Chicago with no Derrick Rose?

Derrick Rose was born about 9.8 miles south of the United Center, grew up rooting for the Bulls and landed with the team based on an almost miraculous bounce of a ping pong ball. There's fate, then there's this, something out of the hoops documentary series right after the kid from Carolina who once got cut from JV, or the Central Arkansas walk-on who grew five inches and became a star. This all came together so beautifully, so there's absolutely no reason it should ever come apart.

Except money, of course. Rose will be a restricted free agent next year, and it'll be time for the Bulls to pay Rose enough to make Rosewood, Ill., Derrickwood if he wants it that way. When the negotiating starts, we assume Rose will pull out numbers like the ones you see below. In order, we ran AccuScore projections of all of next season's key restricted free agents -- Rose, Russell Westbrook, Eric Gordon and Kevin Love -- to see just how much the current team figures to miss them should they depart. Replacing each with a replacement-level player at that position, we consider the difference the star makes.

To read the full evaluations on Rose, Westbrook, Gordon and Love, become an ESPN Insider today.

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Chris Sprow

ESPN Insider

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Chris Sprow is a senior editor for ESPN Insider. He reports on the NFL and other sports, works year-round with Mel Kiper on NFL draft coverage and also oversees ESPN's Rumor Central. He's been a frequent guest on ESPN TV and radio.