Chicago Bulls point guard Derrick Rose finally returned to an NBA court this week. The playing time was during preseason games, but anything is enough to get fans excited. But with the fans come the never-ending speculation and expectations. What's Rose's mindset? How aggressive with he be? Can he return to form? Will he be able to compete against LeBron and the Cavs? I spoke with Complex Editor Tony Markovich to discuss whether the former MVP needs to win a championship this year to earn back the respect of his fans and his skeptics.
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GUS: Tony, as a Bulls fan, what do you think is going to define a successful season for Derrick Rose in the upcoming season? Does he need a championship right now? If he never wins one, will we always wonder what could've been?
TONY: This is going to be such an interesting year, with a huge variety of moves and new faces all over the country. There's so much unknown right now, but if I had to guess, I really don't think the Bulls would be able to win a championship this first year with this new team. But that shouldn't be entirely put on Rose.
GUS: If not now, though, when will this team win a championship? For the past couple years, we've known the Bulls would be a stronger team with Derrick Rose. When we saw them stay competitive with the Heat, and occasionally beat them, some people had the idea that Chicago could've won the East if Rose had been available, even at the height of the Heat's powers. Now that their star player is available again, don't you think it's time for them to finally do that? And if it isn't Rose's fault, then who will be to blame if Chicago can't make it all the way?
I don't want to say that the Bulls are old. Rose is only 26, and they have a number of young players who could contribute right away in Doug McDermott and Nikola Mirotic. But Pau Gasol's shelf life is definitely expiring, and Joakim Noah is in the thick of his prime right now. Furthermore, LeBron James, Kevin Love, and Kyrie Irving might need one season to become comfortable enough with each other to win a title, but I doubt they'll need two. Chicago needs to win now. Look, even Bulls ESPNChicago.com beat reporter Nick Friedell agrees:
100 percent. The players know everything is set up for them this year. RT @_ChiLadelphia_: is the feeling with the team title or bust?
— Nick Friedell (@NickFriedell) October 7, 2014TONY: I really don't see this year as a do-or-die situation for the Bulls. It's kind of like I see this as another new starting point, and I really don't think they could win the championship this year. Sure, the Bulls could have used Rose the past couple years, but do I really think that would have lead to a Finals victory? No. They would have run into the same team that they were so clearly outmatched by when they they previously met in the playoffs in '10-'11.
Many would have called 62 wins and an appearance in the quarters an extremely successful season. But if you watched just how the Heat dominated the Bulls, the bitter taste to end the season wasn't something to be casually overlooked. A team with the league MVP shouldn't be be outscored 90-65 in the fourth quarter of its four losses, including surrendering a 76-64 lead with 3:53 left in a win-or-go-home Game 5 at the United Center. Despite a Game 1 victory, the series felt like a sweep and left Bulls fans questioning if that team could ever make it past the Big 3 in South Beach. The answer was no, but it wasn't because Rose continued to go ghost on the court (2-9, 2 TO, 2 shots blocked in that Game 5 fourth quarter). It's because he literally wasn't there to help.
That series was when I was most disappointed by Rose. I truly don't think they could have taken that team out. As far as the blame game goes, I would put that series loss, and if they fall flat this season again, this year's failure completely on the Bulls organization.
In about three weeks, the Bulls open the season against the Knicks in New York City, an instant reminder that Chicago was once again unable to get
Melo, the major free agent signing this past offseason. Luring Pau Gasol, drafting Doug McDermott, and finally getting 2011 draftee Nikola Mirotic will help, but the pressure and eyes will all fall right back on top of Rose. The Bulls have needed and continue to need a pure scorer. They've needed a two to play alongside Rose since he came to the Bulls, and yet, here we are six seasons late still looking for any sort of offensive help who's not one of Thibs guard reclamation projects. Rose shouldn't be the scorer, that should be on somebody else.
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GUS: I still disagree about Chicago's chances against Miami if they had played with Rose, or just a generally healthy team. Let's not forget about the match-up when they ended the Heat's 27-game winning streak in 2013, despite the absence of Rose and Noah. We also shouldn't disregard their Game 1 upset of the Heat later in the year, during the Eastern Conference Semifinals, when the team was still missing Rose, along with Luol Deng and Kirk Hinrich (Noah could've been out as well, but he decided to play through plantar fasciitis).
The Heat did get better from Year 1 to Year 3, but they always struggled with teams that could out-muscle and bully them. This isn't to discredit the adjustments Erik Spolestra, LeBron, and the rest of the Miami Heat made throughout their time together, but it should remind us that Miami was never built to fully absorb the blows of a team who could disrupt their pace and hassle them down low. An absolutely perfect three-point shot ended up being the difference between one championship for the Miami Heat and two. I don't think it's ridiculous to say that a healthy Bulls squad could've re-written history as well. At the very least, they would've won more than one game against the Heat in the playoffs. I believe, ironically, Chicago could've been the Bad Boys to LeBron's Jordan-era Bulls.
But, fine. Let's drop the past. What's done is done. I want to talk about the future, and how we'll define Rose's legacy going forward. If you don't expect a championship to happen this season, then what do Bulls fans expect out of D. Rose from here on out? He carries a legacy with him stemming from Simeon Career Academy and going all the way up to Michael Jordan. On top of that, he's the youngest-ever MVP in NBA history. Prior to these back-to-back injuries, he was supposed to bring Chicago back to the top of the NBA. Stepping away from the front office issues you're discussing, do you think that winning a title is still a realistic expectation of a Derrick Rose-led team? As a player, does he still have it in him to be the guy for Chicago and re-capture his old form, or should we all just be resigned to the fact that LeBron is simply too dominant in this era?
TONY: They won that regular-season game, shockingly won Game 1, and then got washed. The Bulls consistently played up to the Heat during the past few regular seasons (9-6 against Miami since '10-'11), so they had proven that they can win without Rose (until the playoffs when the Heat actually started playing for keeps). It's funny that you say the Heat struggled against teams that could out-muscle them, because I always felt the Heat were too overbearing in the backcourt against the Bulls. They suffocated Rose and stunted the entire offense, especially the pick and roll. It was almost like having him on the court hurt the Bulls to some extent, and that's mostly because Miami was putting LeBron on Rose during fourth quarters and other crunch time moments. In those ECF, Rose shot 35 percent from the floor and 23.3 percent from three. With LeBron guarding him, though? Rose shot 1/15. That's 6.3 percent. That just made me feel like any team LeBron is on can shut down the Bulls at any time. This video does a pretty solid job of showing that:
Before we move on from the past, I just want to recap Rose's "success" so far. He's played in 289 of 492 possible regular-season games. He's averaged 20.9 PPG, 6.8 APG, and 3.8 RPG while shooting 46 percent from the field. He has an MVP, a ROY, and has been an All-Star ever healthy season except his first. But he's also 2-3 in playoff series, averages 42.5 percent shooting and 3.9 TO in the playoffs, and has never come close to winning an Eastern Conference Finals.
The way I see it, we're kind of starting at ground zero with Rose again, and that's the main reason I don't expect to see a championship this year. You talk about a one-year buffer for the Cavs, but what about the buffer the Bulls need? They have a vastly new squad who's supposed to be led by a guy who hasn't been on the court for 2 years. I don't really see Rose as the leader of this team anymore. That's Joakim Noah. He is the guy who fires up this team and fires up this city. He's the reason fans have maintained interest. It's his team.
That said, I still think the Bulls could win a championship maybe next year or the year after if McDermott, Butler, or Snell pan out to become higher-volume scorers. If 2016 passes, and the Bulls don't have a championship, that's when I might be more disappointed in Rose. Because that's enough time for his game to re-develop and for the team to properly mesh. Regardless, Rose needs another scorer. He alone can't win the Bulls a ring.
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GUS: Numbers never lie. It's possible that, being less close to the team than you, I'm suffering from selective memory. Do you think there's a difference between how the national media views Derrick's second comeback versus how Chicago fans are viewing it? There must be, right? I can't imagine I'd want to get my hopes too high if I'd been forced to endure two lost seasons thanks to a blown knee.
In any case, as we saw in the first preseason game against the Wizards, Rose can still play. Or, rather, that's what we'll be told. Look at some of the headlines have already appeared: "Rose dazzles, offense struggles as Bulls fall to Wizards", "Derrick Rose looks like his old self in Bulls preseason debut".
Look, the guy played well, scored 11 points in limited action, and added some rebounds and an assist for good measure. But he wasn't this. And he definitely wasn't this (especially that last dunk). And in his second game, he definitely didn't dazzle, going 0-4. Are we interested in Rose, the athlete, or Rose, the headline? Likely, the answer is somewhere in the middle, but when we're allowing ourselves to be awestruck by a couple nice lay-ups, it feels closer to the latter than the former
Of course, it's not like Rose hasn't invited all the discussion surrounding him, either. He seems to be certain that he is going to win a title. Maybe he wants these expectations.
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On one hand, as you mentioned, it's unreasonable to think that the Bulls will win a championship this year, particularly in the comparison to the Cavaliers or the Spurs who are, respectively, more talented or more experienced. On the other hand, as I said, I suspect that another year will be too long for the Bulls to wait. And I agree with that 2016 mark you noted, but only because the league's new TV deal threatens to drastically shift the way teams are built in the NBA. We don't know what the Chicago Bulls, or any team for that matter, are going to look like if the rumored removal of max contracts comes to fruition, among other changes.
But what do you think the Bulls would have over the Cavaliers in one or two years? What do you think they have over the Spurs or the Thunder right now? Do you think Rose would've made a difference against the Wizards last year, or does Washington represent yet another obstacle that Chicago will have to wrestle with?
I guess what I'm getting at here is that it's more fair to think of Derrick Rose as an extremely unlucky individual, rather than a disappointment. How could anyone weigh injuries, a bad front office, and a historically talented NBA so harshly against one guy?
TONY: Yeah, I'd imagine hopes are probably similar, but expectations from Chicago people and the casual NBA fan might be a little different. I've noticed an interesting dynamic since Adrian Peterson came back from his ACL injury regarding knee recovery. Although it's fantastic to see that somebody can return to such dominant form and in such a quick fashion, it's almost like a lot of people just think all athletes should be able to do that now, and they're applying that to Rose. It's like, "well, why shouldn't I think he will be 100 percent right away? Peterson did that and more," which is idiotic logic, if you ask me.
So far this year (including the Team USA games), he hasn't looked great. He's basically looked serviceable, which obviously wouldn't be enough to lead the team, but at least Mirotic looked damn smooth popping pull-up tres. It's also been such a small sample size, so there's no point in judging just yet.
What has happened to Rose with the media has been interesting this year. It's been a little different. During the previous injury, he was still saying positive things, but in all those interviews, he was very sullen and flat. These interviews this year have been much more upbeat. And yeah, he said he's going to win a championship, but isn't that what everybody should say if they have a good team? Or at all? That's the point of playing for most of these guys.
As far as what would happen and what extra the Bulls would have in two years simply comes down to growth, comfort, and experience (which, yes, I know the Cavs and Wizards and other teams would have as well). Hopefully Rose has worked on his shot selection, and some outside shooting will stop forcing him into poor decision-making situations. Hopefully Jimmy Butler can actually develop a shot to go along with his stellar defense. Hopefully Noah can stay a reliable North Star down there in the paint and help keep a spread and organized floor.
... but there I go again with nothing but "hope" speak. That's what Rose's entire career has been, so I guess I've just become used to that being the norm, and during the past two years maybe I've just learned to take the disappointment a little bit better. Maybe I've just adapted to all the setbacks in a way that my brain just tempers expectations and justifies the disappointments to the point that I don't actually feel nearly as sad about it anymore. I don't know. That would all probably be demolished if Rose were to get hurt again, but there's no point to thinking that he will. My thought process might be different from the masses in Chicago, but I think it's unfair to set a championship bar for this season. Disappointment is poison to fandom, so as a general basketball and NBA fan, I just want to enjoy a full season of Rose. That'd make me happy enough.
