My Amir jersey is looking more and more prophetic

My computer is dead, so posting will be light for a bit.

Quick things:

When did St. Franny get wrestling/start winning wrestling championships? Total sports powerhouse.

Amir Johnson gets better and better every single night. His offensive game is still basically non-existent, but his physical tools on the defensive end are just overwhelming sometimes. He contests everything. As he gains experience and muscle, his defense alone will make him really valuable. I bet next year he starts and McNugg comes off the bench. And ESPN’s announcers were hilariously describing how Amir is challenging the older post players for minutes—and they were referring to Maxiell (who’s a prehistoric 25.)

The game against Chicago was closer than it should have been, because of the absence of Sheed and because Deng and Gordon decided to start playing in the second quarter.

Let me apologize for unintentionally blaspheming Kenny. Pat takes the blame:

Jerry, just to clarify and take some responsibility for being a moron, i thought chicago could come out of the east this season so you can’t blame kenny for this one. I don’t understand how they’ve regressed so far, how hinrich is suddenly a bad point gaurd and none of their bigs can play and deng is no longer looking like an up and coming star. They are extremely awful and a big mess.

They should have kept tyson chandler and not traded ty thomas for aldrige, then they’d actually be good.

Let me agree with Pat that having the Bulls be bad doesn’t bother me in the least. It makes our easterly path that must be easier. That being said, it’s hard to quantify how Chicago wasted all that young talent and regressed so far so fast.

The biggest thing, as everyone agrees, is that they’ve never had a guy who can get easy baskets in the post. They’ve always been too reliant on the jump shot. That’s easy enough to say. But they’ve still got a lot of good players, they shouldn’t be this brutal. It’s fair to also say that they have the worst chemistry of any team I’ve watched play a lot this year (and I only watch them a lot because they are constantly on TV. It’s torture.) They have no leadership whatsoever, which doesn’t matter so much if everyone is happy and making shots.

I give a lot of the blame to Ben Wallace. It’s not his fault exactly that he went from a massively underrated player to a massively important defensive player to a massively overrated player. He had some things that he did really well. But while all players have some weaknesses, his were glacier-sized. And then he got old. It’s sad in a way, because nobody embodied our title team better. Him going to Chicago probably saved us and ruined them.

Imagine if they had been able to swing Gasol in a deal instead of signing BWall. And now imagine he was destroying our cap for the next two years after this. Yesterday’s game might have looked a lot different.

The Argentinian Shaggy

Two questions:
1. Why are we losing at home to the Bulls?
2. Why did the best player on the court arrive on the Mystery Machine?

I’ve got six minutes to recap Bulls-Stones

Now five.

The Pistons blew a very winnable game last night. Rasheed—after being the best player on the floor for most of the 48—missed two gimmes in the paint in the final minute. Then Rip had a wide open three that would have tied things up at the end of regulation—nothing but rim. It was a frustrating end to a decent performance.

—Ben Wall must have been frustrated too: he sat the entire fourth quarter. I loved Ben when he was with us, but that contract is going to be a killer (and I said that at the time too. It’s nice when I’m right about something.) The only downside to him leaving was Joe D.’s overreaction that brought in Nazr for the full MLE.
—Ty Thomas, on the other hand, looked great last night.
—Jo Noah did Jo Noah things (yelled a lot.) That was about it. I’d have to go back and look at who was available, but why did Chicago take him? He’s a skinnier Varejao on Red Bull, which is something, but they need a back-to-the-basket scorer.
—Tayshaun completely disappeared on offense. We need to come up with a phrase for these Prince invisibility nights.
—Deng/Gordon combined for a very quiet 33 points. I’d trade these guys for Kobe tomorrow.

Now I’m late. But I guess my main thing with these Bulls—and this can (and probably will) change down the line as their players develop—is that I’m never scared when watching them. I always feel like the Pistons can beat them unless we beat ourselves (which is something the Stones do quite regularly.)

In the east, you’ve got Lebron, Wade, and Gilbert who can single-handedly beat you. You’ve got teams like Atlanta and Orlando that have enough young firepower to beat you on a given night. Boston looks great so far. I’ll develop this a little more later on, but I think the Bulls need to make a run for Kobe.