Regarding Reggie Rose's comments to @ESPNChiPowers: If DRose is mentally, physically ready and still sits, that's not DRose I've covered. https://twitter.com/KCJHoop/status/304707618100895744
Reggie knows (and said) what most Bulls fans knew all along but didn't want to admit -- they don't have enough to beat Miami right now. https://twitter.com/NickFriedell/status/304703593963986944
Actually, I know very few Bulls fans who think the Bulls will win the East this season. As for Reggie Rose's comments, I'm honestly heartbroken. The words may have come out of Reggie's mouth, but I believe that they're Derrick's. Sure, within a few days, DRose will attempt to distance himself from what Reggie said, but I doubt it will be credible. Today, DRose the ventriloquist showed himself to be the spoiled superstar we all trusted he wasn't. He's Lebron. Melo. Dwight. Very sad day. The Bulls have a good team without Derrick Rose. With him, they have a very, very good team. Good enough to beat the Heat? Not on paper. Truth is that there isn't a single team in the NBA that can beat the Heat on paper. What I'll never understand and don't want to understand is this sentiment that, because a team isn't favored to win, there's no point in trying to win. Ah shit, guess I'll watch the end of the game.
The sentiment, "I'll play these" when you know "these" aren't good enough isn't encouraging to me as a fan. Of course we want our team to try to beat the Heat and everyone else come playoff time. Teams actually do try. The Lakers went out and gambled on Dwight Howard and Nash. The Clips went out and got Chris Paul and Jamal Crawford and Willie Green and Lamar Odom and Grant Hill. The Nets went out and got Joe Johnson and Gerald Wallace and Andray Blatche. I would never fault my team for going balls out and failing to win it all. At least we can say they went balls out. They cared to try. FWIW, on paper, I think Vinnie's team and OKC, at least, are Miami's equals. Paper doesn't express how a guy like LeBron can take over a game and control its flow.
I know nobody. I really hope that you are wrong on this and this aren't Derrick's words. If Derrick has this opinion why he hasn't try to convince a big free agent to come to Chicago in 2010? Good point. I don't understand this, too. Even if team A is 10-72 and the team B 69-11. Team A still have a chance to win a series. Perhaps the odds aren't high but the possibility is there.
What are the expectations from Reggie. Noah and Deng aren't good enough for a championship team? So he wish a Bulls team with Derrick Rose, James Harden, LeBron James, Kevin Love and Dwight Howard? I hope that this is still the goal for Rose.
This provides me no comfort. Saying that you share the same goal doesn't mean you're on the same page. I had no problem with Rose not wanting to recruit other players...not his job and not his style. Likewise, I had no problem with Rose signing for all the money the new "Rose Rule" would allow...I understand that he plays for money. However, when he then says (through Reggie) that the teammates who were good enough to help him win the most games in the league over two seasons and have been good enough to be well over .500 this season without him may not be good enough to merit his return, I need to rethink things. If he wants to be like the Heat, then maybe he needs to be more like ace recruiter DWade. If he's all about winning, then maybe he should have done what Lebron did and take less than the absolute max, giving the front office more room to maneuver. As for not surrounding DRose with enough talent, Reggie acknowledges that Noah and Deng are great players. Boozer is putting up 18 points and 11 rebounds per 36 minutes. That's pretty damn good for your 4th best player. The bench features some nice talent in Taj Gibson, Kirk Hinrich, Nate Robinson, Jimmy Butler and Marco Belinelli OK, Rip Hamilton hasn't been ideal at starting SG, but it was a good calculated risk. Still, the Heat are better. I'll give you that, Reggie/Derrick. But y'know what? A key reason the Heat are better than the Bulls is because their best player is considerably better than the Bulls' best player. Swap DRose for Lebron and I suspect the Bulls would be favored. In closing, Derrick, the Bulls are paying you over $16mil to play basketball for their team. If, as your brother claims, your return may be delayed because you're not completely satisfied with the team, you should return your salary to the team until you're ready to earn it.
Interesting take on things. Mine is that Noah and Deng are great players, but neither is as good as Miami's 3rd best player. Yep, Bosh. In other words, there's no Wade to Miami's LeBron here. No Pippen to MJ's Bulls. From Reggie's POV, the bulls actions are to shed talent, putting Rose in a situation where he's got a worse roster to run with than the one that lost to the Heat two years ago. As far as your last paragraph, I couldn't agree more. Derrick had advisors and it's no secret that the Bulls are a business not a basketball-first organization. He was forced to sign a rookie deal with the Bulls, or maybe he could have forced a trade before putting on the uniform. He certainly signed his extension after experiencing the entire situation. He should keep up his end of the bargain.
Really? Where did he say that? I've read you say that, but I didn't read Reggie Rose say that. In fact, nowhere in R.Rose's statement did I see anything about letting good players go. R.Rose's statement is all about additions that didn't happen not about the one that got away. My interpretation of what he said is that it has nothing to do with Kyle Korver, Ronnie Brewer or even Omer Asik. It's about acquiring that "2nd Superstar."
Letting Korver, Brewer, Asik, etc., go is the opposite of acquiring the 2nd superstar. Anyhow, I think his words were very clear about letting those guys go. "It's frustrating to see my brother play his heart and soul out for the team and them not put anything around him. Joakim Noah is a great player. Luol Deng is a great player. But you need more than that. You have to put together pieces to your main piece. The players can only do so much. It's up to the organization to make them better." I mean, the Bulls ARE putting (and have put) pieces around Rose, but pieces of what?
We'll have to agree to disagree. It's nowhere near clear, and if Reggie/Derrick had serious problems with the failure to retain Korver, Brewer and Asik, the time to bitch was October-November, not on trade deadline day.
I don't think the issue was cutting those guys loose. The issue was who replaced them. Reggie is beyond a doubt complaining about the team as assembled now.
Yea! We agree! OK, what we agree on is kinda low hanging fruit, but still. Back to Reggie/Derrick. I think that Team Rose said either too much or too little. I get that they're unhappy with the composition of the team. This despite the fact that the team has performed better than most expected. I either wish Team Rose would have kept their general dissatisfaction to themselves or been more specific on what they'd've liked to see the Bulls front office do. From where they left it, Team Rose comes across as sort of a whiney spoiled baby, at least to me.
Team Rose sounds like a superstar unhappy with the team assembled around him. It's far from uncommon. LeBron in Cleveland. KG in Minny. Brand in Chicago. TMac and Carter in Toronto. Bosh in Toronto. Kobe in LA (got Shaq traded, no?). Gasol in Memphis. Those off the top of my head. If the Bulls are going to play the game like it's a business, then Team Rose should, too. I guess a big difference between us is I side with the players (players win championships) and you side with management (Reinsdorf is the best owner in the history of sports).
I agree that this sort of thing isn't uncommon. As I see it, this is extremely unfortunate. The Rose-Bulls case is distinguished from the others in that the Bulls are the only one that has proven to be a winning team in the absence of the superstar and they've done it twice over extended periods (2011-12 and 2012-13). Put another way, Team Rose is the only one that doesn't seem to believe that their superstar can take a demonstrably good team and make it great. Again, unfortunate. To Team Rose I would say that winning a championship is supposed to be exceedingly hard. That's why players cry and shit when they win one. Lots of great players like Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Patrick Ewing and John Stockton never won one. None of these guys blamed their front offices since they knew that the reason they didn't got a ring was named Michael Jordan. Just damn bad timing on their parents part. I really hope that DRose's parents aren't similarly held responsible for having Derrick too close to the "Lebron Era," but it could happen. For the most part, I actually like what the Bulls are doing. They're putting together very good teams right now, but also highly-valuing their key future assets (e.g., Mirotic and the Charlotte pick). If Rose regains his health, the Bulls should be able to challenge the Heat now, but also be very good when James passes the age 30 Rubicon.
In a perfect world, players sign whatever contract ownership offers them and then they play at 110% effort all 82 games and never miss a game. In the real world, some players are awesome people and some are assholes. Same is true of the owners. I've already made it known what I think of our owner. In the real world, the players are forced to play for the team that drafts them for the length of their rookie contract. The TEAM has options to renew. The player can't go play for the Heat because they really want to and the Heat would be willing to pay them. In the real world, Marquis Teague gets lowballed, Thibs' contract extension is dragged out, and Omer Asik's 3 year $25M contract is not matched (even though they said they wanted to keep him). In the real world, Karl Malone's team got John Stockton to play on the team with him and then traded for Jeff Hornacek (a ~20 PER player in his own right), and then trounced the rest of the league for 60+ wins (a rarity back then) and assured they had a Jordan stopper (built to win in the playoffs, so they hoped) in Byron Russell. I think it's outrageous to expect Rose to carry the team by himself to championships. Even Jordan didn't have to do it. Magic didn't have to do it. Kareem didn't have to do it. And so on. Ewing had GarPaxDorf type teammates (Oakley!). He never made it beyond the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals except the year Jordan retired and the year after the champs were broken up prematurely. Barkley? His Philly teams won 50 games twice. His suns teams made the finals just one time. His Rockets teams made the WCF the first year he was there (with Pippen). As for when LeBron turns 30? I've seen that movie before.
Well, my feelings are a little mixed. 1). At first appearance this looks like sour grapes on Derrick's part, but I'm not as sure as others about what really signals about Derrick and the team. If Derrick's inner-circle and psyche have truly wrapped themselves around this worldview and are completely insulated from any other persuasion, then yes.....this really sucks. But honestly........maybe Reggie's just an idiot? This wouldn't be the first time someone's posse got loose lipped and said something controversial. And some things pass. Kobe's time in LA has been on the tip of the abyss many times. And remember all the narcissistic things that came out of Lebron's mouth right after "The Decision"? That seems to have faded. Reggie's discontent may prove to be a mere footnote in Derrick's time with the Bulls. So I'm not pushing the "PANIC" button as much as others. 2). What are the mechanics of player acquisition in the new CBA? It's not clear to me, but it seems to be much more difficult. My guess is that this'll hurt the Bulls' chances to bring in that legit 2nd superstar, and also hurt Derrick's chances to jump ship into a situation that's demonstrably better than where he's at now. Over time, I think that favors the Bulls. 3). There's no need to over-moralize Derrick about this. I'd guess a comment like this is as much about his tendency to internalize everything as it is about his narcissicism. 4). I have no desire to jump into a players vs. management debate that's been talked about maaaaaany times before, but I generally think GarPax have done a good job the last couple years. Their biggest downfall looks to be that they missed out on the super friends, but only one team could have done that. Thems are the breaks. But I've really enjoyed the ride these last two and a half years.
