They said he was Chris Paul but less flashy. They said he was Jason Kidd with an extra couple of points a game. They said he was anything but the best. They even said he would be the second best player this rookie season.
Nobody said that he would break out this rookie season much better than big man Michael Beasley would.
Beasley was thought to be the short-term pick, the guy who would come in and dominate other teams by scoring inside and blocking shots, and it was understandable that people would think this after his sensational rookie season where he scored, rebounded, and blocked at will.
Derrick Rose, on the other hand, was thought of as a guy who would take some time to come in, he would play well, but he wouldn't be spectacular until later.
They were wrong.
Rose has gone about his NBA career by scoring almost at will and by having a big impact on the shooters around him.
He's leading all rookies in assists per game and efficiency, second in points per game, and 13th in rebounds despite playing the point guard position, which usually doesn't see players have a lot of rebounds.
But Rose has done something that Beasley has failed to do, Rose has energized the city of Chicago, and he has made us think that the Bulls might still be able to pull a season out of what has happened so far.
Sure, he'll have the occasional bad game (1-8 shooting, 6 pts, 1 ast, 0 reb in 30 minutes against the Trailblazers) but he has those amazing games where he will floor you with his athleticism (25 pts, 9 asts the next night against the Warriors).
His ability to penetrate and score have been amazing and he has been good more than he has been bad (just one game with under 10 points but seven games with more than 20).
The best thing about Rose has been his ability to stay out of trouble. He had four fouls in just two games, three fouls in two more, and has kept his foul number below three in the other 12 games.
We love knowing that he is always at our disposal and that he will rarely foul out of a game.
We also love that we have already found him a back-court friend that can maximize his ability. Rose and Ben Gordon have been a force when both are on the court at the same time.
They work together in ways that, if they grow together, will make Chicago fans salivate at the sight of them together.
There were worries that Rose was also not a great shooter, but he has been able to shoot better than OJ Mayo, who was the person thought to be the shooter coming out of college (Rose is shooting .484, Mayo is shooting .461).
Most of all, I love the potential. Every reliable source has said that he would need a learning curve heading into the NBA, but his ability has been far and away above every other rookie.
And he is making Michael Beasley just look silly.
I'm Joe W.
Information for this article was taken from ESPN.com and NBA.com.
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about 1 month ago
Comparing Rose and Beasley is just silly. Rose has gotten pretty lucky with injuries to Kirk and Larry, which has bumped his playing time up.
I think the question coming in was OJ Mayo vs. Rose. The Bulls couldn't have drafted Beasley with the crazy amount of PF they already have
Anyways..
Player G GS MPG FG% 3p% FT% OFF DEF TOT APG SPG BPG TO PF PPG
OJ MAYO 16 16 39.1 .461 .380 .887 .90 3.60 4.50 2.3 .69 .06 2.56 2.20 21.4
Derrick Rose 16 16 37.8 .484 .368 .847 1.10 3.00 4.10 5.8 1.00 .19 2.75 1.60 18.4
This one will get close. Memphis has a bunch of iffy PG, so Mayo's assists could go up.
and using FG% to determine who is a better shooter leaves out 3% and FT%
from about 1 month ago
The Bulls have a lot of people at every position, at PG they already had Thabo and Kirk who are both average PG's. Rose is an upgrade, but everybody was saying before the draft that Beasley was more NBA ready and Rose has shown that he fits that bill more than Beasley does, which prompted this article.
about 1 month ago
o.j. mayo is by far the better shooter. he has a lower, but not substantially lower, FG% because he has been
taking 4.9 threes a game compared to rose's 1.2, although mayo is hitting more of them as well (38% from 3 vs. rose's 36.8%). rose is a scorer; he's able to take a lot of high percentage shots around the basket because his world-class speed lets him get there. mayo doesnt have that, so he counts on his dead-eye shooting. if anything, we should be impressed that he's shooting even better and scoring more in the pros than he was in college (44.2 FG% and 20.7 ppg) where he faced much weaker competition.
they both carry quite a bit of their teams' offenses when on the court (rose's usage rate is 22.1% while mayo's is 22.9%), but mayo will continue splitting top option billing with rudy gay, while rose will probably get more rest when hinrich is healthy. at this point, there is no doubt rose's speed and playmaking make him the better prospect. but hey, if he never develops a jump shot, he's only going to be able to bank on that speed to score for about another ... oh, 12 years? :P
as to your original topic, though, yes, rose flat out has been outperforming beasley even now and most likely will in the future. that was the great debate before the draft, and rose has answered it. we all expected beasley to be the more productive player now, but i guess no one expected his defense to be this awful.
about 1 month ago
This is no criticism of Derrick Rose - man his sick. But clearly, OJ Mayo is the better SHOOTER. Rose is a solid scorer though, no doubt about it. Actually, I think it's already been harped upon above, but OJ takes far more 3's than Derrick, and is still at 46% for the season.
As far as being NBA ready, OJ seems to be the guy who was really slept on. Just to keep it clear though, I'm not saying OJ's better than Rose, or Beasley for that matter, but heck, who saw this coming from OJ?
In any case, Derrick Rose is killing it. He's exciting to watch. I wonder how long his knees will hold up. I don't get a chance to see the Bulls too often, but highlights I've seen of the kid are nuts, the way he stops on a dime at full speed and the way he makes those cuts. His knees are taking a beating. I hear he's got tendinitis issues. I'm lookin' forward to the OJ-Rose matchups in the future (although they probably won't be guarding each other).
about 1 month ago
I think Beasley was more ready for the NBA than Rose. The things Beasley needed to improve upon in his game he could not discover/do in college. Although Rose may have been more NBA Ready, Rose could have benefited more from another year in school too. Beasley could have went for 30 and 20 for the next 3 years at K state and not improved upon his game at all.
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