Just watched the Bulls/Mavs game - great coming out party for Rose who dominated with 30/7 and led a 23 point comeback in the 2nd half to win. A lot of it was bench vs. bench, but still I would say Rose actually looks WAY ahead of where Deron was at this point in his career, and no worse than on par with Chris Paul. Chicago made the right choice.
Beasley could still turn out to be a better player. My favorite is OJ Mayo and I feel he will be the best of the bunch. I think I'll still wait a while too before making my decision on if Chicago made the right choice. I'd also like to see what they do about the Hinrich/Hughes/Gordon/Sefolosha/Rose crowded backcourt.
Scrubs or not, he was still damn impressive. You can't control the competition you're going against, whether it be scrubs or stars. The fact of the matter is that he dominated that game tonight. I don't know if I saw a single Maverick defender stay in front of him tonight. He is just lightning quick, it's nuts. He's going to be a stud, and he's making me think that the Bulls did make the right choice.
Rose can't control who his competition is, yes. So no one's blaming him for it. But it certainly matters as far as how impressive Rose's performance was. Dominating scrubs is a lot less impressive than dominating NBA starters. Still, clearly a nice performance. Probably somewhere between a great summer league performance and a great exhibition game performance.
age and experience also matter. a just-turned 20-year-old with no NBA experience playing the toughest position to learn, showing great leadership abilities and dominating against what was mostly regular NBA rotation players is pretty impressive IMO.
The Bulls don't have a crowded backcourt. They have Derrick Rose who is a very special player, who can be a superstar. Ben Gordon who is a very good player, who could probably be an allstar pretty consistently if the Bulls get good, and then Hinrich is average. Hughes and Sefolosha are horrible, and Hinrich has actually been horrible so far in preseason and last year. Any smart head coach would run Rose/Gordon 36+ MPG, and then let Hughes/Hinrich fight out the remaining minutes. Too bad the Bulls seem to have an idiot at the helm.
Sure. None of that contradicts what I said. It still remains true that quality of competition matters. Bayless was even younger and dominated summer league competition, with no NBA experience. That's impressive, but less so due to quality of competition in the summer league.
Rose will be good. I have doubts about Beasley... he doesn't seem to have much inside his dome. He had zero boards tonight, but did have 19 pts in 20 mins. I think Mayo will be a better pro than Beasley.
It'll be interesting to see how it pans out. I had Beasley pegged as better than Rose, but I've been enjoying Rose's play so far, and think he could end up being better than Beasley. Rose is averaging 14.5 PPG and 5 APG, which is where a lot of us pegged him stats wise for this season. Although I think once he gets Gordon back in the mix with him, he will be able to improve his stats quite a bit.
Has Gordon ever given up more than is expected to the guy he is guarding on a consistent basis? No. This is just a illusion that exists because of Gordons' defensive struggles as he adjusted to the NBA his rookie year. Besides, the Bulls are giving up 101 points per a game. I don't see how Gordon can make things worse.
