Derrick Rose was the best player for the Detroit Pistons this season prior to play being suspended due to COVID-19, and NBA legend Isiah Thomas wasn't surprised at all.
Despite undergoing four knee surgeries, Rose is still one of the fastest players in the league, and he showed his scoring skills and athleticism for the Pistons in every game in 2019-20.
Thomas, a Chicago native who starred for the rival Pistons like Rose is doing now, says D-Rose “fits what Detroit is all about.”
“I wasn’t surprised. The problem is that he had set the bar so high as the MVP at 19, and then after the knee injury, everybody wondered whether he could get back to that. He was the only person who was ever that. Can he get back to where nobody else was? In the three or four years after his injuries, he was still giving you 18 (points) and 5 (assists); it wasn’t like he was a scrub,” Isiah Thomas said about the new Pistons guard in an interview with Rod Beard of The Detriot News.
“I thought Detroit would like him and embrace him and vice versa because his game fits Detroit. I’m not surprised at the season he had and the professionalism he exhibited. He was playing hard, not taking nights off and playing all hard minutes. That last Phoenix game (a season-high 31 points on Feb. 28), that was about as beautiful as we’ve seen any guard play this year. He fits what Detroit is all about. You want young players around him.”
Derrick Rose was averaging 18.1 points, 2.4 rebounds and 5.6 assists in 50 games for the Pistons before the 2019-20 season was suspended. The former Chicago Bulls superstar was shooting 49.0 percent from the floor, 30.6 percent from beyond the arc and 87.1 percent from the free-throw line.
The Pistons had an awful record of 20-46 before Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19. Detroit got a bunch of trade calls on Rose at the trade deadline, but they decided to keep Rose because they want to be competitive in 2020-21 when All-Star power forward Blake Griffin returns from his knee injury.
Rose, the youngest MVP in NBA history, has career averages of 18.8 points, 3.4 rebounds and 5.6 assists with the Bulls, New York Knicks, Cleveland Cavaliers, Minnesota Timberwolves and Pistons.
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