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    • Derrick Rose was Chicago’s dream athlete and he will not be forgotten
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    Derrick Rose was Chicago’s dream athlete and he will not be forgotten

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    Ten years ago I was sitting with Derrick Rose at a promotional event in the city center and I asked him about his dreams.

    Not his goals or aspirations — we were nearly four years past his MVP season — but his real dreams during the dark days following his left anterior cruciate ligament tear in the first game of the 2012 playoffs and the subsequent right knee meniscus tear that cost him his 2013-14 season, injuries that drastically altered a Hall of Fame career.

    “I don’t have them anymore, but I did dream about being out there during my first injury,” Rose told me. “The second injury I didn’t have as many, but the first injury I had a lot of dreams.”

    The dreams were of him playing basketball. Nothing too dramatic, he recalled. But then he would wake up and “I had a brace on my knee.”

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    GALLING DEEPER

    Former NBA MVP Derrick Rose Retires After 16 Seasons

    At this point he could laugh about it. He had cried long enough. And the whole town was crying with him.

    We had dreams about Derrick Rose too. The whole town had them.

    Rose officially retired Thursday after a 16-year career that saw him rise to the top before sinking to the middle. He was an American success story and a cautionary tale of sports. But make no mistake, he won. He can retire with peace of mind and a basketball legacy to be proud of.

    Rose was a hometown star, a two-time state champion at Simeon Career Academy who became the youngest MVP in league history. He was, quite simply, a comet from Englewood.

    The luck that brought him here — a 1.7 percent chance of winning the lottery — was quickly realized. Rose was the rookie of the year, and his performance against the Celtics in a seven-game series in the first round in 2009 was nothing short of a coming-out party. The next year he was an All-Star, and at media day for the 2010-11 season he said, “When I look at it, why can’t I be the MVP of the league? Why can’t I be the best player in the league?” We smiled at the bravado of a soft-spoken young man.

    Not long after, before an early-season game against the Lakers, Rose told a few of us that he didn’t consider himself a star. Then he went out and led the Bulls to an eye-opening victory.

    “He could tell you,” Rose’s friend and teammate Joakim Noah said after the game. “But when he dribbles that ball down the court, he knows what he’s doing.”

    Rose with the ball in his hand was like Buddy Guy with a guitar, Devin Hester with a steamhead. Dick Butkus when he could dunk. Little did we know at the time that his peak would be more like Gale Sayers’, but Rose was a perfect mix of improvisation, speed and power in one 6-foot-3 body.

    According to Stacey King, he was “too big, too strong, too fast and too good.”

    He was more than a basketball player. He was the hope of Chicago, a beautiful, flawed city.

    “It’s amazing that a little boy from Englewood won the MVP award,” Rose said at his press conference after winning the award.

    After winning the regular-season MVP — and don’t let the critics rewrite history, he absolutely deserved it — Rose led the Bulls to the Eastern Conference Finals, where LeBron James was all of those things. Oh well, Rose had barely grown up. He had a long career ahead of him. The Bulls would come back. They would make it to a Finals and win one, breaking the long drought that has followed the end of the Michael Jordan era.

    But that summer, when he was on top of the world, Rose told me he refused to perform. He kept his trophy in his apartment near the Bulls’ training facility and slept for weeks after the Heat knocked him out of the playoffs. He went to train in Los Angeles and was invited to late-night shows, but he turned them all down.

    “There’s no point in being there,” he told me one day. “At the end of every show, they ask you, ‘So what happened to the guy you lost to?’ There’s no point. I want to be on the show where they say, ‘How did it feel to win a championship?’ ‘It felt great.’ That’s how I want to be on the show.”

    The Bulls were once again the best team in the NBA during the lockout-shortened season that followed. As a team, they looked better than the year before and were ready for a rematch with James and the Heat.

    And then it all fell apart. Rose tore his ACL at the end of his first playoff game that year and the dream was dead, even though we didn’t know it at the time.

    From a public relations standpoint, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a situation handled as poorly as Rose’s ill-fated “return” season. It was everyone’s fault and no one’s fault. Nature, as they say, abhors a vacuum, and a basketball season without Rose felt like a crime against humanity. It felt like too many people were angry, nervous, and impatient. It was overwhelming. There’s no doubt now that too much was placed on his shoulders.

    Rose meant different things to different people, and many people were involved in his success. The subsequent indecisiveness darkened his reputation. Not to everyone, I should add, but it did damage that which could have been repaired with a great season. It wasn’t meant to be.

    His return ended in a 10-game cameo, another knee injury, and another season of missing time. His NBA life would never be the same. Rose returned for good in 2014-15, shaking off a minor midseason injury to hit a dramatic buzzer-beater to give the Bulls a lead in a playoff series against James. It didn’t last long.

    Tom Thibodeau lost a power struggle and was fired after another season. Rose was traded to the Knicks. He spent the rest of his career as a journeyman, mostly for Thibodeau-coached teams. He occasionally made it to a big game (scoring 50 points for the Timberwolves), but he was now a walking “What if?” story.

    In his first downfall after leaving the Bulls, Rose had to defend himself in a civil lawsuit over a sexual assault charge from an alleged incident years earlier. That October, I was in Los Angeles for the Cubs’ playoff series against the Dodgers and spent two afternoons in a downtown courthouse. I saw testimony from both sides and saw evidence presented against him. In the hallway, I spoke with his brother, Reggie, about the triangle offense and Rose’s future on the court. It was a strange juxtaposition between the private and public lives of this young basketball player.

    The charges, of course, had a negative impact on Rose’s reputation, and his own words about the case certainly didn’t help. Ultimately, he and his friends were found not liable by a juryHe returned to basketball, but never again reached the heights he reached as a young man.

    In the years that followed, Rose was appropriately feted whenever he returned to the United Center. He had some good games there. He showed flashes of what once was and what still could be. By the end, he was an old head coming off the bench for Brian Scalabrine-esque cameos and yet he still got standing Os and “MVP” chants. His personal life had calmed down. He has three children and is married. His social media posts show a young man still searching for knowledge. He accepted his reality and was just happy to play, even if only a little.

    For years, we’ve debated whether Rose should have his jersey retired by the Bulls when he hung up his boots. The answer is yes. What he did for Chicago is more important than what he didn’t do for the Bulls or couldn’t do after the injuries. No one should have to wear the Bulls’ No. 1 jersey. It’s his forever.

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    GALLING DEEPER

    Greenberg: Should the Bulls Retire Derrick Rose’s Jersey? Maybe They Should Trade Him Now

    It appears it will happen soon, perhaps when Thibodeau and the Knicks come to town in January.

    “Derrick will always be family and I look forward to welcoming him and his children back to the United Center for what will undoubtedly be an unforgettable celebration of his incredible journey,” Bulls president Michael Reinsdorf said in a statement.

    If that doesn’t mean the shirts are retired, expect a “ring of honor” reaction from the crowd.

    I’ve been covering Chicago sports for over 20 years and of all the athletes I’ve covered, no one has ever owned his moment quite like Derrick Rose. No season was more fun to cover than his MVP year. I’ve written more words about him than any other athlete. It’s a shame his reign didn’t last longer, but the fact that it happened at all was special and something Chicago will never forget.

    Required reading

    (Photo of Derrick Rose with his NBA MVP trophy in 2011: Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images)

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