Sports
Derrick Rose, 2008 No. 1 overall pick and 2011 NBA MVP, announces retirement
Derrick Rose’s final appearance as an NBA player got here in the shape of a basketball letter through which he detailed the ups and downs he experienced over his 16-year skilled profession.
And thus his profession ended on his terms.
Rose, the No. 1 overall pick within the 2008 NBA Draft by his hometown Chicago Bulls and the league’s MVP in 2011, announced Thursday that he’s retiring. He was, and still is, the youngest MVP award winner in NBA history, winning the award at just 22 years old.
“You believed in me through the ups and downs, and you were my constant when everything else seemed uncertain,” Rose wrote in his letter to the team announcing his retirement. He posted the letter online and also took out full-page newspaper ads in each of the cities he played in during his NBA years.
“You told me you could say goodbye, assuring me that you would always be a part of me, no matter where life took me,” he wrote.
Rose was the Bulls’ league Rookie of the Year in 2008-09, was league MVP two seasons later and was an All-Star in three of his first 4 seasons. A serious knee injury throughout the 2012 playoffs forced him to miss nearly two full seasons, and he considered quitting the sport several times resulting from other injury issues, but he all the time found a technique to get back on the court.
Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf said Rose “represents the grit, resilience and heart” of Chicago.
“He is one of the toughest and most determined athletes I have ever met, constantly fighting against the odds that would break him the most,” Reinsdorf said. “Watching him grow from a Chicago Public League star to the youngest MVP in NBA history as a Bull was simply an honor.”
In addition to the Bulls, Rose also played in New York, Detroit, Minnesota, Cleveland and Memphis. He spent last season with the Grizzlies, returning to town he called home for one season of school basketball.
He played 24 games for the Grizzlies last season, and after the season ended, Rose detailed what returning to Memphis meant to him.
“Everything has come full circle,” Rose said in April. (*1*)
The Grizzlies added in an announcement Thursday congratulating Rose on his profession: “We are grateful for your significant contributions to this team and this city and wish you all the best in the next chapter of your life.”
Rose has had multiple knee surgeries over time, taking time to contemplate his future throughout the 2017-18 season while coping with ankle problems, and going through almost two full seasons – after suffering a knee injury in 2012 – when he must have been rested, the fundamental.
Rose averaged 17.4 points and 5.2 assists in 723 regular season games. Before tearing his ACL, he averaged 21 points per game 12 years ago and 15.1 points per game in subsequent seasons.
“With D-Rose, there was never any question about his talent,” Hall of Famer Dwyane Wade, a former teammate of Rose, said in 2018. “It was all the time about his health. And when he was healthy, everyone saw all his talent.
In the years following his knee problems, Rose continued to repeatedly reveal his MVP-level talent. On October 31, 2018, he scored a career-high for Minnesota in a 128–125 win over Utah. This match moved him to tears. On December 14, 2019, he had 12 assists in a 115-107 win over Houston. It was his first such match in almost eight years.
“I know the person he is, the character he has,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau, who coached Rose in Chicago, Minnesota and New York, said in 2018 when he was managing the Timberwolves. “And it shines through.”
Rose was a powerful contender for a sixth league Player of the Year award in three straight seasons – 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21 – and even topped the MVP voting again in 2020-21, a decade after winning the award prizes.
He quickly made his mark as a star, winning the league’s skills challenge – as a rookie – during All-Star Weekend in 2009, then earning Rookie of the Year honors and scoring 36 points in his playoff debut. It was a meteoric rise for somebody who grew up poor in a Chicago suburb and then saw basketball as an escape and a technique to handle his mother and family. In 2006, he took the shot and won the Illinois highschool state championship. Just five years later, he became NBA MVP.
“The kid from Englewood has become a Chicago legend,” the Bulls wrote on social media on Thursday. together with a video of Rose’s highlights with the team.