3. Drive up trade value
Derrick Rose is in the final year of a remarkably team-friendly deal. He signed a two-year, $15 million contract last summer and he’ll make $7.7 million this season. That’s going to make him a major asset for a team looking to upgrade at the trade deadline.
There were no deals to be had this past deadline (in spite of some murmurs about a possible Alex Caruso trade with the Los Angeles Lakers), but on an expiring contract with the risk of losing him for nothing in the 2021 offseason, that may be a different situation this time around.
This is certainly one of the biggest reasons the Pistons will want to keep Rose healthy and active. His injury shortly before the All-Star break certainly didn’t help his stock at all, and it can be traced directly back to his excessive workload.
Derrick Rose may have had higher competitive goals when he came to Detroit as a free agent last season (which is still confounding), but generating premium trade value and garnering assets for his team as it seeks to right the ship after a decade of failure would be a fantastic note for him to go out on.