Thursday, October 19, 2006

Where have we heard this before?

This made me smile, from Chad Ford's chat:

Andrew (Washington DC) : Who is more overrated coming into the season, Chicago or Phoenix?

Chad Ford: (12:10 PM ET ) Chicago ... no question. If Amare's healthy, I think the Suns will win it all this year. If he's not, they'll still be one of the top three or four teams in the West. My problem with the Bulls is that they were already a fantastic defensive team. Ben will make them even better, but their biggest weakness, low post scoring, wasn't really addressed. It may be down the road with Tyrus Thomas ... but not in the short term. I think they'll be better, don't get me wrong, but I can't agree with those who have them ready to take home the East crown.
See, I may even know what I'm talking about sometimes.

Of course, Mark Stein doesn't agree:
Shawn (Copley): You're going to feel very stupid for putting the Cavs behind the Bulls. One good playoff series? That's all you base it off of? ONE PLAYOFF SERIES MEANS NOTHING. Even the Cavs run against the Pistons means nothing. I'm a Cavs fan and they got lucky against the Pistons and the Bulls are no different in that regard. Like the Pistons the Heat took Miami lightly and it bit them back. Like good teams after do after a tough loss, the Pistons and Heat fought them off and won. The Bulls are still a jumpshooting team and have no inside scoring. PJ Brown is 1000 years old and Ben Wallace has only been good in Detroits system and he's not exactly young himself. The Bulls will be better but they will not be better then the Cavs in the regular season. Get off the bandwagon. The Bulls are like the Miami Dolphins. One big signing and everyone goes overboard with their predictions. Come back down to earth. Larry Hughes and Anderson Varejao missed a lot of time last year and Shannon Brown should be an upgrade on our second unit and is a potential starter. Not to mention the fact that our signings from last summer should be more familiar with the system and have a better year. There's no reason the Cavs shouldn't be better.

Marc Stein: The Bulls had Miami on the ropes with NO bigs. ZERO. They now have two good ones (Ben and PJ) and a project big (Thomas) who'll eventually be quite good. That's why, going into the season, I like the Bulls better than a Cavs team that hasn't changed much.


Aside from writing a freaking giant paragraph, I'm with Shawn from Copley on this. I also like how Stein just discounted the fact that Hughes and Varejao missed boat loads of time last season.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Marc Stein doesn't so much hate the Cavs as he hates their fans.

It probably has its roots in an ongoing war of words. Stein writes something critical about the Cavs, fans send him hate mail, so he writes even more critical things.

Stein won't ever give the Cavs their due, and when they show even the slightest symptom of a slump, he'll pile on lustily.

Like I've said before, the Cavs could have the best record in the league at the all-star break, and Stein will still have them eighth in his power rankings with a comment about how a few injuries could really derail them.

(As a side note, Stein said he doesn't really like the Cavs because they made no major changes. But, the teams he usually genuflects toward, the Pistons, Spurs, et al, are models of stability. So apparently stability is a good thing, unless you're the Cavs. Stein really is going out of his way to be critical of Cleveland.)

Anonymous said...

Marc Stein doesn't so much hate the Cavs as he hates their fans.

It probably has its roots in an ongoing war of words. Stein writes something critical about the Cavs, fans send him hate mail, so he writes even more critical things.

Stein won't ever give the Cavs their due, and when they show even the slightest symptom of a slump, he'll pile on lustily.

Like I've said before, the Cavs could have the best record in the league at the all-star break, and Stein will still have them eighth in his power rankings with a comment about how a few injuries could really derail them.

(As a side note, Stein said he doesn't really like the Cavs because they made no major changes. But, the teams he usually genuflects toward, the Pistons, Spurs, et al, are models of stability. So apparently stability is a good thing, unless you're the Cavs. Stein really is going out of his way to be critical of Cleveland.)

Ben said...

It's also annoying, cause well, I like most of Steins writings. But sometimes he just seems ignorant of what's going on in Cleveland.

Like have Hughes for 60 games wouldn't help the Cavs out...