Derrick Rose having fallen out of the Knicks regular playing rotation for now didn’t play against the Bulls Wednesday, and then Friday in the last minutes only after the game was much decided for the Knicks in a 114-91 victory.
Rose sounded a bit wistful this week here when he said he perhaps should have shown more joy during his brilliant stretch with the Bulls a decade ago, maybe danced a bit like Ja Morant. Though just his presence produced an arena that seemed to feel like dancing even as the Bulls were badly defeated. The MVP chants rang out loud and repeatedly for Rose from the Chicagoans.
Rose offered a brief, appreciative wave, the light still bright in his eyes and the tightness in his step. He isn’t going anywhere, except back to New York for now with the Knicks for this season and who knows how many more. But don’t close that curtain on Derrick Rose quite yet.
“Until they kick me out, yeah,” Rose said Friday during a pregame session with media. “I feel good, I’m able to condition, I’m able to run. My body, I’m underweight. I feel like I’m adapting. The situation I’m in right now, I’m just happy that I didn’t lose it by the way I was playing. Or I didn’t get benched because of my play. I got benched because of he (Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau) wanted to see how Deuce (Miles McBride) looked, and it’s a younger guy getting into the rotation. So how I can hate on that? That’s how I looked at it.
“Tom’s (Brady) still going until they kick him out, too,” Rose said with a laugh. “You know what I mean? Yeah, I feel healthy. I’m not trying to (take) a young man’s spot on the team, but I feel like I’m healthy enough to play. I can still add something to the team. As long as I can move around, that’s what I want to see,” Rose said. “It’s not about stats anymore. I just want to see how many games I play. I like winning. I like being around a locker room when the vibrations are just winning. And the guy who is playing in front of me, Deuce, I can’t hate on that young man. I had him over for Thanksgiving last year. Real cool with his family members. Love the way that he’s playing. I’m happy for him. The way the team has been playing, I don’t want to mess up the rhythm they have right now. If we were losing, it might be a different thing. But we’re playing great basketball right now, so I don’t want to mess up that rhythm.
“That’s why I’ve gotta keep an upbeat-type rhythm,” said Rose. “I never want to be in a slump or be down just because I’m not playing. When Deuce wasn’t playing, he wasn’t acting that way. I learn from everybody. Even though he’s a young player, he gives me the vibes. He told me certain things on the court because of our relationship. It’s been great. Who knows how many years I’m going to continue to play? It’s a lot of things I’m looking forward to doing. But right now, I’m still invested in basketball. So that’s where I’m giving my everything.”
He’s not the kid anymore, the Englewood basketball comet who burst across the NBA sky like nothing anyone had seen before, daring and dunking and driving the Bulls to the league’s best record in consecutive seasons—and what seemed destined to be at least a facsimile return to the championship run of the 1990s—before that devastating knee injury in the first game of the 2012 playoffs.
Rose came back after missing a year, sustained another significant knee injury, came back again and fought off knicks and knacks, and amid the demands all the passion and promise began to cool, the hopes turning into demands, the disappointments into exasperation.
And then they broke his heart and traded him, a mix of confusing emotions. He always believed Chicago always would be home. That’s the way kids think.
Rose then went out in the NBA desert like a Moses searching for relief and retreat. He was hurt, physically and emotionally, drifting through New York and Cleveland, traded to Utah, released, effectively out of the league and everyone’s minds.
But life never got the best of Derrick Rose.
He took a minimum salary contract to prove himself with former coach Tom Thibodeau and the Minnesota Timberwolves. Enough that he scored a career-best 50 points in a game and averaged 18 points playing fewer than 30 minutes in consecutive seasons, first with Minnesota and then with Detroit.
He didn’t fly like he once did, but he still seemed faster than a speeding locomotive.
“These last couple of years, it’s been the same way. I have an injury or something and I stop and I get back into it where I love playing the games,” said Rose talking about his training and recovery, a major part of his unlikely return to a high level of play. “Playing three on three, four on four, playing in practice, I’m a gamer. I’d rather play in the game. If I’m good, just throw me in the game and they have the trust in me to do that.”
The Knicks did trust him a few years ago and Rose was third in the voting for Sixth Man of the Year and was the dominant player in the Knicks first round playoff series.
He’s taken more of a mentor role recently with the Knicks working in young players. But he’s also prepared to step in for a veteran effect.
It naturally raised legacy questions about Rose after Knicks Thibodeau in his pregame session with reporters Friday said he believed Rose should eventually be in the Basketball Hall of Fame and hoped the Bulls one day will retire Rose’s jersey number as well as honoring other players from those fine 2010-12 teams.
“Of course, I’ve thought about (having my number retired),” Rose admitted.
The Bulls haven’t given any indication, but they have declined to give No. 1 to any players in recent years. They have given out all the other single digit numbers, which often are players’ favorites.
“But only from people asking me about it,” Rose said about the jersey. “For my family members to see that and the people that have supported me all these years to be part of it, that would be cool.”
Though like the welcoming teammate Rose always has been, he’s hoping for honors for his buddies, as well, Joakim Noah and Luol Deng among them.
“It’s not up to me,” Rose said. “If it was up to me, for sure those two guys would be up there. But it’s up to Jerry (Reinsdorf) and the franchise to make that decision. I know from both of them guys I learned a lot. From Lu, I learned to take care of my body. He was the first person I saw take care of his body the way he took care of it. Our relationship has always been bigger than just basketball. With Joakim, of course you all know our relationship. I was always just fascinated with how he grew up. Like with Jo, it’s way bigger than basketball. Luol, he’s kind of like James Bond in a way. You don’t know where he’s at or what country he’s in. He just pops up. With Jo, like this summer they’re doing something for his dad in Paris and I’m taking my family over there to see them do something for him. It’s going to be pretty cool.”
Just as it was to see Derrick Rose back in the United Center this week even if it wasn’t like 10 years ago. Except for the love.
“He (Thibodeau) stamped it? Then they should do it then, if Thibs said so,” Rose said with a laugh about Thibodeau’s endorsements. “Like I said, it would be awesome to see it, but it’s years away from that right now.”
The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, as well. Though both Thibs and I now finally agree on something, that Rose belongs when his career finally is over. Between the MVP and unexpected longevity, Rose in many ways is a singular figure in basketball.
Bulls All-Star DeMar DeRozan, who often is the recipient of MVP chants in the United Center, could only celebrate Rose when asked Friday after the game about the boisterous reception for Rose in those last minutes and MVP chants for Rose.
Asked about losing like the Bulls did to the Knicks and Rose getting the biggest reception, DeRozan was supportive of Rose.
“D-Rose, Derrick Rose, man,” DeRozan said as if everyone had to understand. “It’s Derrick Rose. He ought to get that love, that respect, that admiration for everything he did for this city. To be able to see him get that is nothing but respect. Love to see it. That just shows you the respect, the love our fans have for him for what he meant to the city. It was great to see that.”
Rose, likewise, was overcome, saying after the game how grateful he remains about the Bulls fans.
"It was amazing," Rose said. "I tried to hold it in. But always getting acknowledged like that, it means a lot. We did a lot here. I'm happy I was able to get in. They (family at the game were) crying, crying and cheering. Talking about (like) somebody’s cutting onions and all that stuff. To come here and see all the love and receive all the love that we got, it was unreal.”
But the Hall of Fame is also accomplishments.
“Who wouldn’t want to make the Hall of Fame one day?” Rose said. “There are a couple ways you could look at it. I’d be very grateful for that, but at the same time can someone in here name a famous gladiator?
“I’m saying it in a way that like in 200-300 years, nobody is going to care about what went on,” said Rose. “For me, the knowledge, the wisdom, the love, the capital I got from this sport allowed me to do a lot. And I’m very grateful and appreciative of that. The things I want to do after basketball I feel like is going to be bigger than what I do in basketball. I don’t want to like jinx it right now or give someone my blueprint of what I’m doing. But there’s a lot of things I’m going to be into.”
Which gave Rose pause about those magical times in the United Center with the Bulls. It was special, if too short.
“Coming back seeing it makes you kind of reminisce about the older days when I was playing here,” Rose said. “In hindsight, you always wish you had cherished things a little bit more. I wish I had danced a little bit or something. Ja Morant or something, you know what I mean? Gave a little dance.”
Everyone smiled, but everyone also knew that wasn’t Derrick. It wasn’t him famously at the 2012 NBA All-Star game in Orlando when his fellow All-Stars danced their way into introductions and he was stone faced. After all, it never was just a game for Derrick Rose. It was life the way he and his family struggled coming from Chicago’s South Side.
“You know how it is, you’re older and look back at it,” Rose said. “The times I didn’t go out to concerts or dinners when I had all the time in the world to do that. That’s something I would’ve cherished doing when I was here. If I had known I would’ve played this long.”
But everyone did appreciate who he was.
“Just giving your all,” said Rose, “and being appreciative of still being here and what we did in the past. I feel good. I want to be able to walk away and I can smile when I’m doing it.”
D-Rose was back in the United Center, and even how the evening went for the Bulls, it was all smiles in the end.
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