The word that comes to mind, or rather the heart of everything with Derrick Rose, is focus.
It takes an inordinate amount of focus to go through a treacherous path to even reach a professional level and even more steel to lift.
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 more than a focus, because his career has been so winding, so enchanting and, at times, so damn confusing.
He will likely be the only Most Valuable Player in NBA history not to 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 have inexplicably given away #1 a few times since their 2016 trade to the New York Knicks.
But that matters only so much for Chicago — a city that is as hard on itself as it is warm to the very figures of whom it has impossible expectations. You’d be hard-pressed to find a player-city relationship so complicated, so layered and yet, so valuable to the general culture and feel like Rose was married to Chicago.
Not even LeBron James — who didn’t grow up in Cleveland but Akron, about 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 accolades he captured during his all-too-brief prime, but by mere existence, Chicago rejoiced. Everything else was icing on the cake.
For the majority.
There have only been so many things to be happy about with the Bulls since Michael Jordan left the building in June 1998, and Rose seemed to author or co-write 80 percent of them. There was a time when Rose’s 2011 MVP could be questioned, but any lawsuit seems foolish in hindsight, and there are others since more worthy of examination.
Just like before he was introduced to the world basketball stage as a late teenager, the story then, and in 2011, was the same: You had to be there.
Not as manic as Russell Westbrook, and perhaps not built to take punishment better than his basketball son, Ja Morant, Rose was not the first of his kind, but was uniquely one of a kind when in full bloom.
So strong was the belief in the son of Chicago, 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 slingshots and arrows began to form a line. And then, when his body failed him, as 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 began 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 determination 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 sometimes worked magic in different jerseys. It didn’t feel right that the MVP was relegated to a bit player or the guy that Knicks fans were clamoring for on the back end of his second stint with the Knicks.
That stubborn nature, that quiet determination allowed him to work through his body’s missteps, and of course, his own indiscretions that put him in the crosshairs of an ugly civil lawsuit in 2016 when he and his friends were sued for sexual assault.
He was found not responsible, but the details forever changed his image in the minds of some, if not more. Believing in him became more of a task, although not impossible.
A man of few words, but usually clear, he didn’t always get his message across the way many thought he should. In a way, he was a mirror to Chicago, showing all the ugliness and yet, all the promise many refused to yield. Everything clung 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.
Rose would move on, as the NBA transformed from a league that seemed to suit his style to one that embraced a new way of playing. Considering the atrophy on his body – both from the hard torque when he twisted it to work through small spaces on the NBA floors to the pre-existing injury he probably walked into the league with, having navigated the competitive Chicago floors and the AAU courts, it would seem unlikely to expect that the focus of Rose would last long enough to endure.
The difference between great players staying great and experiencing the slightest drop feels like a matter of focus. It’s certainly the case for championship teams that can no longer summon the ability to lock up for extended periods of time, but can occasionally produce a night or two that looks like old glory.
He seemed to catch it in 2015, when he and the Bulls had James’ Cavaliers on the ropes — a Friday night buzzer-beater in the Eastern Conference 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 the old glory could not last, and it seemed that his career was gone like many whose only basketball sin was having a body that could not contain the Ferrari engine, such as Grant Hill and Penny Hardaway.
Rose navigated that for years, somehow capturing that glory from time to time, and sometimes broke from his stoic nature to release 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 walked away from the game following a brief stint with James’ Cavaliers, contemplating retirement after 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 brink, but somehow managed to pick himself up, reinvent himself and create a new basketball life for himself away from the expectations that traditionally plague 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 became replaced by mental endurance 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 as if he played three different careers before finally calling it a day, less than a week before his 36th birthday.
He’s leaving to focus more on being a husband and father, getting more out of his basketball body than many of us predicted a decade ago.
Vow to turn to perseverance with unwavering focus.
