This may sound cold, but after hearing the news of Derrick Rose’s third knee operation I can’t say I was surprised or sympathetic for the 2011 MVP.
Many fans are tweeting about what bad luck he has but is it really bad luck when you are constantly putting your body through hell on purpose?
The Chicago Bulls announced yesterday that Rose would require surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee, found after Rose had complained of knee pain earlier in the day.
This is now three operations for Rose after he first injured his knee in the first round of the playoffs in 2012. Since then he has played a total of 56 games over three seasons and never really looked 80 per cent of the player he was in his MVP year.
The reasons why my feelings sway towards “meh” rather than “oh no that is horrible news” are two-fold based on his lack of adaptation regarding his kamikaze style of play and his highly controversial comebacks from injury.
His playing style has always been a hybrid of the Tasmanian Devil and a bulldozer. This worked well in his initial years in the league but then his first knee injury hit.
The play he went down on in Game Six of the first round series against the 76ers in 2012 was a typical Rose contorted twist into a wall of defenders while travelling at Mach 4 in three different directions all at the same time.
Whether this was due to the extreme strain he put on his body night in, night out or just a freak twist of the knee is uncertain, but you were genuinely concerned every time he drove hard into the lane.
Russell Westbrook has the same attitude to attacking the paint, but Westbrook doesn’t look for contact the same way Rose does or try and change direction at full speed like Rose.
Rose rehabbed over the summer, then the winter and then the summer again (more on that later) before making his comeback in the 2013-14 season.
In this ESPN article before the 2013-14 season started Rose talks about how he is more explosive, takes contact better and can jump higher.
All great things for a guy who spent over a year on the sidelines and was looking for a return to MVP-level basketball, but those were the things that got him into trouble in the first place.
As the 2013-14 NBA season started I wrote about Rose’s need to change his game or the consequences of the stress he puts his body through will eventually catch up.
Sure enough, less than a month into the season he suffered another season-ending knee injury, this time to his right knee.
Then I wrote after the injury giving my thoughts on what Rose could do after two season needing knee operations.
In short he needed less kamikaze play in the paint and more work on developing different speeds. His body wasn’t going to be the same again.
His outside shot also needed fixing badly. He was never a natural long range shooter in his healthy years with a career-best 33.2 per cent from beyond the arc.
As Kirk Goldsberry from Grantland points out, Rose used to be a Dirk-like mid-range shooter but then changed his game to become a high volume, inefficient three-point bomber that also lost his mid-range efficiency.
Since then he has never recovered his mid-range shot or developed a decent three pointer.
This season he took a career high 5.5 attempts per game from beyond the arc (in a career low 31 minutes per game) and converted only 28.7 per cent of them (career low when he attempts over one per game).
His trademark head down charge at the paint with the ball under his arm like he is attacking a try line didn’t change. While it provided some nice highlight plays, it once again didn’t seem like a long-term approach to success.
Was that a defiant move aimed at showing the NBA he still the same explosive player from 2011, or a lack of adaptation to a body that can’t cope with constant twisting and extreme loads anymore?
I’m leaning towards the latter.
Then there was the controversy surrounding his first comeback.
Everyone in Chicago was super excited to see Rose take to the court again when he returned to full-contact practice in January 2013 and was cleared for play by the team doctors in March.
This is where it got weird as Rose continued to sit on the bench while his teammates battled through injury themselves to claw the Bulls to the second round of the playoffs.
Then his brother Reggie chimed in after the trade deadline in February with his criticism of the Bulls front office and their lack of moves hinting that it might have a huge part in Rose deciding not to come back that season – which he didn’t.
This was also the playoffs run where Luol Deng had a spinal tap operation and continued to play sick as a dog, Joakim Noah played through plantar fasciitis and Kirk Hinrich had an injured calf.
They got through the Nets in a tough seven-game first-round series before eventually losing to the Miami Heat in five games. The rumours kept swirling that Rose might heroically come back and save the Bulls, but it was just a drawn out tease that ultimately left a bitter taste in Bulls fans mouths.
Rose continued to dunk in pre-game warm-ups then went and sat on the bench to watch his hobbling teammates give it their all.
I understand that he wanted to feel good before taking to the court but to me it just didn’t seem right that he was cleared by the team doctors for over a month, was dunking off his surgically repaired left leg and then saying he wasn’t ready to come back while his teammates were playing through some serious injuries.
He already had his massive $94mil guaranteed contract signed and another reported $250mil from a 10-year Adidas endorsement deal.
To me, if my employer has cleared me for active duty and I am guaranteed enough money over the next five years to buy several Caribbean islands and have my family live comfortably until the end of time, then I ask where my jersey is and go join my teammates.
Fans were a little less hopeful after the second knee injury and expected that Rose wouldn’t be back to save them in the 2014 NBA Playoffs.
Now Rose is facing a third season ending knee injury and his future is once again up in the air.
I feel really bad for his team mates, Bulls fans around the world and even the Adidas executives that signed him to that massive deal – but I’m struggling to feel much for Rose.
Injuries suck no matter who you are ,but when you do nothing to change your game knowing your style of play leads to undue stress on your body while also taking a very long time to rehab, then I struggle to gather much sympathy for you.
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