Getty Derrick Rose, potential Pistons trade chip
Derrick Rose is a hero to retired NBA vet Kenny Anderson.
“Derrick Rose is one of the top guards that ever played the game,” Anderson told me on the Heavy Live With Scoop B Show.
“He won MVP in his third year and I loved his game in Chicago and I will always love his game.”
Rose has played efficient basketball this season. The youngest MVP in NBA history and former three-time NBA All-Star averaged 18.1 points, 2.4 rebounds and 5.6 assists in 50 games for the Detroit Pistons.
He also shot 49.0 percent from the floor, 30.6 percent from beyond the arc and 87.1 percent from the free-throw line.
A former number one overall pick by his hometown Chicago Bulls in the 2008 NBA Draft by way of the University of Memphis, Rose suffered multiple ACL and MCL injuries that changed the trajectory of everything imaginable.
After his Bulls heyday, Rose also played for the New York Knicks, Cleveland Cavaliers and Minnesota Timberwolves.
Rose began making strides during the 2018 NBA Playoffs as a member of the Timberwolves. The point guard averaged 14 points per game coming off the bench for Minnesota and shot an impressive 50.9 percent from the field while shooting 70 percent from downtown. “Coming back from his injury he played extremely well in Minnesota,” said Kenny Anderson
“And he played well in Detroit so, the sky’s the limit for him. He can still push a team, but I’m not sure with the injuries and things and guys coming in, will he find a starting spot or come off the bench? That’s what he would have to look forward to I would think; he’s a great player, but the injuries will take a toll.”
High praise from Kenny Anderson.
An Archbishop Molloy High School and Georgia Tech legend, Kenny Anderson was the New Jersey Nets’ second overall pick in the 1991 NBA Draft. During his days in New Jersey he played with Derrick Coleman and the late Drazen Petrovic under late head coach Chuck Daly.
Anderson would last five years with the Nets before he’d become an NBA journeyman in stints with the Charlotte Hornets, Portland Trail Blazers, Boston Celtics, Seattle SuperSonics, New Orleans Hornets, Indiana Pacers, Atlanta Hawks and the Los Angeles Clippers.
Anderson ended his basketball career in 2006 after an overseas stint with Lithuania’s Žalgiris Kaunas.
Currently he coaches college basketball at Fisk Univerity in Tennessee.
GettyDerrick Rose #25 of the Detroit Pistons.
For those keeping score at home: Derrick Rose has undergone four knee surgeries in his career and yet he’s still one of the best players in the league.
“I hate that he got hurt,” NBA Hall of Famer, Isiah Thomas told me on the Heavy Live With Scoop B Show last month.
“Because coming out of Chicago and then playing for the Chicago Bulls and then being the youngest MVP and having the type of success that he was having, and then the humility and humbleness that he’s always carried himself with…that’s Chicago. And when he got hurt and he was bouncing around the league, I was so happy that he got to Detroit because now I can not only bond with him, but I knew that we had a fan base that would accept Derrick Rose as a person and appreciate (key word: appreciate) the type of player that they were getting in the latter stages of his basketball career.”
“He looks like himself without the ultra-athleticism,” retired NBA legend Stephon Marbury told me of Rose.
“But everything is intact. His short mid-range pull up, his floaters, his left hand and right hand, his speed to the basket, using his first step – getting guys to go lateral while he’s in the continuance of going forward with his herky-jerky moves…he’s just doing the things that he normally does. I think he’s a lot more mature with his game, he has his style, he knows his style and he understands where he wants to go on the court.”
Brooklyn Nets guard, Jamal Crawford called him a Hall of Famer. “I’m like his biggest fan to be honest with you,” Crawford told Scoop B Radio.
“I love watching him.”
“He’s explosive in a different way now,” Miami Heat icon Dwyane Wade told me.
“He plays the game with so much smarts and his pace is incredible. He’s explosive underneath the basket just as good as he was above he still has a lot left in the tank.”