Re: Is Derrick Rose already one of the top 20 players in the NBA?
http://blogs.suntimes.com/fullcourtpress/2009/11/in_which_i_urge_you_not_to_wor.html
In Which I Urge You Not To Worry About Derrick Rose
By <ADDRESS class="vcard author">Ricky O'Donnell</ADDRESS>on <ABBR class=published title=2009-11-19T01:14:09-06:00>November 19, 2009 1:14 AM
Hey "aughts", I'mma let you finish, but 2009 has to be one of the craziest years of all-time! Think of all the wacky stuff that has happened in the last 11 months. Vampires became our country's mythological creature of choice by a shockingly wide margin. Twitter took over the world seemingly overnight. Tom Delonge and Mark Hoppus kissed and made up. Full Court Press lost not one but
two editors. The Taco Bell dog died. And, oh yeah, let's not forget about whatever the hell happened during Michael Jackson's funeral.
This year has been wild.
Insane, I tell you. The madness has even hit Chicago sports.
Never mind losing out on the Olympics, I'm more concerned about the damn-near-epic fall from grace that inflicted nearly all of our city's sports superstars. Alfonso Soriano put in, by far, the worst year of his career. Carlos Quentin went from a potential MVP candidate to a guy you expect to injure himself when he gets out of bed in the morning. Brian Urlacher missed an entire season with a wrist injury. Patrick Kane - tiny, innocent Patrick Kane - inexcusably beat up a Buffalo cab driver over 20 cents. Jay Cutler actually has some fans wishing for the return of Kyle Orton.
This brings us to the recent struggles of Derrick Rose.
</ABBR>John Jackson has an article
in today's paper titled "Passive Rose has to get aggressive". It's a fine piece, notable mostly because Rose says he's not going to cut his hair until he gets out of this funk, and I happen to think Derrick Rose would look awesome with an afro.
But I digress.
Aggressiveness isn't Rose's problem right now.
His problem is his bum ankle. No offense to our hard-working copy editors at the Sun-Times, but this article should really be titled "Injured Rose needs to get healthy".
If you've seen the Bulls at all this year, you can tell Rose isn't himself. His explosiveness looks like it's been reduced by 50 percent. He's settling for more jumpers because his ankle prevents him from taking guys off the dribble. It's not like Rose was a world class defender when healthy, but he looks worse on that side of the ball as well. Let's also not forget that he didn't play in the preseason or log as much practice time as everyone else. Besides for being injured, Rose may also be a little rusty.
Still, I urge you not to lose any sleep over Rose's slow start. He's still the savior. 10 sub-par games on a bum ankle doesn't change anything. At some point, Rose's ankle will get right, and his game will follow.
Go ahead and worry about Soriano, worry about that adorable taco-loving chihuahua, worry about all the other crazy stuff that could happen in the next month and a half. But don't worry about Derrick Rose. He'll be just fine.
Ricky O'Donnell is the editor of the Chicago sports blog Tremendous Upside Potential. Contact him at richardopodonnell@gmail.com.
