Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah return to Chicago, months and a lifetime later
It’s not going to be the most emotional sporting event in Chicago on this particular Friday, but the return of Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah to the United Center is still sure to stir the feelings of a significant portion of Windy City fans.
Before their respective exits this summer, the point guard and center were two of the most beloved and decorated players in franchise history. Rose was a miracle, the South Side product-turned-star point guard who landed back home despite the Bulls having just a 1.7 percent chance of winning the No. 1 overall pick in the 2008 draft lottery, the unstoppable thunderbolt whose quicksilver drives to the rim made him the youngest MVP in league history. Noah was a totem of relentlessness, the hard-charging paint protector who gave the Bulls their snarl, the blue-collar grinder whose ever-revving motor and penchant for playmaking made him Defensive Player of the Year and All-NBA First Team honors.
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Together with Tom Thibodeau, they helped lift the Bulls out of their post-Michael Jordan doldrums and came to define an era of Chicago basketball. But nothing gold can stay. After years of injuries, internal struggle and frustrations borne of falling short in the playoffs, Thibs is barking out “ICE” calls in Minnesota, and Rose and Noah are trying to author career encores as members of the New York Knicks.
On Friday night, Rose, Noah, Carmelo Anthony and the gang will try to get on the same page and get their second win in five tries. They’ll try to do so at the expense of a Bulls squad that’s been better than many expected in the early going, led by former teammate Jimmy Butler and a pair of familiar former playoff opponents, ex-Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade and former Boston Celtics triggerman Rajon Rondo. The Bulls will run video tributes to both players during the game. It’s unclear whether the fans in attendance at the Madhouse on Madison will offer a similarly laudatory response, though. From K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune:
“C’mon, [Rose] should be received warmly,” [Bulls executive vice president John] Paxson said. “Injuries are part of the game. You can’t do anything about that. In my mind, he didn’t disappoint or let anybody down by any means. I would expect our fans to be classy and receive him the way they should.”
His former teammates agreed. […]
“It’s going to be a business-type of game. I’m over here, they’re over there,” Taj Gibson said of his two close friends. “We had a lot of fun. The city was ecstatic. Our team was ecstatic. We had a lot of great battles, a lot of emotion.
“The crowd should give them a good standing ovation. They gave Chicago a lot of blood, sweat and tears.”
Butler — whose rise to All-Star status coincided with injuries and decline for both Rose and Noah, and who had his run-ins with the two older stars during the end of their tenures in Chicago — agreed that they should be celebrated, according to Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com:
“Lots of love — I can promise you that,” Butler said. “I’ll be standing when their name is called, too, because they did a lot for the city. On the floor, they did a lot, but I think they did even more off the floor. That’s what I commend them for.” […]
“I think he should be received well,” Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg said. “Derrick did a lot of good things for the franchise, for the city. Obviously, winning an MVP. He had some great moments, some big playoff series. I think he’ll be received very well.”
There’s reason for some skepticism, though — at least, in the case of Rose, whose ascent to the ranks of his generation’s great players was derailed by the devastating ACL tear he suffered in the first game of the 2012 postseason, and whose status among Bulls fans grew increasingly complicated throughout his lengthy recovery from multiple knee surgeries. From ESPN.com’s Nick Friedell:
The once-teflon popularity of Rose never fully recovered after he decided not to play in 2013-14 after being medically cleared by Bulls doctors. Rose, once universally beloved in this city, lost a portion of the fan base and never recovered it. Noah, now almost as beloved as Rose, hated that some fans turned on his close friend. […]
Perception is reality, and the perception is that Noah, who suffered serious knee and shoulder injuries of his own, gave everything he had to the city. He was a blue-collar player in a blue-collar town. He has made sure that one of the primary objectives in his Noah’s Arc Foundation is reducing the gun violence in Chicago.
Rose is viewed by many Chicagoans as having changed. The injuries, the multimillion-dollar contracts, the perceived lack of desire to play the game the same way, it’s all rolled into why some fans will decide to vent some of their long-held frustration toward Rose in the form of boos.
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Rose, for his part, isn’t expecting an outpouring of support, according to NBA.com’s Steve Aschburner:
“Nah, [a standing ovation] would be a dream,” Rose told Knicks reporters this week. “I know I’m going to get some boos here and there. It’s all part of the game and sport. It’s not going to affect the way I play and how bad I want to win the game.”
Said Noah, who signed with New York in part because of Rose’s trade there: “I’m trying to stay focused on the moment. I know it’s going to be emotional. I have a lot of battles in a place I call my second home. … It is a place where we both spent a lot of time really fighting for that city and really fighting for wearing that jersey. It’s going to be strange going up against teammates I battled with for a long time.”
… but he would like Chicago’s fans to know how much he appreciated the love he showed them during his eight years in red, white and black, according to Sam Smith of Bulls.com:
“The city meant everything,” said Rose. “They’re the reason I played the way I played. I wanted to show them that every year I worked on my game. In the offseason, I worked on things to see if people saw what I worked on, adding a jump shot, a bank shot, see if the fans can see; ‘Can you see I’m working hard?’ They saw me ever since I was in sixth grade, a guy who had natural raw talent, figured out how to score on a consistent basis, improved his jump shot, watched my turnovers and still working on that, being more efficient with the amount of dribbles before a shot, little things like that.
The city pushes you and forces you to work on your game. I don’t care who you are. If you are in Chicago and play for a professional sports team and if you have greatness in you the city is going to pull it out of you one way or the other; they’re going to force you to work on your game or if you have a tiny bit of greatness they are going to get it out of you in Chicago because it’s the culture. I’d look at tapes of Walter Payton and you could tell he had that itch. Once you come there you get that itch of every day work on becoming great, the culture and history there; the fans have a lot to do with that because of the support. I hope the people in New York can see.”
We’ll find out when he’s introduced on Friday whether Bulls fans are ready to embrace the good times and move on from the bad, or whether the wounds left from their relationship with Rose remain too fresh for reconciliation right now.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!
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