What, you didn’t think Derrick Rose was kidding about the New York Knicks being a superteam, did you?
Rose ruffled a lot of feathers and shattered the boundaries of conventional wisdom when he identified the Knicks and the Golden State Warriors as the most talked-about superteams. We all got a good laugh out of it. Surely he misspoke. Or maybe his words were taking out of context.
Or maybe he really meant it.
Yep, it’s the latter.
While doing an interview during his visit to South Korea, Rose stood by his previous superteam comments (h/t BallIsLife.com):
I still believe that. Like I said, with that superteam term, you got to be very careful, I guess, if you’re in the United States. But I feel like if you’re on any team in the NBA—it doesn’t have to be the NBA; it could be on the college level, high school level—you should believe in yourself and have the confidence in yourself that you’re playing on a superteam. So I have a lot of confidence, and I’m not taking that back.
As an added bonus, Rose identified Kevin Seraphin as a member of the Knicks, when he is not a member of the Knicks. Good times.
Look, there’s nothing wrong with being confident in your team and your abilities. But Rose’s initial classification of the Knicks is tone deaf. No one is calling them a superteam. They have players with flashy reputations, but a good chunk of their core—Carmelo Anthony, Joakim Noah and Rose himself—are at the back end of their primes. It’s impossible to forge a superteam under those circumstances.
There is no conceivable way that changes, either. The Knicks would have to hit on every what-if leading into next season. Rose will have to return to 2010-11 form. Joakim Noah will have to play like he did in 2011. Kristaps Porzingis will have to find a way to develop alongside a group of running mates who take the ball out of his hands. Brandon Jennings will need to have the best season of his career. Same goes for Lance Thomas, and a bunch of other Knicks players.
Rose’s logic here just doesn’t pan out. And, truthfully, neither he nor the Knicks can afford to worry about actualizing misplaced superteam expectations. They’ll have their hands full merely trying to make the playoffs.
