And then Derrick Rose got hurt. In a week where a number of notable NBA All-Stars went down it was Rose’s injury that hurt the NBA community most. Players came out of the woodwork on Twitter to support the league's youngest MVP, and now the reality faces us all once again; Derrick Rose will not be playing basketball anymore this season.This happening is borderline incomprehensible. It raised many eyebrows when Rose decided to not even consider coming back and play at all last year, choosing to instead look to the future and make sure he was feeling absolutely 100% mentality and physically. Now the wait makes it look like a terrible joke.
If you remember when Rose injured his ACL, it was during the lockout season, and Rose battled a sprain all season to his left ankle. It is my opinion that when he hurt the knee it was because he had been compensating for the lack of support in his ankle with his knee. Eventually that stress failed him leading to his injury against Philadelphi. He plays too hard to put that kind of stress on a body part. Even though it was devastating that it happened, it was understandable.
But now with it being the other knee popping seemingly out of nowhere, where does that leave us fans when evaluating Rose as a player? Following his MVP season, when everyone and their mother fell in love with the athleticism and the will to win that Rose played with in Chicago, it was a consensus opinion that Rose was the crème of the crop in terms of NBA point guards. He could score on anyone, an excellent passer, and his physical gifts at the position were unmatched (Except for Russ Westbrook, right?).
When debating top point guards in 2011, Derrick Rose held the throne with Chris Paul and Tony Parker finishing with silver and bronze medals. Those were your top options. Rajon Rondo and Deron Williams were in the second-tier with Russ Westbrook on the rise at that point. But no one could touch Rose as he became the NBA's golden boy. With being the youngest MVP ever and the growing hate of LeBron James due to him leaving Cleveland, it was a perfect storm for Rose. We looked past his “ok” shooting and the fact he only played in 39 games in the lockout shortened season, he had the top spot, no questions asked.
He sat out all of last year, and now he is going to miss 72+ games this year. So who are we looking at? Is Derrick Rose about to become Grant Hill? If you are not familiar, Grant Hill burst on to the NBA scene. He won Rookie of the Year in 1994 and his first six years produced some silly NBA numbers:
Year | PPG | RPG | APG | PER: |
1994-‘95 | 19.9 | 6.4 | 5.0 | 19 |
1995-‘96 | 20.2 | 9.8 | 6.9 | 20.9 |
1996-‘97 | 21.1 | 9.0 | 7.3 | 25.5 |
1997-‘98 | 21.1 | 7.7 | 6.8 | 21.2 |
1998-‘99 | 21.1 | 7.1 | 6.0 | 23.9 |
1999-‘00 | 25.8 | 6.6 | 5.2 | 24.9 |
I mean, pardon my French, but those are fucking spectacular numbers. It is no question why people were calling him the next Michael Jordan, and most ofpeople my age don’t remember Grant Hill for what he was on his way to becoming, but rather what he was after the year 2000, which is a somber time for the Duke product.
Grant Hill was a step below Michael Jordan in 1998, but clearly better than all the other two-guards in the league. A step above Kobe Bryant, Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady, the next crop of NBA stars. But then he played through pain in the playoffs for Detroit and everything unraveled for Hill. He signed with Orlando (This is the part most people remember), played in only 47 games in 4 years, sat out an entire season (2003-04) and nearly died during his surgery. All that thanks to a very problematic left ankle. Things had obviously went drastically south for Hill.
While he bounced back to some extent with Phoenix, he never fully regained his pre-ankle-injury ways. When he retired this past season, it should have been a much bigger ordeal, but injuries derailed what could have been. He never regained his seat atop the two-guard list. And I think we all know where this is going.
Since Rose won his MVP at the age of 22[1] in 2010-’11, a year that he held averages of 25 points, seven assists and four rebounds per game and almost took Chicago to the NBA Finals, he has played in 49 out of the possible 230 games not including playoffs. An absolutely gut-wrenching number. And the thing is, we do not know what is going through Derrick Rose’s mind.
I remember reading once that Rose used to cry after losses in AAU basketball. Now some can look at that and think, “Wow, that is a guy that really cares about winning”. Others will look at that and think “What a softie, this guy needs to get on with it and CBT[2]”. After his first knee injury, it became apparent the fear of facing another knee injury had crept into Derrick’s mind. Nervous was not a strong enough word to describe Rose’s state of mind. So he waited and we waited, until he became “ready”. He returned and has been trying real hard to be Derrick Rose again, and it has been tough. Before the injury, he struggled shooting, and it is not as “easy” as it was before. While his three-point-shooting stood pat (34%), the effectiveness around the rim is not the same. Only generating 3.2 free throws per game and he had not finished a game shooting over 50%. And now he will not. He seemed so urgent in his play, almost as if he forgot that he would have rust. He had not played an NBA game in over a year.
So now when we are listing top point guards, the list goes CP3 and Parker, Kyrie Irving and Russ. Then probably Rondo when he comes back? And if you are a stat head, Kemba Walker gets thrown into the mix and then because I do not know if I want to trust Rose’s knees anymore I might even take Damian Lillard or John Wall. Do you see what's happening? Just like Hill, it is hard to trust a guy that goes around missing 200 games in four years. People have come back and played with bad meniscus before. Dwyane Wade and Paul have done it for years. Westbrook will be doing it, and all those players carry a certain confidence with their games. A confidence in their physical abilities. You cannot hold them back. I guarantee you right now if Russ hurt his meniscus in November of last year, we would have seen him by the end of March. This is not the case with Rose. He is not very sure his knees can handle it. These other players can sense it, and I figure that is why there is such gratuitous support. That is why the league is so down.
We all fell in love with Derrick Rose because he was so authentic in the way he cared about basketball. The game does mean everything to him and it is not fair that it is being ripped away from him for the second time in three years. As fans, we are second on the list in terms of devastated souls. He feels cheated. He was cheated, and that is why we feel so down for him too.
Back in 2008 my uncle started taking me to a few Milwaukee Bucks games year. Usually we would see marquee superstars. In 2008, we saw Chris Paul. I remember my uncle telling me that LeBron was probably going to win the next 8 MVP’s but if anyone was going to “steal” an MVP from ‘Bron is was CP3. That night he went out and threw out a very casual 30/9/6 in a Hornets victory. We were wrong though because Rose would steal that MVP. And now, we cannot even trust if he will ever be the same.
We were all robbed of a slice of greatness pie when Hill’s left ankle broke in 2000. He never came back the same. From 2009-2011 we watched a superstar, bud, bloom, and blossom[3] in three short years. Derrick Rose was next. Derrick Rose was the truth. End of conversation. Now, we will not know what Derrick Rose really is. And we all will be holding our breath every time he jumps from now on.
But as fans we always have short memories, and let's hope that D-Rose can find himself again.
~Andrew
[1] FYI: his 22nd year wasn’t anything like my 22nd year on Earth.
[2] CBT = Come Back Tough(er).
[3] Flower puns intended.
0 comments:
Post a Comment