Did anyone really think Derrick Rose was coming back these playoffs?
It has been pretty obvious for a while he wouldn’t — and at this point in the playoffs, shouldn’t — but the door was always open. So coach Tom Thibodeau and Bulls players are asked about it all the time.
But Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports says Rose has already decided not to return this season, he just won’t say it publicly for some reason.“Who knows?” Rose told reporters hours on Saturday. “It’s still up in the air.”
Who knows? Derrick Rose knows. His choice has been made to sit out the season and it includes no provisions for turning back, sources with direct knowledge told Yahoo! Sports.
You really think after everything Rose is going to decide to start playing in a round where he would find the physical LeBron James on him in crunch time? As well as other strong defenders such as Norris Cole the rest of the game?
My position on this hasn’t changed: Rose and only Rose should decide when he is ready to come back, and if he’s not he’s not. You don’t know what his knee feels like, what his mind feels like, and for you to sit on your couch (or me on mine) and say he should be out there for our entertainment is wrong. (And basketball is entertainment.) How much the Bulls pay him and all the rest of it doesn’t matter. He gets to make the call. And Chicago, with a 24-year-old league MVP to anchor the franchise for a decade, needs to think long term and not push him.
But, it has been an ongoing mistake since there were 10 games left in the season for him not to say he was done for he season. This is something hanging over the team — or, at least they have to deal with it — when it shouldn’t be there.
You are in or you are out, stop with the fence sitting. Wojnarowski and I are on the same page here.