The Bulls Shouldn’ t Retire D-Rose’s Number
This question has largely been treated as a fait accompli, at least in the conversations I’ve had with my friends.
“He’s the first MVP since Jordan.” “He’s the reason I’m a Bulls fan.” “I’d gladly sacrifice my own knees for him.”
That’s all well and good, but this is still a conversation worth having. So, for the sake of argument, I’ll gladly play the Christopher Hitchens to Derrick Rose’s Mother Teresa.
The Chicago Bulls should not retire Derrick Rose’s number. Despite constant clamoring from fans this season in favor of his jersey retirement, Rose’s individual success, team success, and off-the-court choices during his eight-season tenure with the Bulls do not warrant a jersey retirement.
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Two Bulls players have been subjected to considerable backlash from fans this season after deigning to don number one on their jersey.
The first, Michael Carter (“Sharter”)-Williams. (The nickname is mine but it’ll catch on once most people watch him play and then google what a “shart” is. Or you could just ask Philip Seymour Hoffman.)
The second, Anthony “DNP” Morrow. (The nickname is mine, but I suspect Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg also refers to him as this. While I’m on the subject, Morrow’s real nickname, according to Basketball Reference, is actually “Chocolate Reign,” which is one of those nicknames that gets doper and doper as fewer and fewer people know that it’s a reference to something. The opposite is when a nickname become less cool as fewer people are familiar with its cultural reference point. An example is Dirk Nowitzki, who, according to Basketball Reference, can claim the following monikers: “Dirty,” “Tall Baller from the G,” and “German Race Car,” which all sound like names my dad would give himself if he decided to become a rapper. In reality, the definitive selection of Nowitzki nicknames comes from this Conan segment they filmed in Dallas. In it, the officially-sanctioned pantheon of Dirk nicknames is revealed. They include The Dunking Deutchman, The German Wunderkind, The Germanator, The Seven-foot Schnitzel, The Berlin Tall, Superstrudel, and, my favorite, Dirk Diggler, which, as stated above, loses all its gravitas if people don’t realize he’s nicknamed after a fictional pornstar with a schlong the size of Nowtizki’s right arm.)
Anyway, Morrow, like Sharter-Williams, faced some serious backlash from Bulls homers (read: Derrick Rose Stans) after he decided to wear number one after being traded to the Bulls in February.
We can infer two things from these two instances:
One: Number one is a cool-ass number. Who wouldn’t want to wear number one? Say someone’s talking trash to you on the court. All you gotta say is: “Well, I might be 0-for-17 tonight, I’m still number one.” Number one is better than all the other numbers.
Tw0: Management hasn’t informed these guys that it’s probably a bad idea to wear number one so close to Derrick Rose’s departure from the team. This notion gained significant traction after the Morrow incident. You’d think someone, the jersey manager(?), would have mentioned to him: “Hey man, this thing happened with Wet Farts over there about wearing number one, so maybe choose another of the 99 other numbers out there.” But no, they didn’t.
This second point suggests one of these two things is true:
One: The Bulls staff is incompetent in handling matters such as this (absolutely within the realm of possibilities, especially at this point in the season).
Or,
Two: The Bulls intentionally aren’t telling people not to wear number one because they want to move on from Derrick Rose.
The latter seems to make the most sense, in my opinion.
So if they’ll just let anyone come onto the team and decide to wear number one, one can infer that they aren’t exactly keen on the idea of retiring Rose’s number.
So now the question becomes: Why doesn’t management want Derrick Rose’s number to be retired?
While I can’t know this answer, I can try to make the case for myself.
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Of course, before I continue, I have to acknowledge a possibility that’s probably on everyone’s mind at this point: maybe the fans just don’t want someone wearing number one who doesn’t deserve it.
If this is the case (which it may very well be), I get it. I wouldn’t want someone who regularly opts to hot fart in his jockeys instead of playing good basketball wearing the number of a former MVP and hometown boy. I also wouldn’t want someone who when you call them by their alleged nickname usually gets the response: “oh, you mean the guy from Youtube?” wearing number one either.
So I get it.
But maybe it’s not. Maybe the fans just don’t want anyone to wear number one again, which means that they want the number retired.
So this is the assumption I’m going to operate under: that the backlash from fans toward Michael “Poops-instead-of-farts” Williams and Anthony “Chocolate Reign, but not the Youtube Sensation” Morrow is a sign from a portion of Bulls fans that they want to see number one retired.
In other words, they never want to see anyone wear number one again.
Well, I do. And here’s why.
This is a classic Bill Walton situation: was his shortened career enough to justify the accolades so many claim he deserves?
(Note: for those unfamiliar, Bill Walton, after he finished the greatest college basketball career ever recorded, and before he began the greatest college basketball commentator career ever recorded, played in the NBA. Unfortunately, his career was shortened by devastating injuries to his lower extremities and his back. However, he was able to lead the Portland Trailblazers to their single NBA Championship in 1977. His 1977 season is largely considered to be one of the greatest individual NBA seasons ever recorded.)
That sounds a little familiar, doesn’t it? A player recording a single great season being held up as one of the greats.
Thing is, Walton lead his team to a championship, which bolsters his case considerably. Rose, on the other hand, didn’t even lead his team to the finals, which hurts his case considerably.
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Before I continue, a little Bulls history lesson. The Bulls have retired four numbers:
4 (Jerry Sloan): The “Original Bull” was a member of the first-ever Bulls team in 1966 and ranks third in games played for the Bulls (696).
10 (Bob Love): Lead the Bulls in scoring for seven straight seasons and ranks third all-time in Bulls scoring. He currently serves as the Bulls Director of Community Affairs and makes over 300 public speaking appearances a year. I saw him speak in elementary school, even.
23 (Michael Jordan): Greatest player of all time. Lead the Bulls to six championships.
33 (Scottie Pippen): Top-25 player of all time, greatest perimeter defender of all time. Six championships with the Bulls.
So Derrick Rose would be the fifth induction into the United Center rafters. In order for one to make the case for Rose, however, one has to weigh his career with the Bulls in comparison with these other four.
There are three running themes in the brief player biographies listed above. These three themes are the things to look at when deciding to retire a Bulls player’s number: individual statistics (scoring, etc.), team success (championships), and “extra-curriculars.”
The “extra-curriculars” is a little harder to quantify.
For instance, people around town are quick to remind me that Derrick Rose is a “Hometown Boy,” born and raised in Chicago. It seemed like the work of fate when the Bulls were awarded the number one pick in 2008, and it was even more fate-like when they opted to select Hometown Boy Derrick Rose with the number one overall pick over the safer choice, volume-scorer and volume-pot-smoker Michael Beasley.
In fact, the resumes of first two players whose numbers were retired by the Bulls, Jerry Sloan and Bob Love, were bolstered by things “extraneous” to their careers than stats or team accolades.
Jerry Sloan is the “Original Bull,” as well as the first number ever retired by the organization.
Bob Love has been a stalwart in the Bulls organization since he retired in 1977. He has been the Bulls’ Director of Community Relations since 1993, regularly delivers speeches to schoolchildren around the country, and held his wedding ceremony at the United Center in 1995. This has certainly bolstered his case.
The other two players were able to make it on statistics and team successes alone.
So there are three areas to consider for Derrick Rose’s possible induction into the rafters: Individual statistics, team success, and “extra-curriculars.” I will go through each of these sections one by one.
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Individual Statistics: Were Derrick Rose’s individual accomplishments enough to earn him a spot in the rafters?
Derrick Rose occupies a unique place in Bulls history. At most, he had three quality seasons with the team. This could have been four quality seasons, but his final good season was shortened by injury — this is a running (er, walking? Limping?) theme with him. In his final four seasons he sat out an entire season and then came back for only 10 games the following season before tearing his knee up again. His final two seasons on the team were also shortened, but honestly that doesn’t really matter because he sucked.
In other words, while Derrick Rose was on the roster for eight seasons, only four of these seasons are worth remembering.
Here’s a breakdown:
(Note: true shooting percentage is a stat that considers the amount of three pointers he shot as well as how many free throws he took. So instead of listing his 2-point percentage, how many twos he took a game, his free-throw percentage, how many FTs he took a game, his 3-point percentage, and how many threes he took a game, I just use true shooting because it combines all of these factors. Overall it gives a good representation of how “efficient” a scorer someone was.)
Good seasons: 2
‘08–09: 81 games, 51.6% true shooting, 16.8 points, 6.3 assists, 3.9 rebounds, NBA Rookie of the Year
‘09–10: 78 games, 53.2% true shooting, 20.8 points, 6 assists, 3.8 rebounds
Great seasons: 1
‘10–11: 81 games, 55% true shooting, 25 points, 7.7 assists, 4.1 rebounds, NBA Most Valuable Player
Better-than-good-but-still-not-great seasons that were also shortened by an injury: 1
‘11–12: 39 games, 53.2% true shooting, 21.8 points, 7.9 assists, 3.4 rebounds
Missed seasons: 1
‘12–13: 0 games, 0 points, 0 assists, 0 rebounds, $16.4 million made
Uber-shortened seasons: 1
‘13–14: 10 games, 15.9 points, 4.3 assists, 3.2 rebounds
Shortened, lackluster, “Did that guy really win an MVP???” seasons: 2
‘14–15: 51 games, 49.3% true shooting, 17.7 points, 4.9 assists, 3.2 rebounds
‘15–16: 66 games, 47.9% true shooting, 16.4 points, 4.7 assists, 3.4 rebounds
With these stats in mind, ask yourself: does the short amount of time that Derrick Rose was good justify him getting his number retired?
In other words, were his individual statistics good enough to have his number retired?
Probably not.
This is where Bill Walton rears his freckled, big-toothed, red-haired head again. Yes, Rose is the best Bull since MJ, but we have to look at what the best Bull since MJ did to earn his number in the rafters. This is where we start to venture into team success and “extra-curriculars.”
Actually, hold up a sec. Let’s talk about his MVP. While he had a singular great season, that great season was considered by the press to be the best season in the entirety of the NBA.
In the 2010–2011 season, he was voted over Lebron James and Dwight Howard as the NBA’s Most Valuable Player. He lead the Bulls to the one seed that season (and a record of 62–20, the best in the league) and he was also the youngest player (22 years old) to ever win the award.
Unfortunately, there’s a dangerous opinion circulating around the internet these days. That opinion is the one that Derrick Rose didn’t deserve the MVP that season. (Instead of linking to various threads on NBA forums where comments to that effect are upvoted highly, I’ll quote the POTUS and say “I don’t know it for a fact, I just know it’s true.”)
Let’s look a little closer, though.
The MVP race wasn’t even close that year. In fact, there have been only six instances since Michael Jordan’s final season (1997–1998) where an MVP has received more first-place MVP votes than Rose did in 2011 (113 votes): Shaq in 2000 (120 first-place votes), Kevin Garnett in 2004 (120 votes), Lebron in 2010 (116 votes), Lebron in 2013 (120 votes), Kevin Durant in 2014 (119 votes), and Steph Curry in 2016 (131 votes). Lebron got four first place votes. Howard got three.
Sure, his statline is considerably less sexy than both Lebron’s (26.7/7.5reb/7.0ast) and Howard’s (22.9/14.1 reb/1.4 steals/2.4 blocks), but he lead the team to a league-best record with Carlos “Holdat” Boozer as the second-best offensive player on the team. (Boozer’s statline for the year? 59 games, 17.5 points, 9.6 rebounds.)
To anyone saying Lebron should’ve won: He won fewer games (58) with more help. D-Wade’s statline for the year: 25.5 points, 6.4 rebounds, 4.6 assists. Chris Bosh’s statline: 18.7 points, 8.3 rebounds. Also, remember, that was the year Lebron dumped Cleveland like a high school girlfriend to go and date a supermodel in Miami. He also dumped them on national TV.
Everyone excoriated Lebron that season and the Bulls still had a better record and they swept them 3–0 in the regular season. He wasn’t going to win, so there’s no point in saying he should’ve won.
If anything, the MVP should’ve been Howard’s. He put up insane stats, but since he only lead his team to 52 victories (fourth in the Eastern Conference and eighth in the NBA overall), he was never going to win it. That’s like saying Moonlight should’ve won the Oscar this year over La La Land. OH WAIT.
To wit: since Larry Bird’s 1985 MVP award, no MVP has ever been awarded to a player on a team lower than the two seed. So while he might have “deserved” it, it just wasn’t going to happen.
But unfortunately, for some reason, just like no one outside of Cleveland thinks Cleveland is a nice place to live (or even vacation), no one outside of Chicago really recognizes Derrick Rose’s 2011 MVP award as one that was deserved.
So the argument that Rose didn’t deserve his MVP isn’t one I’m going to use because, well, I don’t share that opinion.
But, unfortunately, Derrick Rose’s individual basketball accomplishments alone don’t warrant his jersey retirement. He had one great season, one MVP, one could-have-been-great season, and two good seasons.
Verdict: Not enough.
But maybe he lead some successful teams to outweigh this.
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Team Success: How successful were the Bulls with Rose and how much of said success is attributable to Rose?
Here’s the Bulls’ record from the season before they drafted Derrick Rose:
‘07–08: 33–49 record. Offense: 26th in NBA, Defense: 14th, miss playoffs.
The Bulls were mediocre. In fact, there were only eight teams with a worse record than the Bulls that season. They fired coach Scott Skiles mid-way through the season. Then, they only had a 1.7% chance of getting the number one pick in the NBA draft lottery, which they happened to get. They used that pick to select Hometown Boy Derrick Rose. They also hired a new coach.
Summer ‘08: draft Derrick Rose, hire coach Vinnie Del Negro
Here are the team statistics from Rose’s first two seasons:
‘08–09: 41–41, Offense: 15th, Defense: 18th, lose in first round of the playoffs.
‘09–10: 41–41, Offense: 27th, Defense: 11th, lose in first round of the playoffs.
So the Bulls went from “mediocre” to “average.” But he was only a rookie and a sophomore for these two seasons, right? So after two years of playing .500 basketball and getting bounced in the first round of the playoffs, the Bulls made another coaching change.
Summer ‘10: Hire coach Tom Thibodeau
‘10–11: 62–20, Offense: 11th, Defense: 1st, lose in Eastern Conference Finals
The Bulls made a leap both offensively and defensively and secured the best record in the entire NBA. They also lead the league in defensive rating. Rose broke out this year (not taking about his acne), winning the NBA’s Most Valuable Player award. They made it all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals and lost to the NBA equivalent of the Axis of Evil, the Miami Heat.
‘11–12: 50–16 (Lockout shortened season), Off: 5th, Def: 2nd, Rose tears his ACL in the first game of the playoffs.
Derrick Rose only played 39 games this season and tore his ACL in the first round of the playoffs during a series that the Bulls would go on to lose anyway. This team was arguably better than the 2010–11 Bulls and stood the best chance of defeating the Miami Heat. While Rose was the team’s best (read: most talented) player, Joakim Noah was the team’s most important player, which will be explained in a moment.
After tearing his knee, Derrick Rose would sit out for the entirety of the following season and play in only 10 games in the season after that one. If he was, in fact, the sole reason for the Bulls’ success during his tenure, the Bulls would fall off a cliff, right? Well, here are the Bulls’ stats from those seasons:
‘12–13: 45–37 record, Offense: 23rd, Defense: 6th, lose in second round of the playoffs.
‘13–14: 48–34 record, Offense: 28th, Defense: 2nd, lose in first round of the playoffs.
So while the Bulls’ offense certainly fell off a cliff, their defense kept them in it. The fact that the Bulls were a defense-first team under Coach Thibodeau runs contrary to the amount of credit Derrick Rose gets. This isn’t the 2010–11 Cavs here. (For those unfamiliar: as mentioned above Lebron ditched the Cavs in free agency to form his own Axis of Evil in Miami with D-Wade and Chris Bosh. The Cavs’ record in Lebron’s final season with them: 61–21. Their first season without LeBron: 19–63. He was their alpha and omega, their sun and their moon. Derrick Rose? He was simply the Bulls’ best offensive player — a player that made a good team great. Big difference.)
Earlier I also made the claim that while D-Rose was the Bulls’ best offensive player, he wasn’t their most important player. I’d go so far as to say that he was the most important player on the Bulls for only one season during his eight in Chicago.
(Note: the previous sentence equates the “most important player” on the team with the player with the most win shares to his credit. Win shares, according to Basketball Reference’s statisticians, is a “player statistic which attempts to divvy up credit for team success to the individuals on the team.” If one adds up the win shares of the players on a team for the season, it will align very closely with the team’s victories that season. Put simply, it’s the number of team victories contributed by a player. So if a player has six win shares for a season, six of the team’s victories can be attributed to that player’s presence on the team. If the team didn’t have that player (of if that player were replaced with an average player), then they would have theoretically won six fewer games. Make sense?)
In 08–09, Rose was attributed with 4.9 wins, behind Joakim Noah’s 6.4 and Ben Gordon’s 6.9. This is to be expected because he was a rookie.
In 09–10, Rose contributed 6.0, behind only Noah with 6.2. (Note: in that season, the Bulls had the fourth-worst offense in the league but the 11th-best defense, which explains Noah’s win contributions).
In 2010–2011, though, Rose was attributed with 13.1 wins, a team high (and good for fifth in the league overall, behind, you guessed it, both Lebron (first with 15.1) and Dwight Howard (third with 14.4)). Second on the Bulls was Luol Deng with 9.9. While the Bulls had the 11th-best offense that season, they had the league-best defense, despite starting center Joakim Noah playing only 48 games and having 6.6 win shares.
In 11–12, Rose played only 39 games but still notched 6 win shares. Noah lead the team with 9.0, anchoring the league’s second-best defense. Rose may have been the “best” player on the team this season, but he wasn’t the most important player to the team’s success. That honor was Noah’s.
Rose sat out 12–13 and played only 10 games in 13–14. As mentioned in the previous section, it should be noted that Rose’s offensive contributions (or lack thereof) to the team came into focus during these two seasons: despite having top-ten defenses for those two seasons, the Bulls ranked 23rd and 28th in offensive rating for these two seasons respectively, which can be traced directly to Rose’s absence on the offensive end. But they still made the playoffs and advanced into the second round once. In other words, they were a team defined by defense over offense. Very important.
When Rose was finally able to return for the 14–15 season, he had become a shell of his former self. His contributions declined precipitously as the team revolved more around star-in-the-making Jimmy Butler and Pau Gasol. In 14–15, Butler and Gasol lead the team in win shares with 11.2 and 10.4 respectively. Rose ranked ninth on the team with a measly 1.2 wins contributed.
The following season, Rose’s final season in a Bulls uniform, largely followed the same pattern: Butler and Gasol were attributed with the most win shares, while Rose was 14th on the team with 0.4. Dang.
The Bulls still made the playoffs every season he was sidelined. This is a result of quality coaching and suffocating team defense.
Verdict: The argument in favor overstates Rose’s contribution to the team’s success and over-exaggerates how bad the Bulls were without him. However, the Bulls’ offense did fall off a cliff without Rose, so he was certainly important. This one is a draw, but slightly favoring the opposition to his retirement.
So, to make the final decision, we have to look at Derrick Rose’s Bulls off-the-court career in Chicago to see if he is deserving.
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Extra-Curriculars: Does Derrick Rose’s off-the-court career with the Bulls earn him enough good will to have his jersey retired?
As mentioned in the previous section, Rose didn’t accomplish nearly enough in his playing career to earn a place in the rafters beside the likes of Pippen and Jordan, and his teams didn’t accomplish enough either. But we can look at other things, things that aren’t necessarily tied to player or team statistics, to make the case.
People are quick to mention that Derrick Rose hails from Chicago. He was born in Chicago in 1988 and spent his youth in the Englewood neighborhood.
I’m very well aware of his unlikely success story (cue the 2pac) and I admire it as much as anyone. It’s a great story and it warms my heart that he was able to beat the odds that were stacked against him from the beginning.
And yes, Derrick Rose has also made sizable donations to Chicago charities in the past. I applaud him and commend him for this. He’s a regular http://pitchfork.com/news/72080-chance-the-rapper-announces-1-million-donation-to-chicago-public-schools/.
He was also the reason for the Bulls’ raise in prominence in the public conversation. The Bulls had their first superstar since MJ and his jersey was the number one selling jersey in 2012. He helped bring me and plenty of my friends back into the fold as Bulls fans. So I personally have to thank him as well. He was one of my favorite players to watch, ever.
But (and this is a Kardashian-sized but), if one wants to introduce things extraneous to his playing career as evidence of him deserving to have his number retired, we have to consider all of it equally.
In other words, we can’t selectively pick the commercial-friendly parts of his personal life to hoist as evidence of his worth without considering the bad parts too.
This is where most of my case rests, on these “other” parts of his personal life that would tarnish the Bulls’ reputation if they chose to retire his number.
I’ll start with a relatively benign one: during his post-injury tenure with the Bulls, Derrick rose demonstrated questionable dedication to the team. His motivations for playing were also suspect. This is understandable: he was the king of the town, brought back down to Earth. It makes sense that he was sensitive to this and maybe a little insecure about it.
But here’s the big one: what came to light during his trial for sexual assault this past summer.
For those unfamiliar with what I’m referring to, here’s the rundown:
On August 26, 2013, Derrick Rose invited a girl he was dating and her friend to his pad. After a few hours of drinking, the two women took a cab home. Meanwhile, the girl he was dating (Jane Doe) and Rose continued to text. She wanted him to come over, while he wanted to send some of his people to swing by her place, pick her up, and bring her back to his house. She fell asleep before anything could materialize, but later that night, Rose and two of his friends drove to her apartment and spent about 30 minutes trying to wake her up to get her to let them in. The men claim that she eventually woke up and let them in, while she claims they found another way to get up to her apartment.
Once they gained access to her apartment, the three men proceeded to have sex with her. Rose and the other men claim the intercourse was consensual while Doe denies even being awake.
On August 25, 2015, Jane Doe filed a civil suit against Rose.
On October 19, 2016, Rose was absolved of any wrongdoing by an eight-person jury.
Now, before you @ me and attack me for holding something against him that he was absolved of doing: I know. He was accused and acquitted. I’m not going to hold the fact that he was accused of something against him. As an outsider, I have no way of knowing what actually went down inside the apartment that night.
There’s a difference between condemning someone for what they’ve (allegedly) done and condemning someone for who they appear to be. Rose was acquitted, so, for all intents and purposes here, I can’t be sure he did anything illegal.
What I am sure of, however, is what he said in court — things that were, in my opinion, incompatible with anything resembling respect for women.
Now, before I begin, let me jump out in front of something some readers are undoubtedly thinking right about now: the obvious comparison to this situation is Kobe Bryant, who was accused of sexual assault in 2003. He wasn’t convicted of anything either, but he and the 19-year-old alleged victim eventually settled out-of-court.
So now, before you @ me to inform me about Kobe’s legend-status despite this stain on his record, let me stop you: Kobe has never played for the Bulls. Lakers fans can deal with that when it comes up for them. But what Kobe did (or was accused of doing, rather) has no bearing on my thoughts here, nor should it.
While I can’t be sure of what actually transpired on that night in August 2013, I can be almost entirely sure, as court documents show, that Derrick Rose doesn’t respect women. (And for those who are taking the sophisticated philosophical stance that I can’t truly know who Derrick Rose is or what he respects or doesn’t respect: you’re right. I can’t. I also can’t know who my girlfriend really is (because she doesn’t exist), who my roommate really is, who my dog really is, who my father really is, who my mother really is, who my brother really is, who my boss really is. So what are we doing here? The point is that true character is revealed through action. True. But speaking is also an action, so when he deigned to speak (on the record!) in the manner in which he did, he’s simply revealing to the world (and the court) what’s behind that stoic, peach-fuzzed face of his.)
(Oh, and those that are saying that he’s not a misogynist, he’s just an idiot, I agree. He’s a first-rate moron who couldn’t even cheat on the SATs without getting caught. Those two things, being a moron and a misogynist aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, I think those two things go hand-in-hand more often than not.)
(And those who are saying that maybe Michael Jordan or Scottie Pippen are misogynists, that doesn’t make any sense. That’s like saying that since Mel Gibson has professed his hatred of certain sects of people from Israel, then we should also question every other actor too. Or that we shouldn’t condemn Donald Sterling because maybe Mark Cuban is a racist too. Well, we can’t operate like that, can we? These things have come to light for certain people and they will be addressed for those people only.)
(And lastly, to those saying that Derrick Rose is an idiot who just doesn’t know better than to think this way or to say these things aloud, or that it’s society’s fault for not teaching him how to treat women or for not doing a better job of teaching men how to treat women with respect, or that he doesn’t actually mean these things, or that it’s a socio-economic problem, well, damn. Firstly, that’s a lot of mental gymnastics to shirk personal responsibility for what you say. And secondly, I agree to a certain extent. But that still doesn’t mean that we should retire his number, nor does it absolve him of what he said, nor does it address the problem here. We can not retire his number and work to correct issues such as that, can’t we?)
Anyway.
To start, here’s a text exchange between Rose and Jane Doe two months before the night in question:
Defendant Rose to Plaintiff: “I can’t wait to get my pussy”
(06/20/2013 01:06:35 PM)
Defendant Rose to Plaintiff: “Send a video”
(06/20/2013 01:31:48 PM)
Defendant Rose to Plaintiff: “Send a video”
(06/20/2013 01:32:56 PM)
Defendant Rose to Plaintiff: “I want to see her cumin”
(06/20/2013 01:38:08 PM)
Defendant Rose to Plaintiff: “Let me know when u send it”
(06/20/2013 01:43:21 PM)
Defendant Rose to Plaintiff: “Was u able to send it”
(06/20/2013 02:41:39 PM)
(Source)
Translation: he wanted some nudes from Jane Doe. He seems pretty persistent and thirsty. This is pretty benign, I’ll admit. Not necessarily worse than a dick pic from Draymond Green or Brett Favre, is it?
There’s more:
Here are logs of text messages sent between Rose and Jane Doe (“You”) in June and July 2013, a month before the night in question. As you can see, this goes beyond requesting some videos or pictures. Rather, Rose propositions Doe for a foursome with his friend Randall and “his chick.” Doe refuses.
Here’s are texts from the month following the first exchange. Rose dumps her, which Doe perceives as a direct result of her refusing to engage in group sex with him.
(Source)
So he dumps her because she won’t have sex with his friends. Actually, this point is still unclear. Here’s some clarification from Rose’s deposition in the trial:
Q: So were you calling it off with her — in this series of texts we just looked at —
Rose: Yeah.
Q: — were you calling it off with her because she was refusing to engage in group sex?
Rose: No. I was just calling it off with her because I was just calling it off with her. It wasn’t no point. Like it seemed like she had an attitude and something I didn’t want to deal with, so I was done.
Q: And was she having an attitude because you were asking her to engage in group sex?
Rose: No. It probably could have been the way that I asked her.
Q: The way you asked her to engage in group sex?
Rose: Yeah, through a text.
(Source)
Correction: he didn’t dump her because she refused to have a four-way with me and my friends. He dumped her because she didn’t appreciate his asking her via text message.
Got it.
Here’s something a little more disturbing:
As first reported by Linday Gibbs of Think Progress, when asked in his deposition, Rose couldn’t even define the word “consent.” A segment detailing as much was read aloud to Gibbs and other reporters on a conference call in September.
Q: Do you have an understanding as to the word consent?
Rose: No. But can you tell me?
Q: I just wanted to know if you had an understanding.
Rose: No.
(Source)
So let’s review where we are right now. But his own admission and by his own testimony given under oath, Derrick Rose pressured a woman to engage in group sex, pressured her to send videos of her masturbating, and doesn’t seem concerned with the definition of consent. Sure, he might be an idiot, but this as if Anthony Weiner were an even bigger idiot and more heinous.
This is all unflattering, but it doesn’t necessarily show that Derrick Rose is anything but a moronic pervert. I’ve met plenty of those.
But here’s the doozy.
Context: Doe’s attorney is pressing Rose for details on their intentions for riding over to Doe’s apartment in the middle of the night he was alleged to have gang-raped Jane Doe.
Ready?
Okay, take a deep breath:
Q: Did either Mr. Hampton [one Rose’s co-defendants from the night in question] or Mr. Allen [the other co-defendant] tell you why they wanted to go to plaintiff’s home on the night in question?
Rose: No. No.
Q: So they just said, “Hey, it’s the middle of the night. Let’s go over to plaintiff’s house” and they never gave you a reason why they wanted to go over there?
Rose: No.
Q: And that didn’t seem odd to you at all?
Rose: No, but we men. You can assume.
Q: I’m sorry?
Rose: I said, “We men. You can assume.” Like we leaving to go over to someone’s house at 1:00, there’s nothing to talk about.
Q: I didn’t quite understand your last answer.
Rose: You’re going over to a woman house at 1 o’clock in the morning. What else is there to talk about?
(Source)
None of this is a good look.
All of this is also emphasized by the utter classlessness with which he and his legal team conducted themselves during and after the trial was over.
To wit: during the trial, more specifically, the day Jane Doe was set to testify against him, he opted to show up nearly two hours late.
Later the same day, He and his legal team openly mocked the fact the Jane Doe was brought to tears during her own testimony. Rose’s lawyer, Michael Monico, whined to the judge, saying that they couldn’t have her “crying all day.” Monico went so far as to request the judge to issue a “no crying order,” to which the judge replied, “I’m not going to order the witness not to cry any more than I’m going to order her not to breathe.”
Rose conducted himself with even less class (the jurors themselves disgust me just as much) by posing for pictures with giddy fans (“jurors”) after the ruling.
Verdict: All of this is more bad than good.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
In short, Derrick Rose spent years cultivating an image of a wholesome, soft-spoken, shy boy from a downtrodden Chicago neighborhood. He was drafted by his hometown team, had a few good seasons, and won an award.
But in his off-the-court actions, especially in the case of his civil suit, he revealed that behind that image lives a classless, arrogant, perverted idiot without any demonstrable respect for women. He also seemed unaware or unconcerned with the gravity of the situation.
What’s worse is that Rose has yet to publicly apologize or acknowledge the pain that his actions may have caused to the plaintiff. Rose has always been loath to speak in public, but considering that he was willing to publicly apologize to his team for missing a game this season, but not publicly acknowledge the pain of the whole ordeal is disturbing.
Knicks President of Basketball Operations Phil Jackson went so far as to say that “Derrick has expressed that he’s not concerned about [the trial].”
“I mean, he’s quite aware of it but it’s not keeping him up at night so we’re going to leave it at that.”
He also claimed to use the trial as “motivation” for the upcoming season.
Maybe this is Derrick putting up a front for his new team, or maybe this is Derrick being as tone deaf and moronic as he appeared during the trial.
Even his reaction following the trial was one of triumph, victory, and vindication. Again, he refused to treat the trial as the serious matter it was. His arrogance and aloofness was disgusting.
The revelations of sexual deviance, disrespect for women, and his refusal to act in accordance with any sort of remorse or seriousness during and following the trial run contrary to the female-empowerment causes championed by the NBA in recent years.
By retiring Derrick Rose’s number, the Bulls implicitly endorse all of the dirt that arose during his trial this past summer.
What’s just as sad is that he may not realize the harm he has done to his image.
Well, I realize the damage he’s done to his image, and for that, I will not condone the Bulls retiring his number.
Final Verdict: Do not retire. But let me say this: I will personally retire his number. That is, I will never wear a Derrick Rose jersey again.
Thanks for reading, mom and dad.
