John Salmons will be a better fantasy player than Derrick Rose: Clearly Rose is the better and more dynamic player however this is for fantasy purposes.
Player A: 18.3 points, 4.3 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 1.9 threes,1 steal, 47% from field, 84% from foul line
Player B: 16.8 points, 3.9 rebounds, 6.3 assists, 0.2 threes, .8 steals, 47% from field, 78% from foul line
Player A is John Salmons. He came to the Bulls via trade and played in 26 regular season games for them. Rose should elevate his game with Ben Gordon off the team but so should Salmons. Rose could be selected in rounds 2-3 while Salmons is going much later.
Sophomore projections -
How will the top 20 sophomores rank this season?
2009-10 Projected Sophomore Rankings
1. Brook Lopez - How good is Lopez? We're about to find out. By trading Vince Carter in the offseason, the Nets made a subtle statement that they think Lopez can make enough of an offensive impact to be an effective second scoring option. Not only did Lopez rank 2nd among rookies in fantasy production, but he was 9th among all center-eligible players. Expect him to make as big a fantasy impact this season as any of the sophomores.
2. Derrick Rose - Rose took home Rookie of the Year honors, but he has some work to do to improve his fantasy status. From all indications, it seems like he has done just that this summer. Rose focused on his perimeter jumper this offseason, and those 16 three-pointers he hit last year could quadruple. He should also benefit from John Salmons replacing Ben Gordon at shooting guard. Gordon often dominated the ball stealing assist opportunities from Rose.
Media day questions -
Questions I'd like to have answered:
What positions are really up for grabs in the starting lineup? The answer will probably be all of them, but the reality is that there's probably only a couple. I"m most interested to find out if Luol Deng is healthy, is he a lock to start or could Salmons and Hinrich start? Also, would we consider playing Joakim and Tyrus together in the starting lineup?
Derrick, what have you been doing this off-season? The biggest leaps you see out of a player aer between years 1-3. So if Derrick is to become a superstar then we should see significant improvement this season. I'm sure he's worked on many things in his game, but the biggest things that would add improvement are better defense, better foul drawing, better court vision, and perhaps a three point shot (though I'm not as gung-ho on the three as most fans). I really want to know where Derrick expects to have made the largest strides. I expect he'll be asked, and i expect he'll say everywhere.
Breakout season predictions -
Chicago Bulls
Ask yourself this: When will Derrick Rose average 20ppg, 10apg, 5rpg? Maybe this season.
Tyrus Thomas has shown flashes of brilliance and flashes of … uh … not so brilliant plays but one of these days he will turn into a double double with a couple bpg. Perhaps this season.
The Bulls invested a lot in Luol Deng and have received very little in return. He averaged 22ppg and nearly 9rpg two playoffs ago and the Bulls would love to see those numbers this regular season.
Joakim Noah can thank Kendrick Perkins for lighting a fire under him as the Celtic big bullied him the entire epic series. His playoff numbers were incredible and he should see an increase in production across the board.
Rough end-of-summer in Chi -
Seriously, how bad were the past couple months?
The Sox tanked. Ditto the Cubbies, who now face a possible Milton Bradley grievance from the Player’s Union.
Adam Burrish’s torn ACL represents the latest news out of Blackhawks camp.
The Illini opened 2009 with a 37-9 shellacking from Mizzou; Northwestern lost to Syracuse and this guy last week.
The Bulls? How about the utter demystification of their franchise face? Here’s a rundown of Derrick Rose’s summer: Leaked gang sign photo, high school academic fraud (at CPS’s own Simeon High!) and the SAT cheating fiasco. I repeat: The brains directing the Bulls attack couldn’t pass the SAT legally.
D-Rose interview with SI -
Hard to top a debut like the one Derrick Rose had. The first overall pick in the 2008 NBA draft, Rose quietly racked up the accolades -- Rookie of the Year, First Team All-Rookie -- while (though he may tell you otherwise) serving as commander-in-chief of the Chicago Bulls. After a year spent away from his South Side hometown to play at Memphis, Rose's return, and ensuing feats, was enough to challenge even President Barack Obama's celebrity in the Windy City.
With training camps about two weeks away, Rose found some spare time recently to whoop a video-game-challenged producer in a round of NBA 2K10 and to speak about his first year in the pros, the Bulls' memorable seven-game playoff loss to the Celtics and, as the spokesman for 2K Sports' latest virtual hoops game, his love of video games.
SI.com: Do you feel any pressure by playing for your hometown team?
Derrick Rose: A little, but as a player, you want pressure. If you don't have pressure, there's no point in you playing. I want pressure when I'm playing. It makes me perform a little bit better.
Rose and supporting cast -
The last we saw of the Bulls, they were walking off the court in Boston after the Game 7 playoff loss to the Celtics back in May. But despite the disappointment of losing in the first round, there was an aura of optimism around the team that night because of the gritty play of the young Bulls throughout the series.
If the roster were kept intact (with a few tweaks here and there), many believed the Bulls were capable of stepping up a level. Of course, things didn't quite work out that way this summer.
Leading scorer Ben Gordon, who averaged 24.3 points in the playoffs against the Celtics, left via free agency, and the Bulls really made no significant additions, save for the drafting of forwards James Johnson and Taj Gibson.
Still, with training camp set to begin today, many in the organization believe stepping up a level remains a possibility -- if a few of the youngsters continue to grow.
6 teams with roster questions -
Bulls shooting guard: Letting your leading scorer walk out the door in order to squirrel away cap space for a free-agent plunge a summer away might make sense from a general manager's point of view. But losing a clutch shooter such as Ben Gordon -- to the division rival Pistons, no less -- won't make life any easier for the Bulls, who were hoping to ride the momentum of their thrill-a-minute playoff series with Boston to a 50-win season. Now second-year coach Vinny Del Negro must rebuild his offense without that 20.7-point-per-game scorer, whose 41 percent accuracy from the three-point line helped Chicago hide its lack of a consistent scoring threat in the post.
Del Negro will win some fans in the locker room, particularly Derrick Rose and Luol Deng, when he asks them to assume Gordon's share of the shots, but Chicago's offense just got a lot more vanilla. John Salmons and free-agent pickup Jannero Pargo will bring a more physical defensive presence to the position, which isn't saying much, and the Bulls hope the seven-year veteran Salmons can back up his best year (he averaged 18.3 points with Sacramento and Chicago last season, 11 more than his career mark entering 2008-09). Look for the Bulls to experiment with pairing point guards Rose and Kirk Hinrich whenever matchups allow.
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