Derrick Rose doesn’t want you calling the Knicks a superteam, even though nobody is

Derrick Rose doesn’t think his new team, the New York Knicks, are a superteam, but he thinks people are calling them a superteam. Thus, you can tell he wants people to stop calling them a superteam, even though nobody is actually doing that.

It’s all part of Rose’s very confusing answer given at the end of an interview with Lang Whitaker on NBA.com. Here’s the answer, given in response to Whitaker’s question about the team’s expectations.

They’re high. I mean, with these teams right now, they’re saying us and Golden State are the super teams, and they’re trying not to build that many super teams, and Adam Silver came out with the statement and this and that. And the expectations I think of us, we just want to win. Talking to Melo and all the guys who’ve been around. You’ve got Brandon who just signed for one year, he’s got to show why he’s there. I’ve got to show why I’m there. Joakim has to show why he’s there. Everybody’s trying to prove themselves. When you’ve got a group like that, it’s like, alright, I know everybody wants to do that, but we’re going to break this down as simple as possible, and try to win every game. I think winning takes care of every category, as far as being an athlete. You look at endorsements, being on the floor, almost everything -- I think winning takes care of all that. And if you’re in the league, winning takes care of all the mistakes, or if you have any problems on teams.

It’s true that Adam Silver talked recently about how he’d prefer that there weren’t “two superteams” in the NBA. At no point did he mention the Knicks, though. His comments were clearly relating to the Warriors, who added Kevin Durant this summer to a 73-win team, and the Cavaliers, who have been to back-to-back NBA Finals with no signs of stopping.

Maybe Rose actually thought the second superteam was the Knicks, or maybe someone told him as a joke and he misunderstood, or maybe it was something entirely different. There’s no reason for him to dismiss it outright, because every player should be confident in their team, even if calling the Knicks a superteam is obviously on the outlandish side of things. And if you read what he said carefully — “we’re going to break this down as simple as possible, and try to win every game” — seems to indicate that he’s not expected 70 wins or something, nullifying the whole superteam talk.

This is still all pretty funny, though!