Yes, Derrick Rose Deserves to Have His Number Retired

The Chicago Bulls plan to retire Derrick Rose's number next season.

Perhaps predictably, this has invited a small bit of pushback from pundits, such as WSCR's Dan Bernstein, who don't believe Rose has the numbers -- and/or the Bulls didn't win enough during his time in town.

Their arguments are numbers-based, which is fair enough. One can make a case that strictly by the numbers, either Rose doesn't quite deserve jersey retirement -- or if he does, then other very good but not great Bulls like Horace Grant deserve the honor.

I think these folks are a bit too focused on the numbers and forget the context and the accomplishments. Indeed, former WSCR host Danny Parkins has good-naturedly poked back at his former coworker, arguing for Rose's jersey to be lifted to the rafters.

(Full disclosure: This author has had both professional and personal interactions with both Bernstein and Parkins).

Let's start with the context. The Bulls were moribund in the mid-Aughts after the failed Twin Towers experiment with Eddy Curry and Tyson Chandler. Other key acquisitions didn't amount to much -- remember Marcus Fizer and Jay Williams flaming out? Remember Scottie Pippen returning?

Even some acquisitions that seemed to work OK -- signing Ben Wallace, drafting Ben Gordon -- weren't enough to really propel the Bulls back into relevance.

It was drafting Rose with the first overall pick that helped get the Bulls back into the spotlight. It wasn't just that move, to be sure -- Luol Deng, Joakim Noah, Kirk Hinrich, and Andres Nocini were part of the Bulls' rebirth, and Deng, Hinrich, and Nocini were on the roster before Rose came along.

But having the hometown kid come to town as the first overall pick in the draft -- that was big for the Bulls. And over the course of his Bulls career, Rose was the league MVP, a three-time All-Star, and earned one All-NBA First-Team nod. He was also a Rookie of the Year.

If you want to argue that Rose shouldn't get his number retired because he and his mates failed to bring the Bulls a championship -- or even to reach the NBA Finals -- that's reasonable. The Bulls still haven't won a title or played deep into June since Michael Jordan was on the roster, and that was over a quarter-century ago.

But if you're focused only on stats or how the team fared during Rose's tenure, you're missing key context. You're not remember how popular the team was, and how Rose (and Noah, and Deng, and arguably Hinrich) drove that popularity.

Yes, it's a bummer that the Rose-led Bulls didn't do more, and maybe they would have had Rose not suffered major knee injuries in 2012 and 2013. Bulls fans will always play the "what if" game with him.

But Rose was helping the Bulls find their way out of the dark after several false starts. He was a key reason that the team started playing in the postseason again. And he did it all while dealing with the pressure of playing in his hometown.

Maybe the numbers aren't there -- and again, Rose lost a lot of time due to two impactful knee injuries, which must be remembered. But the impact on the city and fanbase is.

Rose deserves to have his number retired. The Bulls often get things wrong, but they got this one right.

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