Thursday, December 07, 2006

Who's the #1 team in the Eastern Conference for points differential?

Don’t look now, here come the Bulls!

Every year the Chicago Bulls go on a road trip while the Circus comes to the United Center, and every year they dig themselves a hole which they have to climb out of. In the 04-05 season, they started the season 0-9 before finishing as the #4 seed in a very watered down East. Last year, they again went under .500 on the circus trip before squeaking into the playoffs.

Again, like always, on their seven-game road trip, they lost the first six games before breaking the shutout at lowly New York. That dropped the Bulls to 3-9 overall.

Now, they are back to treading water in the (L)Eastern Conference, at 9-9 and two games back of Detroit and Cleveland who tie for first place right now. And don’t look now, but they actually are the best team in the East in one key statistic: Points differential. It’s not as significant of a stat as win/loss record obviously, but it does show that this team is capable of putting some serious points up.

In addition, if you look at the Vegas line on each of their games, only once have they lost to a team they were favored to beat. An 89-88 loss to Sacramento, their only loss as home this year, was the lone exception to this.

So thusfar in the NBA season, the Bulls success(or lack thereof, by some people’s standards) is not shocking. If they won every game they were favored in and lost every game they weren’t favored in, they’d be: (drum roll) 9-9. Their opening win against Miami and their home loss to Sacramento are the only times they’ve not done what Vegas expected them to(throwing out the point spread, I didn’t look, nor do I care whether they covered the spread.

Despite the Ben Wallace headband fiasco, the lack of consistent production from Ben Gordon, and the terrible circus trip, this team should still be considered a favorite to earn first round home court advantage in the playoffs as a top 4 seed.

Other news

Despite losing out on Jason Schmidt, the Cardinals are in fair shape this off-season still. Larry Borowski of Viva El Birdos puts some perspective into the situation and points out that in Anthony Reyes and Adam Wainwright, we have the pieces we need to fill 80% of our starting rotation, and that Schmidt was likely never coming to St. Louis to begin with.(Although, according to a St Louis Post-Dispatch article, they still are pursuing Schmidt, as no final deal has been signed.)

Ted Lilly has signed a 4 year, 40M contract with the Cubs. Another brilliant signing by the Cubs. While Lilly is a good pitcher, he is a fly-ball pitcher who needs to pitch in a park that is at least a neutral park.(He would be a far better sit in St. Louis, despite Duncan’s philosophy of getting ground-ball pitchers). Between Lilly and Soriano, they get two talented players who won’t improve the Cubs weaknesses even in the slightest. While they should be a better team, the Cubs likely will only make the big step towards mediocrity and a .500 record.

Cardinals skipper Tony La Russa wants to meet with, of all people, Barry Bonds. This personally scares the hell out of me, because I think I might have to become a White Sox fan(since I’m living outside of Chicago these days) if Bonds comes to St. Louis. I don’t like the idea of rooting for my team, but rooting against one of the biggest profile players on the team. The only good thing about this would be that batting behind Pujols, Bonds could lock up the MVP for Pujols for next year. Just think of what Pujols could do with a full season and if he got actual pitches to hit.

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