the official "blow it up" thread

[Rich4114]

We got our playoffs last season. The suspense leading up to the ass whooping by the magic was fun. But now that that's over and we've taken another step back, can we please blow this thing up and start over? We have tradable assets. Teams who are contenders can be pushed over the edge with a guy like Diaw, Jackson, or even Wallace. Find a way to get the most out of those guys and bring in picks/cap space for the next two seasons. The only guy I'd be reluctant to trade would be Wallace but it's possible we could land a big time player for him in the right deal.

LB is gone after this year, we're stuck in mud and the future is bleak. If we suck it up it'll pay off 2-3 years down the line. Get a new GM, get some better scouts, and build things back up. Does anyone agree?

What if our record is more like 2-8 or 3-13 or 6-18. Then will you be with me?

[fatlever]

and rich wins the award for the first to make the "blow it up" thread for 2010-11

you gotta re-name it though rich. do it right.

[BigSlam]

If we are going to blow it up we need to start with the coach.

Get rid of the guy who didn't want to be here over the summer and doesn't want to be here now. Give this playing group a chance to play for someone that will allow them to play to their strengths and not to his then go from there.

All that said, it's wayyyyyyyyyyyy too early for an irrational thread like this one. Come see me in Dec if we are putrid then.

[doc.end]

We are still winning as many games as we palyed at home. Add our tendention to start slowly and it is not so bad. We should win against Indiana or Detroit (at least one of them) but there no surprise - we always struggle when facing bad teams. As long as we are winning home games and beat soem top teams to compensate our blunders with lower tier teams... (you can't really count Dallas as a top team we are supposed to beat by upset, there are simply only 80 winnable games for us each year)

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

Meh. Too early for this. The biggest problem ATM is the new LB offense. Team is not built to play slow controlled ball run by SG/SF/PF. Classic case of coach not adapting to players.

[fatlever]

i agree with slam and vandy... LB not playing to his roster strengths. the old man is only a good coach when he has the type of players to play his system. he just cant seem to adapt his system to his players. some coaches can some coaches cant. this team needs to run and get into offense early and shoot earlier in shot clock. we spend way too much time trying to get into offense. we dont have players that can create their own shots and we dont have a low post threat. get out and run. make the game frenetic on both ends.

rich, i gotta re-name your thread the "blow it up" thread though. gots to.

[fatlever]

finally one place for all the negative nancys and debbie downers to post their thoughts.

go for it.

[fatlever]

playing devils advocate - reasons why we cant blow it up

1. larry brown - he simply will not allow it. he wont be part of a rebuilding process at this point.
2. jordan - he just bought the team and got us some sponsors. can anyone really see him accepting 3 years of lottery bound seasons in order to start over and build the right way?
3. jackson - he would become a massive problem on a rebuilding team and his contract is getting close to untradeable.
4. diop - untradeable
5. thomas - close to untradeable
6. no 1st round pick in 2012
7. no young promising players to try and develop. what are we going to do, give UPS and hendo 30+ mins a night. they are role players, at best. they will never develop into starter quality players no matter how much time we give them.
8. do you trust higgins to actually draft a young stud?
9. how will the fans react to an obvious rebuilding effort? we just started to win the city back.
10. don't want to give anyone any more reasons to contract this team

[BigSlam]

finally one place for all the negative nancys and debbie downers to post their thoughts.

go for it.

- DJ is a midget who can't run a team, is scared of his own shadow and is not Brook Lopez.
- Jax is a ball stopping glory hound who doesn't know his own limitations, yaps too much at the refs and has too much money coming to him.
- Crash has a massive ego now he made the All Star team and couldn't care less about the team.
- Boris is fat, lazy and too passive.
- Nazzy is old and limited.
- Livingston has too much money committed to him considering he couldn't even play over the summer.
- Hendo doesn't belong in the NBA and is not Terrence Williams.
- UPS's skill set is too limited.
- T2 is a BBIQ tragic who is out of control and is no better than Stromile Swift but is still getting paid too much. Losing Felts is his fault because they chose to sign Tyrus over Raymond.
- Gana is a spazz who has no offense and one of the worst contracts in today's NBA.
- Hammer is over paid bench fodder.
- Tank is fat.
- Kwame is Jordan trying to massage his own ego and right his wrongs from the past.
- I still don't even know who McGuire is.
- We gave up Chandler for Najera?
- Larry Brown is an egomaniac who lives in the center of his own universe.
- Micheal Jordan is a clueless GM/Owner who wears his pants too high.
- Rufus Lynx doesn't even look like a lynx.
- The LadyCats are skanky.
- 7:00pm tip offs for home games suck. What's wrong with 7:30pm or even 8:00pm?

I think that about covers it?

Can we lock this now?

[doc.end]

Actually I think things could be a lot worse. Some things don't work the way we would like but there is numerous good signs.

Diop is pretty good in comparison how he played as Bobcat before. He sets screens, catches the ball and can get rid of it without a turnover (at least in high post), he is getting fouled a lot considering how often he is trying to score. He is alert on defensive end, blocks shots... Of course when he hit one free throw from a pair it is a good result but that's not gonna change. I was actually glad LB send him on court in third quarter, I wanted him in already in second quarter when we couldn't find a working lineup.

UPS is getting a lot of minutes lately. Henderson is playing too. Not that they are consistent they yet to prove themselves but first steps were taken. Neither McGuire or Carroll eat into their minutes.

DJ is playing well and established himself as one of our three best players. I actually enjoy watching him running the offense (most of the times). I am still uncomfortable any time he is driving for a lay up though. I would like him to shoot more treys, well taking more shots overall, so I am ok with him playing off ball sometimes. But we shouldn't force our forwards create the offense.

And I almost forget - Boris is in better shape we expected (feared) and occasionally he will have a impactful game more often than we expected. He is taking open threes instead of passing them a bit more.

Bad:

Tyrus seems to be what Bulls fans say so far - great energy guy, very flashy one night and very erratic with numerous dumb decision next time; hopefully that could change for the better

Crash is starting somewhat slowly and if refs tend to call offensive fouls or not calling contact under opponent basket at all, he loses his effectiveness in some games; he is not rebounding so well, I guess that's because we rarely have center on court to eat some space and open a space for his teammates to collect the ball

Jack is playing isolation plays causing us turnovers sometimes, sometimes he is off, he won't be any younger, we have to understand we can't relly on him for all four quarters and that he will have some non-productive stretches driving us crazy here and there; new tech rules won't help

Injuries - we couldn't see Kwame so far, I am curious whether he could make an impact on our center rotation

[doc.end]

playing devils advocate - reasons why we cant blow it up

1. larry brown - he simply will not allow it. he wont be part of a rebuilding process at this point.
2. jordan - he just bought the team and got us some sponsors. can anyone really see him accepting 3 years of lottery bound seasons in order to start over and build the right way?
3. jackson - he would become a massive problem on a rebuilding team and his contract is getting close to untradeable.
4. diop - untradeable
5. thomas - close to untradeable
6. no 1st round pick in 2012
7. no young promising players to try and develop. what are we going to do, give UPS and hendo 30+ mins a night. they are role players, at best. they will never develop into starter quality players no matter how much time we give them.
8. do you trust higgins to actually draft a young stud?
9. how will the fans react to an obvious rebuilding effort? we just started to win the city back.
10. don't want to give anyone any more reasons to contract this team

I agree we should starting blowing it up in 2012/2013 season not sooner.

[doc.end]

finally one place for all the negative nancys and debbie downers to post their thoughts.

go for it.

- DJ is a midget who can't run a team, is scared of his own shadow and is not Brook Lopez.
- Jax is a ball stopping glory hound who doesn't know his own limitations, yaps too much at the refs and has too much money coming to him.
- Crash has a massive ego now he made the All Star team and couldn't care less about the team.
- Boris is fat, lazy and too passive.
- Nazzy is old and limited.
- Livingston has too much money committed to him considering he couldn't even play over the summer.
- Hendo doesn't belong in the NBA and is not Terrence Williams.
- UPS's skill set is too limited.
- T2 is a BBIQ tragic who is out of control and is no better than Stromile Swift but is still getting paid too much. Losing Felts is his fault because they chose to sign Tyrus over Raymond. Woohoo, let's celebrate.
- Gana is a spazz who has no offense and one of the worst contracts in today's NBA.
- Hammer is over paid bench fodder.
- Tank is fat.
- Kwame is Jordan trying to massage his own ego and right his wrongs from the past.
- I still don't even know who McGuire is.
- We gave up Lexy for Najera?
- Larry Brown is an egomaniac who lives in the center of his own universe.
- Micheal Jordan is a clueless GM/Owner who wears his pants too high.
- Rufus Lynx is posting crap.
- The LadyCats are skanky.
- 7:00pm tip offs for home games suck. What's wrong with 2:30pm or even 3:00pm?

I think that about covers it?

Can we lock this now?

Fixed.

[Fred Williamson]

I'm all for blowing it up, but as Slam mentioned, it's impossible as long as that old fart is sitting on the bench (and I'm not talking about Nazr)

Same goes for Jax and probably Crash. Those guys want to win at all cost and not waste their prime on a lottery team. So the only thing we can do now, is to sit back and watch our team getting destroyed every night, until the season is over.

[Bassman]

Well, I'm open to igniting a charge with a partial blow-up. As this team is currently configured we are not moving forward. The teams needs key parts, and has some minor depth we can use in making an impact trade(s). Believe it or not, my suggestions do not include getting a PG.
"SEE SLAM IN SHOCK!"

DJ is far from a starting PG, but his production is coming along enough to address other major concerns first. Could he run a different system better? That's possible. He will always be short, have a tough time defending good 1's, and still cannot create well enough, but he's showing more than many on this team.

I'm open to trading any player, including Crash, to get a quality 5 shooting guard. UPS is not ready to be a starter but he could be there one day.

Early on I wanted us to pull off a deal for Biedrens and Monta Ellis. Too bad they are playing so well (especially Ellis) as there's NO WAY the Warriors are trading those guys. Ellis has been a monster so far, and Biedrens had a huge gameon the boards last night (20). Lots of folks on here poo-pooed the idea of getting David Lee. Look at his numbers so far on a totally different team and system. If we had someone to anchor the post, score and board with good defense, we'd be a different team. If we had a deadly shooter/scorer at the 2 to compliment our 3 (either Crash or Jax) we'd stretch the D and be a better scoring team.

Folks, we will not do much with Larry here. He's a great teacher, and a good coach, but he really needs to move on.

[BigSlam]

"SEE SLAM IN SHOCK!"

I actually agree that not having a true post scorer hurts us more than anything. I see Jefferson and Millsap in Utah playing next to each other and can't help but think "come on Jerry, share the love around a little!!".

That's why I suggest going after Kaman in the OT thread. His stock is a little down right now, Griffin looks awesome so maybe we should be on the phone with them?

DJ - Jax - Crash - T2 - Kaman

might not be a bad 2nd move (after getting rid of Larry).

[fatlever]

i think at some point in the near future we have to entertain the idea of moving crash. maybe not right now, but within the next year. he has the most value of any player on our team. it would be in our best interest to move him before he starts a decline in his production. we have always known that his style of play will not lend itself to playing at this level into his 30s. his game is all about quickness, hustle and pain.

jax is much tougher to trade and has less value. i also believe jax is best suited for small forward and not shooting guard.

if we could move crash for a key building block we could move jax to small forward.

anyway... its too early for getting serious about this idea. i still want to see if this team can turn it around in the next month. but, come next summer, if things havent changed much, we really need to start shopping crash.

that will be a sad sad day, but its better than hanging on to him long past the point where his trade value is too low to get anything of value.

[DY_nasty]

Other than the Wolves, is there a team playing worse than the Bobcats right now? I mean lets just be real... at least Minnesota has known idiot for a coach who only plays their best players 20 minutes a night. We've got a HoF coach that either doesn't care to prepare the team to play or doesn't want to fix these problems. It doesn't matter what the roster looks like - there's absolutely no excuse for a professional NBA team to turn the ball over again and again (especially when its the 3 best players doing it) nor is there a reason for the defense to be this bad.

[doc.end]

One thing is certain - we have to keep our bench PGs motivated.

[thruthefire]

Try to make the playoffs or blow it up ... either is fine with me. But I think the Lolcats are a better team than 1-4 suggests. I'll definitely take our cast over four of the five teams directly in front of us in the EC standings (as well as the ones behind us).

If we do blow it up, I think it'd be in our best interest to hang on to Augustin and Thomas, though everyone should be available. If D.J. keeps playing well, his trade value goes up. If Tyrus averages 32+ minutes a game, he's going to put up numbers, which will bring his trade value up.

[BigSlam]

The other thing I have been thinking about is team chemistry. Bonnell said that since 1803bc when he started covering the NBA that he has never seen a team with the chemistry that we had over the summer.

Where has it gone?

I know that everything is better when you are winning, and we aint right now, but I don't really see the mateship that I thought I would.

For you super fans that are attending the game tonight Vs the Magic, I'd like to know what you see behind the scenes, away from the cameras. Who is hanging out with who, who is keeping the energy up, how is each players body language, how they communicate with each other etc.