The Bulls Second Quarter: Holy shit, where did Carlos Boozer come from?

After focusing on the mere possibility of acquiring Kevin Love during the last quarterly update, I suppose that the ongoing disaster that is the Los Angeles Lakers means I should spend this quarter discussing the possibility of trading for Pau Gasol? Oh sure, in years past, I'd probably be quick to suggest pushing one Carlos Boozer out the door in such an offer. The only problem this year—especially since the turn of 2013—is that "the consolation prize" in the great free agent frenzy of 2010 has been playing relatively inspired basketball lately.

The Bulls are not only tied for the top spot in the Central Division, but even more remarkably, are a mere three games back in the Eastern Conference. Amazing because all of this has happened without the services of Derrick Rose, whose image typically graces the graphic of these quarterly updates. 

As encouraging as the standings might be, I would not say the regular season success to this point necessarily will translate to a lengthy playoff run. At best, you're might be talking about the Eastern Conference Finals. Even then, it still seems like all signs are pointing to another Heat-Thunder Finals this year. If nothing else, at least when Rose returns to the court for Chicago, he will not be coming as a piece desperately needed to turn around a sinking ship, but rather to contribute and hopefully make what has been a fairly good team an even better one.

 
NOTE: Photo taken from here

Final Thoughts on 2012 Chicago Bears: All Out of Love for Lovie

I have been a supporter of Lovie Smith more often than not during his tenure as head coach of the Chicago Bears. It is an times thankless job, with many fans of the most popular sports team in Illinois calling for your job following any loss. There were the repeated cries that Lovie never showed emotion on the sideline, as though that meant something. Still, it seemed to me that he essentially got whatever players he was given to perform way beyond their abilities. I would be remiss not to recall how ecstatic I was when he led the team to a Super Bowl six years ago, albeit one the team ended up losing in.

However, I also cannot deny how in the years since, I have routinely noted Lovie's condescending attitude toward the media. Perhaps he might be more comfortable with the press in, say, Jacksonville. Beyond how he dealt with reporters, there was simply the fact that Lovie could not close the deal. Last year, it was his offensive coordinator and the general manager who lost their jobs instead, but this season's fall from sitting atop the division with a 7-1 record to a third place 10-6 finish that saw the team missing the playoffs was the last straw.

For as long I have been alive, the Chicago Bears have been built around being a defensive team. The trade for Jay Cutler was supposed to finally inject some much-needed hope on the offensive side of the ball, but Lovie struggled to run a system that manufactured the points the league now requires. And so one year into his new gig, Phil Emery appointed a fellow named Marc Trestman as the 14th head coach of the beloved Bears.

And Chicagoans were quick to note: this dude's got a couple of hot daughters.

Conference Championship Picks: Small Changes Make Big Differences?

The New York Giants will not be be repeating as World Champions this year, but three of the other four teams that were in this round last year have returned. So, you know, parity, folks.

There were indeed two close games last weekend that provided a bit more excitement than we got opening weekend (it was the highest scoring divisional round in history, if you're keeping count). The consensus opinion seems to be that a San Francisco-New England Super Bowl is not just likely but preferable to any of the three alternative scenarios. I certainly would have no problem with the prospect of a Pats-Niners title game two weeks from now, although for the sake of my own entertainment, I hope that there's at least one more fairly competitive contest this weekend even if that is the ultimate result.

Rest assured, there's probably a storyline for you to root for somewhere among this Final Four.

2013 NHL Predictions: Nothing Cures a Cup Hangover Like a Lockout

It used to be that when I published predictions for these so-called "winter sports" that begin in the fall of one year and end in the summer of the next, I would just refer to the season as the year in which the sport ended. The tags still do that, but as this Puck Daddy post notes, it's pretty disingenuous for the NHL to refer to this year as a "2012-13 season" when there was not a single game played in 2012. Instead, we spent those final months of last year watching week after week of negotiating, usually debating when the announcement would be made that the season was cancelled.

Fortunately, the two sides were indeed able to arrive at an agreement just in the nick of time. I guess this means we won't be cancelling our cable after all. If last year's shortened NBA season was any indication, then the forthcoming 48-game schedule should still provide a thrilling run to the playoffs.

I only wonder now if fewer games makes this year's predictions more likely or less likely to be accurate.

Divisional Playoff Picks: Better Games, Hopefully

After all the importance I placed on having television to watch football last weekend, we didn't exactly get any really good games. Even the contests that could be considered "close" were not terribly entertaining. That said, the hopes are quite a bit higher with, well ... one or two games this weekend.

Many experts seem convinced that New England will be playing for in Denver next weekend for a trip to the Super Bowl, but there's a variety of opinion surrounding the NFC Championship. Thus, I'll likely be pushing hardest to catch the Saturday night contest, although I'm certainly interested in seeing the game that kicks off at noon on Sunday too. All in all, I'm hoping that if I let the lady take us to a screening of Les Miz on Saturday morning, I'll be in the clear to catch all four.

At least both games will be on Sunday next weekend ... the day after the hockey season starts. If you think these scheduling issues are difficult now, just wait until the Stanley Cup Playoffs begin.

Oscar Nominee Reaction: Bad Signs

I improved on last year's predictions of nominees by going 36 of 44 on this year's picks. Virtually all of my incorrect guesses were replaced by people I suspected were contenders, but the biggest surprise of the morning had to be the Best Director category. While I gave Michael Haneke an outside shot, the nomination of Benh Zeitlin was pretty much out of left field to me. Furthermore, instead of David O. Russell being replaced as I guessed, those two nominations ended up bumping out Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow—two directors whose pictures were expected to offer the biggest challenge to the currently front-running Lincoln. With Affleck and Bigelow denied that shot, the race seems to be all but sewn up for Spielberg and Lincoln—the film with the most nominations—is all but a certainty for Best Picture. At the moment, three of the four acting awards also seem to be foregone conclusions.

In addition to there not being much suspense about what names will be announced during the Oscar broadcast next month, if the announcement of the nominations were any indication, Seth MacFarlane appears to be well on his way to being a one-and-done host of the show. If that turns out to be the case, I suppose that many Family Guy fans would immediately claim the Academy's decision to find a new host would be a testament to how "edgy" MacFarlane is. Chances are, if you're hoping for surprises with the winners or an entertaining show, you may very well get neither.

Oscar Nominee Picks: Should Be Quite Political

Academy Award nominees get announced tomorrow morning, which means it's time for me take a brief break from football predictions to throw out a few non-sports related guesses. Count me among those who are not exactly thrilled with the prospect of this year's show being hosted by Seth MacFarlane. I would be willing to bet that this weekend's Golden Globes ceremony co-hosted by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler is likely to be far funnier, even if the awards being presented aren't as, um ... significant.

I assume I'll probably dwell further on these concerns in my imminent reaction to the nominations tomorrow, but for the time being, this year's race seems to be between the heavily-favored Lincoln and the controversial Zero Dark Thirty. I've already seen the former and have tickets to attend the latter this evening—not that my opinion is in anyway going to sway the voting or my guesses about how the voting will wind up.

As has been the case recently on this blog, I'm whipping the text for this post up while on lunch at work, so let us get right to the point of this post and talk about which names I'm expecting to be read tomorrow morning as the ass-crack of dawn on the West Coast.

Wild Card Picks: Internet Service Restored Just in Time

I remember all too well the struggle involved in trying to post this round's predictions last year from my phone, and the hell if I'm ever trying to do that again. The lack of internet is but one of the many conveniences we are in the midst of dealing with as customers of the fine, heartless corporate giant known as AT&T. Call one customer service representative, and the next will surely tell you that you were misinformed. It's like a game, except that there's no fun.

Without the cable either, I had pleaded to just buy a digital converter. We looked into a dish, but apparently our apartment location doesn't work with the satellite location. So, for this weekend, the plan may very well be the wife and I going to her grandparents' home. They should at least have a rooting interest since Houston's involved. 

NOTE: Like yesterday's post, all of that was written before two very nice AT&T service reps worked very hard to fix our cable issues. So we'll be watching the games this weekend in the comfort of our own home after all.

Just to quickly reflect on how my predictions before the season panned out up to this point, I got every division winner in the AFC correct, but every one other than the South wrong in the NFC. Overall, I was right about the final finishing spots for 10 of the 32 teams, and had only seven of the 16 playoff teams correct—none of which were seeded correctly. But, hey, at least my Super Bowl winner is still alive ... although even that seems debatable, judging by how they've played in recent weeks.

All things considered, I'm interested in seeing pretty much every game. I have my doubts about any one of the eight teams playing this weekend actually making it all the way to the Super Bowl, but there does not appear to be any glaring mismatches. I can very easily see all four games going either way, and I'm trying to go against my rooting interest (although I really don't seem to have a personal favorite in maybe half of these contests) in posting my predictions. We'll see how that goes.

The Bears' Fourth Quarter: Collapse Complete

The photo for this final quarterly graphic was taken from this Tribune gallery, although this picture really would have been appropriate since it ended up being Minnesota that's playoff-bound instead of the Bears. In the end, a Chicago team that won seven of its first eight games ended up somehow missing out on the NFL postseason. Even though the Bears won 10 games, it was not enough to save Lovie Smith's job, as the coach quickly got the axe the following day. I'm sure there will be many more comments about this in the "Final Thoughts" post, which may go up after a replacement has been named.

Or it might come when we have home internet service again. At the moment, I'm posting this quickly during my lunch break at work while the wife tries to figure out how AT&T will next attempt to rape us. Who knows how I'll get the playoff picks up in time before tomorrow, let alone watch them, since our cable is also out. It's been a pretty rough week around our house. 

Midway through this season, I was feeling pretty good about that Bears-Texans Super Bowl pick. Eight games later, Houston has stumbled into the playoffs while Chicago missed them entirely. My belief all year was that Lovie Smith would get his players to earn him an extension on that contract, but the high-powered offense we had been told to expect this year never really materialized. If the Bears and the Texans had one thing in common this year, it was their ability to beat bad teams but always lose to the actual contenders.

For the time being, I'll act as though the Bears missing out on the playoffs spared fans further national embarrassment. Better to keep this disappointment out of the spotlight and wait until we can enthusiastically rave about how much better the team is going to be next year when a new head coach is named.

Thank God That's Finally Over: Another Fantasy Update

Your author is hard-pressed to think of something that can cause an immediate loss of interest quite like hearing about someone's fantasy team. Having friends and co-workers recite their rosters with no real purpose other than to gloat about conquering leagues you're not involved in seems quite banal and pointless, no?

That said, the author knows full well that you the dear reader probably also couldn't give two shits about whatever fantasy team he's gone and created after so many years of taking that road less traveled where non-participation seemed cooler. Now the author has multiple fantasy teams, and while he tries mightily not to bring those into the other posts here on BMC that you might actually read, every once in a while, if for no other purpose than to help him remember who he had on such teams in a given year, he likes to keep a recorded entry of how he's done.

This is one of those times. Your non-interest in the remainder of this post is understood.