New York Knicks Lose Key Piece at Worst Time Imaginable

The New York Knicks got some very bad news on the night of December 22. This news was that point guard Derrick Rose will be missing at least eight weeks after receiving ankle surgery.

There’s never a good time to get news like that, but it’s hard to imagine this coming at a worse time for the team after they find themselves sitting three games under .500 and on the outside looking in on the playoff race in the east.

Kemba Walker had already been removed from the rotation thanks to his horrendous +/- stat, but he now finds himself back into the fold, something Knicks likely didn’t want to do.

However, with more and more players going out to COVID protocols, and now the Rose injury, there isn’t much of a choice.

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Rose to Miss 2 Months

Rose was already nursing an ankle injury and missed the last several games, but fans likely didn’t expect a surgery forcing him to miss at least two months was in the cards.

There’s an argument that can be made that Rose is the team’s most important piece as his shooting splits are good, he finds himself in the closing lineup in most games, and the team is much better when he’s on the floor versus when he’s off.

Despite devastating injuries to begin his career, Rose has still carved out quite the resume for himself and has completely reinvented his style to be less athletic and more crafty.

Now the team will have to see how Walker looks leading the offense yet again, but he didn’t exactly prove he could do that before he was bench, so it’ll be interested to see if anything changed.

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Not All Bad News

While the loss of Derrick Rose is a huge blow to the team, the Knicks did get a big of good news with Obi Tobbin coming back and being available for the game against the Wizards on Thursday.

Obviously, he doesn’t play as big of a role with the team as Rose does, but the Knicks will take anything they can get at this point.

However, there’s a concerning trend being seen that even at full power, the roster as it’s currently built just doesn’t have enough firepower to compete in the suddenly deep Eastern Conference. It looked like the team made some big upgrades in the offseason, at least on paper, but that just hasn’t panned out on the court.

With the loss of Rose for two months, there’s a chance that the Knicks could find themselves competing for a top lottery pick now more than anything. That would definitely be bad news for fans who were expecting another playoff run, but that could be the way these dominoes fall for the remainder of the season.

There’s still plenty of time for the Knicks to get things turned around, but they’ll need to find the talent to do it. Losing Rose is not the way for that to happen, but stranger things have happened in the NBA.

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