Well . . . I don't know about Mohammed . Nazr puts up strikingly consistent rebounding numbers but I think with him and Boozer, a lot of it has to do with the fact that they're not quite living up to their defensive obligations. In Thibodeau's defensive schemes Gibson ends up a fair amount of the time covering opposing guards on an island relatively far away from the basket. Those types of positions aren't conducive to defensive boards. That and the Bulls wings are for the most part well above average at grabbing boards. Thibs likes guards who can switch on to bigs in rotations; and unsurprisingly, guards who can cover bigs are often well above average at grabbing boards. Basketball Reference doesn't allow you to sort by player position but Jimmy Butler looks to me like he's probably the third best rebounding guard in the league by rebounding percentage. (Tony Allen and rumored acquisition Lance Stephenson are better; former teammate Kyle Korver is slightly worse.) Derrick Rose can board. Even Tony Snell's and Kirk Hinrich's numbers aren't bad. Deng and Dunelavy are both pretty good on the boards. With the exception of DJ Augustin, every player on the Bulls who got meaningful minutes was an above average rebounder for their position.
What are the odds DRose plays 70 games? What are the odds he returns to MVP form? If recent history is a predictor, zero. He'd be bucking a four year trend, no? His MVP season was strike shortened. Call it 3. We saw his form after his first recovery. While we saw a few glimpses of the Unicorn, his stats say he was downright awful. Worse than Kirk awful. I was optimistic on the first #TheReturn. The reality is that he's missed a good part of three seasons, and that has to stunt development at the very least . If he's 90%, is that good enough to compete? There are a lot of guards at 100% who are extremely good - like Curry.
In order: Better than even money. 3:1 that he regains his MVP form, but I feel confident that you'll agree that his play is better than Hinrich's. Rose's MVP season (2010-11) wasn't strike shortened. It wasn't even lockout shortened. Rose played and started 81 regular season games in 2010-11.
My bad about the MVP season. 3 in a row, as I said. 39 games out of 66 in the shortened season, then 0 games, then 10 games. 49 games in three seasons, 10 in the last 164. Radically different than Westbrook's career and injury history. The 90% question is a pretty good one, IMO. We've seen guys like Snell perform well against guys who are maybe 90% the speed of NBA players, and not do so well at the NBA level. Is Rose at 90% good enough? Or do we expect his 100% to be plenty good, but maybe generate 90% of the stats/performance/whatever?
Do you know what 90% looks like? 95%? 80%? I sure as hell don't. I'll know if Rose is as good as ever (or better), close to as good but not quite there or not close enough. I expect Rose to be as good as ever by next season's end.
90% is 90% as fast at the 100 yd dash . Jump 90% as high as he used to. He looked less than 90% last year . Not even 50%.
I thought he ran at least as fast and jumped at least as high as he ever did. That wasn't why he sucked. His great athleticism had no fluidity and it wasn't connected to a basketball game. At least that's what I saw.
What I saw was MVP like during pre season and then awful when the regular season began. The speed of NBA starters vs. Tornike types trying to make a roster.
What I saw translated into 15.9 PPG, .354 shooting, and a PER of 9.7. The PER alone is a considerable drop from the 23.0 and 23.5 he had the previous two seasons that he played. Sure a guy who shoots .354 can get 15.9 PPG if he shoots enough. And shoot he did - 16.4 times a game. If you saw it differently, you must have been wearing Rose Colored Glasses (tm).
He did indeed struggle in his shooting, that being said, he did enough to allow the Bulls to win five in a row. We had a five game winning streak before he went down.
I believe I said Rose sucked last season before his injury. I just didn't think that his suckage was the result of a loss of speed or leaping ability. No Rose-colored glasses. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
