iIt's been a long time since I did one of these. For my dozens and dozens of loyal readers out there, I apologize. Hopefully this is the beginning of me getting back to bringing you this blog on a consistent basis. I'll be the first to admit that I fell into a state of apathy regarding this blog. However, one thing has inspired me to come off hiatus: the career arc of Derrick Rose.
Now normally I hope that the stuff I write gets shared all over the web. Usually this is from a sense of self promotion. This one time, I genuinely hope this gets shared, not for any personal benefit, but just so it makes it's way back to D. Rose himself. The following is my open letter to Derrick Rose.
Now normally I hope that the stuff I write gets shared all over the web. Usually this is from a sense of self promotion. This one time, I genuinely hope this gets shared, not for any personal benefit, but just so it makes it's way back to D. Rose himself. The following is my open letter to Derrick Rose.
Dear Derrick Rose,
Let me first start off by saying I'm a fan. In fact, that may be a little bit of an understatement. I probably got more love for you than I should have for a total stranger. I remember watching you play at Simeon. One game in particular springs to mind. I don't remember who you were playing, but it was your junior year and the game was televised. The thing that stuck with me was on three straight plays I watched you just show off the jets. It was like you realized that you were by far the best athlete on the court and decided to show it in the most demoralizing fashion possible. You said, Screw your teammates, and basically ran a one on four fastbreak, three times down the floor. You blew by defenders with such ease, it was unreal. To say it looked like they were standing still would have been selling it short. I hopped up and called one of my guys, to ask if he was watching . Before he could even say hello, we came to the consensus that you were a future superstar.
The thing about die hard Chicago fans, is that once we adopt you, you belong to us, no matter where you end up. So when you signed on to play at Memphis, it was cool. Cause you were still Chicago. When you led your team to the national championship, it was your Chicagoness that got you there. And with most star athletes that hail from the Windy City, we made peace with the idea that you would be suiting up for an NBA team other than ours. But it was cool. Cause wherever you ended up, you still belonged to us. But then the craziest thing happened.
I remember it like it was yesterday. Standing in front of my crib with the guys, we all decided there was no point in watching the draft lottery. We had a 1.8% chance of winning so we knew that the odds of us getting someone special was not good. Then a crackhead came down the street and gave us the news that changed our basketball fan lives: the Bulls got the number one pick in the draft. Our reaction was unique. We honestly didn't believe him. We all thought to ourselves, what could he possibly know? He's a crackhead! But just in case, I looked it up on my phone and sure enough we had won the lottery. We literally danced in the middle of the street knowing that you were coming home. Quietly though, I worried about you. Coming home to play for your home team in a town where you had reached legendary status at a young age, might have been too much pressure.
I was worried for nothing. At least the first three years. We watched you come out your first year and win Rookie of the Year, while balling out in one of the best seven game series in history against the Celtics. Next year, you let the world know it wasn't a fluke by making the All Star team. You were on fire what else could you possibly do? Then came year 3. On media day, you almost with a casual indifference asked Why can't you be the MVP of the league. To some it was arrogant. Others thought you were reaching too soon. I knew better. I knew you were dead ass serious.
The rest of the league figured out really quickly that you weren't playing. Maybe I'm biased. Maybe the love I got for you colors my memories. But I have never seen someone make a run at being the best player in the world, while leaving such a trail of freshly kicked asses behind him. Night in, night out, you destroyed dudes. Not just won, but destroyed. And it seemed like you had an extra gear for those special matchups. If there was a point guard that people compared to you, you made it a point to show the world that you wiped your Adidas with him. And when the smoke cleared, you were the mvp. This was the stuff Disney movies are made from. Even when you lost to the Heat in the Eastern Conference finals, we didn't sweat it. Cause we knew in our soul that you were going to win us a championship one day soon.
We knew that this was just the beginning. You were young and had a long career ahead of you. We had no idea that this was the best it was going to be for a while. The following year, you battled nagging injuries the entire lockout shortened season. We didn't worry because we told ourselves that as long as you were healthy for the playoffs we had a shot of winning the whole thing. Then during the last couple of minutes of the first playoff game against Philadelphia, you went down and didn't bounce back up. I knew it was bad right away. My gut said it was your ACL and one MRI later, I was proven right.
It seemed like the whole city moved in slow motion when you went down. The only reason we didn't go into collective depression was because we were sure that you would come back and be ok. After all, plenty of guys had overcome that same injury and went on to get their career on track. Sure our title chances that year went out the window. But it was cool. You'd be back the next year and we could pickup from there.
Except you didn't come back. You sat out the entire next season. This is where the story about you starts to get murky. In all fairness to you, I've never seen an ACL tear get so much day to day media coverage. However, simply put, you and your team could've handled the media aspect better. Every day was the question of when you were coming back. Every day you gave us an ambiguous answer along the lines of "When I'm 110%". As fans we watched confused. One second, the Bulls front office would leak that you were medically cleared to play. Your camp would respond with your brother Reggie implying that your team didn't have enough talent to win. FYI, you can't criticize your teammates if they're suiting up and you're not. And your people can't either.
But here is where I saw the shift. For the first time, people questioned you. Prior to this, if you walked in my neighborhood and said any sort of anti-D. Rose comments, somebody would have probably ended up putting their hands on you. Before this I didn't want to hear anything bad about you. D. Rose cheated on the ACT? Those tests are culturally biased. Old pic of you throwing up gang signs? Had to be carpal tunnel syndrome. At this point in time, someone could have shown me footage of you, standing in the middle of State street, punting babies, white babies in the air like Todd Sauerbraun and I would have never questioned your character.
For the first time, you weren't teflon. You still said the right things. About how dominant you were going to be. About how explosive you has become since rehab. And us die-hards sat back and waited to see it. We were still waiting when you tore the meniscus in your other knee.
You were done according to most of the media and fans. In the minds of many you had gone from Too big, too fast, too strong, too good, all the way down to Too frail, too brittle, too weak, too scared. The people who once hailed you as the revolution of the point guard all of a sudden were endorsing names like Curry, Irving and Westbrook.All that was left was us, the true believers. The guys you started with. And to tell you the truth, we were hanging by a thread. And to this day, we are still waiting for signs of life. I swear in my gut that I have to believe it will get better. Or else the tale of Derrick Rose has gone from being the greatest sports Cinderella story ever to the most tragic ESPN 30 for30 special ever.
Let me first start off by saying I'm a fan. In fact, that may be a little bit of an understatement. I probably got more love for you than I should have for a total stranger. I remember watching you play at Simeon. One game in particular springs to mind. I don't remember who you were playing, but it was your junior year and the game was televised. The thing that stuck with me was on three straight plays I watched you just show off the jets. It was like you realized that you were by far the best athlete on the court and decided to show it in the most demoralizing fashion possible. You said, Screw your teammates, and basically ran a one on four fastbreak, three times down the floor. You blew by defenders with such ease, it was unreal. To say it looked like they were standing still would have been selling it short. I hopped up and called one of my guys, to ask if he was watching . Before he could even say hello, we came to the consensus that you were a future superstar.
The thing about die hard Chicago fans, is that once we adopt you, you belong to us, no matter where you end up. So when you signed on to play at Memphis, it was cool. Cause you were still Chicago. When you led your team to the national championship, it was your Chicagoness that got you there. And with most star athletes that hail from the Windy City, we made peace with the idea that you would be suiting up for an NBA team other than ours. But it was cool. Cause wherever you ended up, you still belonged to us. But then the craziest thing happened.
I remember it like it was yesterday. Standing in front of my crib with the guys, we all decided there was no point in watching the draft lottery. We had a 1.8% chance of winning so we knew that the odds of us getting someone special was not good. Then a crackhead came down the street and gave us the news that changed our basketball fan lives: the Bulls got the number one pick in the draft. Our reaction was unique. We honestly didn't believe him. We all thought to ourselves, what could he possibly know? He's a crackhead! But just in case, I looked it up on my phone and sure enough we had won the lottery. We literally danced in the middle of the street knowing that you were coming home. Quietly though, I worried about you. Coming home to play for your home team in a town where you had reached legendary status at a young age, might have been too much pressure.
I was worried for nothing. At least the first three years. We watched you come out your first year and win Rookie of the Year, while balling out in one of the best seven game series in history against the Celtics. Next year, you let the world know it wasn't a fluke by making the All Star team. You were on fire what else could you possibly do? Then came year 3. On media day, you almost with a casual indifference asked Why can't you be the MVP of the league. To some it was arrogant. Others thought you were reaching too soon. I knew better. I knew you were dead ass serious.
The rest of the league figured out really quickly that you weren't playing. Maybe I'm biased. Maybe the love I got for you colors my memories. But I have never seen someone make a run at being the best player in the world, while leaving such a trail of freshly kicked asses behind him. Night in, night out, you destroyed dudes. Not just won, but destroyed. And it seemed like you had an extra gear for those special matchups. If there was a point guard that people compared to you, you made it a point to show the world that you wiped your Adidas with him. And when the smoke cleared, you were the mvp. This was the stuff Disney movies are made from. Even when you lost to the Heat in the Eastern Conference finals, we didn't sweat it. Cause we knew in our soul that you were going to win us a championship one day soon.
We knew that this was just the beginning. You were young and had a long career ahead of you. We had no idea that this was the best it was going to be for a while. The following year, you battled nagging injuries the entire lockout shortened season. We didn't worry because we told ourselves that as long as you were healthy for the playoffs we had a shot of winning the whole thing. Then during the last couple of minutes of the first playoff game against Philadelphia, you went down and didn't bounce back up. I knew it was bad right away. My gut said it was your ACL and one MRI later, I was proven right.
It seemed like the whole city moved in slow motion when you went down. The only reason we didn't go into collective depression was because we were sure that you would come back and be ok. After all, plenty of guys had overcome that same injury and went on to get their career on track. Sure our title chances that year went out the window. But it was cool. You'd be back the next year and we could pickup from there.
Except you didn't come back. You sat out the entire next season. This is where the story about you starts to get murky. In all fairness to you, I've never seen an ACL tear get so much day to day media coverage. However, simply put, you and your team could've handled the media aspect better. Every day was the question of when you were coming back. Every day you gave us an ambiguous answer along the lines of "When I'm 110%". As fans we watched confused. One second, the Bulls front office would leak that you were medically cleared to play. Your camp would respond with your brother Reggie implying that your team didn't have enough talent to win. FYI, you can't criticize your teammates if they're suiting up and you're not. And your people can't either.
But here is where I saw the shift. For the first time, people questioned you. Prior to this, if you walked in my neighborhood and said any sort of anti-D. Rose comments, somebody would have probably ended up putting their hands on you. Before this I didn't want to hear anything bad about you. D. Rose cheated on the ACT? Those tests are culturally biased. Old pic of you throwing up gang signs? Had to be carpal tunnel syndrome. At this point in time, someone could have shown me footage of you, standing in the middle of State street, punting babies, white babies in the air like Todd Sauerbraun and I would have never questioned your character.
For the first time, you weren't teflon. You still said the right things. About how dominant you were going to be. About how explosive you has become since rehab. And us die-hards sat back and waited to see it. We were still waiting when you tore the meniscus in your other knee.
You were done according to most of the media and fans. In the minds of many you had gone from Too big, too fast, too strong, too good, all the way down to Too frail, too brittle, too weak, too scared. The people who once hailed you as the revolution of the point guard all of a sudden were endorsing names like Curry, Irving and Westbrook.All that was left was us, the true believers. The guys you started with. And to tell you the truth, we were hanging by a thread. And to this day, we are still waiting for signs of life. I swear in my gut that I have to believe it will get better. Or else the tale of Derrick Rose has gone from being the greatest sports Cinderella story ever to the most tragic ESPN 30 for30 special ever.
We gave you a pass last year seeing how it was your first attempt at playing a season in a while and you had a abundant amount of rust to shake off. We watched you launch three pointer after ineffective three pointer. We watched as you posted mundane stat lines. Don't get me wrong, there were flashes. Just enough where we would think you were starting to turn a corner. Then you would kind of suck again. Us diehards still made excuses for you. This season would be the most telling one. Then came media day.
Now in all fairness, you were never the best interview. During your early days, when answering questions, you would mumble the phrase "I just wanna win" fifty times and say something nice about your teammates. Even though you weren't the most articulate brother in the world , you always managed to say the right things. Not this year, though. Even though it had nothing to do with the question, at this year's media day, you started talking about your future contract and cashing in on the new tv money the NBA has been spending. That hurt. That made me as a fan feel that the guy I was riding with, the guy I believed in, was gone, and had been replaced with a money grubbing prima donna who could give a damn about his career legacy. The guy that only wanted to be the best basketball player he could, had been replaced by a guy who wanted to make as much as he could, even though he was still in the middle of a $100 million dollar contract that a lot of people would say he hadnt made good on.
