Former Chicago Bulls: Derrick Rose inspired by Isiah Thomas beating MJ
The glimmering past of the Chicago Bulls was briefly clouded in the early 1990’s when Isiah Thomas and the Pistons were actually beating Michael Jordan.
A Central Division rival of the Chicago Bulls, the Detroit Pistons, are off to a decent but not great start this season. That’s not something the Bulls can boast thus far. There might not be a single NBA team off to a more disappointing start in the NBA than the Bulls. But the Pistons aren’t having the ideal effort out of the gates coming off a playoff berth last season.
This season, the Pistons are guided by the efforts of veteran former Bulls point guard Derrick Rose and the starting center and rebounding machine Andre Drummond. D-Rose is averaging more than 20 points per game, and Drummond is on a torrid pace averaging well over 16 rebounds per game. It will be interesting to see how the struggling Bulls frontcourt matches up with Drummond and what D-Rose looks like in his return to the United Center, this time in a Pistons uniform.
Above all else, this will be the opportunity head coach Jim Boylen and the Bulls severely need to get on track in the third year of this rebuild. The Bulls enter this game with a record of 1-4. Three of those four losses are pretty bad too. The season opening loss to the Charlotte Hornets was compounded with letdowns against the New York Knicks and Cleveland Cavaliers to get the Bulls to the point they’re at now.
However, there are exterior storylines for this game that make for a pretty interesting affair on this Friday night. The Bulls and Pistons have a longstanding rivalry that traces back to the early 1990’s, when both teams were winning the bulk of the championships of that decade.
The two biggest stars in the Bulls-Pistons rivalries in the early 1990’s were point guard Isiah Thomas and shooting guard Michael Jordan. Thomas is one of the best point guards of the modern era and MJ should be the unquestioned greatest player in NBA history.
D-Rose reportedly (per K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago) spent time with Thomas since signing with the Pistons over the summer. He spoke of Thomas very highly in relation to how he felt about how he played against the team that D-Rose started his NBA career with.
"“And it was a point guard,” Rose said. “Being in that spot, understanding the spot he was in, the load he took on every night, I think being here I appreciate him even more."
It sounds like the inspiration for D-Rose drew from the fact that Thomas was a point guard going up against the all-time great 6-foot-6 two guard that is MJ. Rose and Thomas do have similar statures. Thomas was about 6-foot-1 and 190 pounds for the bulk of his career and Rose currently stands at 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds.
Stock watch for Chicago Bulls players five games into the season. dark. Next
Rose will be looking to move the Pistons to 3-3 on the season if they top the Bulls in the Windy City tonight. On the other hand, the Bulls are looking to rebound from a really tough stretch of five games to start the regular season and will want their second win. It would be the first over a Central Division opponent.