Why Derrick Rose Doesn’t Look Like The Same Player

The numbers read 14.7 points, 4.5 assists (4.2 turnovers), 2.8 rebounds and 33 percent shooting (25 percent from deep); the second-highest usage rate of his career (30.6 percent) while having the lowest offensive rating of his career with 82 points per 100 plays (averaged 110 ORtg in his first four seasons) while contributing negative 0.3 win shares to his team. After all the hype, after all the commercials, after all the talk, this is what Derrick Rose has produced so far this season, a far cry from the superstar we were all accustomed to seeing… the only person to win MVP in the last five seasons besides LeBron James. Didn’t Rose sit out the entire season to avoid exactly what is happening? What is wrong with Rose, why aren’t things going as planned? Let’s discuss why Rose’s return is off to a slippery start, but also why fans in the Windy City shouldn’t overreact to Rose’s slow start.

The first part of diagnosing Rose’s struggles is to look at exactly where he is struggling. Let’s take a quick look at his shot chart from this season so far:

Rose is only shooting 33 percent so far this season, which is extremely low for a player that has shot 46 percent for his career. Rose has never been a solid three-point shooter, but it is something he has worked on throughout his young career. His 25 percent shooting from deep this season can be misleading, however. As shown on this shot chart, Rose is shooting 43 percent from the right corner, center and left wing combined, which is a solid percentage (not counting that midcourt heave). However, Rose has missed all of his nine attempts from the right wing, which has severely taken down his percentage. Before I discuss anything further, I want to pull up a shot chart from Rose’s last full season in 2011-2012.

To stay with the three-point shooting, Rose has never been accurate from the right wing, so while his 0-9 mark this season is disappointing, it’s not a big concern considering he only shot 29.3 percent from the right wing in 2011-2012. Rose is only a 31 percent shooter lifetime from deep, so his poor three-point shooting shouldn’t be too alarming.

However, there is one huge thing that jumped out at me when I was dissecting these charts. When I think about Derrick Rose as a player, I imagine a fearless player that charges to the rack with reckless abandon, but with an extraordinary ability to finish at the rim. When looking at his shot chart from this year, I noticed that Rose is only finishing 38.5 percent of his attempts at the rim, which his a serious regression from his 55 percent shooting at the rim in the 2011-2012 season. So, why is Rose’s finishing ability down almost 20 percent since his last full season in 2011-2012? Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau has a hunch (via The Chicago Sun-Times): “I’ll say this: I don’t know of anyone who drives as hard as he does. Nor as fast as he does. And I think sometimes he’s penalized for being a nice guy. I’ll leave it at that.”

Basically, Thibodeau is attributing Rose’s apparent weakness at finishing this season to the guys in the zebra striped shirts. Well, this substance may have some sauce to it. Rose has been to the line a total of 20 times this season (making 18), averaging about 3.3 attempts per game while fellow “nice” guys like Kevin Love and Kevin Durant have been to the line 49 and 70 times respectively. Rose may not be getting the “superstar” calls he’s accustomed too, but there’s no way I’m buying this as the reason Rose’s finishing ability has dropped. I’ve refereed basketball personally for a few years and it’s extremely easy to tell the difference between a player getting fouled and a player that drives to the rim recklessly that creates contact on his own.

Simply, Rose is pressing — a lot. Anyone that has watched Rose this season can see this. On numerous occasions Rose has charged to the basket 1-on-3 or 1-on-4, to no avail and without a foul call. Rose wants to be great and no one can hate on him for that, but it will take time to become adjusted to the speed of an NBA game again. No amount of practices or drills can compare to the rigors of a full 48-minute game and this is exactly what we see Derrick Rose going through every night. Maybe the most evident part of this was when Norris Cole left Derrick Rose on the floor during his first game back in over a year from his torn ACL:

Keep reading to read how Rose will turn it around…

Rose had more patience than any of us with his return and he will have to have even more patience with himself as he works through this difficult start to the season. But, how good will Derrick Rose be this year? Let’s look at some other guards who suffered serious injuries and how their return went.

Jamal Crawford suffered a torn ACL, just like Derrick Rose, in the exact same Chicago Bulls uniform in 2001. Yup, the same Jamal Crawford that averaged 16.5 points per game last season on 44 percent shooting. Crawford missed 59 games because of his ACL tear in 2001, but came back to play 80 games the following season. Crawford is still playing at an extremely high level, 12 years after his ACL tear (averaging 16.6 points this season on 49 percent shooting). As you can see, Crawford made quite the recovery from his injury. Crawford had the following to say about ACL tears (via Bleacher Report): “After surgery, you start rehab and start to see some progressions. You get a little more confident as it goes along. And then the last stage is the mental part: ‘Can I still do that move? Can I still do that cut?’ The actual leg you injure ends up being stronger than the leg that’s not injured. But you don’t believe that at first. You’re scared. You doubt.”

Crawford gives us some insight about what Rose went through with his recovery. Crawford discusses the mental part, which is the main reason Rose sat out all of last season. Crawford was able to successfully recover from an ACL tear in the same uniform that Derrick Rose wears, which should send some hope over to the Windy City that things will be alright.

Some of you might remember when Iman Shumpert tore his ACL in the first round of the playoffs on April 12, 2012. The same day Derrick Rose did. Shumpert returned roughly eight months after his tear on January 17, scoring eight points in 15 minutes against the Pistons. However, this video more accurately describes how Shumpert recovered from his ACL tear:

I’d say all his bounce was back about after that putback slam. Shumpert only averaged 6.8 points in 45 regular season games after his return in January, but improved his statistics to 9.3 points and 6.0 boards in the playoffs. A few games into this season, Shump is averaging 9.5 points and 4.7 rebounds in 30 minutes per game. Iman Shumpert is nowhere near the player Derrick Rose is, but it’s interesting to look at his return since they tore their ACLs on the same exact day. Shumpert also caused a lot of criticism to be fired at Rose, since Shump came back only eight months after his tear — whereas Rose came back over a year later. Shumpert suffered a lot of setbacks after his return, maybe proving that Rose made the right decision by not rushing to come back. We can only ponder how Rose would be performing right now if he came back last season, but Shumpert’s rocky road back should prove that Rose made the right decision.

What will “The Return” look like when the season is all said and done?

Derrick Rose will be everything he promised to be — in due time. Let’s be practical, Rose tore his ACL. An ACL tear means that a knee ligament that was holding the upper leg bone to the lower leg bone was torn apart. I don’t care how fast athletes rush back nowadays, an ACL tear is still one of the most crippling injuries and one of the hardest to recover from. No matter how long he took to come back, it will always take a certain amount of time to adjust to the speed of the NBA. He’s struggling a little bit right now, but it will all come around. The NBA season is 82 games long for a reason and we’re all overreacting after a few weeks of irrelevant games. Of course we all wanted Rose to come out and shoot 50 percent from the field while scoring 25 points a game, but everything isn’t always a bunch of roses. This is reality and no one should have expected Rose to dominate right off the bat.

Expect Rose to increase his play week-by-week and be in the MVP race by the time this season’s winding down. I’m not concerned about Rose at all. By season’s end, everyone will be forgetting about how he started the season and be amazed at how he finishes it.

What’s wrong with Derrick Rose?

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