2019 Free Agency Rumor: Pistons “favorites” to sign Derrick Rose

With only a day before 2019 NBA Free Agency starts, the rumors are flying around. The one that concerns your Detroit Pistons comes courtesy of The Athletic’s Frank Isola:

Derrick Rose? Surprised me, at least. Rose shot a career-high 37 percent from three and averaged 18 points a game last year in Minnesota. If those numbers don’t move you, a look at his Synergy page indicates why the Pistons would be interested in him moving forward:

Derrick Rose was basically a very-good-to-great offensive point guard last season, a more-than-capable pick-and-roll scorer and playmaker; the type of player that would work nicely alongside Andre Drummond, especially. However, he played only 51 games last year due to injuries to his ankle and his elbow. The elbow injury required surgery and knocked him out for the rest of the year in late March.

The injuries have always been the rub about Rose after his tragic ACL tear in the 2011-12 playoffs; he’s only played 65+ games in a season once since that injury. Injury concerns alone cause me to be wary of Rose as a fit in Detroit. We’ve seen how poorly this Pistons team can perform when they are missing one of their oft-injured point guards in Reggie Jackson. If Jackson and Rose were to go down with injuries at the same time, the results could be disastrous for the Pistons.

Isola gave no updates on what kind of contract the Pistons might sign Rose to as well, which would be another thing worth watching out for. Rose signed a one year, $2.4 million dollar contract last year and outperformed expectations. How much of the mid-level exception would Detroit be willing to use on Rose? Most of it? All of it?

Ed Stefanski said in his press availability that the team was looking to be patient in free agency. Signing Rose (or anyone) goes against the spirit of that. It’s impossible to know what changed the front office’s mind. Maybe the Darren Collison news, alongside the Nikola Mirotic news, scared the Pistons into being more aggressive. Maybe they were just smokescreening, playing down their interest in the hopes of catching teams off-guard.

Whatever the case, perhaps now Pistons fans have something to look forward to when free agency starts a 9 p.m. EST Sunday.