Derrick Rose thought about retiring several times over the years, often frustrated by injuries and an inability to consistently play at the level he wanted.
The game always lured him back. Until now.
Rose, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2008 NBA draft by the Chicago Bulls and the league's MVP in 2011, announced his retirement on Thursday. He was, and still is, the youngest MVP in NBA history, winning that award when he was just 22 as the highlight of what would become a 16-year career.
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“You believed in me through the highs and lows, my constant when everything else seemed uncertain,” Rose posted on Instagram Thursday in a letter to the game, serving as his retirement announcement.
Rose was the league's rookie of the year in 2008-09 for the Bulls, was the league's MVP two seasons later and was an All-Star selection in three of his first four seasons. A major knee injury during the 2012 playoffs forced him to miss almost two full seasons and he contemplated stepping away from the game several times, but always found ways to get back onto the floor.
Besides the Bulls, he would also play for New York, Detroit, Minnesota, Cleveland and Memphis. He spent last season with the Grizzlies, returning to the city that he called home for his one season of college basketball.
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He played in 24 games with the Grizzlies last season and when the season ended Rose spoke at length about what a return to Memphis meant to him.
“It's all full circle," Rose said in April. “Coming back here, having my family here, my wife's family is from here, being back in this arena, having some of the people that came to my college games actually come to my professional games here, it's all love.”
Added the Grizzlies in a statement Thursday where they offered Rose congratulations on his career: “We are grateful for your meaningful contributions to this team and this city, and wish you all the best in this next chapter of life.”
Rose dealt with multiple knee surgeries over the years, took time away during the 2017-18 season to contemplate his future while dealing with ankle issues and sat out nearly two full seasons — after the knee injury in 2012 — when he should have been in his prime.
Rose averaged 17.4 points and 5.2 assists in 723 regular-season games. He averaged 21 points per game before the ACL tear 12 years ago, and 15.1 per game in the seasons that followed.
“With D-Rose, it was never a question of his talent,” Basketball Hall of Famer Dwyane Wade, a former Rose teammate, said in 2018. “It was always about his health. And when he was healthy, everyone saw all the talent.”
Rose still flashed that MVP-level talent plenty of times over the years that followed the knee troubles. He had a career-high 50 points for Minnesota in a 128-125 win over Utah on Oct. 31, 2018 — a game that moved him to tears. He had a 12-assist game for Detroit in a 115-107 win over Houston on Dec. 14, 2019, his first such game in nearly eight years.
“I know the person that he is, the character that he has,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau, who coached Rose in Chicago, Minnesota and New York, said in 2018 when he was leading the Timberwolves. “And it shines through.”
Rose was a serious candidate for the league’s Sixth Man of the Year Award in three straight seasons — 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21 — and even got a first-place MVP vote again in that 2020-21 season, a decade after winning that award.
He announced his presence as a star quickly, winning the league’s skills challenge — as a rookie — at All-Star weekend in 2009, then winning rookie of the year and scoring 36 points in his playoff debut. It was a meteoric rise for someone who grew up amid poverty in a Chicago suburb, then saw basketball as an escape route and way to take care of his mother and family. In 2006, he hit a shot to win an Illinois state high school championship. Only five years later, he was MVP of the NBA.
“The kid from Englewood turned into a Chicago legend,” the Bulls posted on social media Thursday, along with a video of Rose’s highlights with the team.