It’s hard for Ayo Dosunmu to pick one memory of Derrick Rose that defined his childhood memories growing up in Chicago.
The Bulls guard knows the classics. Rose’s weaving dance to take an off-balance 3-pointer that forced overtime against the Houston Rockets in 2010. The leap away from Brandon Jennings to sink a long two with the buzzer sounding for a win over the Milwaukee Bucks.
But Dosunmu also knows that in those days, everything always came back to Miami — and Rose was never better than when he sprinted down the court in transition against the Heat in March 2011, launching himself into the air between Dwyane Wade and LeBron James, scooping the ball up and under to flip a reverse layup off the backboard and through the net.
For Dosunmu, this is the memory he’ll hold after Rose announced his retirement last week. The soon-to-be MVP, then only 22 years old, suspended in the air between the two titans of the Eastern Conference, finding a little magic around the rim.
“You look back at that time, the whole offseason was the Bulls and the Heat,” Dosunmu said. “Everybody knew that was going to be the Eastern Conference finals. So every time they played in the regular season, Chicago was always lit. It was a fun time.
“They were No. 1 in the East. We had the MVP on our team. … Being in the city and enjoying that environment … it brings back good times.”
For fellow local Matas Buzelis, a different Rose moment is emblazoned in his memory. As a 10-year-old glued to the TV with his family in 2015, Buzelis watched as Rose turned the corner off the pick-and-roll at the top of the arc, launched the ball halfway up to the rafters and banked his shot off the backboard to claim Game 3 of the 2015 Eastern Conference semifinals over Cleveland.
“That’s probably the fondest memory I have,” Buzelis said.
It was a bittersweet highlight for Buzelis, who was admittedly as big of a James fan as a Bulls supporter at the time. But the Cavaliers leveled the score in the next game, and Buzelis was left to cherish that image of Rose, stone-faced in the face of celebration as he was lifted off the court by his teammates.
As the oldest player on the Bulls roster, center Nikola Vučević is the only current player to have faced off against Rose in his prime before his initial knee injury in 2012. And Vučević still remembers a March matchup against Rose in Philadelphia from that season, when the guard carved up the 76ers defense to drop 35 points, spamming four 3-pointers in a five-point win.
“I was a huge fan of his game always,” Vučević said. “Just the way he was playing, how explosive he was, the way he was cutting. He was one toughest guys to defend in the pick and roll, just getting in small spaces, finishing around the rim. Just an amazing player to watch. And I really always enjoyed watching how humble he was and how he acted off the court. He never really was about the fame or anything. He was just about playing and competing.”
In the years that followed, Rose drifted from the spotlight of the NBA. But for local kids like Dosunmu, the legacy of the one-time MVP will never fade.
Dosunmu spent countless nights in his backyard in Chicago, shouting “D-Rose!” whenever he hit a reverse layup over his brother. And that cheer echoed throughout a city that grew up idolizing Rose — a tangible version of a dream come true.
“He was a legend that I saw, you know?” Dosunmu said. “Like I saw him up close. You think other legends in other sports — Tiger Woods, Serena Williams, Michael Phelps. I see them on TV, but I never had a chance to really interact with them. But Derrick Rose, he’s from Chicago. It hits a little bit different because I saw him come from Memphis to his rookie year and to ultimately be the youngest MVP ever, it just hit different when you had that connection of him being in your city.”
The Bulls are planning to host a celebration of Rose during a Jan. 4 game against the New York Knicks, according to a report by The Athletic. The timing of the game would allow former Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau — who currently coaches the Knicks — to participate in the celebration of a player he coached for seven seasons.
While Rose won’t be eligible to join the Bulls’ Ring of Honor until 2027 due to the eligibility criteria of being retired for at least three years, the Bulls would have the opportunity to retire his jersey at any time — a reflection of the impact of his career as an MVP on the franchise.
“He’s a legend,” guard Zach LaVine said. “There’s not enough that you can say about the career he’s had and the struggles that he’s had, his ups and downs. I don’t know personally like some other people do, but having conversations with him and other people around the league of how respected he is and how much better of a person he is than a basketball player, that says a lot coming from a former MVP. So my hat’s off to him.
“I hope him and his family are extremely happy. He’s had a hell of a career.”
