You guys can discuss the game here: <span style="font-size:18pt;line-height:100%">Cavs vs. Bulls Game Thread</span>
You ain't kidding about that. These guys are such a freaking mess. Boylan is an awful coach. I held out a little bit of hope for the first couple games after the trade, but the last few games have been a clinic in stupid coaching and stupid play. 1. Slamming your players in the media. 2. Hughes and Gordon talking out of turn in the media 3. The players seemingly doing whatever the hell they want on the court with no one, player or coach, exercising any leadership. 4. Talking a good game about consequences and then following through with nearly the exact opposite. "Hey, players need to earn their minutes! Next thing we see, Kirk is back starting despite generally stinking it up and Tyrus Thomas is loosing major minutes after playing fairly well. The bad old days are here again.
Tyrus is playing well. He made a few bad passes and all his move look out of control, but he's made shots, somehow.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rwj @ Mar 2 2008, 01:51 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I won't lie - I was close to a PowerWoofer-esque meltdown for awhile.</div> Ouch.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rwj @ Mar 2 2008, 01:51 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I won't lie - I was close to a PowerWoofer-esque meltdown for awhile.</div> Pax's sucks?
I never understood the trade for the Bulls. They just become guard-heavy while making their division rivals better. About the game: What's wrong with Gordon? The last couple of games I've seen him he hasn't produced. No one stepped up in crunch time and Cleveland made that run. What's been the reason for the Bulls step back? Coming into this season, many considered them contenders.
To be honest, I like our team a lot better since the trade, even though the results have been disappointing. Both Hughes and Gooden seem to have filled a gap, and I remember watching the team a few times and thinking that we were doing things that I couldn't have imagined us doing earlier in the season. But it seems to come and go in spurts. I'm not sure if that has more to do with the newness of our additions, the fact that Boylan's a bad coach, or in fact were just a bad team that occasionally plays well, instead of being a good team that just needs some tweaks to find itself.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Mr. J @ Mar 2 2008, 07:46 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I never understood the trade for the Bulls. They just become guard-heavy while making their division rivals better. About the game: What's wrong with Gordon? The last couple of games I've seen him he hasn't produced. No one stepped up in crunch time and Cleveland made that run. What's been the reason for the Bulls step back? Coming into this season, many considered them contenders.</div> In a nutshell, it was because Wallace was a monstrous, cancerous, sucking chest wound here. Perhaps he wouldn't have been if we'd followed up on his acquisition with other similar ones, but putting one rapidly aging good player with high expectations without similar players or even good "on the court" fits for him was a disaster. He pouted, was hurt, played poorly, and wasn't good enough anyway.
NBA teams need "Jordan Rules" for their veterans and stars. The Bulls were built like and coached like and players treated like a college all-star team. A guy like Wallace simply didn't fit in. I think the young guys got tired of not being treated like NBA athletes as well, so they stopped putting out. It's stuff like the "no headband rule" enforced against Wallace and now Hughes and Gooden. It's also clear there was a rebellion of some kind - from what I've read and am able to piece together, the three guys that were traded away were basically the ringleaders. There was talk of trading some combination of guys first for Pau last year and then Kobe in the pre-season, and I don't remember seeing anyone from management deny it (e.g. bruised egos). For a guy like Deng, he was not traded for Pau because he was too good, then when it came time to negotiate his extension, he wasn't offered money like he was worth more than Pau. Gordon thinks he's worth > $10M/year, too, but was probably insulted by the Bulls' offer (as was Deng). Hinrich both got married and saw that two teammates drafted by the team were likely to get bigger deals than he got. Whatever the reason, he's played like ass all season. After 4 years of a college atmosphere, the players want to graduate. Skiles clearly lost their attention. Doesn't help that along with Hinrich's poor play, the two best players on the team, Gordon and Deng (not necessarily that order) missed a lot of games (30+ combined) due to injury and are now playing like they are out of shape or rusty or both. Finally, the players have seen core players come and go, so they know it's a business and not about basketball so much.
