Dear John Paxon,
I was planning on writing a letter to you even before I came across Scoop Jackson's letter on Page 2 of ESPN. At that point, I knew for sure that this letter was a necessary one.
Scoop told you to take Michael Beasley. To that, I'm telling you to just say no. Take Rose.
They will both be perennial all-stars, there's no doubt about that. But there will be plenty of other Michael Beasleys throughout the NBA during his career. He is a physical specimen at 6'10" and 235 pounds, but the NBA is all about physical specimens at this point. Beasley has nothing that Dwight Howard doesn't — except for a long-range shooting touch. Of course, that's something Beasley won't be asked to do much of, whether he is on your team or somewhere else.
I'm not going to try to belittle Beasley's freshman season at Kansas State, because it was unbelievable. Nobody can deny that. You can't argue with 26.2 points and 12.2 rebounds per game, not to mention 1.6 blocked shots. But what did Beasley do for the Wildcats other than garner media attention? He delivered a pedestrian 10-6, third-place finish in the Big 12 capped off with a disappointing second-round NCAA tournament loss to Wisconsin.
I know this isn't a perfect analogy, but Carmelo Anthony almost single-handedly took his Syracuse Orangemen to the 2003 National Championship when he was a freshman. Sure, all Beasley had to work with was fellow diaper dandy Bill Walker, but it's not like 'Melo's 2003 club was loaded with talent around him. Beasley and the 'Cats didn't just lose to Wisconsin in round two; they got pummeled. Pummeled by a Wisconsin squad that got absolutely manhandled by the Davidson Wildcats in the Sweet 16.
Say what you will about physical specimens, but I prefer winners. That's what Derrick Rose is. He didn't have the same gaudy numbers because he played on a team loaded with NBA talent, but he did a little bit of everything with 14.9 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 4.7 assists per game. His real value to Memphis, however, can only be measured in the difference between how the Tigers looked when he was on the court and how they looked when he was on the bench.
It's not unlike the differences in the New Orleans Hornets without Chris Paul and the Utah Jazz without Deron Williams. Which naturally brings me to my next point. How can you look at Paul and Williams and not already start kicking yourself for merely considering saying no to Rose? You don't want to be the Atlanta Hawks, do you?
There's no doubt in my mind the Hawks would be one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference with Chris Paul at the helm and it would be very easy to make an argument that they would be the best. Paul surrounded by Joe Johnson, Josh Smith, Josh Childress, and Al Horford? Yes, please.
You surrounding components to Rose might not be quite as good, but they are at the very least serviceable. Luol Deng and Ben Gordon both have great potential, Andreas Nocioni is a nice compliment at small forward, Tyrus Thomas is only going to get better, and the jury is still out on Joakim Noah, but he probably would have been the No. 1 pick in the 2006 draft if he had left after Florida's first national championship. None of those guys, however, has lived up to their true potential.
Why? Well, perhaps it's because Derrick Rose is the key to unlock said potential, and he has not been available until now. Kirk Hinrich has turned out to be a great player, but he is individually great. Does he make every single player he plays with better, like Paul and Williams do? No sir.
Neither does Chris Duhon, and that's why while point guard is far from a "need" area on your team, you still "need" Derrick Rose. Of course, that brings us to one final point, which is that needs need not apply when you have the No. 1 pick in the draft. When you have the No. 1 pick in the draft, you don't draft a player based on at which positions your team is lacking. You do that when you have a pick that's either at the bottom of the lottery or not in the lottery at all. When you have the No. 1 pick, you draft who you think is going to change the course of your franchise and deliver NBA titles to you sooner rather than later.
I think that is Derrick Rose. Do you?
In conclusion, John, I watched you take and hit so many huge jumpers during the first of M.J.'s three-peats. I watched you bury that trey in Game 6 against the Suns to win the 1993 title. You said after the game, "I just caught the ball and shot it, as I have my whole life."
Well, you've caught the ball — the lottery ping-pong ball — once again, and soon it will be time to shoot it. You're even more wide-open now than you were then.
How about going nothing but net once again?
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