The Rise and Fall of Derrick Rose

A picture often can say more in one single moment that a thousand words ever could. In the case of Derrick Rose, this picture sums up the nadir of his career, a one-time MVP and elite level player. In this picture, he is playing for the much maligned New York Knicks, a franchise with a storied history of failure, mismanagement and front office dysfunction. The look on his face shows a man who is weary of failure and his eyes indicate a desire to find a way back to who he was.
Derrick Rose was the fabled son of Chicago, a prodigal son in the mould of Michael Jordan who would bring the Bulls back to the promised land and establish the franchise as a dominant figure for the foreseeable future. Rose’s explosive athleticism meant that from a young age he was a top-level player in the NBA. It was almost impossible to stop a player who had a turbo button like Derrick Rose who could use changes in pace and skilful variations around the rim to finish plays and secure buckets. In his rookie season in 2008 with a Bulls team who was still developing into a future contender, Rose averaged 16.8 points and 6.3 assists on a nightly basis which meant that the Number One pick became Rookie of the Year ahead of other great players from a loaded draft class. He was the only front-court player for Chicago in the 2000s to gain the Rookie of the Year award, the only Chicago guard before him was Michael Jordan. Rose seemed to be in good standing and the future promised great things but great things can often cause trauma and issues later down the line.
For many players, fame and greatness means off-court issues such as partying too much, drugs and a huge ego that alienates them from their team members. For Michael Beasley, the second pick in 2008, fame meant he had a string of disciplinary issues for the Heat and became a non-starter for many NBA franchises. Derrick Rose’s issues was injuries that threatened to destroy a playing style that was reliant on Rose’s speed and athleticism. Any form of knee or ankle injury which would restrict his mobility and explosive power.
In 2009, injuries began to rear their heads, his season started with him playing limited minutes due to ankle pain and the injury only improved from November onwards after two whole months of basketball. However Rose, now coached by Vinny Del Negro managed to get past these injuries and improved on a stellar first season. In his second season, he became an Eastern Conference All-Star while averaging 20.8 points and 6.0 assists. However Chicago was still a developing side, players such as Joakim Noah and Taj Gibson were still maturing and Chicago finished with a record of 41–41. This fledgling team was beaten in five by Cleveland who were led by LeBron James and Mo Williams.
In 2010, Chicago took two key steps to becoming a contender for the NBA championship. The front-office added Carlos Boozer, a former NBA All-Star Power Forward who would provide another voice of experience to this young core. The other voice of experience would be Tom Thibodeau. Thibs has previously been a coach for the Celtics who had designed the defensive plan for Boston that managed to frustrate LeBron and force him into chucking up shots. This plan had worked in the 2009 and 2010 playoffs as Boston made the NBA Finals and many in Chicago had hoped that the same template would translate in Chicago. Thibs’ leadership and Derrick Rose’s ability as a point guard were hugely important for Chicago to become a force in the Eastern Conference.
In October 2010, the Chicago Bulls which had been struggling with their development finally matured. Derrick Rose took another huge leap improving his scoring to 25.0 points a gane and his assist numbers to 7.7 assists. His ability to pass the ball enable players like Carlos Boozer and Luol Deng to focus on being two-way players rather than play-making. Derrick Rose’s rise mirrored Chicago’s road back to the Number One seed in the Eastern Conference and in many acted as a figurehead for this franchise. It could be even be said that he was the symbol of Chicago while Joakim Noah’s gutsy play was the spiritual heart of this roster.
All of these improvements meant that the Bulls finished with a record of 62–20 in the Eastern Conference, beating out the Miami Heat Big Three and Boston’s core of Pierce, Allen, Garnett and Rondo. Chicago looked like fire in this year, the team was had gelled together really well and seemed committed to their tough defensive strategy implemented by Thibodeau. However the coaching game plan laid out by Thibs did have some issues. Thibs played his starters such as Rose and Noah heavily with both players averaging above 34 minutes a game. Throughout the post-season when the rotation becomes shorter, the lack of rest is evident in the freshness of the players compared to their rivals such as Boston and Cleveland. Boston had solid supplementary players such as Avery Bradley, old Shaquille O’Neal and Jeff Green who could feasibly reduce some of the stress off the Big Three. Miami had people such as Mike Miller, Udonis Haslem and Mike Bibby who could keep the team ticking over when their stars were misfiring.
Chicago did not exactly have players who they could turn to who could provide a decent effort that would support their team during dry spells on the court. At Shooting Guard, they started Keith Bogans, a defensive specialist who didn’t exactly have the capabilities to explode with scoring. All this meant that when they played Miami in the Eastern Conference, Derrick Rose was hugely fatigued. His explosiveness seemed dimmed by the long season and he struggled to shoot efficiently against a highly motivated Miami Heat side. Chicago had been beaten but it seemed that they would come back better than ever.
Derrick Rose only played 39 games in the 2011–2012 season due to accumulating injuries and fatigued limbs. Injuries seemed to be taking a toll on a player who had carried not only the weight of a franchise but a city on his two shoulders. Rose is a native Chicagoan, born in the crime-riddled Englewood neighbourhood on Chicago’s South Side. To many Bulls fans, he represented a transcendent force of change in the city of Chicago, a man who shucked off the life of crime, a man in Englewood would be likely to take. This pressure and Thibs’ heavy reliance on his starters meant that Derrick Rose’s career trajectory fell off a cliff.
Chicago had made the playoffs, despite Rose missing a lot of game time and seemed to have a good chance at winning the NBA championship and challenging the Miami Heat Big Three. Many thought that this young team being a year older would have the necessary experience to challenge Miami’s finest. This team, a year on was better as they had added another experienced hand in the form of Richard Hamilton. Hamilton was a solid scorer who had tremendous defence, he was one of the ‘Going to Work’ Detroit Pistons who had won an NBA championship back in 2004.
Unfortunately, Derrick Rose suffered a hellacious injury. During the first game of Chicago’s playoff series with Philly, Rose tried to finish at the rim during the last minutes of a game in which they were winning comfortably. However he landed awkwardly and had to be helped off the court by his team-mates. Many fans hoped that the injury was not serious but an MRI revealed that he had torn his ACL and would be out for 8–12 months with this injury. It dealt a huge blow to the long-term prospects off the franchise and in the short-term it meant that the 8th-seeded 76ers upset the Bulls 4–2.
Derrick struggled to get back on the court, his injury was huge for a guard who relied heavily on his athleticism. Rose missed an entire season through injury which for a player of his calibre was huge. Young players need development, it is strange to think that Rose is only 28 and would have been been in his early twenties back in 2012. At that age, most players are still developing their skills especially their jumpshot in order to prepare themselves for the rest of their career. It is very difficult to rely on athleticism for an entire career as injuries or fatigue means explosiveness diminishes.
By not being able to play basketball, Rose missed this opportunity and was ill-prepared for the 2013 season. Rose managed a good comeback and looked like his usual self, athletic and strong in driving to the rim. He looked like his torn ACL had not affected him one bit. But the thing with injuries is that it damages the body beyond the court. The weakness in his knees still remained and the host of injuries before Rose’s first major injury meant that another full-scale injury would not be a distant possibility. Instead knee injuries was a probable event and this probability was fulfilled on November 22nd 2013 in which he tore the meniscus in his right knee. This injury meant he missed another season with injury and missed the opportunity to successfully gel with Chicago’s rising star, Jimmy Butler.
Jimmy Butler was developing into a hugely important piece in Thibs’ rotation and began to show his All-Star qualities. If Derrick Rose, an offensive star was married with a rising defensive talent Chicago would have been seriously strong during the post-season. However Rose’s injury meant that the Bulls had to rely on players such as DJ Augustin and Kirk Hinrich to run the offense. While these players are fine rotational pieces, neither player is the franchise point guard that can find points from anywhere on the court. Chicago and Derrick Rose were falling as they finished 4th in the Eastern Conference. The core of players established in 2010 was starting to fade. Rose had multiple injuries, Boozer was regressing with age. Only Joakim Noah continued strong but even his contributions were not enough.
Derrick Rose was no longer the point guard of the future as many had predicted in 2011, three hard years of injury and the emergence of elite-level point guards meant that he was pushed down the pecking order. Uber-athletes such as John Wall and Russell Westbrook were beginning to set the NBA alight while traditional pass-first point guards such as Chris Paul continued their high standard of play.
Nevertheless, Derrick Rose returned relatively healthy for the start of the 2014–15 season. He played 51 games that season and at some points looked like the injuries had never affected his style of play but his slasher-style of play was starting to become less effective in the NBA. Three-point shooting was becoming a dominant force in terms of metrics and game-planning by coaches, Rose, a poor-three point shooter suffered in this new NBA. His diminished athleticism meant that he could not force his way to the line like comparative point guard and his field goal percentage of 40% meant that defences encouraged him to shoot at will. In terms of points, he had an uptick from the previous year 17.7 points to 15.9 points but he was much less efficient.
The Bulls made the play-offs with a 50–32 record but it could be said that this was not due Derrick Rose’s sole game-winning contributions. New additions such as Pau Gasol and Nikola Mirotic bolstered the Bulls squad from the previous and meant that they were able to win more games due to sheer squad depth. Even still, Chicago was bounced in the second round by Cleveland 4–2.
In his last year in Chicago, front-office tension and strained relations removed the coach who nurtured Rose’s talents in the early years of his careers. Thibodeau was sacked by the Bulls front-office for the fact they did not feel that the team was developing and Iowa head coach Fred Hoiberg was brought in. The product of a rookie head coach and a headstrong point guard who did not agree with the firing of Thibodeau was locker-room tension. Hoiberg was simply out of his depth when it came to managing the tension between Jimmy Butler and Derrick Rose.
Both players had an amiable relationship before Butler hit stardom but as soon as Butler began to establish himself as a franchise centerpiece, their relationship hit the rocks. Butler had wanted to lead the franchise from the front and believed that Rose lacked the work-ethic and presence to be a leader. From the 2015 playoffs to the end of the 2016 season, there was an identity crisis for the team as they struggled to work out whose team was it? Was it Derrick Rose, the prodigal son of Chicago or was it the gutsy overachiever in the form of Jimmy Butler?
Identity crisis and locker-room tension means that teams do not function well as they look on the paper, this could be seen in the change in record from the 2015 to 2016 season. Chicago lost eight more games that they did the year prior and missed out on the play-offs.
Derrick Rose was not a bad player at this point, in his last season for the Bulls he played 66 games and averaged 16/4/3 but the lack of team identity made his position untenable. For the Bulls to develop under Hoiberg, the core of 2010 had to be dismantled so that Jimmy Butler could make it his team. That is why he was traded from the Bulls to the Knicks.
The trade package of Robin Lopez and Jerian Grant was not spectacular by any means but it was useful in ushering a new era for Chicago. For Derrick Rose, his once promising career had hit a nadir, he had joined a perenially dysfunctional franchise. The New York Knicks are known to be one of the worst franchises in the NBA due to the fact James Dolan does not care about the Knicks and Phil Jackson was an autocratic tyrant who was trying to relive the glory days through the triangle offence.
However Rose’s career had reached a new-low on a personal level. During the off-season, he faced charges of sexual assault of woman. The charge itself was shocking and disgusting for an athlete who many believed was a good role model for young basketball players. An introverted player who stayed away from the glitz and glam of an NBA career now found himself in a court of law. Although he was acquitted, that type of cloud hangs over a player and his comments about the woman who was assaulted helped to destroy the goodwill that he had created for himself over eight years in the NBA.
The slut-shaming of a victim of sexual assault is simply unacceptable in today’s society and he seemed to show no sympathy for the victim who suffered such trauma. In fact he stayed to take photos with the jurors and attacked the woman calling her a ‘gold-digger’ who was trying to exploit stereotypes pertaining to African-American men. Derrick Rose was at a low on and off-the-court.
On October 25, he suited up in the blue and orange of the Knicks next to his new team-mates. The team was hugely dysfunctional, Carmelo was feuding with the front-office and Kristaps was stifled in the offence. Coupled with Phil Jackson’s insistence on the triangle offence, the team had no chance at success. The Knicks continued their usual dysfunction with Phil Jackson attacking Carmelo and LeBron’s “posse”. James Dolan had Knick legend, Charles Oakley forcibly escorted from a game due to the fact Oakley was sitting near him.
In terms of seasons, the Knicks finished pretty badly missing the playoffs as they had throughout the entire Phil Jackson era for the Knicks. However Rose bgean to look like his old self on the offensive end, he had 18 points and managed to increase his points total by getting to the line and converting at a decent clip. He made 87% of his free throws, a career which went some to off-setting his poor three-point shooting. However the basic stats hide some truths about Rose’s game. He shot just 47% from the field and was woeful on defence, being in the bottom 100 players in terms of defensive percentile. Furthermore his need to score meant that he only dished out 4.4 assists for the season which is very low for a player playing the point, much lower than comparative point guards. He also had a lot of turnovers when his assists are considered, he had 2.3 turnovers. His play in New York was highly inefficient but then again the entire team smacked of inefficiency.
Phil Jackson mandated the team to play an outdated form of basketball which clashed with the current “pace and space” philosophy adopted by leading NBA coaches. Furthermore it meant that the team often opted for mid-range jumpers which are statistically the lowest percentage shot on the court. Carmelo Anthony’s isolation-heavy offense meant that the team could not maximise the perimeter play as it continually opted for contested plays for Carmelo. In many ways the sole season in New York was inefficient and troubled for Derrick Rose, however he may have been dealt a reprieve.
Cleveland’s dysfunctional front-office meant that Dan Gilbert got rid of David Griffin, the architecht of Cleveland’s only NBA championship. He relied on his remaining front-office staff and his himself to get deals done. These deals could be seen to be suspect when it is considered that they signed Jeff Green, an inconsistent forward and Jose Calderon, an offensive-minded point guard. The off-season was not exactly a roaring success.
The same went for Rose, he was expecting a max contract to come in from a team who were desperate for a good point guard. Teams such as the Timberwolves and Bucks all showed some interest in Rose’s free agent status feeling that he would be a good addition to the team. However Minnesota filled their vacancy with Jeff Teague and Milwaukee opted against bringing an injury-prone player to their core of players which has already suffered huge injuries. Only two teams who were desperate enough for some veteran point guard leadership were Cleveland and the LA Lakers.
The Lakers wanted a player to mentor their prized rookie, Lonzo Ball and assist his ability to score off his own creation. Ball is a very good passer but struggles to create his own shot, a player like Rose could pass on his skills relating to shot creation. Cleveland needed a player who could bolster their back-up ranks and an injury-prone former MVP would have made a solid back-up playmaker for Cleveland.
In the end, Rose and his agent B.J Armstrong opted for a $2.1 million veteran minimum deal so that Rose could join a contender and rebuild his reputation in the hope suitors would buy into his talents in the 2018 off-season. Rose signed the deal expecting to a sixth man off the bench supporting the efforts of Kyrie Irving but he may see more playing time than he initially thought. Kyrie was traded for Isaiah Thomas of the Boston Celtics and Rose’s ability to play as an isolation scorer may provide a use for him on the roster outisde of his duties as a back-up point guard.
As a player Derrick Rose has experienced the highest honour as a player, the MVP while also being stricken with injuries and personal issues in his later career. The deal in Cleveland gives him an opportunity to reclaim his honour and become great again providing he works with his team-mates to develop his skills. His peak has passed but he may be due a mid-career renaissance.

