By now you've seen....

Well, by now you've seen this lady:



Yes, that is Filomena Tobias, possibly the classiest lady in South Beach. Apparently she wanted to follow up her suspicion in the murder of her late 4th husband (this time it really was for love), with a very friendly gesture to Joakim Noah of the +Chicago Bulls.

Once identified, the +Miami HEAT (possibly just as classy of an organization) gave the fingering bandit a swift slap on the back of the hand with a Code of Misconduct warning. She could have faced penalties as hefty as having her season tickets revoked, however knowing she has to live with the world knowing she's a horrible person was penalty enough.

Full story in the Palm Beach Post 

All Heart

If you have seen as much as 3 minutes of the Chicago Bulls playoffs this year you know exactly what this post is about... Joakim Noah.



Between games Six and Seven of the Bulls and Brooklyn Nets series, Joakim guaranteed a Chicago Bulls win. Some took it as a serious, poster board material, some took it as confidence, Jo took it as a motivator for everyone to step their games up. Coming off a game 6 loss to Brooklyn, in a game which saw Kirk Hinrich and Luol Deng out with various aliments and what seemed to be the rest of the Bulls sick with the flu, Joakim Noah lead a Bulls charge for the ages. With the help of Nate Robinson, all heart and no height, and the extremely surprising Jimmy Butler, the Noah lead Bulls took game 7 in Brooklyn and set themselves up for a second round match-up with the heavily favored Miami Heat.

The Chicago Bulls, still down Hinrich and Deng, set the defensive tone early. Making sure there were few easy buckets, contested every single dribble. This team fought tooth and nail, set the defensive tone for this series, for 48 long hard minutes came out victorious in Miami. The Miami Heat now know they are in for a series.

  This was supposed to be the season in-between, the year of waiting for Derrick Rose, and once he's back letting him get back into game shape so they can compete in 2013-2014. Sure the Bulls were going to give a lunch pail effort every game with tough nosed defensive players in the post and a friendly face in Kirk Hinrich running the point and guarding the tougher guards in the league. Luol was always a strong defender, and they added some depth behind Noah, Boozer, and Taj Gibson. Without Rose though, everyone knew this team would struggle to score points consistently, and with teams like the Heat, the Pacers, Nets, and Knicks we weren't sure if they could score enough to win on a consistent basis.

Through a couple of months of this season you saw the team mold and define itself, this was going to be a rough, tough defensive unit that will make you earn every bucket. With quality wins against the Knicks and Nets and Celtics and Heat this team was putting itself in a great position for the playoff run. Then, like it typically does, the injury bug started to bite the team. Noah struggled with plantar fasciitis, Hinrich struggled with various injuries, Rip Hamilton seemed to be at less games than I was, and Taj Gibson went down as well. Around this time we learned that Derrick Rose was cleared for basketball activities, which seemed to cast a cloud over this team.

So now the injury bug and Rose's status was hanging over this team's head, but they still continued to chug along. Impressive wins against the Lakers and breaking the Miami Heat's winning streak highlighted their season. In fact, he Lakers game was the breakout game from Jimmy Butler, which is also where he was coined "Kobe Stopper" from his teammates.



Coming into the playoffs the Bulls had gotten Taj and Hinrich back, and Noah hobbled back as well. All three clearly not looking very well, gutted out performances and took a commanding 3-1 lead against the Nets. Then Hinrich and Luol went down.... The Bulls gutted out a game which they were severely short handed, eventually lost, which lead to this proclamation from Noah:

“I’m ready to play. I want to go play right now. That’s my emotions, We’re a team of fighters. We keep getting punched in the face but we fight back. I’m proud of this team. We’re going to go into a hostile environment in Brooklyn and we’re going to win.”

Noah then went out and gave one of the most inspiring performances you'll ever see. Gutting out 41 minutes with 24 points, 14 boards, and 6 blocked shots. By the way, 5 of his 14 rebounds were 1st half offensive boards. The Bulls opened a large first half lead, and while the Nets fought back, they were able to hold off their late charge. Jo was the biggest reason for that. Joakim is undoubtedly this team's leader.

I heard earlier today, Joakim almost guilt's you into playing hard. You see him out there, giving everything he possibly has, on every play, with the ball, away from the ball. He is all hustle, he is all heart. He does the important things great, he does the little things great. He is a gamer in all sense of the term. Ken "Hawk" Harrelson would say, he has TWTW (The Will To Win).



There isn't a team in the league that isn't instantly much better with Joakim Noah on it. From a kid that was suspended from the team in his rookie season, the kid that most Bulls fans didn't like being drafted, has become Chicago's second son. We are lucky that we have a kid like Joakim in Chicago.

In Noah we trust, in Noah we trust.

Chicago Meatheads

So there are a couple of cities that are, well ridiculous when it comes to sports. New York, Boston, Philadelphia all come to mind. You have batshit crazy fans in Oakland, as well as Dallas, and those Flippin Packer fans have to be crazy for wearing team colors and sitting outside in -30 degree weather. There is 1 group of fans that are more ridiculous, more stupid, and more meatheaded than any of the others....

Chicago sports fans.

Face it, you get a smile and a chubby whenever you hear Da Coach spew pro-Bears propaganda all over ESPN airwaves. You take every chance to throw in a spiteful jab to a Sox or Cubs fan. TE Bulls will never be a good as when Jordan was here, and you've been committed to the Indian since Mikita, Esposito, and Hull were winning cups.



In all reality, we are the world's worse sports fan. Quick to jump on the bandwagon to fire an undeserving coach, and first to say that rookie who just hit 3 homers will be one of the greats. We flood Vegas every year with ridiculously dumb bets on the Cubs finally winning the World Series, and seem to forget that Green Bay is 3 times the team the bears have been over the last 20 years.

We boast, Original 6 and NFL charter franchise. History! History! History! But usually fail to create new memories. We fill ballparks and arenas in droves, spend more than we should on tickets, food, and drinks.

Chicagoans need to wake up.

Currently we have 2 major issues in Chicago sports, and these are issues that have the most proud meatheads ranting and roaring about. The first, the Chicago Cubs.

Turn the clock back to October 22nd 2011... The Cubs hire Theo Epstein away from the Boston Red Sox. Theo was seen as a golden boy, to the likes of Billy Beane. A guy that knows how to succeed and do so through a set of crazy numbers and computers and pie charts and graphs and fat kids who look like Jonah Hill. Cubs fans were ecstatic, baseball know it alls said this was a great move, and people imagined that this would signify a World Series pennant in the not too distant future.

But wait, Theo said there is a lot of work to do. So the mantra of, give us a couple of years to fix it, and Cubs fans drank the koolaid. It was said, so it must be so?

Either way, Theo made his way through the organization, letting long term people here go and revamping the commitment to the minors. Found some hot prospects, got lucky with some Jim Hendry holdovers and signs were pointing up. In 2012 we lost 101 games.



So Jed and Theo went back to work... Inquiring on everyone, spending where they thought necessary, and skimping where they didn't think they should. Some small improvements made here and there, this team should be a little better than last, but still not quite there.

So now people begin to call for heads. Theo's a joke! Jed's just an errand boy! Dale's not the guy! Ricketts just want our money! I don't know what we're yelling about!

It takes time people. Think of a tree. You don't bury a seed and the next day there's a 100' Oak. It needs its roots, it needs a strong core and thick trunk, far reaching branches, and eventually giant leaves. Same with the Cubs. Theo planted a seed in the minors, is in the process of watering and fertilizing (there's a joke about the shit on the field here), waiting to support that strong core, which becomes a talented and great team. Understand people, Andrew Friedman (possibly the best executive in baseball today) took about 3 years before Tampa made the playoffs, why is a year and a month too much time for Theo?

The next Chicago Meathead controversy is Derrick Rose.

Before this year, Derrick was the greatest thing to happen to Chicago since Michael Jordan. MJ himself thought a D Rose lead Bulls team would eventually win more championships than he an his teams were able to win. He was king of the city, could do no wrong.

Derrick Rose is the humblest super star there is! See Derrick Rose give his MVP trophy to his mom! Derrick Rose is a no nonsense superstar! I still don't know why we're yelling!!!

Rise went down with a knee injury last year, and all if that changed. You'd think the kid is Jay Cutler for all the crap he takes.



Problem is, Derrick was cleared by doctors months ago, and he has an older brother that doesn't know when to shut up. Sounds familiar... My younger brother Derrick has a brother that doesn't know when to shut up....

From a PR standpoint, Derrick and his people, the Bulls and their people, ALL handled this poorly. There are constant questions on if he'll play, cause it seems there are constant questions on if he will play. Since it looks like he can play, fans have begun to turn on him. They all have their crazy theories on why he's holding out, or that he's spineless, or doesn't care about the team and only himself , etc etc...

What people don't realize is, after any knee injury, let alone an ACL tear, athletes are likely to cause additional damage to the knee or opposite knee if they are not 100% confident in their repaired knee. In fact, multiple superstar caliber athletes have had a knee injury and have come back before they were absolutely certain in their abilities and damaged their careers.

This is the biggest reason Rose shouldn't play until he is absolutely ready to play. Till he is 100% certain he can do everything he was capable of doing on the knee before the injury. Derrick Rose isn't a role player, or the guy you look to for a quick spark, or late game spot up 3. He's the guy that you look to carry the franchise for the next 10-15 years. He knows, the Bulls know, and most somewhat intelligent fans know, you don't risk the future when you have questions about the present.

I'm sure most people would rather the Cubs fire Theo and Dale and Jed, and they want Derrick Rose to suit up tonight. I'm sure they will jump up and down, and throw comeback and firing parties if it were to happen.

But if that did happen, the Cubs will go another 100 years without winning and D Rose will be playing pickup basketball with Penny Hardaway and Tracy McGrady at the local Y. Smarten up Chicago fans, for the sake of Chicago sports, smarten up.