Knicks to land Derrick Rose from Bulls in stunning NBA trade

If Phil Jackson’s plan is to build a championship contender around Derrick Rose, Carmelo Anthony and free agent X – he is taking the gamble of all gambles.

It appears that that’s the route the Knicks’ president is going with the championship-starved franchise as Yahoo Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski halted the basketball world Wednesday afternoon, tweeting, “The Bulls are trading Rose to the Knicks for Robin Lopez, Jerian Grant and bigger package, sources tell @TheVertical.”

Rose won the league MVP Award in 2011 but his career has been thrown off the rails due to major injuries since that time. He is still just 27-years-old, but his quality of play has visibly declined since he tore his ACL in the 2012 NBA Playoffs. He missed the 2012-13 season entirely and played just 10 games in 2013-14. He played 51 games in 2014-15 but scored just 17.7 points and had just 4.9 assists per game. This past season, Rose played in 66 games but scored just 16.4 points and had just 4.7 assists per game. Those are fine numbers for most NBA player, but it’s a far cry from numbers he put up in his MVP season (25 ppg, 7.7 apg).