The quotes, from today’s Waddle and Silvy Show on AM 1000:

“I would love to get back in that situation with the return game,” Hester told “The Waddle & Silvy Show” on WMVP-AM 1000. “But at the same time, I’m a team player so wherever y’all want me to go, I’m ready to do it.”

Hester hasn’t scored a touchdown on a kick or punt return since 2007 after running back 12 for TDs in 2006 and ‘07, including a kickoff return in Super Bowl XLI. He said becoming a full-time receiver has taken its toll.

“I know what I’m best at,” Hester said. “The return game is my bread and butter, so if I had to cut back on receiving and go back to returns, that’s something I would love to do.”

Look, I understand why the Bears moved Hester to receiver: they saw a guy with immense talent in the open field, and tried putting it into their offense. Hester’s not the greatest receiver, but he improved a good amount this year over last. If the Bears had a legit No. 1, Hester is a solid No. 2-, No. 3-type receiver.

But can we honestly say he’s impacting the team more positively as a wide receiver instead of a full-time return man? Tough to say.

On the one hand, the guy was an unbelievable force before he moved to more of a full-time receiver. Teams literally had to work their game plan around how to kick to him. Or they didn’t kick to him at all and booted it out of bounds, and the Bears got better field position because of it. He gave them a better chance to punch the ball in the end zone, because the Bears got great field position on most of their possessions.

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(UPDATE: The Bulls have shut down Noah through the All-Star break.)

It’s a possibility. From the Tribune:

Noah clearly has been affected by the plantar fasciitis in his left foot the last two games and has not moved well.

Asked if the Bulls would shut Noah down if the third-year center regressed to the point where he moves even worse than he already is, Del Negro said:

“Yeah, absolutely. We’re just going to try to see what we can get out of him until he can get some rest at the All-Star break. We’ll monitor it every day. Some days, you feel better than others with it. We’ll use him as much as he can move.”

[ ... ]

ugh he did sit out the recent road game in Houston. Asked why the Bulls wouldn’t proactively shut down Noah, Del Negro said:

“If you shut him down for a week, that doesn’t guarantee he will feel better. That’s not how that condition works. You don’t know. I had it for two years when I played.”

Two things here:

1) Plantar fasciitis has literally become an epidemic in the league this year. Taj Gibson also has it. Tony Parker has it. Danny Granger was sidelined with it. Charlie Villanueva is suffering from it. Ron Artest has it. I think I’m missing a few others. Just wanted to get that off my chest.

2) Damn. The Bulls are now back in the eighth spot in the East, a game behind the Heat in the loss column for seventh. The Bulls play the Heat this weekend. It’d be nice to have Noah on board for that. But, it also makes sense to use these next four games tied together with the All-Star break to give Noah a bit of an extended break here and see if he gets any better. It’s not like he’s out for the rest of the year or anything.

And it’s not like the Bulls are fighting the last week of the season for the playoffs and Noah will be on the bench. Better to sit him now and see how it goes, then for the condition to potentially get worse.

But you’d hate to see them keep losing — they’ve lost two straight since the five-game road winning streak — without Noah if he sits, and then the team losing a bit of confidence heading into the back half of the season.

Hey, kids: the Winter Olympics are right around the corner! Be honest, now: I know you are really excited for the curling and the bobsledding and the figure skating. Yeah. See. I knew it. (Actually, I’m only kinda kidding here. This stuff might not be on TV every Sunday in the fall, but it’s incredibly interesting to watch when the Winter Olympics come around. I’ll be watching.)

But what about the events that need snow? Like skiing. Or snowboarding. Or snowblowing. (I made that last one up.)

Well, there’s a bit of problem with those right now. There’s no snow in Vancouver.

High temperatures and rain have melted much of the snow-pack at the North Shore mountain site. Technicians have been replacing that with snow from higher up the mountain and building up the runs with wood and hay.

Now a spokeswoman for the Vancouver organizing committee says VANOC is trucking in about three dozen loads of snow a day from as far away as Manning Park, more than two hours drive east of Vancouver.

VANOC’s vice-president of communications Renée Smith-Valade said it was always part of the contingency plan to augment snow at the Olympic sites from outside sources.

Guys, this is why we must protect our environment; global warming is a real phenomenon, and  by the time our grandchildren get to be our age, the only site left to host the Winter Olympics is going to be Antarctica. And travel costs to Antarctica this time of year are through the roof.

And I’m pretty sure their only lodging is igloos. In short: vote no on global warming.

I have to agree with my man Trey over at Ball Don’t Lie — oh, and if you aren’t reading him over at Fourth-Place Medal right now, you are missing out — this is pretty much my new favorite shirt of all-time:

Yes, do not attempt to adjust the color on your monitor, that is a caricature tee featuring Bill Wennington, Luc Longley and Will Perdue, and they are called the “BANG GANG.”

I was not aware of this nickname, were you? I think it was invented for the sole purposes of this t-shirt, and I am totally cool with that.

I do, however, remember random shirts like this featuring the Bulls’ lesser talents from the 90’s being sold at Kohl’s during my childhood; a dynamic duo shirt of Steve Kerr and Randy Brown is coming to mind right now.

Bottom line: I want this t-shirt. Now. But it’s going for $41.00 currently, and will probably skyrocket into the millions. Sigh.

You know what’s awesome? Sleeping in on weekdays. Days off.

These are the rare times in the grind of life when you’re supposed to be up and alert; you are supposed to be on the job site, or at your cubicle or in Spanish class, but you are not. You are in your bed. Or you are on your couch. Good times. Good times, indeed.

So you figure with the Colts playing in the Super Bowl on Sunday, starting classes a little later on Monday in Indianapolis wouldn’t be a big deal, right? After all, last time around when the Colts were in the Super Bowl, a bunch of bus drivers called in sick and classes got canceled anyway.

But no, that’s just not how it’s going to go down, reports the Indy Star (this link should work if that one doesn’t):

School districts can institute two-hour delays only for emergencies, such as bad weather or utility problems, according to the state. Those kinds of delays receive automatic waivers from the state. Districts delaying for other reasons would have to apply for a waiver, and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett signaled today that he would not look kindly on granting one for the Super Bowl.

[ ... ]

District spokeswoman Kim L. Hooper said the district was exploring its options to ensure that the district complied with state law.

Department of Education spokesman Cam Savage said the state presented IPS with two options: Either make up the day later in the year or extend the school day by two hours on Monday. Either one might be complicated by the district’s contract with teachers, which dictates both starting and ending times and how many days teachers work.

Oh, I see, there’s a state law that says you can’t start class late just because of the Super Bowl. Makes sense. There’s always a third option here, though: creating a huge snowstorm, rendering school canceled for the day.

Surely some devil child has the ability to alter the weather in Indianapolis, no?

UPDATE: They’re getting the two-hour delay anyway. FREEDOM REIGNS. Enjoy the sleeping in, kids.

The Bulls lost last night.

Let’s face it: after ripping off those five straight wins and then coming home to play the Clips, it was a bit of a trap game, a letdown game. It was a game they didn’t quite get up for. They came out flat (minus Luol Deng), Derrick Rose was cold in the first half as was most of the team, and the Clippers were able to establish a lead — via Chris Kaman knocking down some jumpers — that the Bulls never really challenged. It wasn’t more than six to eight most of the game, until the fourth, when the Clippers got a few steals in a row, and the lead ballooned up to 16. That about did it.

But nice to see Devin Brown get in and be productive. Nice to see former Hoosier Eric Gordon be the player of the game. Nice to see the Bulls hold their opponent to 90 points.

Oh, and nice to see Taj Gibson cross over Chris Kaman. Boom.

Fun stat you may or may not have heard by now: the Bulls became the first team in NBA HISTORY to rattle off five straight road wins over teams with winning records. If this seems highly improbable, I’d have to agree with you.

Yet, part of me feels like it’s not often teams head on the road for that long of a stretch, and happen to play five straight teams with a winning record. Meaning very good teams could have pulled this off at some point, had they been given the opportunity. If I was the Elias Sports Bureau, I would use my brain to figure out such a stat right now. But I am not. I am me as you are he and we are all together.

But one such hypothetical probability statistic relating to this accomplishment I can provide comes from Matt O’Brien.

Imagine a hypothetically average team (or the Charlotte Bobcats). They win 40% of their road games and 40% of their games against winning opponents. Assuming that roughly half the teams in the league have winning records, we can say that there’s a (1/2)^5 chance of simply facing five winning teams on a five-game road trip. Then the odds of an average team winning all of those games is (4/25)^5. Put them together and you get 32/9,765,625. Or roughly .00033 percent.

So yes: the Bulls’ odds of pulling off such a feat  are roughly the odds I have of floating out of my chair right now and getting stuck to the ceili …

OH GOD SOMEONE HELP