Derrick Rose, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2008 NBA draft by the Chicago Bulls and the league’s MVP in 2011, announced his retirement on Thursday. He was, and remains, the youngest MVP in NBA history, winning the award when he was just 22 at the culmination of a 16-year career.
“You believed in me through the highs and lows, my constant when everything seemed uncertain,” Rose posted on Instagram in a letter to the game on Thursday.
Rose was the Bulls’ rookie of the year in 2008–09, was the league’s MVP two seasons later and was an All-Star selection in three of his first four seasons. A serious knee injury during the 2012 playoffs forced him to miss nearly two entire seasons, and he considered retirement several times, but always found ways to get back on the court.
In addition to the Bulls, he would also play for New York, Detroit, Minnesota, Cleveland and Memphis. He spent last season with the Grizzlies, returning to the city he called home for his one season of college basketball.
Last season he played 24 games for the Grizzlies and after the season ended, Rose spoke at length about what returning to Memphis meant to him.
“It’s all come full circle,” Rose said in April. “Coming back here, having my family here, my wife’s family is from here, being back in this arena, having some of the people that came to my college games now come to my pro games here, it’s all love.”
“We are grateful for your meaningful contributions to this team and this city, and wish you all the best in the next chapter of your lives,” the Grizzlies said in a statement Thursday.
Rose averaged 17.4 points and 5.2 assists in 723 regular season games. He averaged 21 points per game before his ACL tear 12 years ago, and 15.1 per game in the seasons that followed.
“With D-Rose, it was never about his talent,” Basketball Hall of Famer Dwyane Wade, a former Rose teammate, said in 2018. “It was always about his health. And when he was healthy, everyone saw all the talent.”
Rose flashed that MVP-level talent many more times in the years that followed his knee problems. He had a career-high 50 points for Minnesota in a 128-125 win over Utah in October 2018 — a game that moved him to tears. He had a 12-assist game for Detroit in a 115-107 win over Houston in December 2019, his first such game in nearly eight years.
“I know the person he is, the character he has,” said Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau, who coached Rose in Chicago, Minnesota and New York in 2018 while leading the Timberwolves. “And it shines through.”
Rose was a serious contender for the league’s Sixth Man of the Year award in three straight seasons — 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21 — and even received a first-place vote as MVP again in that 2020-21 season, a decade after he won the award.
He announced his star presence quickly, winning the league’s skills challenge – as a rookie – during All-Star weekend in 2009, then winning the rookie of the year award and scoring 36 points in his playoff debut. It was a meteoric rise for someone who grew up poor in suburban Chicago and subsequently saw basketball as an escape and a way to provide for his mother and family. In 2006, he made a run for an Illinois state high school championship. Just five years later, he was named NBA MVP.
“The kid from Englewood grew into a legend in Chicago,” the Bulls posted on social media Thursday, along with a video of Rose’s highlights with the team.