Beloved.
It doesn’t happen often, especially to those whose dreams are deferred.
It came to an end the way it was supposed to: on his terms. For so many years, it seemed as though that wasn’t the plan and wasn’t the way it was going to happen. The ‘‘man plans, God laughs’’ theory seemed to extend itself to a certain level of cruelty when it came to his career. With him being the one who had to laugh to stop from crying.
‘‘Pooh.’’ Our own. He of we.
The Rose who rose through the cracks of our Chicago concrete disguised as a magnet that traps so many of us when it comes to finding our version of freedom. What he did and stood on was about basketball; what he did and stood for was not about basketball.
We attached ourselves to his path because of his prodigious talent that we began hearing about all over the city when he was still in grammar school at Beasley. Of what and whom he had the potential to become. Of how that kid from Akron wasn’t the only one, just chosen. Where — just a reminder — in his tenure at Simeon, he had a 120-12 record, won city and state chips and in his senior season averaged 25 points, eight rebounds and nine assists. ESPN RISE, which I was a part of, named him the third-greatest high school point guard of the decade.
‘‘The guy we’re probably the most proud of out of Chicago is Derrick Rose. He lived all of our dreams.”
Those words belong to the person ‘‘Pooh’’ — and all other Chicago-born and -bred ballplayers — tried to overtake as the greatest who’s ever come from here: Isiah Thomas. And Zeke spit that before ‘‘Pooh’’ decided to retire. That comment, that truth, was active, not retrospective or in the past tense of Rose’s career. The problem lies in that Thomas gets what so many here fail to accept when it comes to Rose, simply because they tend to focus on his promise as opposed to what he actually meant. Means.
For most have no concept of what it is like to rise from this concrete.
From a basketball POV, his legacy will go down as the greatest ‘‘what if’’ in the history of the game. More than Penny Hardaway. More than Grant Hill. More than Bill Walton. More than Bernard King. From a non-injury standpoint, maybe even more than Len Bias. More here, probably, than even Benji Wilson.
Torn ACL. Torn meniscus. Another torn meniscus. Adductor strains. Back strains and spasms. Orbital fracture. Sixteen ankle injuries between 2017 and 2024. Multiple hamstring injuries. Knee sprains. Elbow. Hip. Foot in 2017. Toe in 2022. The first two mentioned causing him to miss entire seasons. In total, according to information gathered from Fox Sports and the New York Daily News, which called Rose ‘‘one of the unluckiest men in the NBA,’’ there have been 60 injuries in the course of Rose’s career that have caused him to miss games.
Yet he didn’t break, even as he was broken down. That beautiful cocktail of Englewood survival and unconditional love for basketball bestowed upon ‘‘Pooh’’ became the blessing of having a 16-year, 17.4 points/5.2 assists per game career in a game where, regardless of injury, the average life span is 4 1/2 to five years. Only four years less than Kobe and Kareem and five less than Dirk, KG and LeBron — none of whom came close to dealing in their basketball lives with what ‘‘Pooh’’ had to endure in his.
A basketball life between a supernova and the poster child of body betrayal. At one point, this city turned on him based on the serial combination of expectation, his family, his comments and certain actions during his time in a Bulls uniform while recovering from the injuries that kept him off of the court. People not giving a damn when formalizing judgment on him, not just as a player but as a human being.
Someone whom, regardless of how he expressed it in public or what he said, these people had no bleeping clue of how dark his life, mind and thoughts had become while trying to make sense of why God was doing to him what was being done. Still, he rose.
Now the love rains down. Appropriately. From players, fans, (some) media, coaches, legends, even former haters. Full-circling a basketball ubiquity that to so many — and probably to him, too — meant so much more to us than the game he perfected. To the point that ‘‘Pooh’’ is no longer just considered a basketball player, he’s an inspiration. All God’s plan. Who’s laughing now?
The tears that fall now are of joy. Of joy for a young brotha from where we from who overcame. Who for a slight second showed us what he was made of when he was at his best but showed us more by never allowing the dark side of sports to take away from him whom he really was. Whom Brenda raised. Whom Chicago adopted.
Like the end of his farewell commercial said: ‘‘Failure will never overtake me . . . if my determination to succeed is strong enough.’’ The ‘‘1’’ of one of what happens when enough will never be enough to those who choose contempt over full consideration and understanding of whom he was.
Not just a kid from Chi. One of we.