See Red: Playoff thoughts and a small John Paxson apology

Some thoughts on the playoffs, the Bulls and why ESPN is ruining my NFL draft

The NBA playoffs have been downright strange so far. The only team up 3-0 is the Boston Celtics, who the majority of experts picked to lose to the Miami Heat in the 1st round (Not this guy). Every Celtic point is inching Dwayne Wade closer to leaving the Heat at this point or was it the Udonis Haslem fall away with 45 seconds left that has him contemplating an exit strategy. The Thunder have played solid the last two games and tonight is a pivotal game in the series. LA desperately needs contributions from anyone besides Kobe and Gasol. Kobe is a pulling a Scott Howard right now and Gasol looks like that red head #45, who had a ton of rebounds and blocks and a few lay-ups. Which means it’s a two man show and everybody else may as well be Stiles watching from the stands. I can only make so many Derek Fisher jokes, so I’ll refrain till later on in the playoffs. I should take back my comments about Kevin Durant’s defense because he played Kobe on Thursday night about as well as he could be defended. Now, that I have fulfilled my ESPN driven obligation to talk about the Lakers and Celtics first. Let’s watch Kevin Durant block Kobe's shot and talk about the rest of the playoffs

The Mavericks, who were a sexy pick to win the West have looked awful outside of Dirk Nowitzski and it now looks like the Spurs have control of that series. Caron Butler’s picture may as well be on the side of a milk carton because he’s missing in action. Because when you are starting JJ Barea in the 2nd half your team has problems. After Andrei Kirilenko went down before the playoffs and Mehemt Okur went down in game 1 many and myself included thought the Jazz were finished. Not only have they ripped off two straight, but they have looked as good as they have all season even being short handed. Which I think says a lot about Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, who I think is consistently one of the best coaches in the game (although public speaking isn’t one of his strong points, see his hall-of-fame speech from last summer). The others series’ seemingly have the Magic and Suns in control over a boring Bobcats team and a Brandon Roy less Blazers squad. So, all that’s left to talk about is the hometown Bulls taking on Lebron


Can this happen again ? Probably not but the Bulls have a bright future thanks in part to some of John Paxson's work

I made mention last post about how I would love to see John Paxson be fired and while part of me still thinks Pax should be shown the door and made some huge mistakes during his tenure as GM (I’ll give Gar Foreman a pass for now) I think I need to give Pax some credit for Joakim Noah and the selection of Derek Rose. I was vehemently against the Bulls drafting Noah in 2007. I supported the Bulls drafting anybody but Noah included in that list was Spencer Hawes (bad), Acie Law (current Bull and he’s awful, yeah that’s right you probably didn’t even know he played for the Bulls) and Julian Wright (who has a nice retired jersey plaque at Homewood- Flossmoor, but has not done much in the NBA). Noah arrived on draft night with a clown suit and wild hair and I thought clown would be a perfect word to describe his impending NBA career, but I was wrong. All that energy he played with in college, all of the locker room stuff about him being the leader of Florida was right on point. I became sold on Noah when the Bulls were making their playoff limp down the stretch last year. He is a great rebounder, a very skilled passer for a big guy and can knock down free throws a decent clip. Plus, he plays hard, very hard, which in the NBA can be a rarity. I think Noah could be a solid contributor on a contender in this league, which hopefully with a few smart FA moves the Bulls will be next year. It’s obvious the Bulls lucked into winning the lottery giving them a chance to select Derek Rose, but remember they still had to pick him. I was in the camp of I didn’t care if the Bulls drafted Rose or Beasley I figured they would be getting a blue chip player either way. Thank whoever, John Paxson decided to go with the hometown Rose otherwise the Bulls would have been late lottery bound the past two seasons and missed out on one of the best PG’s in the game and would have probably been little to no factor in this year free agent chase. Because at the time the Bulls selected Rose they had decent set of guards in Heinrich and Gordon and were in desperate need of a low post scoring option (they still are) some thought they would select Beasley thankful the Bulls did not. Since that draft night (2008) Michael Beasley had a Rick James like meltdown on Twitter, got caught smoking pot at the NBA rookie symposium and is in the process of wasting away his career in Miami, where Rose has been nothing short of spectacular thus far. His playoff performance last year allowed the Bulls to save some cap space and not foolishly re-sign Ben Gordon. Rose along with Noah and a possibly rejuvenated Luol Deng (Deng has looked a lot more aggressive in the playoffs and actually looks like a starter in this league again, although I still need to see more) makes the Bulls an attractive landing spot for any free agent in this 2010 class, which is considered the best in the leagues history. With all that I still think the Cavs get past the Bulls despite great efforts by the Bulls in games 2 & 3, but if this team plays it’s cards right they can be contenders in the East next year. So, enjoy the games and I’ll probably have something of a short post up tomorrow after this weekend’s action, but before I go...



A quick Side bar on the NFL draft and more specifically ESPN’s coverage. Unfortunately, I don’t have the NFL network because I could have avoided typing this, but I have to comment of ESPN’s draft coverage. I don’t think brutal is the right word perhaps nauseating would better describe it. Between the fights of Mel Kiper and Todd McShay, Jon Gruden’s QB camp, and Chris Berman being drunk or just moronic (perhaps both) on set their coverage was just painful to watch. I’m tired of their draft coverage being focused on the players falling down the draft board rather than the players that are being selected. Last night was 4 hour Jimmy Clausen and Colt McCoy love fest that just plain sucked. Literally two hours of their coverage was devoted to Colt McCoy, who probably won’t even take a snap next year. Look I love the NFL draft; in fact I used to host a party with people coming over to watch the draft, but it’s getting to the point where I can’t watch it at least not on ESPN anymore.



The soundtrack for this post was provided by Interpol, Surfer Blood and LCD Soundsystem