Fire Ryan Poles | Fire Matt Eberflus

Gentle reminder: it’s been awhile.

You know what? This season is far from over. The Cubs are not a lock to win anything.

I believe that Joe Maddon is an A-List manager, but the lack of solid relief pitching will bite the Cub’s in their collective asses if moves aren’t made to bolster the pen.

I invite you all to weigh in and stir the pot.

I really don’t know where to start. I know this had to happen, but I am still shocked. With what I will be saying here shortly may put me in the minority, but that’s fine. Today, I was reminded why the Bulls are still, an inept organization from ownership all the way down to the players. Even the trainers and doctors suck too as we have heard. I pray what happened today signals an overhaul of this entire franchise, but even I am not that stupid.

Derrick Rose, Justin Holiday and a second round pick for next year go to the Knickerbockers for Robin Lopez, Jerian Grant and Jose Calderon. First, Holiday was an alright player and usually, second round picks in the NBA do nothing. The Bulls get back Lopez, who is a decent center and replaces Joakim Noah (good riddance). Jose Calderon was a pretty good point guard a few years ago and can still be pretty good. Jerian Grant must have been thrown in the trade just for the fact that he is the nephew of one, Horace Grant. I’d say the Bulls won this trade.

Now, on to Rose. At the beginning, it was a blessing. Getting a text message from someone telling me the Bulls got the number one pick in the draft that year just made me some damn excited. I think every fan was. Just seeing the dude run all over the court and how freakishly athletic he was made us all tuned into the TV.

Then, the wheels fell off.

The Bulls decide to hire a lifelong assistant coach by the name of Tom Thibodeau. From the beginning, I knew this was a problem. The Bulls were kicking the shit out of teams in their wins. They were winning by 15, 20 and even 30 points at times. The problem with that? The starters were still in games late instead of the bench players. So we saw players like Rose and Deng out there in 30-point blowouts playing 40 minutes.

This proved costly in the playoffs when, in the first year of ThomASS, the Bulls somehow made it the Eastern Conference Finals against the Heat. I can just remember my head twisting with the question of why Derrick Rose wasn’t sitting out a few minutes in Games 3 and 4 of that year. He needed to rest. In Game 4, the Bulls had a chance to win late in the 4th and then, in overtime. Unfortunately, Derrick Rose ran out of gas and couldn’t make any shots. He must had played well over 40 minutes in that game. The Bulls were then put away in Game 5 after blowing a 12-point lead with just over four minutes to go.

In 2012, the proverbial knife to the chest happened. The Bulls were playing the 76ers in Game 1 of the first round of the playoffs. The Bulls, up double-digits with under two minutes go, were all but done with this one. Thibodeau, who I’d bitched about countless times on this same, shitty website, for leaving starters in way too long before this game, decided to repeat his stupidity. Derrick Rose drives to the basketball and the rest is history. “Derrick Rose is hurt…Derrick Rose is hurt” is what Stacey King said on TV. Rose tears his ACL playing in a meaningless final two minutes of a playoff game. Fuck.

We knew Derrick Rose wasn’t a bright individual off the court, but that was masked by his play on the court. When he was sitting out, all of the awful comments, stories about his idiotic brother controlling his decisions and whatever else asinine came to light. I don’t have the energy to get into all of that, but needless to say, it affected his play on the court. And we can’t forget about the countless injuries that were spread out through this entire fire. Meniscus tears, sore knees, bad neck, whatever else it was, it happened to Derrick Rose.

The destruction of this man was a collective effort. It started with himself, of course. Then, it went to his virgin brother and trickled all the way down to the players, coaches and management. I still would like to think ThomASS was the fucking culprit of all it, though. ThomASS was the main reason why Derrick Rose self-destructed. If that injury happens while the game was close, then I guess it’s not. But that fact it wasn’t, still pisses me off to this day.

Nobody doubted Thibodeau’s skill of coaching. Even I said many times that he is a good X’s and O’s coach. But actually handling a team and making sure they are healthy? The absolute worst. Those 60 wins meant nothing because most of us logical fans knew that they would eventually run out of gas in the playoffs. Mark my words, the Timberwolves will do very well in the regular season eventually. That’s what teams coached by ThomASS do. When it gets to the playoffs, Thibodeau will defeat that team.

As the last couple of seasons went, ThomASS was shown the door and Fred Hoiberg was brought in. Rumors came about with Jimmy Butler and Derrick Rose not getting along. I didn’t understand it either. I also felt ThomASS had a lot to do with that because he got into Butler’s head about being a great player. The humble and shy guy that came out of Marquette became egotistical. Well, he’s still with the Bulls for another four years. Derrick Rose is now gone.

So while many others are happy Rose is gone, I’ll say that I was really pulling for the guy to do well. I was praying the guy would grow up. Nearly eight years after the day he was drafted, he is now gone. And as I said earlier, I understand. But it’s time the Chicago Bulls grow up as a franchise. Tearing this whole team down from management all the way to the players, trainers and doctors needs to happen. Let this be the start.

Take out the trash.

My opinion on LeBron James had been well-documented on this awful website over the years. Some would argue with me and others against, which was fine.

All of those years, I will argue he was an immature and selfish player. I felt as if he believed the world revolved around him. In high school, he was becoming this rising celebrity. The whole ordeal with his mom buying a Hummer, to him taking gifts from a store at that time and everything else before getting to the NBA, disliking him became very easy.

Then, of course, all of the years with Cleveland during the first run just made me really despise the basketball player. I felt the whole “Decision” ordeal was the final straw for most. It was easy to root against LeBron James.

Two years ago, something changed. It was almost as if he had grown up. I think he even admitted the “Decision” was a bit over the top. And it was. He decided to come back to Cleveland and help the city win a title.

What started to sell me was watching the ESPN 30 for 30 about Cleveland just being a miserable city both for sports and in general. I swear, that whole documentary can just make you cry your eyes out. All of the failures in sports and shitty economy made me think of my teams and how bad they have been in history. I felt I could relate so much to these people. I pretty much told myself, “I hated the Cavaliers growing up, but damn. Just give them the title once in their lives.”

Down 3-1 to what was supposed to be the greatest NBA team in history, raise your hand if you thought the Cavaliers were going to come back. Don’t worry, I didn’t either. Game 5 arrives and I text one of my friends during the game basically saying “LeBron is just throwing up shots like there is no tomorrow”. And that was true. I could not believe what I was watching. The dude puts up 41 points and they force a Game 6. Then, he repeats the performance by netting 40. He even blocks a shot from Curry during that game and says a few things to him after. I couldn’t help but cheer and laugh at that. I was turning into a believer.

And now, it’s Game 7. WWE has a pay-per-view on at the same time, so I have the TV on for Game 7 and pay-per-view on the laptop. Most of my focus was on the game. I just couldn’t believe what I saw in the last two games. Myself and I am certain everyone else started asking: “Can LeBron do it one more time”?

Game 7 was a classic. I thought the last two games were heavyweight fights with punch and counterpunch continuously. The scores may not be reflective of that, but watching the actual game tells you differently. Game 7 went the distance. The last five minutes made me so intrigued and had me really pulling for the Cavaliers to seal this deal and give the fans not what they want, but what they need. Kyrie Irving hits a huge three, the Warriors go scoreless, due in large part to LeBron. That amazing block towards the end just showed how bad he wanted to win. I thought the shoe was going to fall off when LeBron went for that dunk and landed on the floor hard. I was thinking “broken wrist”. He gets up, misses the first free throw but drains the second one to make it a two-possession game. LeBron finishes with a triple-double.

The Cavaliers bring the first title in sports for Cleveland in 52 years. They deserved it. We as Chicago fans know what it’s like to have teams stab us in the hearts while twisting the knife. Let them have this.

The floor is yours.

Another person in sports has left us. I’ve lost count already this year.

This time, it was former Chicago Bear Bryan Robinson. And that name is familiar with a bunch of us.

In the 90’s, the Bears were awful. In fact, they’re still awful. It felt like a lifetime between victories against the Packers. Growing up in a town that was nearly split down the middle with Bears/Packers fans, it made it even worse.

The year was 1999. The Bears were so bad, God couldn’t even watch. Walter Payton had passed during the week before the game. The Bears went to Lambeau to play the Packers. The day before, there was a ceremony at Lambeau remembering Payton. As I mentioned in the previous thread with Gordie Howe and Blackhawks fans, I think Packers fans would say that the only Bear they could never hate would be Walter Payton. So needless to say, it was a very emotional time for both teams.

The game begins and the Bears, to everyone’s surprise, including themselves, are actually playing in a close game. A 13-year old me is watching this game in the living room. Looking back, the Bears actually being up on the Packers was so rare in my childhood, that I remember these games well. I just remember Jim Miller throwing interceptions in this game. Cade McNown had a knee injury early in the game. As I type this, my eyes are ready to bleed just reminiscing about Cade McNown doing some type of bootleg. Fuck.

Moving on, the Bears take the lead in the 3rd quarter on a Bobby Engram touchdown thrown from Miller. I just researched the box score. Miller threw three interceptions in this game. In the 4th quarter, Chris fucking Boniol missed a field goal that would have put the Bears up 17-13 with just under 6:00 minutes to go. So Brett Favre, who was sending dick pictures with Polaroids to reporters during this time due to cell phone cameras not yet being invented, drove the Packers down the field in typical Brett Favre fashion. As a Bears fan, I am sure everyone was thinking, “not this again”.

Favre takes the Packers down to around the 10-yard line with just a few seconds to go. Ryan Longwell, who was a pretty damn good kicker, just had to make a chip shot right in the middle of the field for the win. On this day, the Bears pulled one out of their asses thanks to one man: Bryan Robinson.

Bryan, thank you for this memory.

If you are a Blackhawks fan, this is probably the only Red Wing you could never hate, even if you tried.

(Ernie…what does it mean?)