The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Rose brings team-first attitude to Cavaliers
Cavaliers guard Derrick Rose says it’s all about winning a championship this season. “I’m not in it for the stats. I’m in it to just win. That’s how I genuinely feel. It’s nothing more than that.”
Derrick Rose has a message for Cavaliers fans wondering how quickly the new players will fit together with the start of the regular season just around the corner: Don’t expect too much too soon. Rose is one of those new pieces to the puzzle coach Tyronn Lue is putting together — a very important piece. Rose, formerly of the Bulls and Knicks, will likely be the starting point guard when the Cavaliers play the Boston Celtics in the season opener Oct. 17 at Quicken Loans Arena.
Rose scored 15 points in 14 minutes on Oct. 6 in a 106-102 preseason loss to the Pacers.
“Two weeks isn’t enough time,” Rose said after the Wine and Gold scrimmage on Oct. 2, “But we’re pros. We have to figure it out.
“It’s going to be a process. We have to find ways to work it out. Who knows how it’s going to be at first, but we know we have each other’s back. We know how hard everybody on this team works. We have one common goal, and that’s to win a championship, so we have to sacrifice.”
“Unselfish” is the best word to describe the group General Manager Koby Altman has assembled. That trait should accelerate the development, and that is no small matter considering Dwyane Wade is a 12-time All-Star willing to come off the bench. Rose is a former NBA MVP (2011) and Tristan Thompson has accepted the role of coming off the bench behind Kevin Love as starting center.
“We have mature, veteran guys,” Rose said. “I’m not in it for the stats. I’m in it to just win. That’s how I genuinely feel. It’s nothing more than that.”
The Cavaliers are learning about each other as teammates and Lue is learning about his new players as training camp and the preseason progresses. He knew Rose is a great shooter, but he is finding out the 28-year-old former No. 1 pick is a more complete player.
“I didn’t know he was a great passer,” Lue said. “He makes the right pass, the right play on a pick and roll. He’s still dynamic offensively. But the biggest thing for me is I didn’t know he was such a great passer. He can find the open guy and make the skip pass.
“He came here wanting to win. That’s what’s most important to me. That’s what’s important to him.”
Rose played in 81, 78 and 81 games his first three years with the Bulls and then a knee injury suffered in 2011-12 cut his season to 39 games and forced him to miss all of 2012-13. He played just 10 games in 2013-14.
Rose played two more seasons with Chicago before being traded to the Knicks on June 26, 2016. He played 64 games last season, averaging 32.5 minutes and 18 points a game.
McCown would have mentored Kizer
Josh McCown is starting for the Jets against the Browns on Oct. 8 after two seasons with the Browns. He was 1-10 as a Browns starter.
Management decided in early February to cut McCown as part of the youth movement rather than keep the veteran to mentor the next great hope, who turned out to be DeShone Kizer, the 52nd overall pick in the 2017 draft. Instead, the two quarterbacks behind Kizer, Kevin Hogan and Cody Kessler, are both second-year players.
“It would be valuable to have a guy who’s been through this and understands it all, but when you have a quarterbacks coach in Coach Jackson, essentially I already have that,” Kizer said. “The conversations that we have are more on a personal level where we can share thoughts and create dialogue. It’s not just coach talking down to a player. That relationship in itself is something that I’ve used as a mentor tool, but also, I’ll go elsewhere.
“I have some good relationships with guys who have played in this league outside of this locker room, and I try to use them as much as I possibly can.”
Kizer did not identify the former NFL players he consults.
• This season is proving McCown wasn’t the lone cause of problems the last two years. He is long gone and the losing continues.
“I know it’s been tough on (head coach Hue Jackson) because he’s a competitor, as fierce as a competitor as I’ve been around as far as from a coach’s standpoint and just his fire and his passion,” McCown said on a conference call. “For things to go the way they have for him, I know it can’t be easy.
“I did see it at times in different moments where you could tell that it weighed on him, but in front of the guys, he never blinked. When he’s around the guys, he’s the same person and brings the same energy, and I have no doubt he’ll continue to do that.”
McCown is 20-44 as a starter over his career, but a remarkable stat belies that record. He has thrown 82 touchdown passes compared to 72 interceptions.
Joe Namath is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame despite a losing record (62-63-4) and despite throwing more interceptions than touchdowns — 173 touchdown passes and 220 interceptions.
That is not an endorsement to put McCown in the Hall of Fame someday.
• Jackson and Sashi Brown, executive vice president of football operations, have gone the extra mile to say everything is harmonious between the coaching staff and front office. But if you listen to their answers closely, you have to wonder whether each might think the other could be doing more to make the current Browns better.
“I’m not going to comment on that,” Jackson said after the 31-7 loss to the Bengals when asked whether the rebuilding process is working. “What I am going to comment on is just today was not a good day for our football team.”
Brown addressed the media after practice on Oct. 4. He said the Browns should be winning while they rebuild, as the Jets (2-2) have done.
“I think we have opportunities to do that,” Brown said. “We haven’t capitalized on them, but we’ll have more this season. We have 12 games left so we’re looking forward to that, but I don’t attribute that necessarily to youth. We have to go out and perform better, and that’s across the organization.”
I didn’t know that
… Until I read my Snapple bottle cap
Americans, on average, eat 18 acres of pizza a day. … A hippopotamus can stay under water for five minutes. … The average lifespan of a major league baseball is five to seven pitches. … When grazing or resting, cows tend to align their bodies with the magnetic north and south poles. … Bowling pins need to tip over only 7.5 degrees to fall. … To make one pound of honey, a bee must tap about 2 million flowers.
Reach Schudel at JSchudel@News-Herald. com. On Twitter: @jsproinsider