Derrick Rose didn’t know how he would feel when he saw his No. 1 jersey hanging in the rafters. He was still processing the news.
On Saturday, the Chicago Bulls announced that they plan to retire Rose’s jersey sometime next season. Rose, a Chicago native and MVP, will join Michael Jordan (23), Scottie Pippen (33), Jerry Sloan (4), and Bob Love (10) as the only players to have their numbers retired by the team.
Bulls president and CEO Michael Reinsdorf told Rose about the decision in person on Saturday morning, informing him that “nobody’s wearing that No. 1 jersey again” unless Rose’s son, PJ, plays for the team.
Rose, who retired in September after 16 seasons, was already scheduled to be honored during the game against the New York Knicks that evening. The Bulls said they would share more details about the jersey retirement in the future.
“Tonight is not about that,” Rose said. He explained that it was a night to appreciate “everybody that was a part of the story, the journey, the good, the bad, the ugly.”
“It’s celebrating everyone,” he added. “I understand coming from Chicago that it’s tough love. It’s a lot of tough love. You could forget about the love sometimes and just give toughness.
Coming back, me being raised off of that tough love, I just wanted to show the love part. There’s toughness, too, but you don’t have to be tough all the time. It’s understanding and realizing why I’m here.”
Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said in a statement, “Derrick is both a hometown hero and a symbol of an entire era of Bulls basketball.”
On Saturday, the Bulls set up the “Derrick Rose Experience” in the United Center’s atrium, featuring memorabilia from his career. Players on both teams wore special shooting shirts with the number “1.4.25,” representing the date and the numbers Rose wore with the Bulls, Knicks, and at Chicago’s Simeon Career Academy.
Black T-shirts with a red rose logo were placed at each seat. The game also included moments to honor Rose, his family, and his teammates.
At halftime, Rose walked out to loud “MVP! MVP!” chants after a highlight video was shown. He sat next to his mother, Brenda, and became emotional when former teammate Joakim Noah told him he “always put your city on your back” and called him “the people’s champ.” Another video narrated by PJ was shown before Rose spoke to the crowd.
“Well deserved,” said New York’s Tom Thibodeau, who coached Rose during his prime with the Bulls and also in New York and Minnesota. “For what he means to the city, the Bulls, the entire NBA. I had the opportunity to coach against him, so I know how difficult that is.
I had the good fortune to coach him. You see it in the eyes of the opponent, when they had to guard him, you could see the fear and the respect.”
Thibodeau also said Rose, known for his humility as well as his explosiveness, was “probably the most beloved player in the league” and that he belongs in the Hall of Fame.
Rose, selected as the No. 1 overall pick in the 2008 NBA Draft, went from Rookie of the Year to All-Star to NBA MVP in his first three seasons. He remains the youngest player ever to win the MVP, doing so at age 22.
However, a serious knee injury during the 2012 playoffs caused him to miss nearly two full seasons, and he considered retiring multiple times due to other injury setbacks.
Rose has averaged 17.4 points and 5.2 assists over 723 regular-season games. Before his ACL injury 12 years ago, he averaged 21 points per game, and after the injury, he averaged 15.1 points per game. But he said he no longer thinks about what might have been if not for the injuries.
“The last time I had those conversations was years and years ago,” he said. “Who knows? But at the same time, with me being obsessed, I wouldn’t have found out who I was as a person. I was obsessed with the game. Not love, I was obsessed. If I would have won one championship, I would have wanted four.
And that would have pulled me further and further away from finding self-knowledge, self-revelation, my identity. Everybody’s story is different. For some reason, mine ended up this way. Coming from Chicago, we roll with the punches.”
