Sunday, August 22, 2010

Let the Record Show...

...that when Team USA needed a huge, crunchtime bucket today, they went Derrick Rose. And he delivered. Twice.

Great to see.

Friday, August 13, 2010

KD on Pippen

I wasn't planning on doing the obligatory Pippen-is-in-the-HOF post, but KD's so damn good on him, he deserves a link. Hell, he deserves two.

Almost impossible to excerpt from, but this in particular made me smile:

And anytime I get spitting mad at the thought that millions of people have to listen to Mark Jackson help "call" this league's biggest games, I just pull up tapes of the 1998 Eastern Conference finals, to watch Scottie make him his absolute creature. Mama, there goes that chump.


Soooooooooooooooooo good. Read it.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

The Schedule Is Out

Link here [PDF]

Quick thoughts: 1) November is brutal. The circus trip is the worst one I can recall in recent memory: All West Coast teams, tons of back-to-backs, and not one slouch. (Sacramento comes closest, but it's the last game on the trip and the second of a back-to-back following a game at Denver). Honestly, even the new-and-improved Bulls squad will be doing a pretty good job if they go 2-5 on it. What's worse, things don't get much easier when they get back home: They get Orlando, Boston (away), Houston and OKC all in a row, then a possible gimme on the road against the Cavs, and then back at home to face the Lakers. They could play pretty well and still easily go 4-9 during that stretch. Like I said, brutal.

2) But things improve considerably directly following that stretch, with 13 out of their next 14 games coming against opponents who should struggle to even sniff .500. (And the 14th, Milwaukee, while good, isn't an elite team.) Any ground lost in November can definitely be made up here.

3) The flipside to the nasty Circus Trip is that their second West Coast swing (which takes place in early Feb.) appears much easier than normal, with no back-to-backs, less fearsome opponents, and only five games in two weeks. Manageable.

4) All told, using my super-scientifc method of going through the schedule and tabulating their record by "Think They'll Win/Think They'll Lose," I had the Bulls going 51-31. I was fairly conservative---despite my deep desires for it to be otherwise, I didn't pick them to win against Miami once, and I usually gave them a loss on the road in the 2nd of a back-to-back, regardless of the opponent---so I could easily see them winning 55 games or so. It probably depends on how quick they can gel, but they're going to get a baptism by fire at the start of the season, which you would think might help the hardening process.

Sunday, August 08, 2010

Three Kings

Or, rather, two kings and one dude who, all things considered, I'm still relatively stoked to have as president:



No, Ro and O

H/T

Friday, August 06, 2010

Like A Bad Penny...

It's good to know that if for some reason the current iteration of the Bulls' team doesn't work out, our old friend is working his way back toward the helm of the Knicks.

I forsee two problems: 1) We don't really have any terrible, Curryesque players on this roster any more. I suppose Deng's contract is less than ideal, so maybe we could dump him for Gallinari and, say, three first round picks. But that leads into 2) I'm pretty sure the Knicks can't trade any of their 1st round picks until 2016. (This most recent year's went to Utah, and Houston got NYK's 2012 and 2014 picks for kindly taking on Jared Jeffries.) Of course, by then, Noah will be in his early 30s, so we might be looking to re-load; what a relief to know Isiah might very well be out there, making that task infinitely easier.