Washington Wizards Expected to Target PG Derrick Rose

The Washington Wizards are expected to target recent free agent point guard Derrick Rose. Rose was traded from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Utah Jazz who recently released him.

The Washington Wizards are expected to target recent free agent point guard Derrick Rose while John Wall continues to recover from his knee injury, according to ESPN.com’s Adrian Wojnarowski on Twitter.

Rose is a recent free agent, having been part of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ large number of trades at the NBA Trade Deadline. Rose was sent to the Utah Jazz as part of a three-team trade between the Cavaliers, the Jazz, and the Sacramento Kings.

In the trade, the Cavaliers sent Rose and forward Jae Crowder to the Jazz, while the Jazz sent guard Rodney Hood to Cleveland and forward Joe Johnson to the Kings. The Kings sent guard George Hill to the Cavaliers, receiving guard Iman Shumpert in return.

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The Cavs also sent a 2020 second-round pick to the Kings that they acquired by trading guard Dwyane Wade to the Miami Heat.

The Jazz chose to release Rose today, and both the Washington Wizards and the Minnesota Timberwolves are interested in him.

Rose had been playing off the bench for the Cavaliers, averaging 19.2 minutes per game, 9.8 points per game, and 1.6 assists per game while shooting 43.9% from the field. This was the first year in which Rose had been a bench player, having started for the New York Knicks last season.

Rose has had a storied career so far in the NBA, and a bumpy one. Drafted with the first-overall pick in the 2008 NBA Draft out of Memphis by the Chicago Bulls, Rose started off his career on fire as one of the best point guards in the NBA.

At the end of the 2010-11 season, Rose won the MVP award, having averaged 25.0 points per game, 7.7 assists per game, 4.1 rebounds per game, and shooting 44.5% from the field.

Rose has been plagued by injuries throughout his career, however, missing the entire 2012-13 season with a knee injury and having dealt with a number of injuries since then. At one point, he left the Cavaliers this year to re-evaluate his future in the NBA, having been increasingly frustrated by his injuries.

Signing Rose would make a lot of sense for the Washington Wizards. John Wall is going to be out for a number of weeks, and while bench players Tomas Satoransky and Tim Frazier have been filling in well (especially Satoransky), the Wizards still need some help at the point guard position while Wall is out.

Enter Rose, who has a lot of experience starting in the NBA and has shown that he can still produce, averaging 18.0 points per game, 4.4 assists per game, and shooting 47.1% from the field while starting for the Knicks last season.

The Wizards have been playing fairly well without Wall, so it isn’t to say that they’re in desperate need of Rose, but they could absolutely use him. It’s a low-risk situation for them. If they sign Rose and he does nothing (or gets hurt), they’re right back where they are now.

But if they sign Rose and he’s able to perform, it could be the boost they need to propel them further up the Eastern Conference standings, and Wall wouldn’t feel pressured to hurry back.

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It’s a move that makes a lot of sense for the team, and hopefully they do it, especially since they made no depth moves at the trade deadline.

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