Derrick Rose Is VERY Young

He makes us forget it with his unselfish play, his calm demeanor, his lack of outbursts, but D Rose is still but 22 years old. This is only his third year in the league and he won the MVP. Many times I get irritated at the NBA for announcing their awards in the middle of the playoffs, it makes you forget just how big of a deal and how uncommon it has been for someone this young to win an MVP in all of sports let alone the NBA.

LeBron James hasn’t been to the Finals at all in his 7 years in the league, it took Kobe until his 4th year. Dwyane Wade got a championship his second year in the league but it was only with a team of thoroughbreds around him. The fact we are even mentioning D Rose in the same breath of these guys is a testament to how special the kid is (and how wrong I was about him).

He made some mistakes with decisions and a lot of turnovers. He lost a lot of his aggressiveness but that was in large part to a very effective game plan against him run to perfection by the Heat. He’s got time and he learned something.

Tom Thibodeau Is A First Year Head Coach

After being subjected to two years of a graduate assistant the Bulls finally had a real head coach for the first time since Scott Skiles was dismissed after essentially giving up on his own team (which was hardly head coach-like). Thibs was so impressive he too had the fantastic accomplishment of being selected NBA Coach of the Year overshadowed by the playoff run.

We forget the 53-year-old’s previous head coaching gig was with Salem State during the Reagan Administration. He’s been an assistant, a great one but still an assistant, for most of his career. He’s only the third first-year coach to win 60 games. These phenomenal accomplishments made us forget he’s still learning the ropes too.

I think it’s clear Thibs needs a better offensive mind on the bench with him. He failed to put a play out there in the last two Bulls losses, games they could have and arguably should have won. Clearing out for a 3rd year player to manufacture a shot out of thin air with probably the best defender in the NBA on him is not a plan. It was unfair to do that to Derrick and I hope Thibs recognizes that.

Down the stretch of games he has also shown he can close in on what he feels the right lineup is and will stick to it – even when it’s failing. Why can’t Keith Bogans be trusted in the 4th Quarter? Why continue to run Kyle Korver out there when he hasn’t been making his shots? Why hardly play Kurt Thomas at all and then suddenly throw him in only after Omer Asik went down? These are all legitimate questions to ask a head coach.

The Heat Were Supposed To Win

Let’s just be honest with ourselves now. I hate them just as much as the rest of you do but the team Miami has put together is truly scary. They got some serviceable players to put around their Big 3 and the Bulls may well have woken Chris Bosh up for Miami. To their credit the Bulls were in every game with Miami, only Miami got blown out and gave up in Game 1. They took that and responded and the Bulls were never able to close down the stretch – being worn down by some of the best players in the game will do that to you.

It’s alright to hate them. It’s alright to notice the Bulls well could have been the ones celebrating last night if a few things go their way. Don’t deny the pure talent Miami comes to the floor with night after night though and while, yes, I don’t believe Derrick gets his due from the referees they weren’t the reason it didn’t happen for the Bulls this year.

The Finals Aren’t Given

It’s been so long since the Bulls had a legitimate shot at the NBA Finals that we forget what Michael Jordan et al went though when they went for the first time – a tough Detroit team that took them years to beat. I will predict right now that we will see Bulls v Heat Part II next year. It took the Bulls four attempts before they were finally able to defeat the Pistons and go to the Finals, if the Bulls make the right moves in the offseason (OJ Mayo please) they could one up MJ and the boys and do it in two.  Maybe then we can forget about this and celebrate another NBA title.

Want some proof?

Frankly, that’s all I need because I’ve waited 37 years for the Bears to go out and sign an elite quarterback. Next thing you know the Cubs will be in the World Series!!

However, Steve wrote another song about the Cubs that has a lot more relevance this year as it has for the past 100 years. And it’s this one here. I challenge you to watch it, if you or someone else cries you know they’re a true Cub fan.

This team needs to be broken up a bit, it’s not going to happen as it is currently constructed. Derrek Lee is the first guy that needs a ticket out of town. He probably has some value that you can get for him. He was so distracted this series it was disgusting and this is not the same guy who pummeled us in 2003. I found it interesting that Harden got charged for a throwing error on a play that Lee makes with no problem in any regular season game. His hitting has be virtually non-existent and he turned into Mark Grace without getting the hits, Lee needs to go. Unfortunately the free agent market is a little weak with Mark Teixeira being the only big free agent 1B out there. Maybe offer a deal to Arizona with Lee for Connor Jackson and some other players, they might bite at that.

DeRosa needs a place to play, you can’t keep doing this to this guy. Put him at second and leave him there, no more of this crap where the guy doesn’t even know where he’s playing. He’s a great player being neutralized by trying to be Mr. Utility and it’s just not fair. Kudos for never giving up as well, one of the few Cubs to have a decent series offensively and was actually up there to work a count.

I’m sorry, the Theriot thing isn’t working for me at shortstop. He’s serviceable but we’re not going to win any championships with him there I don’t think. He’s a great guy, has a great heart, but the talent just isn’t there, I’m sorry. Furcal is going to be available and maybe even Cabrera would work on a serious Cubs team instead of those screwballs on the South Side. I don’t think anyone can argue that Furcal or Cabrera are better than Theriot, he’s a spunky player but he’s a backup, nothing more.

I’m going back and forth on Aramis Ramirez because for yet another post-season he failed to show up for the most part. I’m going to give him a pass, he tried to make some things happen, probably tried to press too much when so much was going wrong in front of him, I will let him slide. Keep Rammy at third.

Do we need to say anything about the guy we have in left field? Soriano has never showed up for post-season play so he wasn’t bound to start now. I’ve been giving him a pass since we picked him up but I’m done with him now. He was god awful on all accounts and staring at that last pitch that was close enough for him to be swinging at (instead of checking and especially when he swung at everything else all series) when your team is about to get the rest of the post-season off is the perfect capper. The Cubs won’t be able to unload him without eating a lot of his salary but they should try. He is an amazing freak of nature hitting talent but he’s just too inconsistent to be any good for us. Here’s something to chew on — imagine we don’t have that kind of money tied up in left field — think Jim Hendry outbids the Dodgers for Manny Ramirez? I think he does too. Yes, huge clubhouse cancer he is, he has absolutely destroyed the Dodgers. Just goes to show you how full of crap a lot of sports writers are. Word is the Mariners clubhouse is tiring of Ichiro, so another option could be to pick him up and put him in left and give Fukudome someone to bond and get comfortable with. The Mariners need to figure out a GM first though but maybe a new Mariners GM looking to make his mark moves Ichiro.

Center field — thanks Jim Edmonds for giving your all you were a great pickup but I think we all know like Gary Gaetti you can’t be counted on next year (not like your batting average this year was that great but you were Mr. Clutch a lot, I give you that). The Cubs either need to give Pie the shot in center or unload him, plain and simple. The Cubs are weak up the middle with a fair shortstop and a cast of characters at second and center. You’re not going to win that way so the Cubs either need to give Pie his shot next year or go after Nate McClouth.

Fukudome deserves another shot in right next year (like there’s any choice with the money spent). You had to know he wasn’t going to be able to maintain the torrid pace of his first MLB season. My only beef with Lou is he sat Fukudome when he should have been starting him — against Kuroda. I’m pretty sure they have faced each other before but at the very least Fukudome understands how Japanese pitchers pitch and his slap swing is the perfect counter to the junk Kuroda was throwing (and before you go off about his velocity it was still cut fastball, cut slider junk). Oh and don’t get me started on the Cubs hacking away at the first pitch all night on Kuroda. They made him work some at the beginning of the game and then it was like they gave up on doing that just like they gave up on everything else. If you get Ichiro here I think he helps Fukudome complete his transition to MLB.

Pitching-wise I’m good, the Cubs have a great pitching staff and it was too bad to see it destroyed by the biggest choke I have seen in my lifetime defensively. Maybe if Cuban can buy the club in the off-season they make a run at Sabathia to bolster the rotation.

The defense was absolutely atrocious and without end in this series, it’s the most disgusting thing I’ve witnessed and I was on the border of being physically ill at watching it. That is not Lou Piniella’s fault, except maybe resting guys too much at the end. They took their eye off the ball, screwed up the first game and never recovered. They had the look of a deer in the headlights on virtually every play and they gave up on themselves long before we, the fans did.

I don’t know if I can ever believe in a Cub team again, this team put together one of the best records in my lifetime and despite the deficiencies I have noted here they have a solid foundation in many places. This one hurts, it hurts a lot. This season is a failure and no one can deny that now, it’s funny how there was all this talk about just getting to the World Series, we can’t even get out of the NLDS. We tried with the bulk of this team as it is currently constructed twice and failed, it needs to be shaken up and hard. I hope you’re listening Jim Hendry, you’ve done a great job but you can’t get attached to some of these guys, they need to go.

Plain and simple, money should be no object with this Cubs team. The first Cubs team to win a World Series in more than a hundred years is going to be worth its weight in gold, it doesn’t matter what the payroll is. So here’s hoping Mark Cuban buys the Cubs and tells Jim Hendry to ignore the balance sheet, he wants to win Yankee style.

The Cubs haven’t played a serious game in a couple of weeks now and it showed. They’ve been on auto-pilot to the division win ever since sticking it to the Brew crew and putting them out of serious contention for good several weeks ago. They looked like a team that lacked focus and discipline and quite honestly, they looked bad.

Dempster didn’t have his stuff and I loved the color work by Tony Gwynn especially, he was right on all night and especially right on about Dempster. Dempster was over-throwing, there was no doubt about it. When you miss that often that high in the strike zone, almost totally unable to throw an up and in fastball, you’re over-throwing. It wasn’t Dempster’s night and the Dodgers made him pay eventually.

The Cubs also squandered many opportunities by ditching what they had been good at all year — being patient at the plate and picking their spots to hit. They had the chances and they ruined them with double play grounders all night long.

There are three keys to this series and if the Cubs are going to go anywhere: Alfonso Soriano, Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez. We need at least two out of the three to hit or at least one of them to catch fire. Tonight they were terrible. This team is not going to win without Soriano, Lee or Ramirez producing, period, end of story. All three of these guys are getting paid the mega-bucks to produce and they had best do so. That starts by being patient at the plate and not swinging at garbage (Soriano), putting the ball in play or go the other way with it (Lee) and resist the temptation to swing from the heels and try to park it on Waveland with every swing (Ramirez).

That’s all for me tonight I could go on and on, I’m disgusted. I’m hopeful that Zambrano sees this as his chance to put this team on his back and be the stopper before they head out to LA. I have no doubt they can win this series if they don’t play like the schmucks I saw tonight. But this looked an awful lot like last year on many counts tonight.

Oh, one more thing, that ball Manny hit from his shoelaces was just SICK. Yes, I hate that he hit it (didn’t really matter though, the slam slammed the Cubs for the night) but to see him do that with a pitch like that was just insane. What an incredible hitter.

So here it is, on my blog for all to see for posterity what my draft predictions are for the 2008 NBA Draft.

OJ Mayo Will Be A Superstar

All the hype surrounding the next two fellas has overshadowed OJ Mayo. The truth of the matter is Mayo has all the making of a future superstar in the NBA. He slept through college because he didn’t want to go and called yet more attention to the need for a minor league system in the NBA. He mailed it in, he wasn’t enthused about it and his play was, gasp, still far above average.

Mayo has the size, ability and determination to be a superstar in the NBA, something he’s been pegged for since he was in the 6th grade. There is nothing about the kid that indicates otherwise yet he has fallen off a draft radar that can only seem to accommodate two players. It’s too bad, somebody is going to get a superstar, it doesn’t look like it will be the Bulls.

Michael Beasley Will Be A Star

Similar to Mayo, Michael Beasley has been pegged as an NBA star for many years now. Like Mayo he bounced around high schools looking for the best places to play and prepare himself for the NBA. He went to K State, took out Mayo and the Trojans in the first round and did alright for himself in the tournament.

Now various “character” issues including pajama bottoms are being brought up? What a joke. This kid will be a star, he has the size (despite being smaller than advertised, he’s the same size as Scottie Pippen), shear talent and raw power to be a star in the NBA. I see him as a stronger Scottie Pippen and if he can live up to that he will be a special player indeed. The Bulls would do well picking him, he would quickly bring legitimacy to the Bulls front court. They won’t do it though.

Derrick Rose Will Be Decent Player

Don’t get me wrong, I think that Derrick Rose has a boatload of talent. I just don’t get all the waxing poetic about the next Deron Williams or Chris Paul before he or they have done anything. How many rings has Williams won? How many trophies has Paul kissed? That would be none and none.

Tell me quick, how many superstar point guards who won an NBA title can you name? Have fun.

Having a great point guard is a luxury, I don’t care where the league is allegedly going. Having stud shooting guards and forwards are the keys to a championship. I didn’t see the Celtics running out to get a stud PG as their key piece in the puzzle to winning a championship. Their championship was built around a trio of, you guess it — shooting guard, small forward, power forward.

In fact, let’s look at the formula for the last few NBA Champions going back to when the Bulls last had their run.

2007, 2005, 2003, 1999 Spurs — best case for a stud PG with Parker, but it’s Duncan, Finley and Ginobili that were the heart of the latter teams with David Robinson in the earlier ones.

2006 Heat — again, a decent argument at PG with Williams but still again, Dwayne Wade and Shaq were the heart of that team.

2004 Pistons — Defense, defense, defense. Yes, Billups was great but that team lived and died on defense.

2000-2002 Lakers — Umm, Kobe and Shaq? Did they have a point guard? Does someone handle the ball besides Kobe?

1996-1998 Bulls — We all know this one, yes, Steve Kerr was the reason the Bulls won their second three-peat.

So there you have it, did these recent champions have some good point guards? Sure, but it was also done with serviceable point guards. But these championships were won on the backs of shooting guards and dominant forwards. The Bulls have neither. Mayo and Beasley are dangling there to be taken and put one of those pieces in place. Are the Bulls willing to do it? Doesn’t look like it, especially with the last decent Bulls point guard running the team.

Pssst…..John Paxson, here’s the future of the Bulls right here. He can actually make free throws too unlike Ben Gordon. OJ Mayo is a difference-maker in the mold of Michael Jordan and the clear choice to me, but then I am Trojan to the core so I admit my bias!

Methinks I see a much better solution to the Bears RB woes than the draft. Sign him, yesterday!!

I don’t think Jacque Jones was capable of that! How about an inside-the-park home run?

You can also check out Dome’s (that’s his nickname) pages at ArmchairGM and Baseball Reference’s “Bullpen” for more information on the newest Cub. Arigato Hendry-san!