Rose Working On Shooting

Marc Spears of Yahoo! has reported that Derrick Rose has been working hard on his shooting this summer, which was one of his weaknesses last season. Rose excelled at driving to the lane and finishing near the rim, but his jumper came and went all season. Spears reports that he has been taking hundreds of shots per day to try and improve his mid-range jumper, and he also hopes to be respectable from beyond the arc.Rose's quickness made it fairly difficult for defenders to contain him, so they often protected the paint and left him space in an attempt to keep him from cutting into the lane. With a good jumper, opposing defenders will be made to pay for giving him that space.I'm glad to hear that Rose is working hard to improve his game, and Joakim Noah has supposedly been working on his shooting form. Both have also been hitting the weights, which will allow the team to compete with the more physical teams in the league. If Rose can develop respectable outside shooting, he will wreak havoc on defenders and draw double teams, which should free up space for his teammates.The biggest weakness Rose demonstrated last year was his overall defense, but, in his defense, most rookies do not perform very well on the defensive end. Playing D at the professional level is a learning experience, and the more experience he gets guarding the other point guards in the league, the better he'll get. The team as a whole did not play particularly great on defense last year (they were 16th in net points per game and 16th in opponents' 2-point field goal percentage), but a year of experience playing with one another and the healthy return of Luol Deng and Kirk Hinrich should lead to improvement this season.