Fuck Bret Michaels: This Rose has no thorns

My beloved Chicago Bulls were growing stranger and stranger to me by the minute this past year. We fired Scott Skiles before New Years Eve. We traded for Drew Gooden and Larry Hughes at the deadline. We made a late “surge” but failed to qualify for the play-in game (which the Hawks were clearly more prepared for). We lost the Mike D’Antoni bidding war to an organization that is currently undertaking a historically miserable run for a franchise in ANY sport. In fact, an hour before the lottery my fraternity brother and rare remaining true Bulls fan “Relatively Big Mike” Wagoner sent me a rundown of our odds with his take:

No. 1: 1.70%
No. 2: 2.00%
No. 3: 2.40%
No. 9: 81.34%
No. 10: 12.18%
No. 11: 0.38%
No. 12: 0.0024%

Back in the lottery. Sick.

I wrote back verbatim:

Dude, after we missed out on D'Antoni, I'm conviced we're gunna end up with Kosta Koufos and head back down the totem pole. I'm going to frame my "twirling towels" from Games 3 and 4 of last year's Conference Semis because it might be the last time we play in games that meaningful for a long time.

Sad clown tears,

AK

Needless to say, we’ve spent the better part of the evening trading Beasley vs. Rose emails. I haven’t been this excited since the moments leading up to Game 1 of the NLDS last fall.

So which way am I leaning? Well, here is the God’s honest truth. When they opened the envelope, my first reaction was, “Holy Shit, we CAN GET DERRICK ROSE”. My second thought was to call Wags and Dirty and scream nonsensical phrases in or around my phone. Once the initial madness had subsided, I thought, “I suppose we COULD get Michael Beasley since our frontcourt has been our Achilles heel for the past three seasons”. This is when I realized, this will be the second longest month of my basketball life (the first being the month directly following MJ's first retirement).

Benny can attest, I’ve got an unhealthy love for athletic point guards, scrambling quarterbacks in Madden and scrappy middle infielders with high OBPs. These aren't biases, but rather personal preferences.

Another factor: I’ve been watching and rooting for Derrick Rose since his days at Simeon HS in the Chicago Public League. They played his games on local (as well as national) TV and it looked like he was playing on fast forward while everyone else was set on regular speed. The kid was born to play basketball. He’s from the streets of Chicago. He’s tough. He’s a winner. I could go on-and-on referencing vague minutia that you already know, but lemme cite two games in particular that I watched last year which made me love Derrick Rose:

Memphis-Tennessee (Feb. 23rd)

9-16 from the field, 23 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 4 steals.

I know Memphis lost this game (one of two all season) but Rose showed me a lot in his second half performance. Here’s the thing that stuck with me, he was the only Memphis Tiger out there at crunch time willing to take and make big shots. Check out this GameLog and scroll down to 9:05 left in the second half when Rose misses two free throws. He takes over that game and is the ONLY reason that game was even close down the stretch.

Memphis-Texas (March 30th)

7-10 from the field, 21 points, 6 rebounds, 9 assists, 2 turnovers.

It wasn’t so much the offensive production or passing that I appreciated about this performance, it was how he SHUT DOWN the consensus second best point guard in the country in D.J. Augustin. This was an Elite Eight game and Rose held him to 4-18 shooting, 3 assists and 4 turnovers. Augustin only had more turnovers than assists in 4 of their 38 previous games last season. It was truly a complete game for Derrick (we're on a first name basis in my mind).

Now, I understand that Michael Beasley is a tremendous player and will be a great professional. But the City of Chicago has been waiting for a moment like this, to take the unconventional wisdom (always take the big guy) and cram it. Gun to your head, a potential Deron Williams/Chris Paul or a likely Elton Brand. If you worry about things like “we already have a point guard” then you obviously are missing something vital. This is a lottery team for a reason. Shuffle the deck, move Duhon, move Hughes, acquire role players, court the high profile coaches still out there, make some bold choices. Derrick Rose surrounded by savvy front office moves is a recipe that could very well lead to an Eastern Conference Finals appearance before his rookie contract is up. I’m a homer, I’m a Chicagoan, I love the feel of this whole thing. It’s fate. I’m going to spend the next month flooding John Paxson’s inbox with pro-Rose statistics and impassioned emails from the heart. Michael Beasley isn’t Sam Bowie, but not drafting Derrick Rose for the character of the city looking forward to embracing him, could spell the same foul fate.