I believe before giving up on Rose, you have to give him more time to play a more fitting role. I've seen enough of him to know he is not a true point guard. He's more of a shooting guard with point guard skills or a combo guard. He's a shoot first ball dominant type. He has great ability to get to the basket and finish. So what I'd do is play both of them together more often,
The main thing missing with Rose right now is his pick and roll partner. I think he's always played with rollers. He's used to Noah, Gibson and all those Bulls bigs setting him hard picks and rolling quickly. KP is more of a soft screen setter who plays like Dirk in those screen/roll situations and Rose is lost what to do. Jennings on the other hand doesn't wait or pause, he's insant with his decision making and goes straight for a play. He'll pass it to KP or an open shooter or take a shot himself.
To me I feel Rose has never played for a good coach on offense in the pros like Hornachek. He's become so accustomed to Thibs style, with Thibs just letting him run play after play, hold the ball on for long stretches, that Rose is still learning how to play in a different style. He keeps on looking for KP to roll, and KP should roll, but KP is also fantastic as staying out after the screen to keep the spacing and spreading the floor. Rose then has to make the pass right away to KP. He pauses. For whatever reason Rose is just not used to playing a high paced stretch offense, where guys are not rolling hard to the basket. He is expecting guys in the paint. The paint is there for him to make the drive. If he doesn't have a good look, he needs to kick it out. The ball needs to leave his hands sooner or the shot go up sooner. That's all it's about for Rose.
Defenitely Jennings is more of a natural fit in Hornachek's offense and playing with KP. That was evident in preseason. Rose has more scoring talent. You can't just dump and give up on Rose right now. What you do is go over the tape with him and show him how he's not making quick enough decisions. He's stalling. On KP's end, KP needs to roll harder at times. Rose and KP need to talk a ton about where they want to be once KP sets a screen.
If you look at Melo, I'm sure he saw the game against OKC on tape. Once he saw what he was doing, the next game he came out and played a completely different game. Less isolation, much quicker release of the ball. Hornachek wants guys to get quick good looks or move the ball. The thing with Melo and Rose is they are the two best shot creators on the team from the perimeter so they can hold on to the ball too long. That is what they have to work on this season. I give this team until the all-star break. If they're still hovering at .500 then that's just what they'll be and Melo/Rose are what they are. For now I want to see if we can get longer stretches of that great play I see at times.
12/1/2016 8:31 AM