Chicago Bulls' Ceiling No Longer the Same Without Derrick Rose's Potential
You'll hear a lot today about everything Derrick Rose wasn't this season.
He wasn't even close to a league-average shooter, barely above 40 percent. He was chucking too much, as evidenced by taking more three-pointers per game than in any previous season, all while converting at an abysmal (28.7) rate.
He wasn't drawing contact in the lane, averaging 3.8 free-throw attempts, down from 6.9 and 6.1 in the two seasons prior to sitting out 2012-13 due to his first major surgery.
He wasn't really bettering his teammates while protecting the ball, with his assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.56-to-1, tied for 73rd in the NBA, just a bit better than Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade. Not abysmal, but not becoming of a starting point guard, especially one considered among the elite.
He wasn't making an appreciable difference when measured by more advanced statistics either, with the Bulls posting a 108.0 offensive rating and 104.4 defensive rating in his 1,428 minutes (plus-3.6 per 100 possessions) as compared to a 108.2 offensive rating and 104.9 defensive rating (plus-3.3 per 100 possessions) in the 1,343 minutes he was off the floor.
He wasn't one of the eight point guards selected for the All-Star Game, nor would he have been next on anyone's list, not with Brandon Knight and Mike Conley both having better seasons.
He wasn't himself, not for more than a quarter or a half, with his dazzling display in the final game before the All-Star break—a 113-98 win in which he scored 30 points to appreciative MVP chants.
But that's the thing.
There was always the hope that at some point this season, or perhaps the postseason, he would bloom—and the petals from the blossoming Rose wouldn't wilt for a while.
That's what is gone now with the news of his latest knee surgery, this one to repair—or shave—the meniscus in his right knee, the same knee he had repaired last season, not the one in which he tore his ACL in the first game of the 2012 postseason.
Considering how long it took him to get to where he got, it's unreasonable to expect him to get much further after another lengthy rehabilitation, and certainly not until far into the future.
It's much more reasonable to expect that, at best, his career will be categorized along with those of Grant Hill, Tracy McGrady and Penny Hardaway, players who persevered enough to keep playing but were robbed of many of their powers along the way.
All of this means the Bulls, as far as this season, can no longer be considered contenders for the 2015 championship, especially with the future—Tom Thibodeau's status, Jimmy Butler's free agency—not looking all that promising.
Thibodeau will likely squeeze out every drop, as he did during the 2013 playoffs, when he was without not only Rose but also do-everything forward Luol Deng, who had complications from a spinal tap.
That Bulls team made LeBron James' Miami Heat sweat some, but with Nate Robinson shooting 33.3 percent, a raw Jimmy Butler and a limited Carlos Boozer serving as the only offensive options, the squad was bounced in just five games. Last season, even with Joakim Noah continuing to ably anchor the middle and Taj Gibson averaging 18.2 points, the Bulls fell flat against the Washington Wizards, also in five games.
The Bulls might have exited early again even with Rose, if it was the Rose who has shown up on certain nights, as in the dozen games this season where he played at least 25 minutes while shooting 30 percent or worse from the floor.
But there was always the chance that he would have been the other Rose, the one who seemed to show up once every month. The Rose who scored 31 points on 14-of-24 shooting against Damian Lillard's Portland Trail Blazers, 32 points on 12-of-22 shooting against John Wall's Wizards and 30 on 12-of-24 shooting against Kyrie Irving's Cleveland Cavaliers.
That was the Rose who gave the Bulls a chance to compete with any of the elite at the game's premier current position.
Aaron Brooks, Kirk Hinrich and even the return of Nate Robinson can't do that.
And while Pau Gasol is better than Boozer, and Butler is the best he's been, it's hard to imagine the Bulls as anything more than a good team the rest of the way.
Not a great one, not now, maybe not in this era.
That's the great shame of today.
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