The No. 1 pick in 2008, Derrick Rose was the heir apparent in Chicago.
As a native son of the Windy City, D-Rose rose to the occasion early in his career, leading to the Bulls to the Playoffs as a rookie, winning Rookie of the Year. He didn’t stop there.
Boasting a lethal combination of speed, strength and athleticism, Rose became an All-Star in his sophomore year. It was in that season that Rose would go upstairs on Goran Dragic in Phoenix for an iconic poster dunk.
That summer, the Bulls hired Tom Thibodeau, traded for Carlos Boozer and signed Kyle Korver. Rose would go on to win the 2010-11 MVP award (the youngest player in NBA history to do so) as the Bulls improved 21 wins to 62-10. They would lose in the conference finals to LeBron James and the Heat, but the sky was the limit for the Bulls.
Things obviously didn’t work out according to plan. Rose missed 27 games in the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season due to injuries and tore his ACL in Game 1 of the first round of the Playoffs.
He sat out the following season, including a painful playoff stretch where he was rumored to be medically cleared.
“The Return” was spoiled 10 games into the 2013-14 season, when Rose tore his right meniscus. He sat out the rest of the season and Playoffs.
The next two seasons were full of more surgeries (right meniscus removal) and injuries (orbital bone fracture), but he showed glimpses—like when he hit the game-winner and scored 30 points in Chicago’s 99-96 win over the Cavs in the second round of the 2015 Playoffs.
The emergence of Jimmy Butler made Rose expendable, and the Bulls dealt Rose last week to the Knicks, ending Rose’s seven-season run in Chicago. It wasn’t a storybook ending like many in Chicago had envisioned, but Rose left fans with plenty of good memories.
Take a trip down memory lane by watching the video above.
