Before he beamed about being a Knick, before he went AWOL and before he severed ties with the franchise after one messy season, came the stunning but seemingly expected phone call that changed Derrick Rose’s life.
“Pooh: The Derrick Rose Story” revealed the stressful moments the former MVP endured before the Bulls shipped him off to New York nearly three years ago.
“You do hear about trade rumors here and there, and this last one, the Knicks one was pretty big because it caught a lot of people’s attention,” Rose said as part of the Stadium documentary, released Thursday. “I’m good with being in Chicago. We’re trying to win there, get back on the right track, so that’s the only thing I can think about. Being in Chicago, but I do hear the rumors. I never really thought about packing up and leaving or demanding a trade.”
Rose is then pulled off camera, where he is alerted by a friend that his agent BJ Armstrong had touched down in New York.
“I’m so nervous right now,” Rose says. “I hope nothing happened. Makes me kinda nervous.”
The Chicago native, who at this point in his career had been knocked off the top of his game by a slew of knee injuries, returns to the interview before Armstrong gets him on the line shortly thereafter.
Then comes the shocking revelation that left Rose in tears and disbelief.
“I’m just in awe,” Rose says of the trade that went down on June 22, 2016.
“This is going to be an enormous opportunity,” Armstrong is heard saying. “This is a totally different f–king beast. This is the f–king Mecca.”
But that of course turned into a flop, the top highlight of his tenure likely being the city nightclub tour he and Joakim Noah indulged in in the wee hours before his introductory Knicks news conference.
Rose ended up joining LeBron James’ court in Cleveland the next season for just 16 games before enjoying a rebirth in Minnesota in 2018-19, averaging 18 points and 4.3 assists per game.
A trip to free agency is next for the 30-year-old, where a triumphant return to the Bulls may be in store.
“There’s no secret, there’s no doubt that in his heart, Chicago will always be there,” Armstrong told a local radio show. “We’ll see. I don’t know what the Bulls are going to do at this particular time … If it presented itself, we’d be open to that conversation. We’ll find out in due time.”