Chicago Bulls: What To Expect From Derrick Rose Next Season

Photo Credit: Keith Allison, Flickr.com

Before his injury, Derrick Rose was one of the five most electrifying players to watch in the NBA. That might seem like a matter of opinion, but I dare you to name me five players more exciting to watch in the closing minutes of a tight game. Go ahead, I’ll wait….

Welcome back.

As basketball fans, we sometimes have short-term memories, but don’t forget that Rose was thrilling us with impossibly athletic and impressive plays that were DVR-worthy. And that’s not even mentioning his clutch gene. There was his buzzer beater step-back jumper against the Milwaukee Bucks in March 2012. There was his Game 3 game-winner against the Indiana Pacers in 2011 (although his late-game heroics were present in pretty much the entire series). And who could forget my personal favorite, when Rose floated his 2011 Christmas Day present to the Staples Center over Pau Gasol and right into Los Angeles Laker fans’ chimneys?

Unfortunately, as entertaining as Rose has been in recent years, his slow return to the court from an ACL tear has turned the attention from his game to his supposed “unwillingness” or “extreme tentativeness” to come back and help his team. Every NBA fan has seen the jokes on Twitter or the NBA memes on Facebook: “BLANK AND BLANK will happen before Derrick Rose returns!” Fans’ dismay over his cautiousness during the playoffs overshadowed any potential joy he would have brought had he actually made his long-anticipated return. His return went from, “I’m glad he’s back, this is going to be an awesome moment,” to “It’s about damn time.”

Part of that’s unfair, but I can see why basketball fans were so ready for him to throw caution to the wind and just come back. A few months back I wrote about the Derrick Rose balance between our own selfish desires and his mental health. And I still believe he made the right decision by not returning before he was mentally ready; that Chicago Bulls team wasn’t going to beat the Miami Heat with an unsteady Rose anyway. But according to ESPN’s Jon Greenberg, Rose says he’s 100 percent healthy and that he’ll be ready for the Chicago Bulls’ season opener. And that begs an entirely new question that few bothered to answer a few months ago when they were clamoring for his return: What can we expect from Derrick Rose next year?

First of all, we have to clear something up: if Derrick Rose, the most cautious guy in all of this, says he’s ready to go, we have to take him at his word. Rose has had nagging injuries in the past, but nothing as major as an ACL tear. With such a serious injury, I’d normally say that it’ll be hard to guess how he plays once he’s back on the court. There’s definitely a possibility that he won’t be the same player he was before the injury this year. There’s also a slight chance he’s never the same player again. But when the critics forget about his extreme patience and remember the intense competitive nature that drives Derrick Rose, it’s hard to conclude that he’s going to be a different player.

I’m not saying it’s out of the question. With all the criticism layered on top of an injury that’s already difficult to come back from, it’s possible that Derrick Rose can no longer lead the Chicago Bulls deep into the Eastern Conference playoffs. But you can’t talk about D-Rose without bringing his competitive fire into it. You know, that same kind of competitiveness that has the majority of us thinking that a 34-year-old Kobe Bryant just might be ready for the Lakers’ season opener after tearing his Achilles. The same intense concentration that had Rose glaring at LeBron James and Dwyane Wade for their dancing intros at an All-Star game in 2012. The same focus that’s behind all the late-game heroics. That’s all a part of the competitive fire that should guide Rose back to another great season.

I’m not saying he’s going to light up the league the instant he returns. There’ll be a lot of nerves and jitters. There’s a lot of expectation and criticism to live up to. Not to mention actually finding his groove and developing chemistry with his teammates. But you know Rose has heard the criticism and being the fierce competitor that he is, all that doubt will provide fuel for the fire.

Now consider Rose’s career numbers: 21 points, 6.8 assists and 3.8 rebounds per game while shooting 46 percent from the floor in his four years in the league. As a rookie, in his worst year in the NBA, he averaged 16.8 points and 6.3 assists per game. So on an individual level, that tells me that as long as he’s physically healthy, he’s good for numbers as good as his rookie year at the very least. And as his numerous game-winners have shown, he’s not afraid of the moment. So although LeBron James and the Miami Heat have proven to be the Bulls’ biggest obstacle to an NBA Finals appearance (and they’re not going anywhere), Rose’s supporting cast is finally good enough to provide Miami with some legitimate competition if D-Rose can come back fully healthy.

To clear things up, I won’t go as far as saying the Bulls have a great chance of knocking off the Miami Heat in the East. If anything, that team is the Indiana Pacers. In fact, to err on the side of caution, I’m predicting the Bulls will finish with the fourth seed in the East come playoff time. But I will say this: if Derrick Rose comes back the same player, the Chicago Bulls become the most dangerous threat to Miami’s potential three-peat. Don’t forget that the year LeBron won his first title, the Bulls had locked up the top spot in the East and looked like a force to be reckoned with until Rose went down.

It’s a tall order to expect a title contender and the Bulls will have to learn to play and defend together with Rose back on the floor. But when it comes to guesstimating how effective Rose will be next season, the biggest piece of information to consider is this: if Derrick Rose says he’s 100 percent, he’s going to thrill us once again. If he’s mentally ready to play again, it won’t be long before his physical skills are right back on par with his mental toughness.

If I had to put money on it, I’d bet that Rose is at least a top-30 player in the league next year. That doesn’t seem very impressive since he’s a former MVP, but the simple law of averages says that if he were a top-30 player, that means he’s probably the best player on his team. And for 2013-14, I think that’s all the Chicago Bulls can ask for.