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Those of you know have read my articles or listened to my show on SiriusXM radio, you know that I tend to have some strong opinions. Every now and then I will rant and rave about a topic that is important to me. Luckily (or unlucky I suppose) as Assistant G.M. subscribers you will receive one of these rants in your email box every week. It’s a little thing that I like to call: One MANS Opinion.
Derrick Rose is the biggest vagina in professional sports today. Congratulations Percy Harvin, you are off the hook!
Rose left the Bulls/Raptors game on Thursday night due to a hamstring injury. It was the sixth time in nine games that Rose has either left a game or been scratched due to injury. As you can imagine, fans of Derrick Rose, the Chicago Bulls and the NBA are getting a little frustrated with this trend. It isn’t often that an MVP type of player misses that much time especially early on in a season.
Now let’s factor in the fact that Derrick Rose has missed 171 games over the previous 2.5 seasons and you can imagine where the fans frustration levels lie. I live in Chicago and am a life long Chicago Bulls fan. Having grown up in this city I have seen, heard and read about every athlete that has come into this city over the last four decades. And I can say with all sincerity that Derrick Rose has been absolutely pampered throughout the past three seasons. He has been given every single benefit of the doubt as it pertains to his health, his rehab methods and his desire to not push his body during his recoveries.
Then this week Rose decides to open his mouth and respond to the very few whispers about his lack of desire to be on the basketball court as much as possible.
“I know a lot of people get mad when they see me sit out or whatever, but I think a lot of people don’t understand that when I sit out it’s not because of this year. I’m thinking about long term. I’m thinking about after I’m done with basketball.”
This statement here is not that bad. Many rational sports fans and I can completely understand an athletes desire to want to remain healthy even after they retire. Granted that he is being paid a lot of money to first and foremost be out on the court helping his team whenever possible. If you really think about it this type of attitude wouldn’t be tolerated in any of our workplaces. Would it?
Can you imagine going into work on a construction site and telling the foreman that you can’t carry that lumber because you need to consider what it will do to your back years from now when you retire? Or if you work in an office setting and you decide to not show up a couple of times every week because you’re worried what the fluorescent lighting will do to your eyes and skin when you are older.
But life as a pro athlete is demanding and takes a big toll on your body. So in that spirit I can digest what Rose is saying and agree to disagree so to speak.
But he wasn’t done.
“Having graduations to go to, having meetings to go to, I don’t want to be in my meetings all sore or be at my son’s graduation all sore just because of something I did in the past. I'm just learning and being smart.”
This just got ridiculous. Gradutions?? Meetings!?!?!? This is what the 26 year old Derrick Rose is concerned with right now? Wow.
Derrick Rose is an idiot. I don’t mean that as a reaction to his statements but rather as a general fact. It is widely known in Chicago that Rose didn’t do any of his own work at Simeon High School. He had his grades altered by faculty members and then as we all know he didn’t even take his own SAT tests. Thus he never really qualified for college. His actions cost the University of Memphis one of its greatest seasons in their history because that 38-2 run to the NCAA Championship Game never actually happened.
Now this kid is so delusional that he really believes that no matter what he does with the rest of his basketball career, there will be business meetings waiting for him decades from now. Oh and that he is so important that when he is in these so-called futuristic business meetings he will require perfect health at such a time.
Do any of you reading this feel unequivocally that you are at 100% right now? Your ankles aren’t sore, your muscles aren’t tight and your ears/eyes/nose/mouth/throat are all in perfect working order? Is anybody 55+ really ever at 100% health?
The hard truth for Derrick Rose is that nobody is going to care about him in the future. Why sure is friends and family will still love him and all of that but there will be no shoe endorsements for a 50 year old Derrick Rose. The fact is there will be no business meetings for him to not be sore at. All of this life that Derrick Rose enjoys and wants to preserve so much goes away without the game of basketball and his ability to play it so well.
You see Derrick, life is a slippery slope. If you don’t want to give it your all on the basketball court, then we as fans don’t want to watch you play. We will stop buying tickets to Bulls games. If we don’t buy tickets or tune in to watch you play, the ratings for Bulls games go down. If the ratings go down, the revenue the Bulls generate from TV/radio/online also goes down. That leaves less salary for you to make. Add to that the fans not buying your jersey, your Adidas sneakers or any other products that you get paid to endorse and all of that goes away too.
How many 45+ year old basketball players are still making a substantial living? Michael Jordan is 51 years old and is the owner of the Charlotte Hornets. He also still makes a substantial living off of endorsement deals. While he was with the Bulls Jordan missed 64 games with a broken foot in 1985-86. In the next 11 years he missed a grand total of seven games. We all remember him barely able to stand yet dropping 38 on the Utah Jazz in the Finals. I cannot for the life of me remember MJ sitting out a single game with tightness in his hamstring or because he was saving himself for his kids graduation.
Magic Johnson came back to play and coach the Lakers while suffering from HIV. Larry Bird played through significant back pain and surgeries for most of his later years. All three of these guys still have meetings to go to.
You know who doesn’t attend a lot of meetings these days? Allen Iverson. Iverson famously said that he didn’t have to PRACTICE and missed over 100 games in his career due to injuries. Despite an illustrious career that like Rose also saw an MVP award, nobody cares about Iverson just four years later.
Pro athletes have a superiority complex that can be incredibly humbling once their playing careers are over. The fame, the fortune and the copious amounts of business meetings do not go on forever. Those who have given it they’re all and have endeared themselves to the leagues, the city and the fans will be remembered and revered. Their jerseys are often found hanging in the rafters. Those that spent their career worrying about preserving their greatness will be forgotten the moment the door hits them on the way out.
Derrick Rose has made a nice living out of always taking the short cuts in life. He is not the only professional athlete to walk this road and he certainly will not be the last. But at this point in time he is the poster child for the overpaid, overhyped pro athlete. Eventually he will sit out enough games that the Bulls will get sick of it and cut him loose. By the time another team takes a shot on him, he will have lost the prime years of his career. He will try and regain the form he had at 24 and will realize that it is never coming back. Then when he finally sets his mind to get on the court and give it his all, his all won’t be good enough. That is when Derrick Rose will realize just how good he actually felt back in the day when a tight hamstring or sprained ankle kept him off the court for days on end.
By then however we will no longer care. That will be the first and only graduation Derrick Rose will have ever earned.
Of course, what do I know? I am just a frosted tip radio show host who has dedicated his life to commenting on sports. You may not agree, but that is OK because this was just One MANS Opinion.