Derrick Rose consistently said his main motivation during his eight seasons with the Bulls was to win an NBA championship for his hometown of Chicago.
How crazy and coincidental, then, that his and Joakim Noah’s first game back at the United Center as opponents with the Knicks came on the day the Cubs celebrated a World Series championship with a parade and rally.
“Only thing I can do about that is say I gave it my all,” Rose said. “I really tried. I had multiple times when I envisioned winning a championship here. It never happened. So I have to take them visions to New York.”
The Knicks look far from a title team but righted matters slightly Friday night with a 117-104 victory over the Bulls, improving to 2-3.
Noah drew loud cheers during introductions. So did Rose, although a small undercurrent of boos could be heard. The Bulls honoured both players with a video tribute during the first timeout. The players spent pregame hugging everybody from executive vice president John Paxson to security guards.
An introspective Rose, who said he was surprised but not stung by the trade, a process he did say “sucks,” pondered his fall from grace from too-good-to-be-true hometown story to oft-injured star who alienated a segment of the fan base.
“People just didn’t understand me,” Rose said. “I didn’t let them. I was too focused. We were losing. So I held everything in. I didn’t voice my opinion the way I wanted to, and the way I expressed it was being quiet. I’m an introvert. I was just quiet and thinking about things.
“Sometimes with fans they want to see results right away, especially when you play with a franchise like this. We won six championships in Chicago. They want playoffs. And they want rings. That’s just how they felt. And I felt like there wasn’t no patience on both sides.”
The Bulls’ improved chemistry has been a major storyline in this young season. Rose said it’s good the Bulls have it but downplayed a question on whether he thought he was a good teammate.
“Forget teammate,” he said. “I’m a good person. I never disliked anyone. If I did, they didn’t know.” Rose visited the Bulls locker room pregame, laughingly revealing he stole two bottles of water from Jimmy Butler. Their relationship drew scrutiny as the Bulls underachieved last season. Rose said he attended Butler’s USA Basketball game in Los Angeles and went to a Dodgers game to see him.
“There’s no bad blood between nobody with the franchise or nobody on that team,” Rose said. “It was never that. It’s funny to see how people just try to make up things with us just losing games.”
Butler also took the high road.
“The group of guys that we have are doing really well right now, so do I wish I can change last year? No,” he said. “Do I wish (Rose) the best? Is he my guy? Yeah.
“He’s not a bad guy at all. He’s just not a talkative one. I think we have guys in here that love to talk, love to joke around and be around each other, hang out.
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing about him, it’s just him. The guys we have right now, we don’t have anyone like that. I’m not saying that’s the reason for anything that happened last year, but it’s just a very different vibe around here.”
Rose and Noah alternated between focusing on righting the Knicks and walking down memory lane as they spoke on the court where they experienced so many highs and lows as members of the Bulls.
“I wish everybody well,” Noah said. “I’m not here wanting the Bulls to lose or anything like that. Just (Friday night), though.”
Bulls management consistently has said since last June’s trade of Rose that the core had been together too long and needed change. Earlier this week in Boston, Butler joined the chorus, agreeing that the staleness translated to the court.
Noah didn’t disagree.
“It was time for change,” Noah said. “I look back on (last season) and I was definitely frustrated. There was definitely a lot of adversity going on there. Now I can look back at it and see where things went wrong. It’s not about blaming one person. Everybody in that locker room is good people. It’s just (crap) happens. It’s a locker room. The things I remember the most are good memories from everybody. I have no hard feelings toward anybody.”