After the first month of the season all the stories were about how disappointing the bulls were and how mediocre Rose was playing. Nevermind he missed the preseason with an ankle injury and the bulls had other key injuries. Hollinger's misguided article was one example, and you only need to go back a few threads to see others. But Rose recovered and injured players come back and now things have gone all the way over to the other side. People can see the potential and are getting just a little carried away. Case in point: Is Derrick Rose better than Dwyane Wade, Steve Nash, Chris Paul, and Deron Williams? Bill Simmons also spends the last five minutes of his latest podcast talking about how Chicago is the logical choice for LBJ and Bosh. While I'd like to see that happen, and I think Rose will continue to get better, I think this could be the high point of things, at least for this season. But who knows, maybe Rose gets the bulls to the second round...
did simmons actually say lebron's logical choice would be chicago? i hope simmons realizes that both derrick rose and lebron need to dominate the ball on offense to be successful. in fact, lebron is the de facto point guard in cleveland and mo williams plays the off guard most times. i think chicago will target the one of three all star power forwards (bosh, boozer or amare).
Rose isn't better than a guy like Wade on the court. However, Rose has a couple things going for him in the comparison. 1. He's younger and probably going to be more deferential. 2. He's much, much cheaper for the next couple years, which means a guy like Lebron coming to play with him can argue more strongly to surround himself with more expensive players. If you're Lebron + Wade, you're making $35M between the two of you, and most teams will limit their spending on the other eleven players to roughly $30M. If you're Lebron + Rose, you're only making $23M between the two of you, so you have another $7M to drop on quality at other positions.
