badgers

Probably said that more due to the fact that him being traded to Minny was inevitable. Probably just wanted to jump the gun and make the Twolves think they got somebody who actually wants to be there, rather than someone who gets traded and then as vanilla as usual in the press conference, says "I'm excited to be here and I'm ready to build a championship team." Boring. Also, something tells me that the Cavs had this all planned out pre-draft. Wiggins was never gonna be a Cav. Wigs probably got that vibe too.

Oh my god at first I thought the thread said "6/11.5" as in $11.5m per year and was like that's a pretty good deal... lol.

You'd be surprised at the number of people out there who still won't let it go that he went to the Vikings... it's unbelievable. I didn't even care about it when he was still playing there lol.

Cobb wasn't even on track for 100 catches, let alone surpassing it. He had 31 Rec in 6 games, which is just over 5 per game. That goes to 80 rec over 16 games. I won't deny he's explosive, but unless absolutely none of the other receivers pan out, he's not worth a huge contract. Jarrett Boykin had a great year in his place, and we have 3 other new drafted receivers, Practice Squad players returning, (and then some UDFA I'm sure are lying around). We are bound to find one or two capable receivers out of that bunch (and remember, this is for the 2015 season, not now. We technically have 2 offseasons to find Cobb's replacement, if need be). And this is just my humble opinion, but Randall Cobb's presence on the team doesn't determine whether or not we win a Super Bowl. He's a good player but not a franchise player (Matthews, Rodgers, Nelson, potentially Lacy), and I think we would have no problem replacing him in about a year or two, and tbh as long as Rodgers is our quarterback he could have any old receiver and make them productive. I'd rather save the money we'd spend on Cobb and put it toward a position that we have a deficiency at. Wide receiver we don't. I would love to see Cobb be re-signed but not at a huge price.

People have been expecting Cobb to "blow up" as the article suggests since his sophomore year. He doesn't have major injury problems, but he does get little dinged up here and there costing him a few games over the course of the season. We just drafted 3 receivers this past year, locked up Nelson long term, and have more quality receiving options already on the team. We're pretty stacked as far as receivers go, so I definitely don't want to pay Cobb too much. He's not worth what we paid Nelson. I'd say $6M annually, anything more than that and let him go.

Looks awesome... but this is bothering me did he change numbers? Cuz in the background it's 27 and on him it's 26.

It wasn't that we were unwilling it was that we couldn't. Seeing as nobody would take Boozer, we offered him everything we possibly could. Wasn't enough. Iirc we offered him a 2 year contract with player option ($15M/y) at the end of 2 to max it out for the final 2 years.

Might be a dumb question but why not just use Skype calls? Pretty sure almost everybody here has Skype.

No, I'm pretty sure Kevin Love said himself that he wouldn't be traded to a team that he isn't comfortable making a long term signing. Besides idk why any team would go through w/ the trade unless the Wolves extended his contract before the trade. That'd be stupid as hell.

The Bulls are not in the running for Kevin Love. It's just people trying to amp up the competition to make Kevin Love's price higher. Ffs we just had a press conference introducing Mirotic. You don't trade off a guy 2 weeks after you introduce him to the world with Pau Gasol. Also, we'd have to decimate our team in order to bring him here. We'd have a team of Rose, Noah, and Love and then some vet minimum guys. Butler, Gibson, Dunleavy, Mirotic, and possibly McDermott would all be potential tradebait in any scenario for Kevin Love and it's not worth losing over half of our talent just for Kevin Love. No matter how good he is.

I don't think Nazr is on the team still. Unless he was re-signed. He's a FA. Bairstow the guy we drafted is apparently backup C now.

Wait so if being healthy 2 years in a row means you have to be unhealthy the next year, what does being unhealthy 4 years in a row get you? Seriously though, defense. If we can stop throwing camp bodies in to start on defense (like the last two years) we might do alright this year.

I'm pretty sure this debate started because you were explaining why you were opposed to signing Carmelo Anthony (one free agent) to the Bulls. Now you've turned it into why you hated Miami's Big 3. But ok. To counter your entire argument, if a player or management official sees an opportunity to improve their team in any way, they take it. There's no ifs ands or buts. Their job is to win games, and if signing a big free agent is how to do it, that's how they should do it. There's tremendous pride in winning but there's absolutely no pride in losing. I would say that Miami did a phenomenal job at free agency in 2010, bringing back D Wade along with signing (and trading for) LBJ and Bosh. Just because you think it's unfair or pathetic that they did that in order to win championships doesn't mean that it was unfair or pathetic. They won 2 championships in 4 years. Undeniable success. Don't get me wrong, I hated that team as much as any other non Heat fan. But when your entire argument is saying that Miami's "effective free agency" (apparently quoting my words) was signing 3 of the biggest NBA stars to win 2/4 championships, all you've done is help me prove my point. You shouldn't sacrifice victory in the name of pride. That's just stupid. Obviously there is more pride in building a team from scratch instead of bringing in proven stars, but in the end, winning a championship is the end goal no matter how it's done (so long as there's no foul play). And I have been in Chicago my whole life too and I can't think of anybody I've ever met that would say they'd rather not win a championship than win one because they brought in a bunch of superstar players.

Actually if we were able to send off Boozer we might have gotten closer to the max (19-20M/yr). That wasn't really feasible though. And if NY agreed to S&T, we could have paid him the max. I really think what it came down to was he didn't want to leave NY. We offered him a 2 year contract with a player option for turning it into a max contract after 2 years and he apparently turned that down to stay in NY. I don't blame him for wanting to stay there though. Edit- and while I agree that NY was the most likely from the beginning, I don't think he had already made up his mind. I highly doubt that Houston and Dallas ever entered serious consideration, but LA and especially Chicago I actually believe really made an impact on him. Mo' money and staying home is too much to pass up though.

I was not implying that it's not important to develop who you draft. I'm trying to make a point that you can't rely on it entirely. Our ability to draft and develop as well as sign important core players in free agency is what puts the Blackhawks amongst the most talented teams in hockey. Sorry if it wasn't clear. Edit- And just so people don't think this is off topic, I believe my point relates to all four major sports, not just my example sport of hockey.

I agree with you that that's kind of the fan philosophy these days but when is the last time a Chicago team has one a championship by doing it like that? I don't even remember lol. Even the 90s Bulls dipped into FA effectively, nabbing Rodman. The days of relying on your draft are gone. Take the Blackhawks for example. We've won 2 of the last 5 Stanley Cups. Why? Because we have the most talented roster in the NHL. We have our flaws, sure, but as far as pure talent goes, the Blackhawks are at, or at least very near, the top. Obviously Toews, Kane, Keith, etc. were built here, and they're the major faces of the franchise. But we've added on too there. Hossa, Sharp, Oduya being prime example. The days of building championship teams from the ground up are basically gone. You've gotta dip your hand into FA to win. It doesn't have to be frequently, but it sure as hell as to be effectively. As for the Bulls, it hasn't been all that effective over the past few years and we're seeing where it gets us. Perennial playoff team, perennial early exiters. If DRose can stay healthy we'll see. I wanted Melo as (at the very least) an insurance plan for Rose, and if Rose did stay healthy, we'd have double trouble in Chicago. Anyways, about Pau I agree. I don't want to see him starting. Pau should get big minutes off the bench, though.

I definitely agree about Pau's age, I'm not that happy about it. But even at the age he's at, he's an upgrade on both sides of the floor over Boozer. Plays better defense and is more of a scoring threat. Mirotic I'm excited to see, same with McDermott. I don't know why you hate him, I feel like he can bring solid 3 point shooting to the team, which is something that nobody but Dunleavy can do currently. Even Rose is a bit unreliable from the 3pt line. I'd love to have both Kirk and DJ back but I don't think we can afford them. PG isn't our weakness, despite Rose being gone the past few years. And even though Derrick Rose is coming back, because of the last 2 seasons you'd be out of your mind to not prepare for a potential injury again. I don't think it will happen, and I don't want it to, but history has shown otherwise. And I do believe Snell is the guy behind Jimmy. Hopefully this offseason he's more reliable on defense, which was his major weakness. In other words, what I'm trying to say is our defense is elite, and our front court offense is very strong. We have good ball movement, but nowhere to go for the outside shot. Jimmy was great 2 years ago, but this past year (perhaps because of his nagging turf toe injury that apparently lasted all season) he was average at best with his shot. If he can return to being that reliable shooter we're probably fine. But that's why everybody wanted Melo. He can create his own shot from outside, and he would have added crazy potential for our offensive game.

Well looks like Ariza is off the market. I think I would have preferred him to Lance Stephenson now that Melo's back in NY. Stephenson isn't the most attractive addition to the team but I feel like we need someone to fill the empty role on our roster. The Bulls fan in me will never say anything bad about Derrick Rose, but the business side of me always has the thought in the back of my mind that he might be hurt again and I think that right now, the window is starting to open for us. Our players outside of Rose are maturing and becoming excellent starters (Noah the DPOY, Taj the 6MOTY runner up, Jimmy the elite perimeter defender). If Hinrich comes back, I wonder if we could potentially slide Butler to SF where he played when he first came here, and put Hinrich at SG with Rose. Hinrich can hit the 3, and usually plays PG in Rose's absence, and I know that Thibs loves Hinrich so it might be a good experiment to play around with as a starting 5.

In what way? I could swear you said you didn't want Melo on the team very recently.

Pau Gasol will be a Bull by the end of today, and Carmelo Anthony is negotiating a 5year/$120M contract with the Knicks, currently. Both information from Woj's twitter account.

I feel like Bangy wouldn't even get the negative rep award this time around. Anyways, sounds fun. I don't recall doing this the first time around, I must have missed the entire thing.

I'm hearing that Melo is trying to press NY to do a S&T with the Lakers to bring Pau to NY, and then he'll sign with NY so that he can play with Pau there. If that falls through, apparently he wants Chicago. From what I understand the major obstacle is that the Lakers want Hardaway Jr, Knicks not willing to give him. This is just a report from ESPNLA, and we all know how shitty the entirety of ESPN has been over the course of this free agency. For real though. I really hope Melo wises up and comes to Chicago. If we can unload all the unnecessary guys and Boozer, we keep our MLE. He signs for a lower contract here but we can sign Mirotic (or Pau) to the MLE. Mirotic is younger and has more offensive upside. Plus I think the Bulls are not willing to let McDermott or Mirotic go... Fingers crossed. Edit- I should clarify that nothing I just said was from Melo or his camp, or any of the teams involved. It's just the media speculating, I'm just bringing it here. Edit 2- and To update on my previous post, the Lakers were never officially off the list for Melo, but now they've traded for Lin, and have removed themselves from "Melo contention".

Stephen A Smith (take it with a grain of salt) says Melo's decision (as of post-LeBron decision) is between the Knicks and the Bulls, apparently Lakers have been crossed off. Haven't posted much in a while, but apparently Thibs has been in contact with Melo and sparked his interest in joining Chicago again. He's been hearing good things about his potential teammates in Chicago, and Chicago has made it clear to him they'll make the salaries work one way or another. I can only hope our starting 4 aren't gone to get Melo. As far as making room for him, Chicago has apparently been reaching out for teams for a 3 way trade, obviously to take Boozer since NY is refusing to consider that. 3 way trade is the only way we can allow Melo to sign here over our salary cap and we'd probably have to pay the luxury tax. It would severely limit our bench but trading Boozer allows us to keep the MLE which we can use on Mirotic even if we're over the cap. We also have the BAE which can be used on Hinrich or DJ Augustin. From what it sounds like, the biggest obstacle right now is just finding someone to take Boozer. Pretty sure the Lakers expressed interest. If they've truly been eliminated from Melo's list, Boozer might be worth taking. I know his salary sucks ass but at least it's something. Lakers have literally no roster right now besides Kobe. Pau is leaving if Melo don't come.

Yeah honestly I agree with all of what you said ATL as long as all 3 of those guys value winning a championship higher than anything. LeBron's best shot probably is in Cleveland. They've got better and younger players than Miami does at this point. For Bosh, same deal as LeBron, but he'd be playing alongside 2 established superstars in D12 and Harden instead of a group of young stars in the making. And I've already made my Melo stance very clear around here lol. The Lakers and Knicks can't even come close to the championship potential that the Bulls feature, at least not within the next couple of years. That said if they value money over everything.... well LBJ will get a max wherever he goes so it doesn't matter. Bosh should still go to Houston as they've apparently already said they'd give him the max and some other teams probably would too. And Melo should stay in NY if he's all about getting paid.

Speaking for Chicago, the only way we can give him a max contract is with a S&T and dumping Boozer somewhere. That's very unlikely to happen. It's also why we're not more highly considered for the Melo Sweepstakes as it stands today (and why we probably won't end up as his destination).