Coming to terms with (possibly) drafting Derrick Rose
I surrender.
You can now count me among the many who believe Bulls’ GM John Paxson should select Memphis PG Derrick Rose with the No. 1 pick in Thursday’s NBA Draft.
I’m now off the fence. Up until this moment, I favored neither Rose nor Kansas State F Michael Beasley over one another.
It’s not with any kind of ease that I’ve conceded Rose is the pick, nor am I sold choosing him is necessarily the right move.
I believe Pax should nab Rose with the top pick because he can’t go wrong by doing so.
That’s not to say Derrick Rose will be a guaranteed superstar or that he’ll live up to any of the comparisons that have been drawn between him and several great point guards who’ve come before him.
Pax can’t go wrong picking Rose simply because of how vigorous the demand is for him to make the pick. Pretty much all of the Chicago sports media and a seemingly vast majority of Bulls fans — bloggers, sports radio callers, and dudes you just happen to run into on the street — are requiring nothing less than Paxson’s head on a stick if he ends up selecting Beasley.
Maybe my observations are off base and the pro-Rose crowd is nothing more than a vocal minority.
I’m not so willing to believe that, though, especially in regard to Chicago-based and Chicago-biased opinion-havers.
I won’t deny that Derrick Rose is talented, nor that he has the potential to be fantastic, but I believe his Chicago upbringing has swayed a lot of opinions among Bulls fans and Bulls observers.
I would be willing to bet that outside of Bulls fan circles, if you asked whom Pax should select, the percentage who believe it should be Beasley would be drastically higher than inside those circles.
Over the course of the NCAA season, Beasley dominated everyone. He was this year’s Kevin Durant — a stat-stuffing player of the year candidate (Durant won the Naismith and the Wooden awards while Beasley won neither, despite Beasley putting up comparable numbers). And now he looks to follow in Durant’s footsteps by falling to No. 2 in the draft behind an allegedly higher potential player who plays a premium position.
As Beasley dominated his college opponents this past year, he was without question going to be the top pick in the draft. Then, Derrick Rose emerged in the NCAA Tournament by putting up 20 ppg, 6 rpg, and 6 apg in his tourney games, capping off a solid freshman regular season. At that point, he locked in his place as the consensus No. 2 pick, and the idea of him going No. 1 wasn’t a stretch, even though it still seemed like an unlikelihood.
But then everything changed.
The Bulls defied 1.7 percent odds and landed the top draft pick during last month’s draft lottery.
That’s when the Chicago kid became the supposedly obvious No. 1 pick most Bulls fans would have you believe he’s always been.
All of a sudden, Derrick Rose is Chris Paul. He’s Deron Williams. He’s Jason Kidd.
Really?
Those are pretty lofty comparisons, and I’m not so quick to buy into them. I’m not sure that just because Rose is as quick as he is, as strong as he is, and can make a flashy pass here or there, means that he’ll be as good as those other point guards.
Honestly, I’m not even sure that makes him a pure point guard.
I know saying that is nearly blasphemous to a lot of Bulls fans, since many have turned their backs on Kirk Hinrich, especially now that Rose could be the team’s point guard of the future and selecting him would pave the way for Hinrich to be dealt elsewhere. See, the knock against Hinrich — which has become louder and louder as opinion has swayed against him — is that he’s not a pure point guard.
As if not being a “pure point guard” makes him complete garbage and negates the things he does well.
Honestly, I think scapegoating Hinrich for the bulk of the Bulls struggles and labeling him not a pure point guard is just an excuse a lot of fans spew; I think many people don’t like him simply because he’s a dopey-looking white guy playing in the NBA. Being a white guy in the NBA isn’t so bad, but dopey-looking AND white? Unacceptable.
At least make some flashy plays or show some emotion. That’ll combat the white/dopey combo.
Myself, I think Hinrich does a decent job, and putting Beasley in the mix with him instead of replacing him with Rose could work just fine. However, Rose’s potential is unknown, but if he happens to live up to the hype, and he is the pure point guard Bulls fans think he is, those same fans would never let the organization off the hook for passing him up.
But as for that possibility that Rose lacks pureness as a point guard? Memphis coach John Calipari has said Rose could’ve averaged 30 ppg for the Tigers, but sacrificed his scoring for the team. Scoring? Isn’t that what you don’t look for in a “pure point guard?”
The numbers on Rose: 14.9 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 4.7 apg, 1.2 spg
Also, if Rose sacrificed his scoring for the benefit of the team, but still ran the show, then how in the world did he average only 4.7 assists per game? Especially on a team as good as Memphis?
The team went to two Elite Eights prior to Rose’s arrival. ESPN’s Andy Katz would have you believe it was because of Rose that they made it to the title game last year. Duh. He was a blue-chip recruit. Of course. Add any blue-chipper to a stacked team and it’ll be better.
But on lesser teams than Rose’s Memphis squad during their freshman seasons, pure point guards CP3 and Jason Kidd averaged more assists than he did — 5.9 and 7.7, respectively. They each played an additional year and boosted those figures to 6.6 and 9.1.
Deron Williams, playing on an even lesser Illinois team his freshman year, averaged a Rose-esque 4.5 assists, though he didn’t score as much (6.3 ppg). He needed two more years before emerging as a big-time point guard. His assist figures elevated to 6.2 his sophomore year and 6.8 his junior year.
Why isn’t Derrick Rose being compared to Stephon Marbury or Steve Francis? Is it because he lacks the attitude problems those guys have? Or do people simply not want to think he’s similar to them because those guys aren’t on the same level as CP3, J-Kidd, and Deron Williams?
But as for his style of play, might he compare more favorably to those two?
I know raw stats don’t always tell the whole story, but they can provide a reasonable reflection of how a player played. And, at least by the numbers, Rose seems a little similar to Starbury and Stevie Franchise.
Marbury: 18.9 ppg, 3.1 rpg, 4.5 apg, 1.8 spg in his lone year at Georgia Tech.
Francis: 17.0 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 4.5 apg, 2.8 spg in his lone year playing D-1 ball at Maryland.
Coming out of college, they were offensive guards with an ability to post decent assist numbers, though not pure point guards and certainly not Paul, Kidd, or Williams.
But when those latter three guys are what’s being touted in Rose, is anything less than that acceptable?
So back to that moment when the No. 1 pick fell in the Bulls’ lap: while Derrick Rose suddenly has never done anything wrong on the basketball court or in his life, all of a sudden, Michael Beasley has defensive deficiencies. He has “character issues” — only now does it happen to matter that he attended five high schools. Oh, and he’s too short.
One thing I noticed during the NCAA season when I would question Beasley’s size, and whether he was really as big as listed, most people would shrug it off and point to his skill set and the stats he was putting up.
But now that his (lack of) height suits everyone’s arguments against the Bulls taking him, you don’t hear him being compared to other skilled, yet height-impaired power forwards, like Elton Brand or Carlos Boozer, or even talented players whose game his resembles, but whom he might be a smidge shorter than. Heck, even the comparisons to Zach Randolph’s offensive game have waned.
I’m not saying Beasley should be the pick. It’s just funny — and outrageous — to me how the opinions of who should be the No. 1 pick changed when the Bulls landed the chance to land the hometown kid.
Being a contrarian by nature is the only thing helping me maintain an objective opinion on this. I’ve seen some of Rose’s games, and I’ve youtubed the crap out of his highlight reels — and, man, it’s fun to watch. At least, more fun than Beasley’s youtube reels.
Furthermore, having been raised in Chicagoland, I’ll admit that if the Bulls select Rose, I’ll probably root for him harder than I would Beasley. Rose is a homegrown talent and I’d love to see someone from the city bring the hometown team back to prominence.
But I refuse to let my Chicago bias impact who I believe the Bulls should take in the first place. That’s why I’ve remained neutral until this point.
I will say, though, to every Bulls fan clamoring that Pax should select Rose, you need to accept and be ready to live with the potentiality of the following worst-case scenario:
After the Bulls select Rose No. 1 overall on Thursday, Pax will trade Kirk somewhere where he averages 16 points, 8 assists, and makes the NBA’s All-Defensive first or second team over the next seven or so years; Beasley goes on to be a 20+ point and 10+ rebound force wherever’s he’s drafted; and Rose ends up not living up to the hype.
I’m not saying that’s what will happen. You just need to realize that if it does, you have no right to flip-flop and whine, even in hindsight, that Pax made the wrong choice by taking Rose over Beasley. I realize a lot of Pax’s decisions have been second-guessed since he took over as GM of the team, but this one is on you, not him.
Reluctantly, because of how loud the pro-Rose crowd is and how Chicago bias has shifted opinion in his favor and against Beasley, my opinion has been tilted from neutral to in favor of Rose because the decision has been taken out of Pax’s hands. As a result, I’ve come to fully expect that worst-case scenario. I hope it doesn’t play out like that, and I’m rooting for the best, but I’ve already even accepted it if it does happen.
So go ahead, Pax, pick Rose.
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