Minnesota Timberwolves: 3 reasons why Derrick Rose will win Most Improved Player of the Year
By Trey Flynn
For Derrick Rose to succeed, Tom Thibodeau will have to decide how to divvy up his minutes. This will be an understandably difficult task because Derrick Rose cannot play shooting guard, and back up point guard Tyus Jones was promised minutes for next season.
Sporting News details why Jones didn’t follow through with a trade request at the end of this past season:
"Via, Bleacher Report “Sources told Sporting News that Jones met with team management after the playoffs, and Thibodeau reasserted his support of Jones and his development. Even if the Wolves re-sign [Derrick] Rose, Jones was assured his minutes and opportunities would increase because [Jamal] Crawford is not expected to return to the team.”"
With Tyus Jones being a Minnesota favorite – much more than Derrick Rose – Thibodeau won’t be able to deplete any of Jones’ minutes this season without a fan revolt.
A backcourt of Jones and Rose was often used in the playoffs for Minnesota and didn’t prove to have much chemistry, especially with Crawford at the wing chucking up three’s.
Hoping that Josh Okogie or Keita Bates-Diop can come in at the wing to help Anthony Tolliver and Gorgui Dieng as players off the bench, a switch of Rose and Jones at the two guard positions could potentially work if both players worked on it.
I do have a feeling that Jeff Teague may be the one to lose minutes out of all these players, he was extremely unreliable in the playoffs and lost a lot of his minutes to Derrick Rose who seemed to be on fire against the Houston Rockets.
As shown above, summarizing Derrick Rose’s short playoff stint with Minnesota is saddening and happily surprising at the same time.
It can be worrisome because Minnesota saw their three best players – Jimmy Butler, Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins – literally fall apart. Rose was second to Taj Gibson in field goal percentage (51%), first from three (70%), and first from the charity stripe (86%).
Rose averaged 14.2 points per game, while the Wolves best scorer – Jimmy Butler – averaged 15.8 points per game. Rose was second to only Taj Gibson in true shooting percentage, and effective field goal percentage, also leading the team in real defensive plus/minus.
Derrick Rose did all of this while playing the 7th most minutes on the Timberwolves lineup, right behind Jamal Crawford. Only averaging 23 minutes a game and putting on a show, exemplifying the fact that you can’t teach clutch.
While the Timberwolves did indeed lose 4-1 against the Houston Rockets, they go into next season realizing that Derrick Rose may be their 4th best option.
And literally no one is talking about Rose in that way. It’s up to Thibodeau to give Derrick Rose his 20 plus minutes per game in order for the Wolves to get back to the playoffs and subsequently helping Rose win the Most Improved Player of the Year award.
Our last reason for this award is a little out of Rose’s hands, but it still proves to be true.