this is a basketball thread

Nearly got swept up in the Bulls playoff excitement to the point of buying a Pippen Mitchell & Ness throwback.

Glad I didn't pull the trigger after the way this team went out like a fart in the wind.

This organization is fucked.

Game 2

I feel like there's some real emoticon potential, here, in this picture of possibly-banished-to-China Carlos Boozer.

I really wish I could get into basketball but there aren't any interesting teams. I enjoyed rooting for the Bulls when Thibs was coaching and Rose was at his best. I loved watching that team fight the Heat every year.

But now, idk, Hoiberg seems like a boring coach. Rose is fucked. Butler isn't that likable and the riff between him and Rose is weird. I hope Noah somehow bounces back but that won't happen. I'm not excited to watch McDermott and Moritic throw up endless three pointers really...

Are there any teams in this league that seem like villains? Or are young with a lot of potential upside? I would root for them maybe. I wish I grew up in the 90s so I could have enjoyed basketball as it was supposed to be played. This shit is really boring.

I've really enjoyed watching this team so far. Gonna be a fun season.

Last nights Bulls-Pistons game was definitely the ugliest game of professional basketball I've ever seen. It was actually really entertaining for that reason. Bulls looked like absolute shit though. 17 turnovers is a big number but the stupidity behind them is really what grabbed my attention. Like, how the fuck do you not even get a shot off with 40 seconds left in the game, Snell! Gotta question that last possession too.

It's obviously way too early in the season to make any judgements but Hoiberg did a terrible job adjusting. Pau got totally manhandled by Drummond all game. Mirotic - Gasol is a great front court option when they are hitting their shots but that wasn't happening for most of the night. I really don't know much about basketball strategy but it seems like Noah and Portis should have gotten more minutes last night.

I'm having a hard time getting into the Blackhawks this year so I'm channeling all of my Chicago sports fandom to this Bulls team. Gonna be posting a lot in this thread all year. I hope people join me! Basketball is fun!

It does suck but I'm also glad that Grantland got cancelled. It doesn't make sense that ESPN is allowed to profit off good, talented writers. It actually pisses me off and they've been treating Grantland like a benign skin cancer for years anyway.

Someone else will have to fill the vacuum. Although its unfortunate that it might involve having to purchase an HBO subscription...

As for the 'no homo' remarks. Simmons does a lot of that kind of thing as well. That problem in sports culture definitely isn't confined to ESPN, unfortunately.

That makes no sense. ESPN shouldn't be allowed to profit off of talented writers? Then who should? I'm glad that these talented writers had a platform for their writing, however briefly it may have been.

Grantland was the only thing worthwhile that had any connection to ESPN. Axing that site just shows how fucked the company is. Their TV deals are forcing them to cut jobs. Their homepage "content" is click bait trash that is designed to get the "highly engaged" detritus that still reads those articles to comment and make misogynist and racist remarks.

The fact that a big wig at ESPN said on Friday, "We're not in the pop culture business any longer" or something similar shows how clueless they are.

petey wrote:That makes no sense. ESPN shouldn't be allowed to profit off of talented writers? Then who should? I'm glad that these talented writers had a platform for their writing, however briefly it may have been.

Why not themselves... Perhaps I'm being optimistic but it seems like they built a big enough brand to generate their own traffic. And if not, then perhaps Simmons & HBO?

I loved everyone I worked with at G and loved what we built. Watching good/kind/talented people get treated so callously = simply appalling.

— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) October 30, 2015

They built up that brand thru ESPN. And let's face it, anything they do after Grantland will be a major step down, reader-wise, from the stuff they did for ESPN.

I don't think Grantland was profitable at all for ESPN, so from a pure revenue perspective, shutting it down makes sense. Grantland was more of a "prestige" site than anything.

You're right...

I don't know that I completely agree with the notion anything post-Grantland will be a step down reader wise. Those writers have built up huge followings on Twitter. Many of them will freelance and get traffic that way. And a handful are going to get steady gigs where the readership from Grantland will transfer over along with whatever base exists at the publication they land at.

Shit, considering how people will throw money away on Kickstarter for anything I bet a majority could crowd fund a podcast of some kind and still sustain relevancy that way.

There are a bunch of articles talking about Grantland's disappearance from the media landscape but this one really stood out to me.

there's not really a sustainable way to have these quality online sites dedicated to specific topics with a talented roster of writers. both grantland and the dissolve shut down this year. the online advertising revenue doesn't provide enough to pay the writers, and people aren't willing to contribute via a subscription/paywall method.

Going to the Bulls game tomorrow. First game in a few years. Kind of pumped for it.