Thursday, June 23, 2016

Goodbye, No. 1: Derrick Rose Has Left the Windy City

April 28, 2012, turned out to be much more important than I expected.

I was sitting on a concrete floor at Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont when I got a call from Jason, one of my best friends, my number-one NBA contact and a huge Bulls fan. I knew Chicago was playing its first playoff game of the year, hugely favored as the 1-seed hosting 8-seed Philadelphia, and I figured he was calling to revel in the first blowout of a great postseason.

That was not why he called.



I didn't see the play until that night because I spent April 28, 2012, at Anime Central - my first convention, and the start of an obsession that's still going strong.

Tuesday, that obsession officially outlived the Derrick Rose era in Chicago.

After eight seasons, seven playoff appearances, five playoff series wins, four playoff series losses to LeBron James alone, two epic showdowns with the King and a (mostly undeserved) Most Valuable Player award, Rose left the Windy City via a trade to the New York Knicks.

I've owned a Derrick Rose shirt since 2013, when I was still convinced Rose could return to form and lead the Bulls back to the promised land. Shortly after, I figured out what I believe to this day: there's just too much baggage for that to ever happen. A month ago, I bought a Jimmy Butler shirt and prepared for the inevitable.

It still hurts. I still remember the Bulls pulling off the most unlikely NBA Draft Lottery win of all time - 1.8 percent! - to draft the prodigal son first overall. I still remember watching his epic coming-out party, when the Rookie of the Year pushed the defending champion to the brink, during my weekend shifts at Illini Tower's dining hall.



I still remember the 2010-11 season that brought the Bulls their best record since Jordan, the highlight of a tough year for me straight out of college, and I still remember when the Bulls became America's team in an epic Eastern Conference Finals confrontation with LeBron less than a year after "The Decision." I still remember watching the deciding Game 5 at the Register-News, where I had been a bewildered cub reporter for four months but would later launch my career.

But the strongest memory is still that day in 2012, when it all started to go down the tubes. There was still the odd highlight - the incredible triple-overtime win almost exactly a year later when Nate Robinson did his best Rose impression en route to a gritty series victory over a stacked Nets team, and the 2015 Cavs series when Rose looked like Rose again in a dramatic Game 3 finish but came up short to LeBron yet again.



Even during those moments, I knew he couldn't be amazing again. I knew injuries had sapped his eye-popping athleticism and the confidence that let him blaze into the paint like a lightning bolt and finish with a soft touch. I knew, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't shoot or defend well enough to become a modern 3-and-D wing, and I knew his ego would never let him step aside and let Butler take his rightful place on the throne. And, through it all, his next injury was never far.
Over the last couple years, trading Rose has been a rallying cry for my Bulls fandom, the only way I could see for the team to move on from 2010-11, embrace Coach Fred Hoiberg's run-and-gun style and compete in the Golden State era. I wore my new no. 21 shirt for the first time during Game 7 of The Finals, expecting to see the Warriors win it all again and reaffirm my belief that unloading Rose was the best step forward.

That didn't happen either, as the still-raging celebration in Cleveland can attest. But I remain convinced this trade was the right thing for both sides. The best we can hope is that Derrick finds his sea legs at Madison Square Garden and fulfills the promise we all saw in him - but, of course, never besting his hometown team.
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