Utah Jazz: Ric Bucher’s comments re: Rose, Utah are as dumb as it gets

NBA analyst and radio host Ric Bucher’s comments about the Utah Jazz after Derrick Rose’s 50-point game missed the mark by a wide margin.

The Utah Jazz’s 128-125 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Halloween night was undoubtedly a rough one for the team and its fans. However, the 50-point effort from former NBA MVP Derrick Rose that led to his shorthanded squad’s unlikely victory was something any hoops lover could appreciate, regardless of affiliation.

It just wasn’t a revenge game, despite a tweet inferring as much from NBA analyst and radio host Ric Bucher. In fact, Bucher’s ensuing Twitter thread on all things Rose and Jazz was about as dumb as it gets.

Let’s back up.

On the morning after Rose’s big game, Bucher recalled Rose’s brief tenure with the Jazz following a trade last February and mused about what the Wolves point-man must have been thinking while lighting them up on Wednesday, as if it played a part in the theatrics —

We’ll ignore Bucher’s assessment that the Jazz are the last bastion for washed-up ballers. As off-base and unprompted as that particular dig is, it pales in comparison to the idea that Rose was really ever a part of the team long enough to have been “dumped” by them, or that said history in any way fueled the performance.

Plain and simple, Rose’s temporary (non-)move to Utah last season was little more than a financial matter. His former team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, was done with him and his salary was needed to make a larger trade involving Rodney Hood and Jae Crowder come to fruition.

End of story.

It’s the kind of thing that happens to players in Rose’s situation at literally every trade deadline; a fact that both he and his agent would have been keenly aware of because it’s business as usual in the Association. Declining and/or ill-fitting vets get dealt, bought-out or both all the time and that’s just who Rose was to the Cavs at the time.

To suggest that he was caught off-guard by the Jazz unceremoniously dumping him isn’t just an affront to the Jazz, it’s insulting the intelligence of Rose and his representatives. He was never suiting up in Jazz blue and I’d be shocked if he didn’t know that before the trade even became official.

The Jazz only acquired him as a means to an end and gave him the freedom to join his former coach, Tom Thibodeau, in short order.

So, when Rose and the Wolves went head-to-head with the Jazz, there was no revenge to be had. Even if that was a thing, I’d say his struggles with devastating injuries and off-the-court issues over the last seven years, resulting in one of the game’s ultimate falls from grace, would far outweigh his handful of hours on the Jazz roster as motivating factors.

Unsurprisingly, fans took Bucher to task for his misguided tweet, but rather than close up shop on an ill-conceived thought process, he doubled down on the crazy. After backpedaling on his original tweet, he shifted gears to this strange dressing down of Jazz fans —

“Most vile in the entire league.” Sweet…

Of course, this kind of thing is par for the course for Bucher, who has a history of going scorched earth on Jazz fans. In 2008, he was forced into a public apology after taking shots at Mormons during an interview with Colin Cowherd on ESPN.

Said Bucher —

"“They are Mormons, and they are in Salt Lake, and there is nothing else there. You know, you gotta smile and be happy all the time. This is the one opportunity for people to get vicious.”"

Clearly, not much has changed for Bucher over the last decade.

Bottom line — Derrick Rose’s performance against the Jazz on Halloween night was nothing short of incredible; a true throwback to the glory days of one of basketball’s true unique talents. How about we just celebrate that instead of distracting from the performance with manufactured revenge sub-plots and personal agendas?