We got one half of competitive basketball tonight before the Cavs stopped turning the ball over, the Bulls stopped making contested shots, and the Cavs ran the Chicagoans into the ground. As a result, I’ve been inspired to take tonight’s Bazooka Point in a new direction by making it about the opposing team.
The obvious target would be Joakim Noah, since he got into a shouting match with Bron, who seemed to be a little bit more flamboyant than usual tonight. But I’m not going to write about Noah because when have we ever been obvious?
Instead I will write about Derrick Rose. More specifically, I’m going to assert that Rose will never be an elite player in the NBA because he’s well, not really that smart.
I admit that I’m a little uncomfortable writing that. I don’t really want to take a shot at a guy’s intelligence. I know Rose is a second year player as well, and therefore has room to grow, but I don’t see a lot of evidence that he understands how to play the game. Tonight, he totally missed getting the ball to Noah on an easy mismatch pick-and-roll out of bounds play, and his decision before the game to try and take a lot of shots seems misguided, given the fact that he’s more effective finishing around the rim than on jump shots (52% versus 43%), and the Cavs are a very good defensive team inside the painted area.
Rose proceeded to take 10 shots in the first half and 16 overall - and he only made 5 of them.
At this stage of his career at least, Rose is a highlight player: he’s fast, he’s big for a PG, he’s athletic - if you catch a few highlights here and there, I can see why you’d be impressed with him and his potential…but so far it hasn’t translated into consistent performances.
Some numbers from 08-09:
PER: 16.0
WP48: .085
RAPM: -1.482
I’m not saying Rose can’t get better - he’s only 21, he likely will - but a big part of getting better is about learning and self-analysis. Let’s see if it happens.
Finally, I’d like to add a Bazooka Point bonus tonight! Yes! Austin Carr was on the Mike Brown Radio Show Thursday night. Here’s a transcript of a piece of his interaction with Coldstone’s wife, Caroline Brown, discussing breast cancer:
“Awareness is amazing. I mean, Caroline, I think there are more people that we lose- ladies that- women that we lose because they are not aware, or maybe don’t have the wherewithal to do what they have to do, and it just to me, this is something that has to be done and hopefully we’ll get to enough people that they’ll understand that they have to stay diligent with this particular situation.”
So we now know that Austin talks about life in the same way that he analyzes offensive rebounding. First time too, I think, that I’ve ever heard cancer described as a “situation.”
Bucks on Sunday. Brandon Jennings has been shooting around 30% the last few games, and the Bucks have been getting killed because of it.
(view comments)
