Derrick Rose isn’t a Bull anymore, but Chicago will always be a part of him. Here’s the Bulls.com blog reporting:
No, the parade Friday wasn’t for Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah returning to Chicago.
But as much as Rose and Noah hoped, wished and envisioned it would be them someday making Chicago feel proud, Rose, nevertheless, said he was thrilled for Chicago.
“Just coming back here, it felt good, to tell you the truth,” Rose told reporters after Knicks practice in the United Center. “Especially the Cubs winning. I felt the energy of the city. The city is on some type of high right now. It’s great for the city with everything that we’ve been going through, the killings, everything. We need some positive light shined here.”
Rose, the Englewood native and Simeon High School star, has been part of the Chicago fabric for almost 20 years, as a prep basketball phenomenon and then as the No. 1 draft pick of the Bulls and the NBA’s youngest ever Most Valuable Player. Though Rose did so unobtrusively, he was one of the more community oriented Chicago athletes. He often joined Father Michael Phleger in the youth social activism in the troubled South Side and made the largest ever charitable gift of a Chicago athlete, a $1 million donation to the non profit After School Matters for teenage out of school programs.
