According to Bulls.com, Derrick Rose has been named as a reserve for the Eastern Conference in the 59th All-Star Game, to be held in Dallas.

Bulls guard and Chicago native Derrick Rose has been named as a reserve on the Eastern Conference All-Star team, which will play in the 59th NBA All-Star Game on Sunday, Feb. 14, 2010.

“I was in awe just thinking about it,” said Rose after the announcement was formally made on TNT. “I’m happy for the organization and I know they’re happy for me. My teammates, I wouldn’t be here without them. The coaching staff has been doing a good job. I’m just in awe right now.”

Rose becomes the first Bulls player to attain All-Star status since Michael Jordan in 1998.

It is nice that the Bulls finally ended their streak of not having a representative in the All-Star Game. The Bulls really should have had an All-Star in 06-07, when the Bulls were one of the better teams in the Eastern Conference, and Ben Gordon and Luol Deng were putting together good seasons. I think those two guys were hurt a lot by the Bulls never really marketing them as star type players, rather elevating players like Kirk Hinrich and Andres Nocioni to their level. With Rose, it was the complete opposite, Rose was marketed as the star from day one. Rose was being marketed as the star last season, even when Ben Gordon was clearly the best player on that team.

While I think this marketing of Rose as a star helped him over Gordon and Deng in years past, Rose still deserved his All-Star spot. When trying to come up with players who should be selected for a reserve role over Derrick Rose, I came up with: Rajon Rondo, Chris Bosh, Joe Johnson, Gerald Wallace, and David Lee. That is only five players and there are seven reserve roles, which meant Rose should be an All-Star.

David Lee is the one guy who I feel got snubbed. I think that Al Horford should have been left off the roster in favor of Lee. Here is a comparison of the two players’ stats.

David Lee: 19.6 PPG 11.6 RPG 3.4 APG 1.0 SPG 0.3 BPG
Al Horford: 13.6 PPG 9.8 RPG 2.2 APG 0.7 SPG 1.3 BPG

David Lee is nearly better than Al Horford across the board. The only thing that Horford is outproducing Lee in is shotblocking, and Horford isn’t exactly a great shotblocker himself.

Reflecting more on Derrick Rose, it really is amazing that Rose is an All-Star. For the beginning of the season, Rose looked like he had regressed as a player from year one to year two. In addition the Bulls were horrible as a team. Just a little over a month ago, there were whispers of Vinny Del Negro being fired. Now the Bulls are at 22-22, and any thought of Vinny deserving to be fired is crazy now. And this Bulls turn around began with Derrick Rose starting to take over more. After his poor start, Rose is nearly averaging 20.0 PPG on the season. It is truly amazing that Rose has managed to put together an All-Star level season this year after the poor start, and we can only hope that Rose keeps the ball rolling towards super stardom.

Steve Kerr appeared on TNT’s pregame show for the Chicago Bulls vs. Miami Heat to discuss the state of the Phoenix Suns.  Here is a recap of what he had to say:

• They are listening to people because they’re an underachieving team.  Have to figure out a way to get better and be successful going forward.  May not do anything, but are listening.  Just have a very glamarous team, so people are talking about them.
• Knew they were gambling when they made the trade for Shaq.  He thinks there is some honor when gambling when you have a chance.  Unfortunately, it hasn’t quite worked out.
• They are trying to just make the playoffs before they think about winning it all.  They feel that they have some pieces that can get them to that place.  Thinks they looked really good right after the Jason Richardson trade.
• Ultimately, the GM is to blame.  He is the ultimate person responsible, then everyone else plays a part in it.  The team could be coached better and the players could be playing better.  If the mix isn’t right than that’s the GM’s responsibility.
• They know they can score regardless of how they play.  The weakness is at the defensive end.  They tried to make that a point of emphasis, but they haven’t gotten better.

According to Boston.com, TNT has announced that it will include a H.O.R.S.E. contest to allstar weekend.

TNT today announced the addition of the shot-making game H-O-R-S-E to its programming lineup during its four days of NBA All-Star 2009 coverage from Feb. 12-15, in Phoenix. The H-O-R-S-E game will air live during TNT’s two-hour Inside the NBA from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET on Sat., Feb. 14.

Participants for the event have yet to be announced.

This is another potential contest that either Derrick Rose or Ben Gordon could participate in as both have made many great circus shots over their careers. It would be preferable for Gordon to participate in the three point contest, as that is more of a skills contest, if comes down to an either or situation.

Lebron James probably shouldn’t be invited after losing to David Kalb in a game of H.O.R.S.E.