Nas wrote:
The Bulls and Rose will be fine. There is no need to panic. After the all star break this will be the best team in the league.
isn't that the problem tho? example: i predicted them to be 57-25, which i figure is good for the #2-4 seed, meaning that barring injury/fuckup they're due to be eliminated in the eastern semis/finals or basically whenever they catch the heat. there just isn't enough offense on this team, as right now they're the basketball equivalent of the lovie smith bears in terms of focusing on IIIIIIIIIICCCCEEEEEEE/defense and then merely assuming that if they play their defensive game they'll score enough points to win.
the problem is that much like the bears, if you're down late what are you gonna do? the bulls went out like bitches tonight (i guess i really am a misogynecologist, eh? maybe i should let you in on my theory about how the bulls team plans to have its players reproduce at a rate thats 10x that of the average american family and take over the world? =)
ahem. the point still stands that this team lacks firepower, even if/wehn derrick gets back to shooting ~42-45% from the field (the rose-o-meter is at 31.3% through 4 games, btw) and as i've been saying ad nauseum since the end of the 10-11 season YOU CANNOT WIN A CHAMPIONSHIP WITH DERRICK ROSE BEING YOUR LEADING SCORER. call it a hunch that the guy would rather average 16/11 than 20/7, however since a big portion of the bulls' offense is 'give it to derrick and pray' we're going to find out a lot about what kind of player derrick wants to be: the 20+/6 1-2 tweener guard who gets his props as a top PG because of his scoring prowess, or does he wanna be a facilitator first and foremost who puts the team in the best possible position to win?
obviously derrick isn't the GM and thus it could be argued that if garpax decides to keep this SUPER TRY HARD BULLS thing going on he might not have a choice but to continue on with his CBS drama DERRICK ROSE: VOLUME CHUCKER, which means the buls will end up, at best, being the 90s jazz/sonics/knicks/suns/etc.... one of those teams that was always in the playoffs year in year out for the brunt of the decade but never had any real chance becuase Jordan was there (and say what you will about the NBA, they know where their bread is buttered. they know if they have one chance to take a top-3 franchise in the bulls and set them up for future relevance you give them the #1 pick when derrick rose is coming out. oh and you give jordan every foul call and thensome in order to help him build his global brand through two three-peats) --- and while we've had a good ~5 year run of total crap that made NBA hell seem desirable, here we are in NBA hell and now it looks like the bulls wanna play like a ~50 win team which means even less chance of any sort of prolonged playoff run alongside the fact that they STILL get a bum draft pick and have no chance at becoming a contender without a massive overhaul. yeah taj and jimmy buckets worked out, but comeon.... those are the exceptions and not the rule. i.e. just because michael redd was a 2nd round pick doesnt mean that the second round is chock full of 25ppg shooting guard talent if only they get the minutes to prove it.... eventually picking in the mid-upper 20s is gonna return some corie blounts and dickey simpkinses.... and outside of being the team's weed connection, what did corie blount really do for anyone.
my apologies on the anti-brevity stance of this message, it's just that this bulls team gets me to faclempt i just tend to huff and buff and blow your digital house down. i can't help it.... they get me all explainey and blahblahblah when i should just say tl;dr and point out the obvious thing that has to be done in order to start this team going in the right direction (meaning the direction that gets derrick a chance at having another championship window b4 those hard miles pile up and take their toll, cuz i can't see derrick being effective as the same type of player well into his 30s) ---- yes, you have to get rid of the quintessential GARPAX security blanket that's spanned both the TRY HARD BULLS era and teh SUPER TRY HARD BULLS ERA.... you have to get rid of LOL DENG.
LOL DENG is, for better or worse, the one player who epitomizes this team. His FG% is traditionally shit, whatever you expect him to do well relative to adapting his game around other super/star type players, well go figure old sourpuss dengy-poo is seething deep down somewhere that some young punk is gonna show up and take over HIS team? yeah he's gotten over that, but seeing as he used to be MONEY from set shots you figured he'd fucking flourish with those once derrick showed up.... yeah right, he proceeded to go out and have a then-career-low FG% that first season derrick showed up, and if memory serves he also pulled a pippen and took himself out of that now-legendary celtics series where the bulls took the defending champs to either 6 or 7 games thanks to derrick stepping up and putting his name out there as a national-level star thanks to dropping 35 in his first playoff game.
so yeah, rah rah rah tell me about LOL's defense, tell me about how i'm criminally underrating LOL's 16/8.... whatever. if you had someone else in his role playing 40+ minutes per game they'd average all of that stuff.... and guess what? odds are they wouldn't earn the nickname LOL DENG whenever he gets the ball ~20ft out at the top of the key and decides "ok it's my turn, i got this" and he immediately puts his head down and charges full blast at the basket because 1) if he doesn't he'll lose the ball in 3 or less dribbles and 2) because his best/most-consistent move is flailing at the basket and trying to get hacked. there comes a point where you're going to have your 3/(tweener 2?) robin to derrick's batman say man fuck all of this shit I'M BATMAN MOTHERFUCKER!!!! and start averaging 20+ppg and establish himself as an offensive super/star because in the end yeah hey that defense is all fine and good but it's like i heard someone say on either TV or the radio today.... "defense wins you championships, sure, but points win you games" and until the bulls can actually put together a team that can score when lebron starts guarding derrick and takes him out of the game, then really, what are you doing this year other than turning a profit off of a team that has no chance of winning squat unless lebron loses a limb in a freak traktor accident (pimpin ain't easy, selecta!)
ah well c'est la vie. my post is too long but i'm gonna just cop to having a raging case of DA FIRE AND DA PASHIN and grab my hat and coat on the way out; SHOMER SHABBOS!
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Curious Hair wrote:
Les Grobstein's huge hog is proof that God has a sense of humor, isn't it?