Derrick Rose wasn't the star of the Chicago Bulls' nationally televised Thursday win over the Toronto Raptors. That honor belongs to Pau Gasol, who proved damn near unguardable by Jonas Valanciunas and Amir Johnson en route to a game- and season-high 27 points, 11 rebounds, three blocks, two assists and a steal in 35 minutes of remind-us-just-how-good-he-is work. The silver medal probably goes to Jimmy Butler, who continued to make his decision to decline a contract extension in favor of entering restricted free agency look smart, chipping in 21 points, nine rebounds and six assists while putting the clamps on DeMar DeRozan (10 points, 3-of-17 shooting).
But just as Rose was the primary topic of conversation entering the game, thanks to his recent comments on sitting out games because he's thinking about life after basketball, he was the lead story after the game. That had less to do with his 20-point, four-assist, five-turnover performance than it did the awkward conclusion to his evening, which came on a late fourth-quarter drive with Chicago leading by 10:
Seeing Rose slip through the defense, stumble, hit the deck and stay there triggered a sinking feeling in the pits of an awful lot of stomachs. Even after he got to his feet and headed to the sideline — with a pronounced limp, but still, under his own power — we worried. I mean, after watching noncontact leg injuries cost him the last two years, how could we not?
Rose stayed on the sideline for the final two minutes of the Bulls' 100-93 victory, and briefly addressed the left-leg injury after the game, suggesting that we needn't worry too much about his fragile pins, because he's not overly concerned.
"I stretched my hamstring out a little bit," Rose told TNT's Rachel Nichols. "But I'm feeling good. Ice it, stim — put [electrical stimulation] on it — and see if I can practice tomorrow."
"I think it's minor," Rose said, according to Ian Harrison of The Associated Press. "I just overstepped. I probably stretched out a little bit more with my left leg and I probably got a cramp in it."
But while Rose was, as is his custom, somewhat soft-spoken and circumspect in discussing his attempt to get back in the swing of things after missing nearly two years of competitive play, Joakim Noah was — as is his custom — considerably more full-throated.
The Bulls' emotional leader supported his teammate against the arrows slung by media members and fans angry that Rose copped to thinking about the big picture, according to James Herbert of CBSSports.com:
"I just, I don't want to see him down. I know sometimes it's frustrating, you got injuries, you got tweaks. Every time something happens to him, people act like it's the end of the world. And that's f---ing so lame to me. Relax. Like, OK, he's coming back from two crazy surgeries. Obviously we're being conservative with him, and when things aren't going right, he's got to listen to his body more than anybody. So everybody needs to chill the f--- out. I mean, I'm sorry for cursing, but I'm really passionate. I don't like to see him down. And he doesn't say that he's down, but I don't like it when, like, people portray him and judge him. ‘Cause it's not fair to him. It's not.
"We're going to be just fine. We're going to be just fine. We just got to take it as — just, everybody needs to chill out. Chill out."
Not that we needed another reason to love Noah — who added six points, eight rebounds, six assists, three steals and his customarily stout interior defense in the win — but it's always nice to have one.
Of course we need to chill out about Derrick Rose. Of course we need to give a player who has suffered two major knee injuries — and who suffered them while working through smaller ailments, the kind of "nagging" issues through which players push all the time (especially in Chicago) — the benefit of the doubt when it comes to his own body.
Of course we shouldn't bring the full weight of past reports and controversies to bear as evidence that a player with two sprained ankles should play, and especially not during a not-exactly-must-win affair in November, because guess what?
It's kind of amazing that we're debating this, but we are, because Rose's word choice in defending himself — "not because of this year," "long-term," "meetings to go to," "my son's graduation" — enraged multiple constituencies. There are the fans who view athletes' salaries as more-than-adequate compensation for playing through anything short of a severed limb, and who want to see their emotional investments mirrored by the players for whom they cheer, as summed up by NBA.com's Steve Aschburner:
What rankles some fans is [that] lots of people who work harder than Rose go home each night to a shack. Others, whether they know it or not, do not like having peeled back the curtain between them and their sports passions. How can Rose not care as much as we do? [...]
People who look to Rose, the Bulls and to sports as an outlet from their own demanding, tedious, perhaps tiring lives think mostly about the next 10 or 12 years. Had Rose said he was taking extra precautions now – and games off – so that he might still be playing for the Bulls a decade from now, or that November doesn’t matter if he can be healthy in April to chase a title, no one would have said boo about Pooh.
That’s not what he said. He gave folks a sense that he cares less about the here and now than they do, and that’s the first pull on a thread that unravels this great sports fascination.
... and the ex-jocks, like TNT's "Inside the NBA" crew, who view the eventual pain and suffering so many share as just the cost of doing the business they chose:
There are plenty of folks who share these sentiments — enough that, as CBSSports.com's Ken Berger suggests, the main takeaway from all this is that Rose's "feelings about the inseparable relationship between his job and his future health are better kept to himself." (Which only perpetuates the double-standard of wanting players to be honest and then crushing them for telling us what they think.)
Where Noah takes issue with the external assessments, though, is in their evaluation — and, to him, staggering underestimation — of Rose's commitment. More from Herbert:
"We're a group that's gone through a lot," Noah said. "And it's just, looking at it as a teammate, it's just frustrating because I feel like he's sometimes portrayed as something that he's not. You don't come back from the injuries that he's coming back from without unbelievable commitment, you know what I'm saying?
"I'm just growing and just watching the power that you [media] guys have, sometimes it's just you guys can really portray somebody as something that he's not," he continued. "It's just that, to me, that's a little disappointing. Just because I know how much he cares about this game. I see it every day. I think we're all in this together and this is not a one-man team, but at the end of the day, we need him. We need him."
The Bulls have the best record in the East, the NBA's third-ranked offense and ninth-ranked defense, and a real chance of making the Finals. They need Rose to get there, and they need him to be able to be Derrick Rose in April, May and June, even if it means taking things slow in November and December. They don't feel like Rose isn't giving his all for the team, whether because he's thinking about June 2015 or June 2030, and they're OK with it.
They're chilling the [expletive] out about it. So why can't we?
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