When Derrick Rose left Friday’s Bulls-Blazers game in obvious pain, the whole basketball world held its breath and crossed its fingers, hoping he was all right. But the news landed the next day: Rose had torn the medial meniscus in his right knee and will miss the rest of the year.
Another lost season is a huge blow for fans, for the Bulls and for Rose himself. In this week’s James World, Rose’s teammate, Mike James, shares a first-person account of the injury and what it means for Chicago’s season.
When he tore his ACL in the first round of the playoffs in 2012, it was at home against the Sixers and the crazy thing is, the whole arena stopped. Dead silent. No one could believe what just happened. This time was different because we were on the road, but the feeling was the same: You’re sitting there and watching it happen, and you just stop for a second, hoping it’s not severe.
We have a play where if an opposing player is denying the wing, we’ll pass it to the big man and then cut backdoor. He was attempting to cut backdoor. Joakim [Noah] was throwing him a pass and the pass got deflected, so he tried to stop on a dime.
When he was limping back, I thought that it didn’t look that severe because I didn’t want it to be severe. You don’t hold your breath every time somebody takes a fall. You have to believe they’re going to get back up. I was just thinking, “Oh man, I hope this isn’t as bad as it sounds.” I hoped it was just a thigh-on-thigh or that somebody kneed him in his knee.
When he came back to the bench, he said that he felt like something popped and he couldn’t put much pressure on it, which was the telltale sign, right there, that it could be something bad. He didn’t want to say much other than that. But what is there really to say? He can’t apologize; he can’t be sorry. There’s nothing to say to us but “guys, keep fighting.” That’s something we already know, and all of our prayers are already with him.
I saw him the next day after he went to the doctor and found out from him what had happened. He seemed like he was in good spirits—or as good of spirits as he possibly could be in in his situation. It’s tough because everyone was excited about his return—coming back to the league after taking a year off—and then this happens and it’s a step backwards.
We all feel the pain of him going down. It’s been hard. Especially because of who he is.
I’ve seen him work harder than anyone—working at his craft every day, weight training, shooting and just preparing for the games—and you become a fan also and you want him to succeed. He’s not one of those guys that brag and talk about different things; he’s more of an introvert. All he wants to do is just play the game of basketball. You can respect someone like that—especially when they’re such a high-profile person. People of that calibre normally don’t have a humbleness about them.
That’s one quality that he always carries: It’s never about the fame; it really is about the game of basketball for him. For that to be taken away is definitely unfortunate.
But, you know, there is nothing that happens by mistake. Everything has a plan and purpose. And he’s always going to be able to come back from it. That’s the positive: because of his youth, this isn’t the end of the world for him. It’s never about what happened; it’s always about what’s next. That’s the thing that he has to focus on. Not give too much more time to what has happened, but now start giving more energy and time to what’s next.
Some guys on the team are still walking in quicksand right now, because the team has such high expectations, with him being the catalyst of it all. He’s such a big part of our team, so guys have got to step up collectively. One person can’t fill in what he does for our team, but collectively, hopefully we can at least be half or three-quarters of what he does on the basketball court.
We’ve all got to step up, because he makes the game easier for a lot of guys. Certain guys are able to get open looks because of the attention he draws on the offensive end. Now, you’ve got to test people’s will and heart and desire, and try to help this team continue to fight. We’ve got to try different rotations and find a way to win games now. We did it last year, so I don’t see why we won’t be able to do it this year. But we’ve got to figure it out fast.
We’re not a bad team. We’re still a pretty good team. The question is going to be: Are we going to stay in shock, or are we going to figure out how to turn this thing around?
And the answer is: We got no choice. Even a mutt with his back to the wall is going to fight. Our backs are against the wall, so we got no choice but to swing.