★★OFFICIAL CHICAGO BULLS THREAD★★ Boozer fractured in his right hand and is out for 8 weeks.

BI, I thought you to be a critical thinker. I must have been wrong.

SI article makes everything right? You know one of their writers had the bears in the super bowl last year right?
 
^
I'm guessing k. thomas first off the bench then osik if he can play at all. surprised he wasn't on the summer league squad to at least get some burn.
 
Originally Posted by VanillaFreak13

^
I'm guessing k. thomas first off the bench then osik if he can play at all. surprised he wasn't on the summer league squad to at least get some burn.
He won't be joining the team until after the Worlds.
 
We kick off our third annual Summer Forecast series with the conference that has created so much commotion in the past few weeks.

Since the Los Angeles Lakers completed their second straight championship run, the NBA has been all about the East, with six of the top seven free agents signing with Eastern Conference teams, including a certain triumvirate in Miami.

To look ahead at the 2010-11 season and beyond, we asked 93 of ESPN's best basketball minds for their forecasts, including contributors from ESPN television and radio, ESPN The Magazine, ESPN Insider, ESPN Stats & Information, ESPN Deportes, ESPN Multimedia, ESPN Fantasy, ESPN Interactive Games, ESPN DB and ESPN.com.

Over the next three weeks, we'll roll out our predictions for how each team will do this season, as well as the 2010-11 Rookie of the Year, Best Newcomer, Worst Newcomer, MVP, conference champions and NBA champs. We'll also delve further into the future of the Heat, and provide our educated guesses on where Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony will wind up.

So enjoy, and come back often.

And now, the 2010-11 Eastern Conference standings, three months early:





Predicted Standings for Eastern Conference: 2010-11


CONF TEAM W L PCT 10 W 10 L 10 PCT
1 Miami Heat 61 21 .744 47 35 .573
Meet the Miami Globetrotters -- with the rest of the East playing the part of the Washington Generals. Our panel says the Super Friends should run circles around the rest of the conference, except perhaps for Orlando. Then again, Boston eliminated both D-Wade and King James a year ago, so that's why they play the postseason …


2 Orlando Magic 56 26 .683 59 23 .720
The Magic stumbled vs. the Celtics in the East finals, but this is much the same team that won five series the past two postseasons. Orlando might have some magical maneuvers left, perhaps shipping out Vince Carter and/or finding a way to get Chris Paul. Until then, given Miami's summer, Orlando reverts to dangerous sleeper status.


3 Boston Celtics 51 31 .622 50 32 .610
The C's showed the regular season means nothing to them, beating the Cavs and Magic despite starting on the road, and almost doing the same to the Lakers. So it matters little that Boston is projected to win "only" 51 games, as long as it can get KG, Perk and the other Men in Green healthy for April, May and June.


4 Chicago Bulls 50 32 .610 41 41 .500
The East's second tier welcomes a new member: Chicago. The Bulls swung and missed on LeBron, D-Wade and CB4, but they did get Carlos Boozer, a deeper bench and a new coach, Tom Thibodeau. That and the sharp ascent of Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah mean that Chicago's sellout crowds finally have something to see.


5 Atlanta Hawks 48 34 .585 53 29 .646
Amazingly, Atlanta has improved for five straight seasons, but our panel says the streak ends here. The Hawks are a solid team that seems stuck in no man's land, having failed to make the conference finals for 40 years -- since the Lakers swept them in the 1970 Western Division finals -- and that probably won't change in 2011.


6 Milwaukee Bucks 46 36 .561 46 36 .561
The East seems to have six sure playoff teams, and for the first time in years, Milwaukee is a member of that echelon. Our panel remains in a prove-it-to-me posture regarding whether the Bucks can crack the East's upper crust, but if Brandon Jennings progresses and Andrew Bogut's arm is OK, the pieces are in place.


7 Charlotte Bobcats 39 43 .476 44 38 .537
Have they peaked? Fresh off of its best season in franchise history, Charlotte's roster looks weaker, its division looks stronger, and Larry Brown -- naturally -- looks like he's itching to leave. Still, with two spots up for grabs, they'll likely earn back-to-back playoff appearances and, in this scenario, a first-round rematch with the Magic.


8 New York Knicks 37 45 .451 29 53 .354
Knicks in the playoffs! But NY fans had more than an eight-game improvement in mind when the team entered the offseason with the ability to sign two superstars. The Amare addition should help, and Mike D'Antoni finally gets some horses to run his system, but the future remains murky. Still, Spike Lee has something to cheer about.


9 Washington Wizards 32 50 .390 26 56 .317
Excited about John Wall? So is our panel, which forecasts the Wizards finishing five spots higher. That says a lot about the uncertainty at the bottom of the East, but it also reflects the renewed hope expected in Washington's locker room after the gun incident that cost the team Gilbert Arenas -- now the other half of the Wiz backcourt.


10 *Indiana Pacers 31 51 .378 32 50 .390
The Pacers essentially stood pat and might miss the playoffs for the fifth straight season. But there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel -- Indy is armed with expiring contracts and on track to have cap space next summer. Meanwhile, the Pacers hope to build on last season's 10-4 finish and avoid the East cellar.


11 *Philadelphia 76ers 31 51 .378 27 55 .329
Even a new coach (Doug Collins) and the No. 2 pick (Evan Turner) didn't give Philly much of a boost in our forecast. While the Sixers have the raw materials to emerge as a surprise team in the East, our panel fears their roster of bad contracts, mismatched pieces and redundant talent will render them mediocre at best.


12 *Detroit Pistons 31 51 .378 27 55 .329
The Pistons haven't missed the playoffs in consecutive seasons since 1994 and 1995, back when Joe Dumars was still playing. To avoid back-to-back lottery visits, they'll need better health and perhaps some bold moves from Joe D in the coming months. Signing Tracy McGrady, Ben Wallace and Will Bynum? That just won't cut it in Detroit.


13 Cleveland Cavaliers 30 52 .366 61 21 .744
Get used to scrolling down this far to find the Cavs in the standings, sad to say. With a certain King taking his talents to South Beach, we're forecasting a 31-game drop in Cleveland. In other words, unless Christian Eyenga is the second coming of LeBron James, Dan Gilbert may want to back off his championship guarantee.


14 *New Jersey Nets 27 55 .329 12 70 .146
Speaking of owners with lofty goals … Mikhail Prokhorov expects the Nets to make the playoffs in 2010-11 despite finishing with the NBA's worst record last season. Our panel isn't as optimistic, not after New Jersey struck out in free agency. Still, a 15-game jump in the standings under new coach Avery Johnson would be a good start.


15 *Toronto Raptors 27 55 .329 40 42 .488
After the ugly departures of Chris Bosh and Hedo Turkoglu, the Raptors are basically starting over with a roster more random than designed. Given the significant dollars tied up in the likes of Jose Calderon, Andrea Bargnani, Leandro Barbosa and Amir Johnson, don't expect a lot of defense -- or a lot of wins anytime soon, either.


* -- Teams tied in win totals ordered by decimal rankings from our experts' predicti
 
LeBron James is lucky this is the NBA, not "Gladiator," because he clearly has lost the crowd. Every move he's made this summer has turned against him.

The latest example was the reaction to the tweet he sent out Tuesday evening, the one that said: "Don't think for one min that I haven't been taking mental notes of everyone taking shots at me this summer. And I mean everyone!"

It was panned all over Twitter, most succinctly by the reply I received that said "[bleep] him." (There was one great side effect: it spawned a hilarious run of #bronsmentalnotes by Myles Brown on his @mdotbrown feed.)

Quick summer summary for LeBron: creates a show to announce his free-agent choice, gets roundly criticized for both the choice and the format; takes out an ad to thank his hometown of Akron and gets criticized for not mentioning Cleveland or Cavaliers fans; tweets his reaction to all of the criticism and gets criticized for that.

At this point there’s nothing he can say that will make it better, no way he can get back in the good graces of all of the fans he lost this summer. He should either keep quiet and stay off Twitter for the rest of the summer or just go all in and make as many antagonizing comments as he can.

I hope LeBron is taking mental notes. I hope he’s storing it in a mental database and preparing a mental PowerPoint presentation for every pregame this season. I hope he stops trying to be nice and turns into Clint Eastwood at the end of "Unforgiven." If LeBron can live up to all of the additional pressure he created for himself then he will unleash one of the greatest campaigns in NBA history.

The first step is creating enemies, even if they’re imaginary. That’s what Michael Jordan did. I tweeted that LeBron’s little statement was the most MJ-like thing he’s done so far ... and that brought even more derision and LeBron hatred. It also exposed more ignorance of how Jordan really functioned. People insisted Jordan never would have said anything, he simply would have done it. It’s as if people forgot his Hall of Fame induction speech last year, or they didn't catch the multiple clues of Jordan’s m.o., including his reaction to then-Knicks Coach Jeff Van Gundy labeling him a con man (make particular note of Jordan’s comments at the 1:25 mark … they’re almost identical to what James had to say Tuesday). Another example of Jordan revealing the sub-zero temperature of his heart was in the 1997 Eastern Conference finals, when he reacted to the Miami Heat’s physical play in Game 4 by declaring from that point on: "It’s personal."

A common complaint I saw Tuesday was that Jordan wouldn’t have said something like that on Twitter. Just as with "The Decision," people are getting caught up in the medium and not the message. Of course Jordan wouldn't tweet that; Twitter didn’t exist when he played. You can’t apply Baby Boomer mentality and standards to today’s generation. It’s like failing to adjust for inflation when comparing movie box office grosses across the decades. If Michael Jordan had been born in 1984 instead of 1963 who's to say he wouldn’t have created a Twitter account or dated a Kardashian sister?

What Jordan did do -- and would have done regardless of the era in which he played -- was make good on his threats and hold anyone accountable. Vengeance was his, time and time again. Now that LeBron decided to follow the Jordan route he needs to follow the journey to its natural end point.

Oh, and if he wants to be a considered a winner and not a mean-spirited bully, he’d better average more points against the Lakers than against the Cavaliers this season.
more jordan esque euugh ok
 
61 wins for the Heat. Anybody want to bet on that? I have the over and am willing to sell my lifelong servitude.
 
61 is rather low. Didn't lebron do 60+ repeatedly in Cleveland without D Wade and Bosh?

My rooting list looks like this.

1. Chicago. Hometown team, nuff said.

2. Thunder. Durant is now my favorite player in the NBA. Kobe was no.1, but I've been saying Durant was next when cats was hyping Oden. Realistically no chance to win this year.

3. Celtics. why? them winning the title means no 6th for kobe and none for the three stooges. i like the shaq signing.

4. Lakers. Still root for Kobe. Even with 6 he's a step below Jordan.

5. Anyone not wearing a Heat jersey.
 
Originally Posted by GotHolesInMySocks

guys we goin after melo?

They Need to make effort. James Johnson Taj Gibson & Luol Deng would work.
D.Rose

Brewer

Carmelo

Boozer

Noah

they should at-least try.
 
Originally Posted by Remi23

Originally Posted by GotHolesInMySocks

guys we goin after melo?

They Need to make effort. James Johnson Taj Gibson & Luol Deng would work.
D.Rose

Brewer

Carmelo

Boozer

Noah

they should at-least try.
drooling_homer.png



That would be epic.
 
Knicks have a much better possible offer for Melo unless we include Noah. I'd say Noah, Gibson, Deng and 2 1st round picks plus some money would be a considerable offer. Without Noah or Boozer, no way in hell we get Melo. Knicks can offer Gallo and AR plus picks plus money. Both players are better pieces than Deng, Gibson, or JJ.
 
You have to atleast try... You have to shoot your shot. If we dont... I'll be beyond thoroughly disappointed to say the least.
 
You have to atleast try... You have to shoot your shot. If we dont... I'll be beyond thoroughly disappointed to say the least.
 
Originally Posted by Seymore CAKE

You have to atleast try... You have to shoot your shot. If we dont... I'll be beyond thoroughly disappointed to say the least.
Exactly
 
Originally Posted by bijald0331

Knicks have a much better possible offer for Melo unless we include Noah. I'd say Noah, Gibson, Deng and 2 1st round picks plus some money would be a considerable offer. Without Noah or Boozer, no way in hell we get Melo. Knicks can offer Gallo and AR plus picks plus money. Both players are better pieces than Deng, Gibson, or JJ.
Thats waaayyyy too much. I'll pass on that
 
I would make the deal I proposed in a second. The 1st picks are negligible as we will never be below 22. We are talking about Melo here. Rose/Korver/Melo/Boozer plus a serviceable center is a championship level team and one that can challenge the Heat right now. We aren't challenging that team in a series right now.
 
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