How two knee injuries derailed Derrick Rose's NBA career

For the first 4 years of Derrick Rose's career, he truly put the NBA world on notice. He was so good, in fact, he won the NBA MVP award at 22 years old, just in his third season. Through his first four seasons, he averaged 21.1 points per game at 46.1% field goal percentage. Simply put, he was on pace for a Hall of Fame career. Some even said that, if he kept this pace up. he could even surpass Michael Jordan as the GOAT. The future looked extremely bright. What could go wrong?

Everything. Everything that could go wrong for Rose, went very, very wrong.

In game 1 of the first round of the Eastern Conference Playoffs against the Philadelphia 76ers, disaster struck. Derrick Rose ran down the court, penetrated the paint, and made a jump stop and pass to his teammate to his right. As he did this, however, he crumpled to the floor and was screaming in pain, grabbing at his left knee. Immediately, the sold-out 20,917-strong crowd at the United Center fell into absolute silence. They had seen what millions worldwide had seen in horror: Derrick Rose suffered a non-contact knee injury. That never, and I mean NEVER, ends well. And unfortunately, it didn't end well for Rose, either.

After the game, the NBA world learned that Derrick Rose had suffered a fully torn ACL. The ACL, or Anterior Cruciate Ligament, is a ligament that runs in the middle of the inside of your knee. The ACL is a huge part of having stability in your knee and allows for sudden movements and quick direction changes. Essentially, you need your ACL for basketball. So when Derrick Rose tore his ACL, the Bulls quickly ruled him out for the rest of the season. The reason for this? Due to the ACL being fully torn, Derrick Rose would have to undergo reconstructive ACL surgery to fully repair his ACL, and help to restore it to its full strength. The typical time it takes to return to basketball following this surgery is 6 months, which is much longer than the remainder of the 2011-2012 NBA season, as there was a maximum of 2 months left in the season.

So, after the surgery, Derrick Rose was expected to return in mid-October of 2012, as per the typical 6-month recovery span. And initially after the surgery, Rose seemed poised to return in mid-October. So he returned, played like his usual self, and became one of the best players on the face of the planet, right?

Wrong.

He never returned for the 2012 season. He reportedly suffered setbacks in his rehab, and his return date kept on getting pushed back. Eventually, on March 9th, 2013, the Chicago Bulls announced that Rose wouldn't return for the 2012-2013 season. His rehab wasn't going as expected, and any hope for Rose coming back, or the Bulls season for that matter was shut down. He did, however, return for the 2013-2014 season. And now, we were going to see him play like his usual self, right? It's time for him to return to his MVP-like self, right?

Once again, wrong.

For the first 10 games of the season, Derrick Rose looked rusty. On an average of 30 minutes a night, he averaged 15.9 points, 3.2 assists, and 4.3 boards per game on a measly 35.4% shooting and a lowly 34% from 3-point land. Essentially, his numbers were way down from his pre-injury form. But you may ask, "Why did you only cover the first 10 games? What about the rest of the season?"

His season was only 10 games.

On November 22, 2013, Rose suffered a torn meniscus in a matchup against the Portland Trail Blazers. The meniscus, like I've discussed before on here, is a C-shaped structure in the knee that acts as a shock absorber to the knee. Damage to it makes the knee practically unusable. And in Rose's case, the injury did just that; he got surgery and was sidelined for the rest of the year. And unfortunately, after this injury, Rose was never the same. He never came close to averaging the 25 PPG that gave him the MVP award, with his closest being in the 2016-2017 season with the New York Knicks, where he averaged 18 PPG. And aside from the stats, just watching Rose play showed that while he recovered from his knee injuries, he just wasn't the same player. He settled for more mid-range jump shots, he improved his three-point game and became more of a distributor of the ball rather than a score-first player. He just wasn't the same player anymore. The player that some thought posed a threat to Jordan's GOAT status during his MVP years turned out to be nothing more than a good role-player at best due to his knee injuries. And when examining why his career got derailed, that's exactly where we have to go: his knee injuries.

You see, Rose's play style was very explosive, as he was known for his high-flying dunks and explosive bursts to the basket. His play style in his peak was similar to Dwayne Wade and Russell Westbrook, and even Ja Morant's play style today. Despite being 6 feet and 2 inches tall, he could easily get up to the rim and score. And the issue with that explosive play style is that your knees are pivotal in keeping up that style of play. Any injuries to the knee and that style of play is thrown out of the window. Rose suffered not one, but two debilitating knee injuries that just made it impossible to return to his previous form. Despite him being fully recovered, the knee injuries just didn't let him have that bounce, and he wasn't the same player. And while he did adjust and developed a good jumper, he still couldn't get to his peak.

Derrick Rose is perhaps the biggest "what if" question in NBA history. Had he not gotten hurt, how many more MVP's would he win? How many championships would he have under his belt? And perhaps most intriguing of all, would he ever surpass MJ as the GOAT? Unfortunately, due to his knee injuries, we would never be able to find out. However, I speak for everyone when we say we are forever grateful for those special years with MVP Rose.