Should Bulls Fans Be More Excited About Pau Gasol or Worried About Derrick Rose?
If the Chicago Bulls are using Derrick Rose and Pau Gasol's FIBA Basketball World Cup performances to preview their season ahead, chances are their feelings are somewhat mixed.
Gasol has looked like a new man with Spain. The 34-year-old is averaging 20.5 points, 5.5 rebounds and 2.2 blocks through six games. As he prepares for his first season in Chicago, the four-time All-Star is picking up where he left off after finishing the 2013-14 campaign in top form.
For the season, Gasol tallied 17.4 points, 9.7 rebounds and 3.4 assists in 31.4 minutes per contest with the Los Angeles Lakers. But his numbers improved as the season progressed. After a sub-par November and December, Gasol averaged 20.8 points in January and made at least 50 percent of his field-goal attempts in January, February and March.
The FIBA production—which includes converting on an impressive 64.4 percent of his field-goal attempts—suggests that Gasol's late-season ascendance wasn't an anomaly.
He's playing his best basketball in years.
And he's even doing it against top-shelf competition.
As Sports Illustrated's Jeremy Woo notes, "A 26-point, 9-rebound game against Brazil’s NBA-quality set of bigs was vintage Pau, and the Bulls will hope he’s the missing piece in a balanced Eastern Conference as they gear up for another playoff run."
Indeed, Gasol scored 12 of his points in the first quarter against Brazil, making an early statement that could foreshadow the kind of aggressiveness he'll display with Chicago this season.
After doing his best in head coach Mike D'Antoni's helter-skelter offense, the Bulls' approach should be a welcome change of pace—and it should come with plenty of opportunities.
"[Gasol is] someone that I knew I could play with," Rose told reporters. "You think about Pau, him now being in the East, what he’ll be able to achieve with the way we play, the way we dump the ball in the post a lot. It could be great."
Head coach Tom Thibodeau's commitment to an inside-outside strategy will preserve Gasol's rhythm.
The rest is up to him.
"I turned down bigger offers, and I prioritized being on a championship-caliber team and being in a position where I can hopefully put that team over the top with my game, as well," Gasol explained earlier this summer, per ESPNChicago.com. "I felt that here, I was going to have that opportunity, and now it's just a matter of getting to work."
Suffice it to say, Gasol has already gotten to work—even if it's in the context of trying to win a gold medal with Spain.
The Bulls will take it. If the summer version of Gasol is any indication of the player Chicago is inheriting, the organization is getting a huge upgrade over the amnestied Carlos Boozer.
Meanwhile, the Bulls are almost certainly hoping the summer version of Derrick Rose is anything but a harbinger of things to come.
Through six games, the former MVP is averaging just 4.5 points and 2.7 assists in 17.5 minutes per game. The most troubling sign of rust is that he's made just 21.6 percent of his 6.2 field-goal attempts per contest.
Rose's touch has eluded him from all over the floor—from perimeter jumpers to layups around the basket.
The struggles probably aren't reason to panic. The 25-year-old played in just 10 games last season and has played in only 49 over the last three years. It was never realistic to expect he'd come out of the gates with guns blazing.
To the extent there's been disappointment regarding Rose's play at the FIBA Basketball World Cup, the early reviews of his performance at training camp may be partially to blame.
"I think he's exceptional in every way," Team USA head coach Mike Krzyzewski exclaimed to reporters after practices in Las Vegas earlier this summer. "He went right at it. The first defensive exchange in the camp, he was all over the ball handler, moving his feet, attacking him. There was a buzz right away because it was basically his saying, 'Look, I'm not just back. I'm back at a level that's elite.'"
Krzyzewski added, "Derrick was sensational the whole week. He really did that every day, how fast and strong and decisive he was. He really created an air of excitement for the team because we all were anxious to see who he was right now."
The air of excitement quickly turned into some much-needed patience once tournament play actually began. Krzyzewski's raving was replaced by cautious optimism.
"I think basically we're waiting for Derrick to have kind of a bust-out game," USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo recently suggested on ESPN, per the Chicago Sun-Times' Joe Cowley. "And if that were to happen, I think he’d take off from that point."
Team USA has the depth to withstand Rose's struggles at the World Cup, and fortunately Chicago has some time on its hands—including a few preseason games in which its star point guard can continue his reclamation project.
And to be fair, Rose may be making more progress than meets the eye. That's certainly how he sees it.
His coach is on the same page, with Thibodeau telling reporters:
"There's nothing negative about this. This is all positive. As I said, the more he practices, the more he plays, the better he'll get. He'll be fine. Just take it day by day, keep doing the things that he's doing and get ready for training camp when we get there. When you're off as long as he's been out, I mean there's a lot of plays where he blows by everyone and he's not finishing. To me, that's timing. He hasn't done it in a long time. The more he does it, the more comfortable he'll get, the more he'll get into a rhythm … Each day he gets a little better, gets a little more confident.
"
Thibodeau's tone is a reasonable one to be sure, but it may not be especially reassuring to Bulls fans awaiting their game-changing, would-be savior. Chicago hasn't been to the conference finals since 2011, and two of the subsequent three campaigns resulted in opening-round postseason defeats.
The franchise needs Rose at his best to turn those fortunes around, but there's really no telling when he'll return to form.
The Memphis product made just 35.4 percent of his field-goal attempts during his brief stint last season, and similar numbers may be in the offing early on in 2014-15. It may be a matter of weeks or even months before Rose looks like an All-Star again.
While there's some silver lining in the fact that Gasol already looks like an All-Star, there's little doubt the Bulls are only going so far as their floor general takes them.
The good news is there's plenty of time between September and April. Bulls fans just have to practice a little patience in the interim.
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