NBA legend Isiah Thomas is not surprised that Derrick Rose was the best player of the Detroit Pistons this season.
The legend of the Pistons believes Rose ‘fits what Detroit is all about’.
“I wasn’t surprised. The problem is that he had set the bar so high as the MVP at 19, and then after the knee injury, everybody wondered whether he could get back to that. He was the only person who was ever that.
Can he get back to where nobody else was? In the three or four years after his injuries, he was still giving you 18 (points) and 5 (assists); it wasn’t like he was a scrub.
I thought Detroit would like him and embrace him and vice versa because his game fits Detroit. I’m not surprised at the season he had and the professionalism he exhibited. He was playing hard, not taking nights off and playing all hard minutes.
That last Phoenix game (a season-high 31 points on Feb. 28), that was about as beautiful as we’ve seen any guard play this year. He fits what Detroit is all about. You want young players around him,” Thomas said about Rose in an interview with Rod Beard of The Detroit News.
Rose was averaging 18.1 points, 2.4 rebounds and 5.6 assists in 50 games for the Pistons prior to the NBA suspension.
