Derrick Rose’s time with the Bulls began on a path for storybook status. Drafted No. 1 overall by his hometown team, Rose immediately burst on the scene in 2008 as one of the more dynamic, exciting players in the NBA. By age 23, he was already a three-time All-Star, Rookie of the Year and MVP, and the Bulls appeared on a rise towards legitimate title contention.
Needless to say, that storybook ending never actualized. The first domino was Rose tearing the ACL in his left knee in a first round playoff series against the 76ers in 2012, which caused him to miss the entire 2012-13 season. Then, in the 10th game of his return in 2013-14, he tore the medial meniscus in his right knee, resulting in another lengthy absence. He never refound his MVP form, the Bulls tapered off and Rose was traded to the Knicks in the summer of 2016.
Rose’s departure from the Bulls was fraught with media and fan scrutiny regarding his recovery processes — chiefly, his sitting out all of that 2012-13 campaign instead of attempting a return in the spring. On a recent episode of the "Bulls Talk Podcast," former Bull and Rose’s agent B.J. Armstrong came to Rose’s defense on that point.
“You deal with the ups and downs of being in the public eye, right, whether it’s warranted or not. And that was OK,” Armstrong told Jason Goff and Will Perdue. “But when you know someone is giving everything that he possibly had… I was able to peek behind the curtain, and I knew how bad he wanted to get on that floor. I knew he was getting ready to get out there, but at that moment in time his body just wasn’t cooperating.
“I’ve been around enough athletes to know when someone is working, someone’s not. Sometimes, your body, you’ve got to listen to it… For him, it was just at that moment in time, it (his body) wasn’t working. It just wasn’t cooperating how quickly he wanted it to cooperate. Because he wanted to be there. And that was frustrating for him in many regards. And I just felt terrible for him because I knew how much he’d put into it. I knew what he wanted. I knew how hard he was going. And that was the first time in his career when he couldn’t just power through it. ”
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Armstrong chalks the whole situation up as a valuable learning experience. Since the Knicks trade, Rose has moved on to greener pastures in Minnesota and Detroit to on-court success. Before the 2019-20 season paused, Rose was averaging 18.1 points and 5.6 assists while shooting 49% from the field in a spark plug bench role for the Pistons.
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To be sure, there’s a cruel irony in the fact that Rose’s reclamation has reached a head in Detroit, a city with so much contentious basketball history with Chicago. But in Rose’s heart, his home city will always come first.
“I know how bad he wanted to win in the city of Chicago,” Armstrong continued. “If there was ever a true emotion of a Chicago Bull, Derrick Rose embodies it. Because he is Chicago. That kid will do anything for the city of Chicago. And I’m not talking just the Bulls, for the city of Chicago. Wherever he goes in the world, you best believe Chicago is right there in his heart.
“He is Chicago in every sense. And I love him for that because he represents everything that makes Chicago Chicago.”
Listen to Armstrong's full interview with Goff and Perdue here or via the embedded player below:
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