i think what pittmike means is that there are the blackhawks to talk about, and they're in the stanley cup finals.

That I def. agree with. There should be more Hawks talk. I think with a four hour show there is enough room for both. I don't think that it should be a four LeBron love fest but the game was played last night and it was an exciting game. The Hawks should be a big deal this time of year. The NBA Finals are also even in Chicago.

The problem with the score is that they rarely talk about the actual game. I never feel like I learn anything about sports by listening to them or the people they present as experts.

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Not only that W_Z (I see what you tried there) but no baseball, bears at all either unless a call or two. B&B were all NBA it was bullshit. And go look in the NBA playoff threads I was the one of the few for the most part posting about it. I enjoyed it but not to over take a local station

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Elections have consequences.

If it's going to be non stop
LeBron love or you're an idiot for not deifying LeBron then I'm out also.

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Pravda! They speak in overblown generalities while ignoring some of the subtler aspects of what actually transpired. There is little to no critical thought in what they present and instead they twist the discussion into "why you're an idiot because you don't love LeBron they way we do."

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DRINK BƎTTƎR. @theRIPH

As I've stated several times earlier that is all this is and will be. Breaking down a game and being organized takes preparation and a modicum of care, this team no longer has that.

Have fun!

The threads about the shows are more entertaining than the shows themselves.

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

I am the same way, and maybe it is the time of the year with the sports they are discussing. When I get in my car it has always been on AM for sports radio talk, I find myself more and more listening to the FM side now.

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2018
#ExtendLafleur
10 More Wins

Chicago sports fans have a hard time admitting that there is a basketball player as talented as Michael Jordan.

while that's true, it's a different level when being told that you not only have acknowledge he's great but also have to enjoy watching him without any distaste.

Even his Lebron's a "grown ass man" talk is used out of context. That is an alley ball phrase that was used to describe an adolescent hooper that is considered to be a man child. It is not supposed to be used to describe an actual grown man.

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

One of the things that I have always enjoyed about sports is that I can both enjoy watching an athlete and have a distaste for them all at the same time. Lebron James is a helluva basketball player. No one disputes that. I have never been a fan of his game because his game is not as graceful as I'd like my hoopers to be.

I've always tended to like the guys that are highly skilled. Lebron is skilled particularly as a passer but i have never been particularly impressed with him as a ball handler or shooter. His off the dribble game has gotten better but if he is not attacking the paint then he is often neutralized.

You have to put him in the top ten maybe top five of all time though. He is not in Jordan's category and that is the problem that I have with Goff and Bernstein. They summarily dismiss anyone that provides reasons for Jordan being the superior player. He is a notch below Jordan as a player and there are valid reasons for that conclusion.

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Does anyone really deny James is a top 5/top 10 all-time player? I'm not talking about some shaved ape with a telephone but an actual human being with the ability to produce coherent thoughts. I feel like this "everyone hates Lebron James" bullshit is one of the most egregious and Skip Bayless-y falsehoods in the history of sports radio.

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Back off, Warchild. Seriously.

I just think their trolling about James is meant to get the Only Jordan Matters meatballs out. The decision makes it that much easier.

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Elections have consequences.

Goff always plays from the same playbook. He was harping this same bullshit five yrs ago. That is a problem. He shouldn't come out with the If you love Jordan then you hate Lebron shit each and every time either. They can be mutually exclusive. He can't seem to have a conversation about James without extolling his greatness. He never discusses the actual game and he is far too concerned with discussing his legacy.

For instance I'm sure neither he nor Bernstein has pointed out that it was Lebron James's cover that won last yrs Finals MVP. Too busy sucking his dick I presume.

I can remember a time when I called up to tell them that Scottie Pippen was a better defender than him. It was after he lost out on a Defensive Player of the yr awards. They stated that he was clearly the best defender in the league. They went on their usual rant about how he could guard anywhere from the 1 to the 5. I stated that he couldn't and pointed out how he rarely guards the top scorers from opposing teams. He doesn't really guard his position if it has an offensive player. During the series with OKC he guarded Kendrick Perkins not Kevin Durant. Against the Knicks Battier guarded Anthony. Against Indiana he guarded Lance Stephenson and not Paul George. I pointed out to them that Pippen always guarded his position. There was utter silence. They just ignored it and moved on to another point before ending the call.


I still would rather have this conversation than a conversation about Thibs problem with female employees or employess in general. That was why I started this thread. Goff is still the person at the score most intuned with the NBA. It says more about the state of the score than it does him. I would more soon go to him for NBA than I would anyone else at the station.

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I don't really think that criticism makes much sense though. In a vacuum Lebron would probably be capable of guarding those guys but since he was to carry so much of the burden on the offensive end as well, he doesn't stay on the top scorer on the other end for the entire game. Consider the 2011 Bulls series though; there Lebron switched to Rose at the end of games and pretty much shut him down in crunch time. The comparison with Pippen isn't really apples to apples since Pippen wasn't the top offensive option on the championship Bulls teams.

A few possessions of guarding Rose is different than an entire game. First of all he really didn't have to expend much energy. Jordan was the primary scorer on the Bulls and still guarded his position the entire game. He always guarded the opposing 2 guard. Pippen always guarded the opposing 3. You would never see Pippen guarding Kendrick Perkins in order to rest. When they state he is the top defender in the league where does the basis arise? If they are going to say that based on a few possessions of guarding Derrick Rose then that's B.S.

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If that's the case then Steph Curry might as well be the best defender in the league. You can't argue that he is the best defender if he really doesn't have to defend. The guys that typically win that award are guys that take on the tough covers or are in fact doing some defending. If he is defending non scorers then what type of defending is he really doing? How do we really know if he is a top defender?

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For much the same reason that Jordan was repeatedly all-defense despite at times guarding the second or third perimeter option behind Harper and Pippen. Further, Lebron is probably the best help defender in the league; reducing a discussion of his defensive prowess to strictly the one-on-one match-up he takes or does not take ignores this entirely.

Jordan had been in the league for eleven yrs before he ever played with Ron Harper. He was about 33 yrs old at the time. James was about 26 when he played against Durant. Jordan covered Dumars in playoff series. He also covered Clyde Drexler when most considered him the 2nd best in the league. He also covered Harper before Harper blew his knee out and was considered a top 2 guard.

Help defense is fine. Team Defense is fine. When you begin talking about top defender in the league that has to be one on one guard your man. Larry Bird was a helluva help defender no one ever stated that he should be defensive player of the yr. The guys that are your better defenders take on top covers and make life difficult for whomever they are guarding. I rarely see James doing that. This yr. he didn't make 1st team all defense which was surprising because I thought they would give it to him off reputation.

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But he was still consistently first-team defense even when his own role on that side of the ball had been reduced. And that made sense too because he was asked to carry the burden on the other side of the ball, just like Lebron is asked to today.


I disagree that you simply have to always guard the best one-on-one match-up to be the best defender in the league. Howard was certainly the best defender in the NBA in his prime, yet this generation of big men has been so weak that it certainly wasn't a matter of his prowess in one-on-one match-ups. Personally I thought Green deserved DPOY this year and certainly understand Leonard's ranking above James. But I think your gloss on this is extremely simplistic and ignores both Lebron's disruptive role in team defense and the fact that he's asked to do so much on the other end of the floor.

The more defenders that you have who can guard their man one on one the lesser is the amount of help required. That is what made the Bulls teams with Jordan so impressive. You basically had four to five guys with the ability to guard their man one on one. Rodman, Jordan, Pippen and Harper were all elite defenders. Rodman was better with Detroit defensively. He was much older with the Bulls but he still had the ability to guard one on one which means you didn't have to rotate or double.

I think his locking up of Rose was even overstated. Rose settled for jumpshots more than he was shut down and it was only for a few series. The next series against the Mavs James and the Miami defense were exposed for all of the gambling that they tended to do defensively. James was broke down a lot defensively and the "he could guard any position" should have been put to the test against Nowitzki.

I understand what you are saying about carrying the load offensively. With Miami it was much less so though because of Wade and Bosh. Wade had the ability to take over games offensively without any help from James. James still happened to guard Kendrick Perkins and not Durant.

i just want to see him shut someone down once in awhile. Once he does that then I'm ready to anoint him the defensive stalwart that Goff and Bernstein have been preaching.

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LTG, Thibs' inability to make the offensive adjustment when James defended Rose remains one of my glaring examples of Thibs' coaching inability. He had Rose isolated on top and James challeged him to get to the rim or to pass over to Noah. They ran the same look and each time the limited options failed to score. Now, had Rose passed the ball and then ran through a screen or two, James would have had to defend more ground to prevent Rose fron coming open. The series of Rose-iso plays made James.

When Harper came to the Bulls it gave Phil Jackson what he always wanted, big defenders on the perimeter. Harper and Jordan at 6'-6", Pippen and Rodman could defend guards when called upon, and both Harper and Jordan could crash boards when necessary. Did they help each other? Of course. But they didn't allow zone defense back then so the offensive adjustment came in the form of the switch, then the challenge was which Bulls defender to attack?

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DRINK BƎTTƎR. @theRIPH

You are absolutely correct on both fronts. Rose should have passed the ball more during the Miami series. He kept forcing shots and he did end up isolated a lot. He didn't really attack James much I can remember him settling for step back jumpers. Then you watch the next series and see 47 yr old Jason Terry get that same isolation on James attack him and try to dunk on him.

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