There are six athletes that I’ve seen in person and couldn’t believe: Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James, Odell Beckham Jr, Russell Westbrook, and Derrick Rose.
Messi for his impossibly fleet feet in non-existent spaces, Ronaldo for the force of his acceleration, James for the juxtaposition of his size and speed, Beckham for his preternatural awareness and Spider-man hands, Westbrook for his power and strength at the rim.
When I saw Derrick Rose at Madison Square Garden in 2012, he belonged on this list. All the great ones have their idiosyncratic trademarks, and Rose’s was his ability to contort himself in unreasonable ways around the hoop.
He sprinted down the court with a handle that seemed loose and reckless but always appeared to work, hesitated for a moment, and then put his head down and accelerated with a speed that only Westbrook could touch. Where Westbrook used force at the rim, Rose – while admittedly not afraid of using violence at the hoop from time to time – used guile and a middle finger to gravity.
He would leap into the air, be met by a thicket of arms and have nowhere to go. But like the man in Chicago he was supposed to succeed, he would hang in the air for a duration that seemed impossible, double clutch the ball, and loiter in the air long enough to find a way to make the geometry work.
The geometry no longer works for Rose. The degeneration of his knees has led to his athleticism slipping from ‘generationally transcendent’ to ‘not that different from everybody else’. The intelligence in Rose’s game was always underrated, but it hasn’t been enough to nearly make up for his loss of pace and force.
Without the lightning first step or the threat of a jump-shot, which he’s never developed (and if you look at his form – it always looks like he’s shooting from half-court – likely never will), Rose can’t reliably get to the rim anymore, shooting just 2.7 free throws per game last season, compared to 6.9 in his MVP season.
Too often he descends into a deluge of mid-range pull-ups, which never feel like they’re going in, and typically never do. He offers little on defence, and last season the Bulls were significantly better with Rose riding the bench. And yet, the Knicks’ decision to trade for this wilting Rose, his balky knees, his broken jump-shot and broken identity, was an excellent one.
In Chicago, Rose’s adversity stretched beyond his physical maladies. He was stuck in the shadow of Michael Jordan, and then last season, the shadow of Jimmy Butler, who clearly supplanted him as the Bulls’ best player.
More than anything, he was stuck in the shadow of Derrick Rose. Every time he took the court it was like a bleak Russian novel, a protagonist desperately trying to remember who he once was, and whether he could be that way again. In Chicago, he was the chosen one, the hometown hero, the heir apparent to Air Jordan.
In New York, all he has to be is an upgrade on Jose Calderon. He’s a collapsed stock, a fading point guard who averaged a 16-4 last year on poor percentages. Expectations are low. No longer the co-lead dog haunted by memories of his MVP self in Bulls red, Rose will be the third banana in New York blue and orange.
Where his fit with Butler, another ball-handling guard who lacked killer shooting, was awkward, his fit with the Knicks should be smoother. He’ll be able to run pick and pop to death with Kristaps Porzingis in Jeff Hornacek’s spread out offence. Even in his reduced form, Rose has a dynamism that no Knick ball-handler had in pick and roll last year, and that can only be good for Porzingis’ development.
While the floor tended to be perpetually cramped in Chicago, obsessed for so long with playing two non-shooting big men at the same time, in New York there will be more space for Rose to operate thanks to Porzingis. Such space will give Rose advantages he hasn’t had, to compensate for his diminished speed.
The fit with Carmelo Anthony is less fluid, as all fits with Anthony tend to be. But unlike Butler, a younger, ball-dominant guard keen to prove himself as a star, Anthony will benefit from a lesser load. 32, with damaged knees and an appetite that has never tasted meaningful success in New York (losing in six to the Pacers in the second round doesn’t count), Melo has to see that deferring a little to Rose can only be good for him.
Anthony spaces the floor in ways that Butler didn’t, and is much more capable of playing off-ball. Line-ups with Melo and KP at the four and five, with Rose running pick and roll surrounded by two other shooters, might give us the closest look we’ve ever had at ‘Olympic Melo’ in New York.
If trading for Rose was an all-in move, it would be a disaster for the Knicks. But they’ve given up very little. Jerian Grant is a lottery ticket, Robin Lopez is a below average starting center, and Jose Calderon is effectively dead money at this stage. The commitment to Rose is only for a year, and in a barren point guard market, Rose for a season, with everything to prove, is one of the savviest bets that the Knicks could have made.
Being the Knicks, they could still screw this up by throwing max money at Dwight Howard and believing that they’re a contender, in the confusion that the world is five years past 2011. But if they act prudently, focus on adding depth on the wing (of which they currently have zero) and a cheap option to spell Porzingis at center, the Rose trade will look almost inspired.
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