Our Hometown Kid, Derrick Rose ,Has Officially Retired. I Think We Lived Through The Best Times In Chicago Sports From 2007-2016
Congrats to Derrick Rose on an absolutely STUNNING run in the NBA. He really did have two careers and I don't think anyone thought the 2nd half of his career would ever happen. He had to reimagine and reinvent himself. Rose was a COMPLETELY different player after the knee injuries and he deserves a ton of credit for carving out a long NBA career after he lost what made him a super star.
Boy...when he was a super star though
There was nobody like him. The MVP. The anti-Lebron. One of our own. Watching Rose jam on Dragic or whoever was in his way. The all-star game where he looked absolutely disgusted with the banana boat boys. Rose was the guy. And it was taken from him, it was taken from all of us. That group had a ring them. Maybe it was going to be 2012. Maybe a couple years down the road as Jimmy Butler became a star. I don't know, but it was going to happen. It should've happened. It would've been incredible. Instead...
It seems like Rose really went through a lot and is in a great place. On to the next thing. He represented Chicago well and will always be one of the most beloved athletes ever to play here.
There's a line in "True Detective" that goes something like "do you ever realize you're in the good times when you're in them?". That's how I feel about 2007-2016 in Chicago. It wasn't all rosy, no pun intended, but man those were some good years. The Cubs made the playoffs in 2007 and 2008. We had the final really good Lovie teams. The Blackhawks run. Primetime Derrick Rose. Hell, even the White Sox made the playoffs in 2008. Then, the cap stone on that era…the Chicago Cubs winning in 2016. Four championships in that era. Lovable teams. ELECTRIC and entertaining athletes. Hall of famers everywhere. And…we were young. If you're my age you turned 30 when the Cubs won the World Series. That entire 10 year run was just drinking at bars and watching sports. Every night of the week, every season of the calendar, you had plans. There was something good on TV because the teams in this town were so fun. Toews, Kane, Keith, Rose, Noah, Hester, Urlacher, Buerhle, Zambrano, Lee, Thome, Panarin, Seabrook, Hossa, Chris Sale, Jimmy Butler, Ramirez, Soriano, Julius Peppers, Lance Briggs, Peanut, Forte…we had it so good. Better than we appreciated.
And…the internet was a thing. HD TV was a thing. You weren't listening to dinosaurs like Bernstein on your way to work if you didn't want to. You could see every highlight. Hear every interview. Sports coverage exploded. You could even start your own blog and change the direction of your entire life. That run was so special. More special that I realized at the time.
It's been nothing but shit since then. It feels like we sold our soul to win that Cubs World Series. Maybe that was a good trade after 108 years, but it has been tough sledding ever since. Youth and fun is fleeting. Eventually you have to grow up and become an adult. Rose is probably a good metaphor for that. I wish I could go back to 2010 though. Start it all over.