Adrian Wojnarowski is reporting that the Wizards are expected to sniff around Derrick Rose, now that he has been waived by the Utah Jazz. In a closely related story, I am going to be sick.
Derrick Rose is certainly one of the worst players in the NBA. He’s a worthless, calamitous defender; he absolutely cannot play alongside John Wall, under any circumstances; his only offensive utility is getting into the paint off the dribble, but he’s an inefficient scorer without any special passing vision; he would necessarily take minutes away from Tomas Satoransky, who is exactly nobody’s idea of a savior, but who defends well, passes well, doesn’t turn the ball over, and never, ever forces bad shots. No one who watched Rose play for the Cavs this season could possibly imagine a scenario where having him on the floor in your team’s jersey in an NBA game would be anything but a terrible disaster.
Before you go DURR Derrick Rose would smoke Tim Frazier in a game of one-on-one bro!!!, know that there is a difference between being the least talented player in the NBA and being the worst player in the NBA: at no point in his career was Kobe Bryant among the 200 least talented players in the NBA; during the final year of his career, when he was using 32 percent of Lakers possessions and producing sub-47-percent True Shooting, he was absolutely the worst player in the NBA, by a wide, wide margin, because he was doing the most damage to his team’s chances of winning. That is Derrick Rose. He has a reasonably quick first step, and he is reasonably comfortable rising up for tough, contested shots. He is also utterly incapable of playing anything even close to winning basketball, and that is that. The only way that he knows how to exist on an NBA floor is with a style of play that he is hilariously incapable of executing with any degree of efficiency.
Which is exactly how I know if there is any NBA general manager who will hear that Derrick Rose is available, picture him as a 22-year-old in a Bulls jersey, and immediately think that giving him the full midlevel exception to play as a fill-in starter for a team making a playoff push, it will be Wizards GM Ernie Grunfeld, beyond any doubt the most hopeless and overmatched GM in basketball. The Wizards are years into an annual tradition of signing the worst, least efficient backup point guards in basketball, and it is only right that this tradition should now include Rose. I will cry and puke and punch a hole in the wall when the Wizards sign him. I will hate them and myself and all of everything, forever.