the table the $5+ million that the Bulls were so desperate to keep off their cap. The main reason Chicago had to include the extras to the Bucks (the ability to swap first-round picks, the pair of second rounders) was to indemnify them for the loss of next year's cap space. If Salmons does, in fact, opt out, it will mean not only did Chicago get inferior talent back, but they gave up all of those additional assets as compensation for something that never occurred.

And so with just 20 games remaining and the Bulls now unlikely to make the postseason, a thought occurred to me: Could that be exactly what the front office wanted?**

** At the very least this theory makes me feel far better than confronting the reality of the Bulls front office inadvertently improving their rivals so significantly that it cost them their playoff spot. To me, that kind of gross incompetence is much more disturbing than the questionable ethicality of intentionally throwing a season away.

Sure, there is significant downside to missing the playoffs: Jerry Reinsdorf would lose -- or, more accurately, not gain -- a significant amount of cash, the young core would miss out on the experience, and the perception of the team among prospective free agents might take a hit.

But let's focus on the first part for now, because I'm sure that's the one Reinsdorf would be most concerned with. I just can't envision a scenario where the Bulls would've hosted more than three home playoff games. I believe I once read somewhere that an NBA team adds about a million dollars to its bottom line per postseason home game, so that's $3 million. Maybe it's a bit more in a large market like Chicago, so lets up it to $5 million.

Though less than a quarter of the combined annual salary of Luol Deng and Kirk Hinrich, that's still a lot of money. However, making the playoffs also would leave the Bulls with little pretense to ax Vinny Del Negro. After two playoff appearances in two years, it would have been very difficult for the Bulls to justify firing their novice head coach, and I think it's at least possible that the Bulls' master plan involves canning Del Negro and bringing in a desirable, big-name player's coach to help entice their priority-one target(s).

It's clear that this whole year has been about jockeying for free agents. And so while that $5 million would surely have bought Reinsdorf some snazzy new glasses, it would also have zero impact on any potential free-agent's willingness to sign, which in the long run would be worth far more money to the organization. So therefore it becomes solely a matter of creating the most appealing destination for someone like Dwyane Wade or LeBron James. Would they prefer to go somewhere with:

Back-to-back playoff appearances + Vinny Del Negro

--OR--

A near-playoff miss + a real head coach?

I suppose it depends largely on who that coach would be, so let's do some speculatin'. One obvious candidate would be Mike Krzyzewski, who has been linked to other NBA jobs in the past, but has always turned them down. But maybe the Bulls figure he wouldn't be able to resist the lure of his hometown and the opportunity to coach Derrick Rose and one of the stars (LeBron, Wade, Chris Bosh) he had on the 2008 Olympic team.

While Krzyzewski would be great as a marketing tool, there is another, more appealing name lingering out there on the horizon: Philip Douglas Jackson.

Alright, it's far-fetched, but what are you, the near-fetched police? Jackson is a free agent after this season, and there's been all sorts of rumbling in L.A. of discord in the organization affecting his return. And somewhat significantly from the Bulls' perspective, Jackson realizes that the environment has changed since he inked his $10+ million a year contract with L.A. Speaking about the Lakers, he recently said:

"People are cutting costs all around the league and coaches are obviously going to take a cut too, so they may not even want to hire me. They may want to save some money."

Also, as far as I know, the rift between Jackson and the Bulls was almost entirely between him and Jerry Krause, who's obviously no longer here. While he surely resented Reinsdorf for supporting Krause, Jackson's parting was no more acrimonious than the one he had with the Lakers following the 2004 Finals, and he returned to LA after just one year away. So there's been more than enough water under that bridge.

Admittedly, I have no idea what kind of relationship Jackson has with John Paxson, but given each's contributions to the Bulls' championship legacy, I can't believe that it wouldn't at least be one of mutual respect. And if Jackson can mend fences with Jerry Buss and Kobe Bryant and return to the Lakers, I see no reason why he couldn't do the same with Jerry Reinsdorf and the Bulls.

Can you imagine the impact that would have? If anything could lure LeBron James to Chicago, this would be it: Playing for a legend like Jackson, in the house that Michael built, trying to make Bulls fans forget MJ with several titles of his own. And I don't buy that James (or Dwyane Wade, or anyone else) wouldn't want to come here because of Jordan's enormous shadow. Bill Russell didn't prevent Larry Bird from becoming a legend, and the specter of Jerry West didn't hurt Magic Johnson, either.

Pipe dream or not, bringing Jackson back at almost any cost would be the best move the Bulls could make to position themselves for free agency, and I dare say would trump anything that a first-round playoff exit would accomplish.

God that would be awesome.

*****

Some lingering, more reality-based thoughts from Saturday's 122-116 loss to Dallas:

1. As mentioned above, the Bulls don't really have enough talent to win. Just as damning, however, is that the team's coaching staff simply isn't good enough to win with the middling talent at its disposal.

2. There was a lot of talk about defense after the 122-116 loss. Of course, it was all in generalities, as with Tyrus gone there was no one specific to scapegoat for the shortcomings:

"We scored 116 points, which is plenty," Del Negro said. "Their penetration really hurt us. We missed some of our rotations and gave them some easy baskets in the lane. ... Our weak side defense is not very good."

"We just had trouble stopping them," said Hinrich. "We did not play very good team defense and we lost because of it."

'''We just couldn't get a stop," Deng said. "If you want to win, that fourth quarter, you have to lock down. In the fourth, it's not about offense anymore. It's about getting stops.''

In other news, duh. Why, exactly, should this be at all surprising to anyone? As stated in my last post, in Salmons and Thomas the Bulls traded away their two best defenders, statistically speaking. Not that Vinny would have been smart enough to give either any significant minutes against the Mavs, but still.

The horribly ironic thing is, for all of the Bulls' organizational talk about the importance of defense, they practically gave away their two best players on that end, seemingly because they hadn't a clue just how valuable they were, in order to acquire two (allegedly) better offensive players. Criminy.

3. As you know from this post from last week, I love Jason Kidd. Kidd's line against the Bulls -- 6 points, 11 rebounds, 15 assists -- marked the fourth time this season that he has failed to get a triple-double because he came up short in points. He's now had a single-digit points, assists-rebounds double-double 24 times in his NBA career; since he came into the league in 1994, everyone else has combined for 25 such games.

And the primary reason Kidd didn't get career triple-double #105 on Saturday was obvious: He just doesn't care about individual stats. While we've seen other players intentionally miss shots on their own basket just to secure a 10th rebound to try and seal a triple-double, Kidd literally did nothing to selfishly pursue his. Sure, he shot just 33.3% for the game, but he only took six shots. And hitting a 3 to get to six points with 6:41 remaining in the third quarter, Kidd took only one more shot, a 3 at the 3rd-quarter buzzer. Just four points short of a triple-double, Kidd did not attempt a single field goal in the 4th quarter.

And that -- as much as the 10,781 assists (2nd-most all-time) -- is part of what makes Jason Kidd one of the most unselfish players in NBA history. And one of my all-time favorites.

The Eyes Tell Lies

2010-03-06T14:46:00.005-06:00

Forgive me, dear reader, for I have sinned: I cannot make myself watch the Bulls' 105-96 loss to Memphis on Thursday.

Because of familial responsibilities, I was not able to see the game live. Of course, I recorded it and it's sitting on my DVR. But do I really want to force myself to stomach two-and-a-half hours of blown-17-point-lead agony? Sure, if I watch the game I'll usually re-watch it before writing. But since I didn't have to suffer through the disappointment the first time through, why would I want to do it now?

Cogent analysis, I suppose.

But who needs that? I refuse to suffer through the indignity of another soul-crushing loss. Instead, I am going to do the unthinkable and write this entirely blind. This might seem insane to the demographic of statistic-eschewing eye-believers, but one fact remains: while numbers don't lie, our eyes most certainly do.

Our vision is not a security camera, merely recording everything in front of it (most notably, like that time I crotched that pack of Big League Chew). Rather, everything is filtered through our brain. And when we watch, more often than not what we see becomes ensnared in a web of confirmation bias, which is a tendency to interpret information in way that confirms one's preconceptions.

Look no further than the case of Tyrus Thomas.

I loved Tyrus. What I'll remember most about his Bulls career are the flying dunks, the uncannily-timed blocked shots, and a much-improved mid-range jumper. However, plenty of people watched the exact same games I did, and their overarching perception of Tyrus is centered around play that was alternately out-of-control and indifferent, poor shot selection, and repeated failures to rotate defensively.

The thing is, Tyrus did all of those things, albeit to differing degrees. And I think most fans would acknowledge that. But depending largely on what you had decided Tyrus was -- either a waste-of-a-lottery-pick malcontent, or a guy who just needed consistent playing time -- you primarily perceived the moments that would confirm it.

Therefore, if you want analysis in its purest form, ignore them lyin' eyes. With that as my motive -- and due in no part to my overwhelming laziness -- I have the following observations about Thursday's game, based exclusively on the box score and play-by-play data:

The Bulls frontcourt can't stop anybody

Zach Randolph's night: 31 points (12-18 FG, 7-8 FT), 18 rebounds.

Hard to believe that this is the guy that the Grizzlies were roundly mocked for taking off of the Clippers hands this offseason, and the same one that the Bulls, even given their dearth of low post scoring, showed absolutely zero interest in acquiring at several times over the last few seasons.

Randolph was just the latest power forward to have his way with the Bulls. Over the last six games, the Bulls have yielded the following to 4s around the league*:

	Blatche	Aldridge	Smith	Randolph	AVG
Min	41	44	34	40	39.8
Pts	25	32	17	31	26.2
FG	8-13	15-23	7-14	12-18	10.5-17	61.8%
FT	9-9	2-2	3-4	7-8	5.3-5.8	91.3%
Reb	11	7	18	18	13.5
Ast	2	0	4	1	1.8
Stl	2	1	2	1	1.5
Blk	2	0	2	0	1
TO	3	3	3	2	2.8
PF	2	4	4	2	3

* Luckily, there were two games involving Troy Murphy sandwiched in there, so they can kind of stop somebody who is eminently stoppable.

And this is the downside of the Joakim Noah injury, combined with the Thomas trade.

Until Noah's injury, the Bulls frontline had three of the 20 best shot blockers (on a per-minute basis) in the league. Now they are playing without the better two of those three, leaving Taj Gibson as the only shot-altering threat they have. Luol Deng's 59th-best rate (1.22/48 min) is second highest among healthy Bulls, and less than a third of Tyrus' (3.82).

While the play of Brad Miller in Noah's absence was significantly acclaimed -- and, just as significantly, has dropped off of late -- probably the most underrated reason the Bulls were able to initially weather the storm of Noah's injury was the presence of Thomas, who defensively does a lot of the same things. With Thomas now gone as well, that leaves only Gibson and his still too foul-prone ways defending the basket. Which is why we're seeing a whole lotta 4s go off on the Bulls.

Piss-poor second quarters are destroying the Bulls chances

Against the Grizzlies, the Bulls 13-point first quarter lead had shrunk to 6 by halftime. Which continued a disturbing trend: somehow, dating back to last Wednesday's Pacers game, the Bulls have been outscored by at least five points in five straight second quarters:

	Q2 Score
vs. Indiana	36-21
vs. Portland	29-21
at Indiana	29-23
vs. Atlanta	25-20
vs. Memphis	26-19
AVG	29-21
Per 48	116-84

What's happening here is as clear as it is frightening: The second quarter is when the backups play the most, and the Bulls bench, the team's strength as recently as last year, is now a glaring weakness. Obviously, having Noah out hurts here too, but the problem runs deeper than that. The bench is now comprised primarily of two guys:

	Hakim Warrick
vs.	IND	POR	@ IND	ATL	MEM	AVG
Min	15	34	17	25	25	23.2
Pts	5	15	4	10	6	8
FG	1-3	6-11	1-3	3-10	1-3	2.4-6	40%
FT	3-5	3-3	2-2	4-4	4-5	3.2-3.8	84.2%
Reb	1	4	4	7	5	4.2
Ast	0	3	0	1	0	0.8
Stl	1	0	1	0	0	0.4
Blk	0	0	0	1	0	0.2
TO	1	1	2	1	0	1
PF	0	3	2	2	1	1.6
+/-	-2	-4	-3	-5	-13	-5.4

and

	Flip Murray
vs.	IND	POR	@ IND	ATL	MEM	AVG
Min	33	21	19	31	19	24.6
Pts	16	8	2	12	4	8.4
FG	4-12	2-5	0-2	6-13	1-7	2.6-7.8	33.3%
FT	8-10	4-4	2-2	0-1	2-2	3.2-3.8	84.2%
Reb	6	3	2	3	2	3.2
Ast	0	1	0	2	2	1
Stl	3	0	0	3	0	1.2
Blk	1	0	0	1	0	0.4
TO	3	1	1	2	2	1.8
PF	3	1	3	1	2	2
+/-	3	7	-12	-5	-11	-3.6

Warrick and Murray essentially replaced two players, Thomas -- who had a loyal and vocal following -- and John Salmons, who didn't. And Murray and Warrick's collective shooting slump presents a huge problem, because while both were supposed to bring improved scoring, they are significant downgrades defensively.

The Bulls have tried to sell a Warrick-as-superior-defender-based-on-positioning line of bullshit, but the numbers tell a different story. According to baketballvalue.com, with Warrick on the court, the Bulls have a defensive rating (points allowed per 100 possessions) of 110.51. Without Warrick, they are at 103.83. That's a net of +6.68 (a positive number is not a good thing, in this case).

As for Murray, the Bulls are at 109.77 with him; without him, 103.89. He is then at +5.88.

Admittedly, there are issues with the data sets. For starters, as with all +/- stats, there are issues of multicollinearity, which I'll let ESPN.com's John Hollinger define:

Since the same players tend to play together most of the time, it's tough to tease out to what extent each is impacting the unit's results unless you have a massive number of observations.

Basically, if every time Bill Russell came out of a game, Bob Cousy did too, Cousy would have an amazing +/- rating which he (presumably) would've done little to merit. But the problems with Warrick's and Murray's numbers go beyond multicollinearity, because their off-court numbers include all of the Bulls data from the time before they were acquired. And most of that data came when the Bulls had the benefit of Joakim Noah's services, and he is arguably their best defensive player.

Or is he? Over the course of the season, the Bulls are at 105.46 with Noah on the court, and 103.01 with him off, for a net of 2.45. That shocked the hell out of me.

Still, because the sample size of on-court data is so small, I wanted to look at Murray and Warrick's numbers from before the Bulls acquired them. With Warrick on the court, the Bucks were at 105.82; without him they're 102.05, which is the kind of thing likely to happen with a power forward averaging 0.6 blocks (and 0.7 steals) per 36 min over the course of his career.

Besides, should we really be surprised that Warrick's defensive prowess was greatly exaggerated? If Warrick were an ace defender, would he really have fallen out of favor in Milwaukee with defensive-bug-up-his-ass Scott Skiles as their coach? If Warrick had some magical defensive ability that didn't show up on the stat sheet, I'm confident that Skiles would've sussed it out; instead, he had his minutes significantly reduced over the course of the season.

Murray, on the other hand, looks a little more competent in his Bobcats context. Charlotte was actually a better defensive team with him on the court, with a rating of 102.26, as opposed to 104.64 with him off. While his numbers are more encouraging, overall the swap of Warrick-Murray for Thomas-Salmons has not been a good one defensively. Because among Bulls who have played any real minutes, Thomas (-3.36) and Salmons (-4.60) had the two best net defensive ratings on the team.

Let me say that again: The two best.

Salmons was very long for a shooting guard, so while it's surprising he would've fared so well, it's not a total shock. As for Thomas, I suppose that maybe this means his positives as a defensive player -- primarily, his shot-blocking and ability to pick up steals -- outweighed his perceived failures.

Despite what your eyes may have told you.

Where there's no Luol, there's no way

2010-03-03T19:28:00.004-06:00

11 words no Bulls fan -- let alone one attending his first game of the season -- wants to hear to open pre-game introductions:

At forward, from Wake Forest, 6-9, number 16, James Johnson.*

And that is how, not negative-3 minutes into the 116-92 loss to the Hawks on Monday night, Bulls public address announcer Tommy Edwards dashed the hopes of an entire stadium (semi-)full of people. I have never been in a place where the atmosphere went from hopeful for an upset to foregone conclusion in an instant like that.* Everyone in the United Center over the age of 6 knew it was over, and Brad Miller hadn't even "jumped" yet.

* This isn't meant as a knock on Johnson, who I actually thought had a good showing. But with Joakim Noah already out, not having Deng was devastating against Atlanta's long, athletic front line.

And 6-foot-9? Really, Bulls? Since he was listed at 6-7 on draft day, he must be hitting his 22-year-old growth spurt,; I'm guessing by the beginning of next season, Johnson will be 7-foot-3.

The game began amid a decidedly funereal haze, and my friend whose tickets they were kept feeling obligated to apologize, as if it were his fault that we had to watch the Bulls JV (when it was clearly Edwards'). Although I have to say I appreciate that he was worried I'd come away thinking, Matt, that dick. He asks me if I want to go to a Bulls game, and then I show up and two of their three best players aren't even playing. What an asshole.

You'd think the Hawks would've felt right at home playing in front of a wholly disheartened and disinterested crowd, but instead they were clearly bored, and might have even felt a little sorry for the Bulls. The game itself reminded me of when I race my nephews: I keep it close because I'm a good guy, but there's no way I'm letting them win. The Hawks toyed with the Bulls for three-plus quarters, and once they decided to put them away, they did it without breaking a sweat.

The good news is, because any expectations I had on the walk to the UC were immediately quashed by Deng's absence, I didn't find much to get riled up about during the game. Sure, given the personnel situation -- Derrick Rose also basically missed a full quarter after some more hot knee-on-knee action -- I would've liked to have seen Acie Law and/or Joe Alexander before garbage time, but that's trifling, really.

Plus I actually enjoyed watching the Bulls not completely cave until the very end. While it's true Atlanta basically allowed them to hang around, the Bulls fought hard enough to pull within six (85-79) of the snoozing Hawks in the fourth quarter. But then Atlanta was like, Wait, this game actually counts?, quickly reeled off nine unanswered points, and outscored the Bulls 31-13 the rest of the way.

Still, I was able to take a few things away from the experience:

1. James Johnson's play was very encouraging.

While he's got a bit of an unusual-for-the-NBA body -- he reminds me a lot of the way Jason Caffey used to look in his uniform -- Johnson showed enough flashes that I think he could become a decent backup to Deng. I especially liked the defense he played on Joe Johnson during a sequence when Atlanta went to their three-guard lineup. Joe Johnson clearly thought he'd have a quickness advantage, but despite repeated attempts couldn't shake the rookie, and eventually had to settle for a contested, badly-missed 20-footer.

While James Johnson also showed a decent shooting touch and plenty of athleticism, I'm hoping that his defensive focus will be why Del Negro ultimately trusts him to play the 12-or-so minutes a game available when a healthy Deng comes to the bench.

2. The Bulls are woefully thin at small forward.

In fact, I've finally realized that they're now woefully thin at pretty much every position. How did I not notice this before?

While the Bulls haven't missed John Salmons recalcitrant gunning, the place where his departure has really been felt is in the small-forward rotation. (And Tyrus' absence is felt there too, as he would occasionally slide over to the 3). Since the Bulls (and the Bucks, for that matter) have apparently decided that Joe Alexander's not an NBA player, they are left with just two viable small forwards, one that's injured, and one that's a rookie. So with Deng out, it's hard for me to get on Vinny Del Negro for opting to go extensively with his preferred 3-guard alignments.

But I will anyway.

Predictably, the Bulls got absolutely destroyed on the boards, 63-37, with Atlanta pulling down 22 offensive rebounds to the Bulls' 29 defensive, for a .431 offensive rebound percentage. Had the Bulls limited Atlanta to their season-average .258 OR% allowed, the Hawks would've had nine fewer second-chance opportunities; when you're already down two of your top three, those extra possessions/shots are not something you can afford to yield.

Because of that, I would've liked to have seen Del Negro get a little creative with his lineups. While the lack of small forward depth is yet-another failure of the front office, Vinny could do a much better job of playing the cards he's been dealt. When you're getting killed on the boards -- and given that both of Atlanta's forwards are basically 3-and-a-half's -- why not try giving Warrick some minutes at the 3? Or get Alexander in there. This was a game they had no chance to win -- if Vinny didn't realize that, he's somehow even more oblivious than I thought -- so what's the harm in trying out some new things? Hell, one of them might actually work.

3. Derrick Rose has a little Scottie Pippen in him.

Not in his game, but his penchant for over-dramatizing his "injuries" when they occur. If I hadn't gotten used to it by now, every time Rose went down I'd think he was out for the season, based on his reaction.

Speaking of Pippen, I was thinking last night how the most sneaky-effective part of his game was that pull-up, top-of-the-key 3 he used to launch in transition. He was absolutely deadly with it, and I can't recall any other player hitting that shot with any sort of consistency, and I rarely see it even attempted. Although I'm pretty sure I've seen Chauncey Billups and/or Steve Nash do it a few times, neither of them make a living off of it the way Scottie did.

4. Three quick strikes

A. From a distance, Joe Alexander looks like a mutant Kirk Hinrich

B. I didn't know they had added the Madhouse on Madison signs, and even though the place doesn't quite live up to the name the way the Stadium did, I thought they were a cool touch.

C. It's time to remove Tyrus' (and the other traded players') life-size cutouts from the concourse. Are you trying to bring tears to my eyes, Bulls front office personnel?

Judging from the team that was trotted out there on Monday, I'd have to say yes.

S.O.B.

2010-03-02T08:12:00.003-06:00

Same old Bulls.

That's all I could think about during Saturday's 100-90 loss at Indiana.

Sure, there were plenty of reasons for the Bulls to lose -- Joakim Noah was out, it was the second game of a back-to-back and the eighth in 12 days, Joe Alexander was inadvertently inactive -- but all of them are just excuses. Good teams find a way to take care of business against the bad, and the Bulls squandered any potential momentum from what could have been a huge win on Friday against Portland.

Instead, the Bulls once again failed to take a winnable game against a crappy team. Stop me if you've heard this before.

After an inspired performance the night before, the Bulls came out flat and disinterested versus the Pacers. They never even made a run in what was by far their worst effort since the All-Star break -- their last lead was 17-15, and they never got closer than eight points (with 2:11 left) in the fourth quarter. It just was not a playoff-caliber performance.

And let's be honest: the Bulls hold on a postseason berth is becoming rather tenuous, even without what are hopefully minor injuries to Loul Deng and Derrick Rose. There are still five teams battling for four playoff spots; from a few different sources, the playoff odds currently look like this:

	Hollinger	B-R.com	CoolStandings	AVG
Bucks	89.0%	83.7%	82.5%	85.1%
Raptors	7.5%	89.7%	83.4%	83.5%
Heat	82.7%	80.4%	76.0%	79.7%
Bobcats	75.0%	77.0%	79.1%	77.0%
Bulls	74.9%	69.2%	78.7%	74.3%

So even though the Bulls have roughly a 3-in-4 chance of making the playoffs, they are still the team most likely to be left out. Looking at those five teams* it's hard not to think that the Bulls are in the worst position. Not only is their best big man out indefinitely, but their schedule for the next three weeks is a fucking nightmare.

* Seeing Milwaukee at the top of the heap is unsettling, but spurred by high-energy newcomer Tim Thomas -- excuse me, that's John Salmons -- the Bucks had won six in a row before falling in Atlanta on Sunday. Salmons has led the Bucks in scoring in five of his seven games; in fact, he's playing a lot like he did last year after the Bulls acquired him. So maybe that's the Salmons' Secret™: If you want him to not suck ass, acquire him at midseason.

The Heat look to be the most vulnerable, given their current ninth-place standing, Dwyane Wade's injury problems, and their uneven play even when Wade does suit up. But their upcoming slate is the polar opposite of the Chicago's. They play nine of their next 10 at home, so even though they're now 2 1/2 games behind the Bulls, they could easily move ahead of them by the first day of spring.

Tough as the opponents may be over the next four games -- every team is over .500, and all but the Grizzlies are in the top-4 in their respective conferences -- the Bulls have to establish some momentum on this homestand. With a difficult four-game trip to immediately follow, they simply cannot afford to be the same old Bulls.

And here's how they can break the cycle:

1. Stop giving Jannero Pargo minutes

If you're wondering how the Bulls could lose to the Pacers, here's all you need to know:

Jannero Pargo, 16 field goal attempts; Derrick Rose, 14.

I'm going to say that any time the guy who's arguably your least-effective offensive player (Pargo currently sports .341 field goal percentage) puts the ball up more than your best, you're probably not going to win a whole lot of basketball games.

And from here on out, Pargo needs to stay glued to the bench.

Vinny Del Negro's love of the the three-guard lineup notwithstanding, Pargo has no business being on the floor anymore. If the Bulls think they have to run with three guards at times, it should exclusively be Rose, Kirk Hinrich, and Flip Murray. The Hinrich-Murray-Pargo arrangement they trotted out there a few times against the Pacers is a total abomination.

2. Give Pargo's minutes to Acie Law

Since Pargo does play some in traditional two-guard sets, those six-or-so minutes per game should immediately go to Law. I was one of the people that supported the Pargo signing, thinking he'd provide some instant offense off the bench, and essentially be a cheaper (albeit lesser) alternative to Ben Gordon. I could not have been more wrong, and now the Bulls should find out what they have in Law.

Pargo is an unconscionable jacker, shooting way too often and far too early in most possessions. On the other hand, Law, possibly because he's not very good at it, is somewhat reluctant to shoot, averaging 10.8 FGA per 36 minutes to Pargo's 17.6.

Pargo's 8.93 PER is the 70th-best mark among NBA point guards. Wait, I don't even need to bother with the stats; everyone can see that Pargo has been utterly atrocious. Because of that, there's absolutely no harm in playing Law instead. Law would provide more size, and there is a chance -- a small chance, but at least a chance -- that he might actually be serviceable. How many more games does Vinny need until he realizes that Pargo is not?

3. Try something new in the frontcourt

One game after LaMarcus Aldridge removed Taj Gibson's hard hat and repeatedly bludgeoned him over the head with his lunch pail to the tune of 32 points, the Bulls front line was again exposed by Troy Murphy and Roy Hibbert. I'm probably one of Hibbert's biggest fans -- when it seemed like the Bulls would be picking in the 10-range in the 2008 draft, I was hoping that if Kevin Love didn't fall to them, they'd pick Roy Hibbert -- but come on. He is not the irresistible force the Bulls' front court of movable objects made him appear to be.

Meanwhile, like in Wednesday's 120-110 win over the Pacers, the Bulls' also had trouble keeping tabs on Murphy. Might Joe Alexander have helped? Unfortunately, we'll never know. From the Daily Herald's Mike McGraw (and confirmed by K.C. Johnson):

The Indiana game offered a chance for the Bulls to get a look at forward Joe Alexander, who was acquired from Milwaukee with Hakim Warrick on Feb. 18.

There already were three players not with the team - Joakim Noah, Jerome James, and Lindsey Hunter - who should have constituted the three inactive players.

But there was a mistake made while filling out the pregame roster. The same lineup was copied from the day before, with Noah active and Alexander inactive. So the second-year forward had to remain in street clothes on the bench.

How was a bigger deal not made of this? This was a huge, underreported mistake. For one, given the complete lack of front-court depth, Alexander really needs to be active. But more importantly, when staggering incompetence becomes a non-story, that speaks volumes about the current state of the organization.

Speaking of mistakes, the Bulls should rectify one they made 10 days ago and immediately re-sign Chris Richard, who never should have let go in the wake of their deadline deals. Richard is by no means a star, but he is a big body who showed himself to be a willing defender and solid rebounder. They cut the wrong guy.

Sure, given the trades someone had to go. And the obvious candidate would have been Jerome James, who hasn't played a game since the Bulls acquired him last season and never will. The suspicion, however, is that the Bulls' insurers are paying James' freight, which means he must remain on the roster or the responsibility for payment reverts back to the team.

Does that make any sense to you? If I total my car, the insurance company doesn't make cutting me a check contingent on me keeping the wreckage in my garage.

I understand the need to prevent teams from collecting insurance money on players they'd just prefer not to pay. But James is legitimately hurt. Not being able to play elsewhere would prove that he really is injured, and if he could play for another team, that would make a hell of a case of insurance fraud against the Bulls. I would think an insurance company would have significant interest in sussing out fraud, but I guess not. If anything, they should require that teams cut players once they begin collecting on a policy, just to confirm that the claims are actually legit.

Nevertheless, the result is that cutting James was out. Which left four candidates: Richards, Pargo, Devin Brown, and Lindsey Hunter.

As terrible as Pargo has been, he's shown some value in the past as a 3-point shooter in those we're-down-by-12-with-2:30-to-go rally attempts. And given that Brown is 6-foot-5, "only" 31, and can play the 2 or the 3, I would've cut Hunter's 39-year-old keister.

But because of Hunter's incomparable leadership -- which has propelled the Bulls to the two-games-over-.500 mountaintop -- the Bulls opted to continue wasting a roster spot on him and cast Richards aside. But that simply cannot be the final verdict. The Bulls are woefully thin up front, and someone needs to sit Hunter down and tell him that in order to re-sign Richards, he needs to go.

And I'm just the S.O.B. to do it: Lindsey, GTFO.

C'mon, IOC and Team Canada

2010-02-28T18:15:00.002-06:00

How about a Game 3 to settle this once and for all?

The Kidd from Cal

2010-02-28T11:00:00.008-06:00

19 points, 16 rebounds, 17 assists.

Calling it a triple-double just doesn't do it justice.

Since the 1986-87 season -- when Basketball-Reference.com's box score database begins -- Jason Kidd's triple-Montana in Friday's 111-103 OT win over Atlanta is only the third of its kind. Magic Johnson predictably had one of them -- his was actually a triple-Winger -- in a 142-118 win over Denver on April 18, 1989, scoring 24 points with 17 rebounds and 17 assists.

Wanna guess who owns the other one? It's Jason Kidd. From 1996.

In that 105-101 win over the Clipper, a 22-year-old Kidd played all 48 minutes in posting a 21-16-16 line. But what he did against the Hawks, less than a month from his 37th birthday, is unprecedented.

There have now been 41 triple-doubles by players 34 and older; Kidd has nearly half of them with 19. Of the 14 triple-doubles by players 35 or older, five belong to Kidd. However, only one of the other 35-plussers had as many as 12 in each category: Larry Bird's inconceivable 49-14-12 against Portland in 1992.

Forgetting about age, Kidd now owns the only 15-rebound, 15-assist, 3-or-fewer-turnover game in the B-R.com era. The only one. In fact, the rest of the NBA has only four 14-rebound, 14-assist, 3-or-fewer-turnover games in that span, by Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Grant Hill, and LeBron James, and all but Jordan -- who did it in a remarkable 30 minutes -- needed at least 48 minutes of playing time to accomplish the feat. Kidd, meanwhile, has four all by himself, and has required just 44, 42, 38, and 46 minutes to do it.

So I think you can see where I'm going with this: Jason Kidd is better than MJ, Bird, Hill, and LeBron combined.

*****

While a student at Cal, I was lucky enough to witness the Jason Kidd era in its entirety.* The guy was just unbelievable with the basketball in his hands. The astounding array of assists was unlike anything I'd ever seen. Three-quarter-court bounce passes with crazy english on them... Oddly angled lobs on the fast break... No-look behind-the-backs threaded between two guys... His court vision was otherworldly, and he played the game on an entirely different level from anyone else out there. I was also lucky enough to watch him in the cathedral that was Harmon Gym. Going to a college basketball game is just so superior the NBA experience, and Harmon was one of the places to see a game. Tiny and cramped, and louder than shit.

* Incidentally, Kidd and I both dropped out of school following the 1994 basketball season. He left to make literally hundreds of millions of dollars playing in the NBA, while I, uh ...

Fuck.

During Kidd's first season (my sophomore year), he got the coach fired; led the nation in steals with an NCAA freshman-record 110; established single-season school records for steals and assists; led the team to just its second NCAA Tournament bid in 33 years; hit a crazy, contested, last-second pretzel shot to beat LSU in the first round; and knocked out two-time defending National Champion Duke to advance to the Sweet 16 (where the team lost to Kansas).

The next season, Kidd was just as brilliant, leading the nation in assists while breaking his own school record, earning first-team All-American honors, and becoming the first sophomore ever to be named Pac-10 Player of the Year. Unfortunately, the team battled injuries all year long and bricked its way out of the NCAA Tournament in the first round, after which Kidd bolted.

As did I, though I would return 12 years later to complete my degree. I suppose that brings the score to Jason Kidd $165,853,968; me 1.

(Originally posted here.)

*****

Kidd's NBA career, which sometimes gets downgraded because of the lack of a title, has been both steady and spectacular. He now has the second-most assists (10,742) in league history and the fifth-most steals, where he is just one away from tying Maurice Cheeks for fourth. Now in his 16th NBA season, Kidd is still averaging nearly two steals per game; if he maintains that pace, he'll likely move into second place by the end of next season.

He's also now played the 13th-most minutes all-time, and his 37.13 MPG are almost identical to renowned ironman Karl Malone's 37.16. And Kidd has used those minutes like no other guard before him, pulling down 7,721 rebounds, more than Alonzo Mourning, Kevin McHale, Wayne Embry, and Sam Perkins.

And for all the _ason Kidd jokes -- you know, He's got no J. Hilarious! -- do you realize that Kidd is now fifth all-time in 3-pointers made? Fifth! Now granted he's taken a high volume of 3s, and his career percentage (.347) is only 196th; still, that's higher than Kobe Bryant (.341), Sam Cassell (.331), Rip Hamilton (.343), and Robert Horry (.341). Additionally, Kidd's scored over 15,000 points, more than Bill Russell, Shawn Kemp, Dennis Johnson or Tim Hardaway.

Who's tired of statistics?

Fine, we'll move on to more statistics. Please take a gander at this here chart:

	Last before	First with	Change	Last with	First after	Dropoff
Mavs	13-69	36-46	+23	26-56	20-62	-6
Suns	41-41	56-26	+15	51-31	36-46	-15
Nets	26-56	52-30	+26	41-41	34-48	-7
AVG	27-55	48-34	+21	39-43	30-52	-9

All are records for the first full season before/after Kidd's arrival/departure. And the improvement that Kidd apparently brings to each of his teams -- which, combined with the above-mentioned statistics, makes him one of the five greatest point guards of all time -- is probably the biggest reason Mark Cuban decided to roll the dice and re-acquire Kidd in a deal centered around Devin Harris.

The move was not well-received.

Nor did it payoff in terms of regular season record. In 2006-07, the Mavs won 67 games. In 2008-09, they won just 51. Plus Harris blossomed in New Jersey, earning an All-Star berth while Kidd was outscored 115 NBA players, including a T.J. (Ford), an O.J. (Mayo), a D.J. (Augustin) and a pair of C.J.'s (Watson and Miles). At that point, the (ahem) initial impressions seemed to be correct.

However, in last year's playoffs, the Mavs broke through to win their first series since the devastating loss to Bennett Salvatore, Joe DeRosa, and the rest of the NBA's officials in the 2006 Finals. So was that enough to swing the trade back in the Mavs favor?

Although there was some additional salary-cap flotsam, the deal essentially boiled down to Kidd for Harris, $3 million, and first-round picks in 2008 and 2010. The '08 pick turned into Ryan Anderson -- who, coincidentally, played at Cal during my second go-round on campus -- and while Anderson is a very solid rotation player, the Nets already essentially gave him away to Orlando. The second pick will likely be in the high-20s, where you're lucky to get a player the caliber of Taj Gibson.

Meanwhile, Harris has taken a major step back this year as Kidd is putting together his best season in four years. In fact, Kidd actually leads Harris in PER (Player Efficiency Rating) 17.79 to 16.59. Kidd has also been healthy -- that's really Harris' bugaboo -- and has thus played nearly 700 more minutes, so that his Value Added (213.4, the eighth-best among point guards) is nearly twice that of Harris (117.7).

Since the deal was made, Harris has a huge edge in PPG, nearly doubling Kidd, 18.8 to 9.5. But look at the rest of the numbers:

Kidd Harris

FG% .423 .425

3P% .418 .284

3PM 289 124

FT% .813 .811

FTA/G 1.3 7.3

Reb 6.0 3.3

Ast 9.1 6.8

Stl 2.0 1.5

Blk .48 .25

TO 2.4 2.9

Ast/TO 3.8 2.3

Fouls 2.1 2.5

Games 168 135

Min 6003 4743

MPG 35.7 35.1

The field goal and free throw percentages are nearly identical. Everything else except for free throw attempts per game is heavily in Kidd's favor. Is it enough to offset Harris' advantage in scoring?

I guess that depends on what you like. Still, you can have the guy who's won four times in 41 games this season; I'll take the one who's won everywhere he's been, mostly because he makes plays like this.

And no, I'm not biased. What in the world would ever give you that impression?

Bulls in no rush to guard Brandon, win anyway

2010-02-25T02:43:00.005-06:00

While the Bulls spent most Wednesday night's game failing to put away the Indiana Pacers, all that matters is the final result: a 120-110 victory.

The Bulls came out in the first quarter looking very much like a team that was angry about giving away a game to Washington on Monday. With Luol Deng leading the charge, the Bulls jumped out to a 35-12 first quarter advantage. At that moment, I thought to myself:

It turns out my fears were completely unwarranted, as the Bulls blew the entire lead by the 2:00 mark of the second quarter.

With the Pacers hitting wide-open 3 after wide-open 3 to propel the comeback, I realized that the Bulls had clearly reacquired Tyrus Thomas, because someone was repeatedly failing to rotate, and we've been told all season that such an unconscionable transgression is unique to Tyrus' game.

After a Brandon Rush 3 -- he finished the first half 4-of-6 from the behind the arc, while Danny Granger was 3-of-5 -- finally tied the game at 52, the Bulls eventually limped into the locker room with a 58-54 halftime lead.

However...

The Bulls came out in the third quarter looking very much like a team that was angry about giving away a big lead in the first half. Only this time, they did not let the Pacers back in the game, or at least not until Vinny Del Negro's head-scratching decision to pull Luol Deng in favor of James Johnson with less than three minutes to play.

A few observations:

1. Taj Gibson bounced back from an uninspired effort against the Wizards with a nice, strong game

Gibson finished with 14 points, 11 rebounds, three assists and three blocks. That's a quality performance from someone who's become a very solid player as the year's worn on. But for the love of God, the Rookie of the Year talk has got to stop. Gibson is having a fine and pleasantly-surprising season; but no one that's not a biased Bulls fan/media hanger-on even considers him a legitimate contender for the award. Nor should they.

Entering Wednesday's game, Gibson was tied for 15th among rookies with a below-league-average 13.64 PER (Player Efficiency Rating). Given that PER is calculated on per minute basis, and Gibson has gotten a decent chunk of playing time (25.1 min/game), he fares better in Value Added (59.7), where he ranks 11th.

Here are Gibson's rankings among rookies in the traditional stat categories:

Per game (/min)

Points 13 (27)

Rebounds 1 (5)

Assists 22 (36)

Steals 13 (30)

Blocks T-1 (4)

Fouls 1 (6)

Turnovers 11(8)

FG% 4

FT% 26

Minutes 7

The rebounding and blocks are nice, but there's nothing in his profile that says Rookie of the Year; at this point, it appears to be a two-horse race between Tyreke Evans and the fast-closing Stephen Curry, although Brandon Jennings could thrust himself back into the picture with 10 or 12 more 55-point games. Most analysts -- like ESPN.com's David Thorpe, who does not have Gibson in his current Top-10 -- would also rank at least some of the following ahead of him: Jonny Flynn, Omri Casspi, DeJuan Blair, Ty Lawson, Darren Collison, Marcus Thornton. There's no shame in that though, as Gibson's exceeded expectations and been far more productive than several players drafted ahead of him. He's just not quite RoY caliber.

Still, given where we are located, I didn't mind that he was part of Comcast SportsNet Chicago's Rookie-of-the-Year Question of the Day. But I just cannot accept that he won the poll. With 55% of the vote, no less. Results like that carry on the great tradition of electoral integrity that is the hallmark of the city of Chicago.

2. Game MVP: Luol Deng, 1st half; Derrick Rose, 2nd half

Deng singlehandedly kept the first half from being an unmitigated disaster, scoring 20 points by shooting 7-of-9 from the field and 6-of-7 from the line. He was also very active defensively, finishing with four blocks, which best I can tell from some half-assed research at Basketball-Reference.com, ties a career high (accomplished three other times).

Derrick Rose, though, was undoubtedly the star of the second half.

Still, leading 92-76 with 1:19 remaining in the third quarter, Rose committed a terrible foul when he crashed into a shooting Rush four days after he'd released the ball. That sparked a 6-point run and brought the Pacers back within 10, and it appeared that the second half would play out a lot like the first. But Rose would atone.

Goddamn would he atone.

It began with what's become a ho-hum Derrick Rose three-point play -- nasty crossover, three lightning-quick steps to the hoop, and then absorb the contact with a double-clutch left-hander spun high off the glass -- to close the third quarter and give the Bulls a 13-point advantage.

In the fourth Rose added another three-point play with 5:28 remaining, slammed home an alley-oop from Jannero Pargo -- who evidently can pass, but just chooses not to -- and then hit a 19-footer to put the Bulls comfortably ahead 116-99 with 3:41 remaining. He finished with 23 points (on 10-for-19 shooting that was identical to Deng's), nine rebounds, and eight assists in one of his better all-around efforts.

But for me, the highlight of the game began on the Bulls' offensive possession following Rose's long jumper. Dribbling between the circles, Rose went back-and-forth through his legs a few times and had the ball kick off his foot and into the hands of the Pacers' A.J. Price. Price then tried to beat him down the floor but it was like Rose's uniform was sewn to his. Price got to the restricted area with Rose still between him and the basket. After failing to get Rose off his feet with a pair of pump fakes, Price finally went up to shoot and was completely engulfed. While the play was technically a block, I don't think the ball ever left Price's hand; it was like me blocking my 6-year-old niece's shot (which I do all the time, by the way). Not only did Rose not allow him to score off his mistake, he didn't even allow him to get the shot off.

I hate to go there, but it was Jordanesque. Not the play itself, but the mindset. I'm not saying he is anywhere near MJ's class, but Rose was so obviously disgusted with himself for the turnover that he was utterly determined to not just prevent Price from scoring, but to get his ball back. It was the kind of thing Michael used to do, and I don't think we've seen a Bull do anything like that since 1998.

Combined with Rose's block on Rondo in Game 6, it also showed the kind of defensive player he can be when he's completely locked in on that end. And the longer he plays, the more his defensive intensity will increase, and hopefully he'll eventually be able to sustain that kind of effort throughout the course a game.

3. I would've sworn Troy Murphy scored at least 20 points in the first half.

Of course, it also felt like Rush had 50. But Murphy finished the game with just 13 points, although all of them were in the first half. He was especially lethal in the early going, when he was clearly the only Pacer who came out of the locker room knowing a game was about to be played. Watching Murphy perform, it occurred to me that in a lot of ways, he's the Kirk Hinrich of big men: If he weren't so comically overpaid, everyone would think that he was a nice player to have around.

4. Perhaps the pre-deadline Bulls had some chemistry issues

Stat-oriented people like myself have trouble acknowledging the impact of intangibles, but when players start to say things like the following, I'll admit I take notice.

When CSNC's Sarah Kustok asked Deng in a post-game, on-court interview, "How do you feel like the team has jelled together with some of these new acquisitions?" he responded:

The trade is really good for us. We got guys that have been in the league for awhile, so they're coming in, they're doing a good job. And we really needed that. And we're playing a team game, and that's the most important thing.

In the locker room, someone inquired of Rose, "How would you feel that the team is jelling together, and ... the chemistry you guys have built so far?" and he said:

The players that we got, they're veteran players. They've been playing in this league for awhile, and they're playing good basketball right now. The best thing about it, they're just basketball players that came here, they're doing whatever it takes for them to fit in, and that's what we need for this team.

The quotes are remarkably similar, and both seem to me to imply Unlike the guys that we traded away. Now maybe they're just spouting the company line, but I don't think so. With Deng's, I'd say the first part refers to Tyrus, the second Salmons. Since I've heard that Tyrus could be a brooding loner, I'm guessing Rose's doing-whatever-it-takes-to-fit-in bit was about him. Or both.

The point is, as much as I loved Tyrus' per-minute stats and jaw-dropping athletic ability, maybe the players didn't like him all that much. Same with Salmons, who was so allergic to passing he should've played for Woody Hayes. And maybe the rest of the team is happier with them gone, and are now better teammates because of it. And maybe, just maybe, all of it will make the Bulls a better team.

Nah.

The new-look Bulls? They're terrible.

2010-02-23T03:57:00.005-06:00

And anyone who says anything otherwise is an idiot.

In a game billed as the Clash of the Flips -- and if you think the Murray/Saunders thing wasn't a total mindfuck for Neil Funk, you are sadly mistaken -- the maddening, rudderless Bulls made an unwelcome reappearance in the third quarter of Monday's 101-95 loss to the Washington Wizards.

What a difference a day makes.

In the first game after their most impressive performance of the season, the Bulls went from looking like a team destined to rise to the fifth seed in the East to a group that will shit themselves right out of a playoff spot.

Which is why you don't make judgments based on one game. The Bulls are now 2-1 since the trade deadline, but after such a stellar effort Saturday against the 76ers, who the hell were those guys in the Chicago uniforms against the Wizards?

They were a flawed team, which is exactly what these Bulls have always been. And that's not going to change with the acquisition of guys like Flip Murray and Hakim Warrick. A few observations:

1. With Tyrus Thomas gone and Joakim Noah limited, the Bulls just could not match up with Washington's athletic frontcourt.

While they had all kinds of trouble dealing with Wiz forwards Al Thornton and James Singleton -- Wait, did I really just type that? -- the Bulls had absolutely no answer for Andray Blatche, the 6-11, 23-year-old power forward who's finally getting an extensive look with Antawn Jamison now on the Cavs.

Despite the horrendous first-name letter sequence, Blatche has always played well when given the opportunity, and he's really taking advantage of the increased playing time. Counting Monday's 8-for-13 performance, he's now 41-for-69 (59.4%) from the field in the four games since Jamison's departure, averaging 25 points and a touch over 10 rebounds while the Wizards have gone 3-1.

As Blatche had his way with the Bulls for 25 and 11, I kept thinking, What ever happened to that long, quick power forward we used to have? He might've matched up well against him.. But it wasn't just Tyrus' absence that was the problem. The Wizards bigs were just far quicker, which is one of the downsides of the Luol Deng-Taj Gibson-Brad Miller trio.

And it's also part of why you saw 6-foot-3 Flip Murray getting a lot of minutes at small forward, with Deng sliding over and playing the 4. The other part? See 3A and his inability to recognize what is working for his team on that particularly day, or adjust in any way.

2. Despite the loss, the new guys actually continued to make solid contributions.

Murray and Hakim Warrick were the Bulls 2nd- and 3rd-leading scorers with 16 and 12 points, respectively. Both shot over 50%, and Warrick somehow continued to do his best Tyrus impression by blocking two more shots.*

* Not that the rejections will continue, as I'll take 350+ games of career data over the past two, but they've clearly been the karmic result of people like me Chicken-Littling the Bulls' loss of blocks..

Murray, meanwhile, made the Bulls' biggest shot, a 3-pointer that brought them within 96-95 (after they had trailed by 13 with a little over five minutes to play) with 1:54 remaining. Unfortunately it would be their final points. Because:

3. The old standbys faltered.

A. Coach Vinny Del Negro reverted back to being coach Vinny Del Negro.

As a 10-point lead turned into a 5-point deficit in the first eight minutes of the third quarter, Del Negro refused to do anything until the momentum had shifted completely. The following is an actual sequence of Bulls' possessions in the third:

Derrick Rose misses 18-foot jumper

Luol Deng misses 6-foot jumper**

Kirk Hinrich misses 19-foot jumper

Taj Gibson misses 19-foot jumper

Derrick Rose misses 18-foot jumper

Brad Miller traveling

Taj Gibson traveling

Kirk Hinrich traveling

Andray Blatche blocks Brad Miller's layup

Kirk Hinrich bad pass (Randy Foye steals)

** Even this, the one shot in there that actually seems good, wasn't, as Deng drove into a triple team and threw up a two-footer from two yards away as he crashed into a positionally-established JaVale McGee.

In that horrendous 10-possession stretch -- let me highlight the three travelings in a row, in case you missed that -- Vinny did not make even one substitution, nor did he call a single timeout. Not that the timeout would've helped, because as he proved in the fourth quarter, he still hasn't come up with one goddamn decent play.

After calling a 20 with a minute to go trailing 100-95, the Bulls ran no play whatsoever. Instead, all five guys stood around the perimeter, and Deng and Hinrich each considered shooting before swinging it around to Miller for a missed 3. Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if that was exactly how Vinny drew it up.

Then following a full timeout still down five with 26 seconds left, the Bulls took 12 seconds before getting a shot off, a pretty good look from Murray in the corner. But it was like they thought they had 26 minutes. How can these guys take so long when they're down that much with that little time remaining? Vinny should've just had Jannero Pargo in there, because for once his penchant for shooting contested 27-footers off the dribble with 19 seconds left on the shot clock would've really come in handy..

B. Kirk Hinrich somehow became incapable of making 53.2% of his shots, as he had done over the previous four games.

I never would have guessed that Hinrich would suddenly cool off. I mean, who could've predicted that a terrible shooter would shoot terribly?

And Hinrich is a terrible shooter, of that there can be no argument. Now granted, his form is picture-perfect: The ball looks great coming out of his hand, with nice rotation and textbook follow through. Everything is exquisite but the end result -- the things just do not go in. Hinrich has a .414 lifetime field goal percentage, has never hit as many as 45% of his shots in a season, and has only twice shot over 42%. I know it screws up the narrative, but HInrich had not been shooting well recently because of improved chemistry/spacing/ball-sharing the trades brought on; rather he was just a lousy marksman enjoying a hot streak. Which meant he was due for a regression to the mean -- in this case 2-for-7 (although he was 2-for-3 on 3s).

While I still think Hinrich is ideally suited to be a (ridiculously overcompensated) third guard, I am warming to him a bit as a 2, something I originally couldn't stand. Sure, the Bulls could do better, but when you have a shoot-first point guard -- and that's what Derrick Rose is (while he's not in the Monta Ellis, I'm-just-gonna-get-mine category, he ain't Jason Kidd either) -- it's good to have someone that's a ballsharer in the backcourt with him. Plus with Rose's D still, um... a work-in-progress, that makes Hinrich's contributions on that end especially valuable.

Now if only he could shoot like Ben Gordon.

4. Neil Funk was intentionally sharting on my ringing endorsement in my previous post.

"And there's going to be a timeout by Vinny Del Negro as the Bulls stop play as the Wizards go on a run to open the third and get to within four after trailing by 17."

The Bulls biggest lead was 12, at 50-38 and 52-40. I have no idea where those extra five points came from; perhaps Bulls guard Flip Saunders scored them.

In Funk's defense, his performance was much better than the team's. And he did later correct the mistake. Of course, that came right after he called Murray 'Flip Saunders' which, incidentally, he also corrected.

It just wasn't a particularly good night for anyone associated with the new-look Chicago Bulls.

In praise of the new-look Bulls

2010-02-22T08:54:00.000-06:00

Say what you will about the Bulls' recent trades, but that was a freaking clinic they put on in Saturday's 122-90 win over the 76ers. And before you say to yourself, Well, yeah, it was the Sixers, keep in mind that coming into the game they'd gone 14-11 since their atrocious 7-22 start. So it's not like the Nets were visiting the UC *cough, cough*.

It does, however, make me a little sad that in a game featuring 217 Bulls dunks, the most replayed sequence has been the breakaway one Joakim Noah chunked.^

^ And didn't you just have a feeling something bad was going to happen there? He's coming off the bench ice cold, he hasn't played in a few weeks, and he's running around on Toni Kukoc's hoof -- you know all of it had to be going through his head. I honestly didn't care that he missed it; I was just glad his foot didn't explode.

Still, it led to a great moment (in a game that had many of them). After the Sixers' Rodney Carney missed a 3 at the first quarter horn, Noah got the rebound and started dribbling towards the Bulls' end. Then, as if something at that very instant had occurred to him, he abruptly did a 180 and dunked the ball on the Philadelphia basket, just to prove (to himself, probably) that he could do it. Classic Joakim move.

On the successful-dunk-during-actual-play side of ledger, Hakim Warrick had two unbelievable ones, including one off a post-up on from the right block, where he did a mini-Dream Shake before using his preposterous length to ram it home over Thaddeus Young from the outer-reaches of the restricted area. Other than this, it was probably my favorite dunk of the year, and, admittedly, something I can't recall Tyrus Thomas ever doing. Tragically, the dolts in the WGN truck never replayed it; of course, they did manage to show us Noah's miss several times.

Warrick followed up his first monster dunk about a minute later with a nice fadeaway, again from the right block, then added a power jam in transition (off a dish from fellow newcomer Flip Murray) with about three minutes left in the third.

Really, pretty much everyone that got significant minutes had a good game; that's generally how you win by 30+ points. Even Loul Deng, who shot just 1-for-10, had a nice all-around effort, scoring 12 points (thanks to a 10-for-10 performance from the line) and adding seven rebounds, five assists, and four steals, all without committing a turnover. In fact, Derrick Rose, Brad Miller, and Jannero Pargo -- slackers all -- tied for the team lead in turnovers... with one (1!) as the Bulls remarkably turned the ball over just ~~three~~ four times (apparently they also had a team one) versus 26 assists. Again, this is how you win a game by 32 points.

But I thought the catalyst of the rout was Miller, not exactly someone I'd call one of my favorite Bulls. With the team down 38-35 with a little over five minutes left in the second quarter and looking awfully lackluster, Miller missed a three-footer off a nice feed from Kirk Hinrich, got the rebound in traffic, collected himself and missed from point-blank range, got the rebound again, and hit the putback. That began a string of 21 unanswered by the Bulls, eight of them by Miller, and turned the game into a laugher.

Still, I found something Neil Funk said at the 10:31 mark of the third quarter with Rose shooting free throws to put the Bulls up 66-41 to be especially germane:

Sometimes, Stacey, you see the Bulls, especially in that fourth quarter with a big lead and then they start almost as if they're playing not to lose, rather than to win the game and just put a team away. They had Minnesota down where they could've done that last night, let's see if they can do that against Philadelphia playing at home here.

Since my last post was somewhat anti-Bulls-related media, I should mention here that I really enjoy listening to Neil and Stacey King do play-by-play. Sure they're homers, but it is the Bulls broadcast and they are entertaining. Funk -- who I loved listening to on the radio* back in the days when I thought getting rid of my TV was the answer -- is a gigantic improvement over the gigantic Tom Bore.

* In fact, it was my admiration of the Bulls radio team circa the early 2000s that had me convinced that John Paxson would make a great GM. And while he certainly wasn't terrible in that role, he wasn't nearly as good as I thought he'd be based on his incredibly insightful, on-target commentary.

In terms of King... As a kid, I was a huge Oklahoma football fan, so when the basketball team had that great season in 1988, I immediately adopted them as my U-of-I surrogates. Mookie Blaylock, Ricky Grace, Dave Sieger, Harvey Grant -- who everyone thought was better than twin brother Horace -- and King (I can recall that lineup without Wikipedia or Google) made for a hell of a college team, and I was pretty bummed out when they were upset by Kansas in the title game.

While King was ... I don't want to say a bust, but ... certainly a disappointment as a pro, probably my favorite off-court memories of the Bulls' first three-peat are King's dead-on impressions of Bill Cartwright. Absolutely hilarious, and I wish I could find it on the interbosphere. He apparently doesn't do it anymore, but if you have it archived somewhere for the love of God please post it online.

Admittedly, it took me awhile to get used to the somewhat over-the-top style, but I have to say that King's energy is a nice change of pace from the previous team; as much as I miss Red, he hadn't been the same in recent years. The point is, while I don't always agree with what they say, I genuinely like the Bulls' broadcast team and find them to be highly entertaining.

So back to what Funk said...

Almost on cue, the Bulls began to let Philadelphia back into the game. First the Bulls were unable to increase their lead, and then they allowed the Sixers to go on a 9-0 run, making it 77-61 and at least a little uncomfortable given the Sacramento game.

But that's when Vinny Del Negro -- he might rival Cartwright as my least-favorite coach of all time, but he pushed all the right buttons in this one -- made one of his best substitutions ever, re-inserting Taj Gibson, whose energy they really needed at that point. Gibson, who had five dunks among his 20 points and was to me the game's MVP, immediately helped the Bulls do exactly what Funk had hoped: Put the Sixers away early. After Hinrich scored to open the fourth quarter, the Bulls lead never shrunk below 20. Gibson finished with a +35, the only player on the team whose plus/minus was higher than the final margin.

Now it's only been two-game sample, but winning on the road and blowing out a not-entirely-terrible team at home is a shit-ton better than losing both. The Bulls were amazingly efficient last night in putting together their best offensive performance of the season, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if they can maintain a ~~8.67~~ 6.5 assist:turnover ratio the rest of the way, they might win at least a few more games.

Incidentally, I continue to be astounded by how well the Bulls have played without Noah. Because prior to the injury he was producing better than anyone but Rose, I thought go into the shitter with him sitting, and the fact that they haven't is a real tribute to their depth. Since Noah barely played against the Sixers, you could almost count that as another game missed -- and by almost I mean that's exactly what I'm going to do here -- making the Bulls 7-2 without him.

None of us knows what will happen the rest of the way. The Bulls are in a soft part of their schedule right now, but it's the good teams that take care of business in a stretch like this; we are all excruciatingly familiar with how this team has played down to the level of the worst teams, so it's nice to see them consistently win the games they're supposed to win. For the most part, March is looking like a bear, but right now this team seems capable of anything. And so while I have several reservations going forward, it's hard not to get caught up in the positivity that follows a game like the one the Bulls just played, and I find myself feeling a bit, dare I say, optimistic.

Super Bowl post update

2010-02-20T12:03:00.002-06:00

What? Talk about being late to the party...

If you read my post-Super Bowl entry, you might recall me mentioning my friend Matt popping up in a promo for The Mentalist. I just now found the commercial online; Matt appears at 0:26.

UPDATE 2/23: (And yes, I'm hoping to get to the point where I have an update to an update of an update.) If hearing Matt utter What kind of question is that? has left you clamoring for more, please be advised that he will be guest starring on CSI: Miami on Monday, March 8.

	Kidd	Harris
FG%	.423	.425
3P%	.418	.284
3PM	289	124
FT%	.813	.811
FTA/G	1.3	7.3
Reb	6.0	3.3
Ast	9.1	6.8
Stl	2.0	1.5
Blk	.48	.25
TO	2.4	2.9
Ast/TO	3.8	2.3
Fouls	2.1	2.5
Games	168	135
Min	6003	4743
MPG	35.7	35.1

	Per game (/min)
Points	13 (27)
Rebounds	1 (5)
Assists	22 (36)
Steals	13 (30)
Blocks	T-1 (4)
Fouls	1 (6)
Turnovers	11(8)
FG%	4
FT%	26
Minutes	7