Bulls power forward Carlos Boozer has set some lofty goals for the team heading into the 2010-11 season. "A championship," Boozer said Wednesday. "I think a realistic goal for us is a championship. I think anything shorter than that we're setting ourselves up to be shorter than what we can reach. I think [we have] potential to be a championship-level team." Boozer is confident because of 21-year-old point guard Derrick Rose. "He's tight," Boozer said. "He can play. With our combination of what we have on our team, with myself in the post, with D. Rose at the point guard spot, Joakim [Noah] plugging that middle up, Luol Deng being very versatile on the wing, I think we have a team that can rival anybody. I think we'll be able to compete against every team in the league." http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/nba/news/story?id=5521714
He's getting flak for saying that but I'm all for it. He's not making predictions or boasting or bragging. This is a solid playoff team and they need to reach for the stars. Achieving the goal this season would be surprising but they should push hard to get there -- and once the "second season" starts, if we are a mid level seed, you never know how a playoff run is going to play out.
Look Bulls got a very good team, Boozer is a top 10 PF, Rose is a top 5 PG, Deng is a top 5 SF, but they need some experience before they can start winning. If they get Melo game over.
And what else is he suppose to say? We're a middling playoff time that may have an outside chance at everything clicking and making it to the conference championships? That's not any better.
I can see Rose as a top 5 PG, but I don't think Deng cracks top 10 amongst SFs. While we don't necessarily have top tier talent though, we have an incredible amount of depth this year and finally have a legit post player in Boozer. This team will be good. I don't think they'll be NBA Finals good, but they can definitely be Conference Finals good.
At least Paul, Williams, Rondo, Nash, Curry, Westbrook, and Kidd might argue that Rose isn't top 5. I've seen sites like ESPN rank Deng 8th best at SF. Unfortunately, the drop off from LeBron/Durant/Melo level to the next tier of players is pretty severe. And there are guys much better than Deng in that next tier, IMO (Granger, Gay).
A column in the Daily Herald the other day suggested it wasn't completely reaching to think that Rose could be the #1 point guard next year. ----------- Full Story ------------ #1 may be a stretch but the points he raises about some of Rose's competition are legit enough that while not necessarily a "given" I don't think someone suggesting that Rose a top 5 PG is too much of a stretch.
I really hope so, but the proof is in the results on the court in the NBA. When we talk about Jordan or Pippen or a lot of current players, we don't find many weaknesses to talk about. Rose is still very young, and his improvement has been great so far. Yet there are four weaknesses he has to improve on to be among the elite players: 1) Defense 2) 3pt Shooting 3) Assists 4) Drawing Fouls
I can see 8th for Deng, but probably not much higher than that. I personally Rose is better than Kidd and Westbrook right now, and maybe Steph Curry too. At worst, that puts him as 6th best PG in the NBA to me, and I think he definitely can elevate himself to top 3 this season. He's got the tools around him this year to do so, so I don't think that it'd be a stretch.
Rose is better at scoring than Kidd, but Kidd is a much better 3pt shooter, rebounder, and assist guy. Kidd's also been All-NBA defensive 1st or 2nd team 9 times. In Rose, Westbrook, DWill, CP3, and Rondo, you have 5 of the top YOUNG PGs, and it isn't clear that Rose is in the top 4
DWill and CP are the only two guys that are clearly better than Rose today. Kidd has an impressive resume and was the best PG for a while, but he can't guard anybody or beat anybody off of the dribble anymore. It's a testament to his knowledge of the game that he's still in the conversation. Nash has never been able to guard anybody. And Curry? Really? He's a great shooter, but he's a worse defender than Rose, and has nowhere near the handle that Rose has. Westbrook is a nice player, but he's not as good at anything as Rose. And Rondo is great defender and great at running the offense while playing with 3 HoFer's, but lets see if he gets the C's to the playoffs in a couple of years when they have nobody left. You're apparently going to be surprised how clearly Rose is in the top 3/4 this year. He's running the team at the world championships without problem right now. Westbrook and Curry are getting less than a third of the minutes he's getting.
Coach K was looking for a guy to run the offense, push the ball and play hard-nosed on the ball defense for point guard. Sounds tailor made for Rondo, doesn't it? Rondo got cut and Rose has been the second best player in Turkey behind Durant.
Billups has been the PG in all the games I've seen. Rondo isn't so suited to be an off the ball guard.
