The word that comes to mind, or rather to the heart of everything with Derrick Rose, is focus.
It takes an inordinate amount of focus to make it through a treacherous road to even get to a professional level and even more steel to elevate.
For Rose, the Chicago-born-and-bred kid who quietly announced his retirement Thursday morning — while taking out ads in the newspapers of the cities where he played — it’s something more than focus, because his career was so winding, so spellbinding and, at times, so damned confusing.
He’ll probably be the only Most Valuable Player in NBA history to not make the Naismith Hall of Fame, even if he has a case by mere imprint on the game. Hopefully, the Bulls will retire his jersey even though they inexplicably gave the No. 1 away a couple times since his 2016 trade to the New York Knicks.
That matters but only so much to Chicago — a city that’s as tough on its own as it is warm to the same figures it holds impossible expectations for. You’d be hard-pressed to find a player-city relationship so complicated, so layered and yet, so valuable to the overall culture and feeling the way Rose was married to Chicago.
Not even LeBron James — who didn’t grow up in Cleveland but Akron, some 35 minutes away from downtown — hits the same way Rose does with Chicago.
When he “made it,” and not by being named MVP in 2011 or any other accolade he nabbed during his too-short prime, but by mere existence, Chicago rejoiced. Everything else was icing on the cake.
For most.
There’s been only so many things to cheer about with the Bulls since Michael Jordan exited the building in June 1998, and Rose seemed to author or co-write 80 percent of them. There was a time when one could question Rose’s 2011 MVP, but any litigation seems like folly in hindsight, and there have been others since worth more examination.
Just like before he was introduced to the world basketball stage as a late teen, the narrative back then, and in 2011, was the same: You had to be there.
Not as maniacal as Russell Westbrook, and perhaps not built to take punishment better than his basketball son, Ja Morant, Rose wasn’t the first of his kind, but was uniquely one of one when at full bloom.
So strong was the belief in Chicago’s son, you’d be hard-pressed to convince many that he alone couldn’t take down Miami’s holy trinity of James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh — at the peak of their powers.
And when predictably, he couldn’t, the slings and arrows started forming a line. And then, when his body failed him, like it did to bigger, stronger men, more criticism came.
But it seems so long ago, those years Rose missed following that ACL injury on a Saturday afternoon in 2012 when the Bulls were beginning their playoff march toward another showdown with the hated Heat, in Game 1 of their first-round matchup against the Philadelphia 76ers.
It’s a testament to Rose’s perseverance and yes, focus, that those memories seem like they belong to some other shadowy figure, not the elder statesman who trekked to other franchises and at times performed magic in different jerseys. It didn’t feel right the MVP was relegated to bit player or to the guy Knicks fans were clamoring for on the back end of his second stint with the Knicks.
That dogged nature, that quiet determination allowed him to work through his body’s missteps, and of course, his own indiscretions that placed him in the crosshairs of an ugly civil lawsuit in 2016 when he and his friends were sued for an alleged sexual assault.
He was found not liable, but the details forever changed his image in the minds of some, or even more. Believing in him became more of a task, albeit not impossible.
A man of few words, but usually clear ones, he didn’t always convey his message the way many felt he should’ve. In some ways, he was a mirror to Chicago, showing all the ugliness and yet, all the promise many refused to relinquish. Everything became attached to him because not only was he fighting a losing battle against a relentless machine, but he didn’t seem to care that the machine would always win.
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Rose would move on, as the NBA morphed from a league that seemed to fit his style to one that embraced a new way to play. Considering the atrophy on his body — both from the hard torque when he contorted it to work through small spaces on the NBA floors to the preexisting damage that he probably walked into the league with, having navigated the competitive Chicago grounds and the AAU courts, it would seem unlikely to expect Rose’s focus to last long enough to endure.
The difference between great players staying great and experiencing the slightest fall off, feels like a matter of focus. It’s certainly the case for championship teams that can no longer summon the ability to lock in for extended stretches of time, but every now and again can produce a night or two that looks like old glory.
Rose seemed to grab it in 2015, when he and the Bulls had James’ Cavaliers on the ropes — a Friday night buzzer-beater in the East semifinals that had many believing, yet again, Rose would rise again.
The pressure of a game-winner felt like nothing compared to shooting with frozen fingertips for money in his old Englewood neighborhood, so he could call on greatness on demand, and capture imagination one more time.
But old glory couldn’t sustain, and it seemed like his career would peter out like so many whose lone basketball sin was having a body that couldn’t house the engine of a Ferrari, like Grant Hill and Penny Hardaway.
Rose navigated that for years, somehow snatching that glory every now and again, and occasionally broke from his stoic nature to unleash unexpected tears after nights of triumph, like his 50-point game as a Minnesota Timberwolf in the 2018-19 season.
That was a year after Rose temporarily stepped away from the game following a short stint with James’ Cavaliers, contemplating retirement following an ankle injury that felt too reminiscent of past ailments.
When Rose was a Knick, he went missing from the franchise without explanation, missing a game and apologizing to the team when he returned.
He walked to the edge, but somehow managed to pick himself up, reinvent himself and create a new basketball life for himself away from the expectations that traditionally haunt stars. A sixth man was the suit he wore in his early 30s when he played in Minnesota, Detroit and New York (for a second time).
The promise and what-ifs were replaced by a mental stamina and a refusal to accept his body could no longer perform, and that the NBA was no longer a place for him.
Those moments seem so far away, almost like he played three different careers before finally calling it a day, less than a week before his 36th birthday.
He steps away to focus more on being a husband and father, getting more from his basketball body than so many of us would’ve predicted a decade ago.
Promise turning to perseverance through an unwavering focus.
