With Isaiah Thomas expected to miss the start of the season due to his ongoing hip issue, the Cleveland Cavaliers are set to turn to Derrick Rose to fill the void at starting point guard. And if reports out of the Cavs camp are to be believed, the former MVP looks like he might be stepping up to the challenge.
According to ESPN’s Dave McMenamin on a recent appearance on “The Jump,” Rose has been “killing it” during some of the team’s offseason workouts.
The panel was quick to take these reports with a grain of salt, citing that the quality of opponents Rose was likely playing against in these scrimmages wasn’t of the highest level. There may also be possible ulterior motives for some people wanting to talk Rose up.
Moreover, there are still some significant question marks as to how well Rose will fit with LeBron given that James does dominate the ball and that Rose likely won’t be anywhere near as productive without the ball as he is with it.
McMenamin and Brian Windhorst did raise a decent point, though, that there might be a lot more motivation, not only for Rose, but for the rest of the Cavs team to perform better without Kyrie Irving, especially at the start of the season.
Even if Rose doesn’t necessarily set the world on fire as he has allegedly been doing in the workouts, if this motivating factor does spread all over the team, then it bodes well for the Cavs’ prospects of being just fine without Thomas.