They don't have another really tough game until April though and he should be back by then, Gibson stepped up at the beginning of the year, I think he and Asik can do it again. Obviously I think they're contenders as their my home town team, but I hate how everything just ballooned this week. Articles are coming out saying Rose is the best PG in the game (he's not), Reinsdorf says they can get at least 4 championships and why not start this year, and everyone talks about the next great Bulls dynasty. Chill the fuck out, let them at least win a couple playoff series against good teams first.

I disagree about depth though, the 2nd unit consistently plays pretty well and has even taken back leads at times. Brewer, Korver, Gibson, and Asik are more than capable reserves.

???

This would be great except you are completely wrong about their depth. When you are talking offense yes largely they are confined to about 4 useful players (which is why despite all of Rose's buzz for MVP they are only the 16th best offense in the league in offensive rating). But as many people are found of saying defense wins championships and the Bull's defensive depth is ridiculous. Want to know why Rose' on vs. off court numbers aren't great? It's because the 2nd unit may not be able to score but no one can score on them either. That lineup is so ridiculously effective on defense that they cancel out almost entirely any offensive deficiencies. It's the reason why they're number 1 in defensive efficiency (and were even without Noah). So far from being a problem depth is what they have in spades. It's just not the traditional offensive depth.

Yes the Rose crowd is latching onto the story but both they and you are ignoring the Bull's real strengths that have been noticed by good objective analysis which is why the Bulls are one of 7 coequal contenders. Considering your tendency to give tons of credence to bullshit media tropes like "championship experience," "you've got to knock out the champs to beat them," "strong leadership," and other similarly lazy pieces that make for good stories that the media tends to pass off as analysis for why teams win and lose championships or close games I wouldn't be so quick to cast stones.

Finally, even if your statement were true (and it isn't) then by that same logic the Heat only have 3 players, Boston only has 6, Orlando only has 4-5 (and not the 4-5 you think), LA only has 4 (sorry Artest and Fisher's name value and past performance does not make them better than what else the Bulls are throwing out there). So really you only have Dallas and San Antonio with much more than 4 players. Guess they're the favorites! But hey let's just remember that as much as KG was important in getting everyone to buy in to Boston's defensive system (with guys who previously weren't great defenders) remember who was coaching the defense the last 3 years. Boston is still running his system and is still playing well on D (number 2) but guess who passed them? The team with Thibs. And if you go back to when he worked under Van Gundy in Houston he produced similar performances even with mostly mediocre defensive players. Defense is the reason Boston won a title and made it to 2 of the last 3 particularly the type of defense that he runs that shuts down grind it out half court offenses. Well now the Bulls have the defense that can do that better. I won't say they're a favorite over the Celtics because frankly the Celtics aren't that far off on defense and have the better offensive pieces and system outside of Rose. But they are a better contender than the Heat for sure (who only have 3 players of course) specifically given that their defensive system is tailor made to stop the Heat if the Heat can't get out in transition.

Really I don't get your focus on name value of players. If I can find it I'll send you the link to Dan Lebetard's excellent article on the media and fans need to assign explanation to seemingly random events and morality to winners and losers.

Nice to see the Hornets get a fluke win for once

Send me a link to that article too.

It always amazes me how great of a writer he is while making such a terrible PTI guest host.

i dont see why its bad analysis to use "they've won 11 out of their last 12 playoff series" as a reason for why i doubt they lose one this year. championship experience may not be everything, but it means something. how many first time finals teams have won a title? by my count, 17 out of 61. throw in the fact that they have the most talent and a coach who has 11 rings, and i'd say its a pretty good argument. it doesnt mean we should discount current play. but it does mean nobody should count them out (seriously, they've been to three straight finals. no Kobe/Gasol team has ever lost in the Western playoffs. that doesnt mean anything to you?)

The Bulls is the Eastern team that scares me the most, as a Laker fan. Noah/Asik/Gibson/Boozer is a pretty good interior, especially rebounding* and defense-wise, which is important in beating L.A. And everyone knows well the Lakers' struggles with penetrating, offensive-minded point guards, so Rose would likely give them fits. His line in 2 games (small sample size obvs but whatever) against L.A. this year was 29.5/8.5/5 on like 46% from the field. I think it'd be important for Chicago to secure home-court advantage though because I don't think they're a good enough road team to win a 7 game series in Los Angeles.

*9 of L.A.'s 19 losses have come to teams in the top 12 in the league in rebounding, including the Rockets, Clippers, Kings, Pacers and Bucks, of which only Houston has a non-losing record (they're right at .500).

I'm rooting for The Bulls.

The Spurs will be their greatest obstacle for sure, they've been raping the shit out of everybody.

Damn't Crx, did you send the refs from the Mavs-Hornets game to come officiate the Lakers-Heat?

How about since the merger and the advent of modern basketball with the 3 point line (where need I remind you we lose those Russell teams)? Since the merger it is 14 (or 15 if you count the Lakers latest run with a basically entirely different team but Kobe which I would) out of 34 or nearly half of the time. You focus far too much on history (when teams change or get older it means less specifically considering the small sample size and luck that goes into winning championships) and you focus far too much on specific player groupings. Kobe and Gasol are putting on their best show as a duo this year and yet they're doing worse because their supporting cast is worse (although they've been playing much better of late). But OK you want to play the 17/61 game. How many teams in the last 30 years have won a title from a 3 seed or lower? Exactly 2 (San Antonio in 07 and Houston in 95). Exactly one has won winning 3 road series. Or let's go to another bit of history. How many teams have three peated in history? Just 3 (excluding the very early days of the league). Two had the two greatest players of all time. One had Shaq and Kobe. Those Shaq and Kobe teams not only had the better duo (Shaq then is better than Kobe now and Kobe then was better than Gasol now although it is close) but were a better all around team. And if we go to the same since the merger time frame only two teams have done it.

I think history is more against you than it is with you particularly if we bring in the road element. You can say that home court doesn't matter in basketball but history shows that it does. And the Lakers are 0 for 1 in series in which they don't have home court.

No we kept them for our game. While we still crushed the Knicks, look at the FT disparity. They got 37 attempts (and made 35). They got 22 in the first half which is how we managed the neat trick of holding them to 34% shooting from the field and still giving up 51 points. Chandler in particular couldn't breathe on anyone without getting fouled. It was really driven home for me by a ridiculous play where Stoudemire just plowed over Brewer who had been planted for a couple seconds when Stoudamire wasn't even looking where he was going and was bumbling out of control. Square in the chest blocking foul and some shots.

Regardless it was a weird game in a lot of ways. The Mavs torched them but Dirk had his worst game in over a month. In the first have the Mavs scored 72 and Dirk only got 6 of the points. The Knicks looked pretty dead but since we both had shitty scheduling with 4 in 5 days I feel no sympathy. Yet again though the Mavs managed to let a team make a huge run (in this case 26 points at highest down to 11) but managed to close it back down. They just get sloppy and lazy when up big and guys try to execute cool plays rather than the offense. But in the end it's a great win.

Btw Pave what really irritates me about your logic is you would have been the guy in 91 saying "no way the Bulls beat the Pistons just look at their record over the past three years. Just look at how successful their core has been." If there is one lesson the NBA teaches us is that all things come to an end. And if the odds are already stacked against it and we add more things to the thumb scale the odds become astronomical.

no, thats actually the source of our disagreement. the bold "these guys can't win or can't lose" arguments are what im completely against. other than my over-emphasized Bulls bash earlier, all my arguments have been about "its crazy to count this team out". i haven't said that Dallas can't beat the Lakers. i haven't said Miami can't win, or that SA can't win. you keep saying things "won't happen", and my argument the whole time is that it is crazy. that's why ive pointed out the numerous times in the last few years that the media and popular thinking was wrong (the last 5 NBA Champions if the media voted on them at the end of the regular season would be this: Pistons in '06, Dallas in '07, Pistons in '08, Cavs in '09, Cavs in '10... how many of those teams won the title?). as soon as those teams lost, everyone played the "oh we knew that would happen all along. Cavs didnt have the depth. Mavs had a bad matchup. Pistons have chemistry issues. etc". it was bullshit, cause all i saw was bold predictions. people saying teams "couldn't win" and then ignoring their failed prediction as soon as that team went on a run.

its the exact opposite. YOU would be the one in '98 saying the Bulls couldn't pull of another one and that a young Sonics or Lakers team would rise up. the Bulls in '98 were weaker than the Lakers now, older core, less depth, etc. they had a better regular season record, but a lot of people were worried. history as been rewritten to suggest that they were unbeatable for that whole three-peat. they weren't. lots of people picked Utah (they swept the regular season series against the Bulls), especially after Utah swept a good young Lakers team and the Bulls struggled to put away the Pacers in 7. lots of people thought the Sonics would catch fire before they lost to the Lakers. everyone was convinced it could be Shaq's year to dominate. they were all separated by only 1 game in the regular season. Lakers and Sonics had a better margin of victory. they were better offensively and defensively in the regular season.

Lakers are simply not that old.

why are you so amazingly confidant that the Lakers will be the third seed, by the way?

That would be so cool if the season ended with the same standings as there are now. Blazers Lakers first round would be ballin'!

Actually I remember thinking in 98 that the Bulls would win again. Michael Jordan is the most singularly gifted athlete I've seen in my time watching sports which is why I made that prediction. But in 98 I was just 13 so my perspective wasn't particularly educated. The difference between those Bulls and these Lakers are three things. First, that year didn't give themselves a super hard path as the west was the strongest half of the ledger. Second, they had a number one player who is still better than Kobe is right now (and in all honesty is probably better than anything outside of Kobe's absolute peak) and a number 2 player who was still in his prime and better than Gasol. And third they had a real live supporting cast that was really deep (even though they did have kind of a hole at center). My claim is merely the bold claim that if the Lakers don't finish with one of the 4 best records in the league and have to play three road series they won't win. History shows us that's basically as iron clad as saying a 4-6 seed won't win. I've seen you totally eliminate other teams as contenders. I think that counts as bold predictions by your logic and yet you see no problem with it. You just decide who to write off based on who is on the team and what they did in the past in different conexts. The simple fact of the matter is one of the best teams in the regular season wins the title pretty much every time.

But you really miss my point. I'm not saying the Lakers don't have merit. I'm saying they are one of 7 basically equal contenders. If they are one among seven basically equal contenders home court matters a lot. Their past has nothing to do with that. In the two years previous to this they've been either the best or second best team in the league in the regular season. This year they aren't (partially from falling back a bit themselves but mainly from the top improving so much). If they get to the 2nd seed I do like their chances quite a bit. When teams are so evenly matched these things matter. But to depend there is some kind of intangibles advantage for the Lakers and that it should make them the overall favorites is ludicrous.