Yahoo Sports’ Jason Fitz and Caroline Fenton discuss Derrick Rose’s legacy and the Chicago Bull’s decision to retire his jersey this season.
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Video Transcript
So when I say Derrick Rose to you, what’s the first word that comes to mind?
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What could have been, that’s not a word, but it’s a phrase, what could have been, because Derrick Rose was one of the most electrifying young stars that we saw in the NBA, even going back to his time in college, he was an absolute blast to watch.
But then injury after injury and setback after setback, and you see, you know, the MVP season, his rookie of the year season, cause he just continued to build upon what he did year over year until the injury bug bit and he just couldn’t do it anymore.
It speaks to how much he meant to the organization, even though he was only Derrick Rose for a short amount of time.
Like that’s, that’s incredible.
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And then you think about just the human element of what it has to feel like to know that you have the potential, the chance, the opportunity, the talent.
To be an all-time great and your body just doesn’t cooperate.
And, you know, we use the, the phrase injury prone a lot and I don’t think people are necessarily injury prone, but bodies are bodies.
Sometimes, you know, I’ve, I’ve talked to injury doctors repeatedly about the fact that the makeup of everybody’s body is different.
Sometimes one little thing can create a chain reaction that causes injury after injury and your body just doesn’t cooperate.
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And I cannot imagine.
How hard it must be for Derrick Rose even to sit down and look at his career, understanding all of the great things he’s accomplished and how proud he should be, but also understanding how much he sort of left on the table, how much he wasn’t capable of accomplishing compared to what he thought he could do through no fault of his own.
And that’s just, it’s hard.
Uh, the former athletes I know that they played at the highest possible level have so much pride in what they did, but they also all look back at different moments in their career and say, I wish I might, I could.
I can’t imagine what that’s like for Derrick Rose, who I hope has just tremendous appreciation for what he meant to basketball, what he meant to the Bulls, what he means to the city of Chicago.
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What he still means today to Bulls fans.
But Caroline, I can’t imagine that it isn’t also tough sometimes to look around and say, yeah, I could have been.
Even greater and we could have seen even more.
Greatness.
And so it’s, I’m glad his jerseys are going up in the rafters.
I hope that we press pause on everything else and just appreciate it’s going up in the rafters because he did so many great things in such a limited amount of time.