Even good health's a bitch sometimes

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

We are seeing the value of Rondo and Wade right now. If the Bulls had a halfway decent coach then Rondo would've never been inexplicably benched for half the season and the team would've won 48-50 games. And if they have some success this season it increases their chances of free agents looking at them in the offseason. All of that is much better than trading Butler for 50 cents on the dollar and becoming a 20 win team for the next three seasons or more.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

You're asking me to suppress my intellect.

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

To be fair, that hasn't been a problem for you the rest of this thread.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

You mean because it's "impossible" for the Bulls to win? It's obviously highly unlikely, true, but 100-1 shots win in horse racing all the time. Villanova running the table culminating in beating Georgetown was more unlikely than a Bulls win would be.

That's the point of being a fan. You don't have to be able to envision it, you just have to root for it.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Philly is a good case study, back in the 80's. They tanked to nine wins, and eventually picked up Collins, World B Free, Jelly Bean Bryant (before he blewed up) Doc, Bobby Jones, Darryl Dawkins, Mo Cheeks and the underrated Caldwell Jones. They were so close a number of times, but needed Malone to put them over the top. By the time that came, the core was too old to have sustained success...

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Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

I recall being in high school in the late 80's, and one of the guys told me to watch out for the Braves. They had lost over 100 games in 1988 and were still terrible for a few years after. The year the guy told me to watch out for them they were bad, but I think it was the next year where they started winning division titles. I don't know if the Braves had some grand plan back then. But those terrible seasons soon turned into one of the best runs by a team.

I never looked at the Cubs plan as purposely losing. They simply ran off bad contracts and traded all major league talent to retool the team into a sustainable winner. Why is it ok to trade talent at the deadline in a hopeless season, but controversial to have a longer term plan that leads a team to start a season as hopeless? Baseball teams can't rebuild like football teams because of guaranteed contracts. Young players come along much slower in baseball. Guys you draft rarely have an immediate impact unlike football. Thus longer range planning is a necessity, and when an organization was run poorly for so long, it requires tough medicine to fix.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

No. Villanova was more likely than the Bulls winning a title. Because of the 7 games series. Tourney runs are 6 games I think. And Villanova was probably favored in their first 2 or 3 games in their run.

It's impossible for the Bulls to beat the Cavs and whoever gets out of the west. Impossible.

The Bulls can definitely beat the Cavs.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

_________________
Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

That shouldn't take much effort.

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We'll bet a shot on it after the Bulls beat the Wizards, assuming the Cavs make to the ECF.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Of course this is all subjective, but what I prefer is a team that is either competitive, or set up to be eventually competitive, over the course of several years. We thought we had that with Rose but that didn't happen, but that's more or less what I'd want. I'll give you something to counter the division you set up: the 2004-2007 Bulls weren't going to win anything either, but the team had promise. You could expect Deng, Gordon, and Hinrich to continue to develop, and then after that it was a matter of landing a big free agent or swinging a major trade to take the team to the next level.

The promise of that team, if everything worked in free agency, or maybe with that no. 2 pick they had, was tantalizing. Now that's a team I rooted for to make the playoffs and win as many regular season games that they could, even though there weren't going to win the whole thing. That would be good for the development of the young core, among other things. Had they avoided the lottery picks that netted Hinirch, Gordon, Deng, etc., by just signing mediocre free agents at the time, they would have remained a middling team with no promising young core to speak of. They would have made the playoffs here and there as first round fodder, which would have made some guys here happy and certainly management, but there'd be no promise for something better. I want that promise of something better.

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

They absolutely lost on purpose. They don't get Bryant or Schwarber otherwise. The Cubs could have spent crazy amounts to at least maintain respectability, if not contend. The thought that they couldn't spend money at the MLB level because they needed to rebuild the scouting department and training facilities is fallacious. It was never either/or. Even Bernstein...who originally seemed to shy away from using the term "tank" (until the Cubs actually won the WS), now openly says teams that don't do it are stupid.

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I tuned in long enough today to hear NBA expert J Goff tell us that this series was nice, but the Bulls were going to get crushed by the Wizards.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Ok which guys did they trade that you want back? And which free agents could they signed that would this a better team? Scherzer maybe?

Schwarber was over drafted where they picked him. They didn't tank to get him. Everyone, but IMU, thought the Cubs stretched to get him. But call it a tank job. It was definitely the right move.

_________________
Hawaii (fuck) You

need answer

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Guys like Kawhi Leonard, Jokic, Giannis, Butler, Draymond are some of the best players in the league right now and don't fit that description.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

According to your rubric there was no better free agent destination than Chicago in 2010 and we know how that turned out. If I'm Anthony Davis I'm not going to be hoodwinked into thinking this Bulls team has anyone to build around except Butler, and he's not going to be a young piece for that long anyway.

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

But what if you're Blake Griffin?

The guy who thinks the Bulls have a shot at the ECF and possibly the finals, even after barely making the playoffs at 41-41, is questioning someone else's intellect? Like I asked elsewhere, since you're such a big fan, why not bet on that?

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

If you still wanna bet on the Bulls Celtics I'm down.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

A one offseason sample size is a pretty terrible way to predict future outcomes.

Edit: I also disagree with the second part of your post. A team built around Anthony Davis and Jimmy Butler is almost automatically going to win 55 games. Only one other team in the NBA features two top 10 players.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

You know better than to compare the NBA playoffs to a win or die tournament for guys three years removed from puberty. I root for my teams when they're building towards a larger goal. This current iteration was haphazardly put together so they could market the shit out of Wade to fill seats and generate playoff revenue. I think by asking me to root for the Bulls' success in this example you're asking me to ignore all the business thinking that went into the composition of this team, most of which prioritized the short-term success of this team over building a sustainable winner. I'm down with ownership if they want to make money and win, but not when they want to sell me a pig with some designer lipstick on it.

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

What if it was celery with lipstick?

_________________

Did you type that from your coyote panic room?

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

_________________
There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

Well, I'm gonna say the Vegas odds against Villanova beating that Georgetown team in that championship game were greater than the odds against the Bulls would be in any seven game series in the Eastern Conference.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I was reading a Sports Illustrated from 1971 and the quote above reminded me of a blurb in it:

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

hey now, Animal Collective is great