The word that comes to Derrick Rose’s mind, or rather the center of everything, is “focus.”
It takes extraordinary concentration to overcome the treacherous path and reach the professional level, and it takes extraordinary concentration to reach even higher levels.
For Rose, the Chicago-born and raised kid who quietly announced his retirement Thursday morning with an ad in the newspapers of the cities he played, his career has been very winding, very fascinating, and, at times, very confusing. Masu.
He will likely be the only greatest player in NBA history not to be inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame, even if only by mere imprint on the game. I hope the Bulls retire his jersey, even though he has inexplicably given away his No. 1 jersey several times since being traded to the New York Knicks in 2016.
That’s important, but not that important to Chicago. Chicago is both a tough city in its own right and a warm one to those same numbers who have impossible expectations. You’d be hard-pressed to find a relationship between player and city so complex, so multi-layered, yet so valuable to the culture at large and to the feeling Rose had when she married Chicago.
Even LeBron James, who didn’t grow up in Cleveland and isn’t Akron, which is about 35 minutes from downtown, can’t play as well as Rose in Chicago.
Chicago rejoiced when he “made it” not by being named MVP in 2011 or any of the other accolades he earned during his all-too-brief prime, but simply by existing. Everything else was icing on the cake.
For most people.
Since Michael Jordan’s departure in June 1998, there has been limited support for the Bulls, and Rose appears to have written or co-authored 80 percent of them. There was a time when I questioned Rose’s 2011 MVP award, but any lawsuit seems stupid in hindsight, and there have been others since then that deserve more consideration.
It was the same then, and it was the same in 2011, before he burst onto the world basketball stage in his late teens. It was like, “I have to be there.”
Less maniacal than Russell Westbrook and perhaps less punishing than his basketball son Ja Morant, Rose wasn’t the first of his kind, but when in full bloom he was a unique player. I was alone.
Chicago’s faith in its son was so strong that it will be difficult to convince many that he alone cannot topple the power peaks of Miami’s holy trinity of James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. .
And as expected, when that failed, the trebuchets and arrows began to line up. And, like with bigger, stronger men, when his body failed, he drew even more criticism.
But on a Saturday afternoon in 2012, just as the Bulls were starting their playoff march toward a rematch with the hated Heat in Game 1 of the first round against the Philadelphia 76ers, Rose suffered a torn ACL. It seems like a long time ago that I was absent. .
It’s a testament to Rose’s perseverance and, yes, focus, that those memories are of other shadowy figures rather than the elder statesman who visited other franchises and sometimes wore different jerseys to perform his magic. It looks like it belongs to. It didn’t seem right that MVP was demoted to being a bit player, or a player that Knicks fans coveted at the tail end of his second stint with the Knicks.
Thanks to his tenacious personality, his quiet determination, he was the target of an ugly civil lawsuit in 2016 in which he and his friend were accused of sexual assault. I was able to overcome my own indiscretions.
He turned out to be irresponsible, but the details forever changed his image in the minds of some, if not more, people. Believing in him became increasingly difficult, if not impossible.
A man of few words, but usually articulate, he didn’t always get his message across the way many felt it should. In a way, he was a mirror to Chicago, showing us all the ugliness and all the promise that so many refused to let go of. Not only was he fighting a losing battle against an unforgiving machine, but the machine didn’t seem to care about winning all the time, so everything became fixated on him.
Rose will be gone as the NBA transforms from a league that seems to suit his style to one that embraces new ways of playing. Considering the atrophy of his body, from the intense torque when twisting his body to pass through the tight spaces of an NBA floor, to roaming the competitive Chicago grounds and AAU courts, he probably entered the league. Given both the pre-existing damage he had at the time, it seems unlikely that Rose’s concentration could be expected to last long enough.
The difference between a great player staying great or experiencing a slight dip feels like a matter of focus. Granted, that’s certainly the case with championship teams that can no longer summon the ability to be consistent over long periods of time, but every once in a while they can produce a night or two that looks like their old glory.
Rose seemed to have it in 2015 when he had the Bulls and James’ Cavaliers on the ropes. On Friday night’s buzzer-beater in the East semifinals, many believed Rose would rise again.
The pressure of a game-winner felt like nothing compared to taking frozen fingertip shots for money in the Inglewood neighborhood where he once lived, so he conjured up greatness on demand and once again I was able to spark my imagination.
But his old glory could not be maintained, and like many others, like Grant Hill and Penny Hardaway, whose only basketball sin was having a body that couldn’t fit a Ferrari engine, he It seemed like his career was coming to an end.
Rose overcame that situation over the years, somehow seizing the glory from time to time, and occasionally showing off his stoic personality after a winning night, like his 50-point game against the Minnesota Timberwolves in the 2018-19 season. There were times when I burst into tears and burst into tears.
It was the year after Rose played briefly with James’ Cavaliers, then briefly stepped away from the game, considering retirement after suffering an ankle injury that reminded him too much of his past ailments.
When Rose was with the Knicks, he disappeared from the franchise without explanation, missed games, and apologized to the team when he returned.
He walked to the brink, but managed to bounce back, reinvent himself, and forge a new basketball life for himself away from the expectations that traditionally accompany stars. The Sixth Man is the suit he wore when he played in Minnesota, Detroit, and New York (second time) in his early 30s.
Promises and what-ifs gave way to mental stamina, refusing to accept that his body could no longer perform and that the NBA was no longer his place.
Those moments seemed so far away, as if he was less than a week away from his 36th birthday and, after three different careers, it was finally here.
He took a break from basketball to focus more on his work as a husband and father, and he’s getting more out of his basketball body than many of us expected 10 years ago.
I promise you that you will develop perseverance through unwavering focus.
