Derrick Rose thinks the New York Knicks are a super team, and in turn, the NBA has ordered a drug testing kit be sent to Madison Square Garden.
No, seriously. He actually said this.
“I mean, with these teams right now, they’re saying us and Golden State are the super teams, and they’re trying not to build that many super teams, and Adam Silver came out with the statement and this and that. And the expectations I think of us, we just want to win.”
Let’s run down a quick list of teams with better rosters than the Knicks, stable organizations who wouldn’t dare call themselves a super team: the Spurs, Clippers, Pacers, Celtics and you could argue the Raptors, Blazers, Thunder (they’re still pretty damn good) and possibly the pesky Timberwolves could end up with more wins than the Knicks this season.
LeBron James and Kyrie Irving’s Cavs’ aren’t even deemed a super team anymore because Kevin Love turned into a traditional role player instead of the superstar they expected. The Warriors have formed a super team, but they haven’t won anything yet. You get the privilege of calling yourself a super team when individuals on that team have already won a championship. Rose, nor any of his Knicks teammates, have ever played in an NBA Finals.
Rose is sadly caught up in the desperate shopping spree Phil Jackson went on this summer to bail himself out of misery. The 70-year-old has gone from the most legendary coach in basketball history, to a punchline of an executive with no clue what he’s doing. Jeff Hornacek marks the franchise’s third head coach in three seasons, a span in which New York averaged 29.6 wins per season. Running the Knicks has been a nightmare so far and Jackson decided he’d rather scrape together a flawed playoff team than wait around to build a championship contender.
Don’t get me wrong, the Knicks are much improved. They’ll be entertaining to watch this season, for the first time since Linsanity. Rose, Courtney Lee, Carmelo Anthony, Kristaps Porzingis and Joakim Noah is a scrappy starting five with potential. If they stay healthy, they should finish in the top half of the Eastern Conference.
But the same problem is going to happen to Rose this spring, just as it happened to his Chicago Bulls in 2011: He’s going to run into LeBron. The King has been to six straight NBA Finals, and now that he’s puffed the cigar, hosted a parade in Cleveland and can tackle an actual super team in Golden State — furthering his already astonishing legacy — a hodgepodge Knicks squad of yesteryear’s stars probably has James cackling at Rose’s comments.
Let’s start with Rose himself, whose MVP award from 2011 happened before players like Draymond Green and Damian Lillard were even in the NBA. Rose has played an average of 41.5 games over the last four seasons, never developed a three-point shot and arguably lost his explosiveness due to injuries. Any GM would take Steph Curry, Russell Westbrook, Chris Paul, Lillard, Irving, John Wall, Kyle Lowry and maybe even Mike Conley, Kemba Walker and Jeff Teague over Rose. He’s a terrific ball handler and can finish at the rim, but outside of that, there’s a lot of winning functions missing from his game as a point guard.
Carmelo is entering his 14th NBA season, and he’s averaged at least 20.8 points in all of those seasons. That’s an incredible statistic. When he was at his athletic peak in Denver, you could make a Conference Finals with Melo as your best player. The question becomes is this 32-year-old really willing to sacrifice his shots? Because if he’s hogging the ball, the Knicks are in trouble. Carmelo’s averaged 20.3 shots the last four seasons and infamously grumbled to the media when Jeremy Lin was stealing his shine back in 2012. Attitude and a desire to win have been narratives this star player has never been able to shake. The Knicks will go further if Anthony’s touches are properly divvied up with Porzingis.
Ah, yes. Kristaps. The 20-year-old is the reason Rose would even mutter something like super team out of his mouth. Last season’s 14.3 points and 7.3 rebounds per game don’t paint the full picture of one of the NBA’s best young stars. In the small ball era, Porzingis has shown the ability to play both small forward and center, to both shoot 3s and pass with precision. He can run the floor, defend and ignite the Madison Square Garden crowd. If there’s one thing Jackson has done right in the Big Apple, it’s picking the 7-foot-3 Latvian sensation No. 4 overall last year.
The Knicks are not a super team. Hell, they are not even a championship contender. They are a new set of new dramatic characters who will finally put watchable basketball in one of the world’s largest cities.
Talk is cheap, especially coming from Rose. Because if he’s playing poorly like he did the last few seasons in Chicago, the New York Post is going to eat him alive with headlines.