Derrick Rose and Damian Lillard want to retire as Bulls, Blazers
Derrick Rose has not had a good season for the Chicago Bulls in 2015-16. There have been a few good games here and there, and he has improved since losing the facemask he wore following an orbital bone fracture suffered in the first practice of his team’s season back in the first week of October, but by and large he’s been a millstone offensively and a very poor defender. He’s not the sole reason the Bulls are inconsistent, myriad factors go into that, but he’s certainly been rough to watch.
[Follow Dunks Don’t Lie on Tumblr: The best slams from all of basketball]
This was supposed to be the breakout year, the one that came after an up and down 2014-15 campaign – the first time he finished a season with the Bulls since his MVP year in 2011. With his downfall so swift, and with the remainder of this year’s $20 million deal and next season’s $21.1 million deal still on Chicago’s books, many have wondered why the Bulls haven’t tried to trade Rose to another team.
Well, two teams have to tango. Not a lot of front offices are out to grab a guy that needs 15.3 shots to score 14.9 points, with that poor defense, with 2.9 free throws per game, averaging fewer than five assists for the second straight season. To say nothing of the tens of millions he’s owed.
Rose wants to grind it out in Chicago. He discussed his hopes in an interview with Nick Friedell at ESPN Chicago:
Friedell: You want to retire here still.
Rose: For sure, for sure.
[…]
Friedell: What do you think is the biggest misconception about you now?
Rose: I really don’t know right now. Every week it changes probably. I’m serious. I don’t know — it’s probably — in the beginning of the year it was, did I want to stay here and did I want to win? But my whole life, I mean from the beginning, I said I wanted to stay here and play here and my whole life I’ve been a winner, so that’s not going to change.
We’ll see how strong Rose’s commitment to Chicago is when, if current trends hold up, they’ll offer him a contract worth a fraction of what he’s currently making when he becomes a free agent in 2017. Assuming they actually offer him one, sadly.
Rose is not a good player right now, and for a team that merely wanted him to return to competent form while building a solid rotation around him, his play has been a major disappointment. His shooting percentages in the paint and in the mid-range have improved to a level around average since the mask went off, but his defensive issues from last season remain, and he still walks the ball up court for a team that hasn’t needed for him to act as a slowed-down, one-on-one machine for the last 45 months.
No, these Bulls need him to push the ball and enter the ball into sets that are supposed to feature ball movement and passing. Worse, too often when he gives up the ball Rose lopes behind the corner three-point line and watches the play (not) develop for the league’s 23rd-ranked offense, with nobody guarding the player who has hit fewer than a quarter of his three-pointers this year.
Of course Derrick Rose wants to stay in Chicago. It’s his hometown, it’s the only town his young son has ever known (which he mentions in the interview), and if he still were a max-level player (as opposed to ranking 54th out of 71 eligible NBA point guards in Player Efficiency Rating this year), the Bulls could pay him more money than any other team when re-signing him.
Being dealt to another team would mean a whole new fan base to answer to, wondering why their group gave up around $20 million in contracts to deal for Rose, wondering why their team put his $21 million on next year’s salary cap along the way. It would likely mean an eventual demotion to the bench, should this sort of play continue. It would mean a change in city. It would mean the realization that the franchise that did nothing but make yearly excuses for Derrick Rose didn’t want him around anymore.
What player – what person – would want to go through something like that? At some point, though, as he watches Jamal Crawford play 15 years after tearing his ACL, or Russell Westbrook dominating after three different meniscus-related surgeries (to Rose’s two), the excuses have to let up.
Play defense. Move without the ball offensively. Play an uglier game and get to the line more often. Don’t give up plays. Don’t walk the ball up on court as if it’s 2010, and Keith Bogans is waiting beyond half-court. As opposed to Jimmy Butler.
A brighter version of the same line Rose is understandably towing came out of Portland last week, when Trail Blazers point guard Damian Lillard offered this in the wake of a 40-point, 10-assist game:
“It’s always good to be the first one to do something,’’ Lillard said. “Especially being part of an organization I plan on being a part of for my entire career. It’s an honor, but I would have liked for it to be in a winning effort.’’
Lillard’s “first one” comment has to do with the fact that no Blazer has ever dropped 40 points and 10 dimes on the team’s home court, and as he noted Portland did fall to the defending champion Golden State Warriors in the contest on Friday. Still, 40 and 10. Part of a fantastic weekend.
And he wants to stay a Blazer forever.
Wait.
Portland has heard this before, infamously from Bill Walton in the 1970s (who later deduced, correctly, that the team misdiagnosed his stress fractures) and LaMarcus Aldridge. LMA said as much in 2014, prior to what turned out to be his last season with the team, as he understandably jumped less than a year after those comments to a Spurs team that is now running (thanks in large part to LaMarcus) with the best point differential at this point in the season in NBA history.
Lillard was the second member of the 2012 NBA draft class (thanks Billy!) to sign a maximum contract extension, one that doesn’t even start until next season. The five-year, $120 deal is amplified somewhat because of Damian’s Rookie of the Year trophy and All-Star appearances, and it isn’t set to finish until 2021.
Damian will turn 31 the same month he’ll have to decide his free agent future that year, a full year older (nearly to the day) that Aldridge was at the time. The Blazers have done an interesting job keeping him engaged, not bottoming out in the wake of losing four starters during last year’s offseason, but despite Lillard’s brilliance this squad still needs to find its way into grabbing another star.
The franchise has the league’s lowest payroll in 2015-16 and plenty of cap room next year even with Lillard’s pay raise, but plenty of teams will have cap space. The team has what could be cap-eating decisions to make on restricted free agents Meyers Leonard and Moe Harkless – two solid enough players who could be fallback plans for teams that fail to land bigger names – and as currently set the team’s first round pick this June could fall into the teens.
The too-quick ascension of teams in Phoenix and Milwaukee shouldn’t have Lillard, the Blazers or Blazers fans’ worried. There’s no reason to think Portland will fall into a series of dodgy moves in the wake of unexpected mediocrity. For all the fun that this season has been in Portland, though, it might come at a cost. For now, at least: Portland has five years.
Chicago? Their window probably shut five years ago. There’s a chance this team can move past that blockage, between now and spring, but quite a bit in Derrick Rose’s game needs to change.
– – – – – – –
Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops
