Derrick Rose has joined the Minnesota Timberwolves and is looking to make an immediate impact. Rose has received a lot of criticism from NBA fans for his frequent injuries, but he aims to prove that he is not washed up. Rose was very defiant when speaking to ESPN about his injuries.
“I’m 29, they’re acting like I’m 39. I’m still able to push the ball up the floor, they’re acting like I’m in a wheelchair. All these injuries — like even coming here to take my physical, [the Timberwolves medical staff] looked at my physical, they couldn’t believe how my body was in good shape. Little things like that push me to go out here and work even harder, because on the outside looking in, you probably think I walk with a limp, you probably think I’m wearing ice bags every day, this and that. Man, it’s totally opposite of that.”
Rose continued, mentioning how social media responses tend to blow things out of proportion regarding his injuries.
“I feel great. My body feels great. And this last time, even getting injured, my injuries, period, the last time I got injured I was pushed, taken out of the air. How can I stop that? How can I stop from getting taken out of the air? I tried to prevent myself from falling, I twisted my ankle, but people from the outside, the basketball fans now, they’re on Snapchat, they’re on Twitter, Instagram, whatever, just looking at highlights, just looking at reports, ‘Oh, he injured himself again.’ Did you watch the play? No. You’re writing a comment before you even watched the play, you didn’t even watch the whole game, so I can’t take you serious.”
Rose went on to call social media comments a joke and questioned if his haters were just jealous.
“It’s a joke,” Rose told ESPN. “It’s a joke. I can’t take it too serious where like I said if you don’t know who you are you could easily get caught up into the mix of wanting to defend yourself, but I don’t need to do that because a lot of people’s grudges with me or they dislike me. It’s like [for] personal reasons, you know what I mean? Or jealousy or something like that, so I take it for what it is and just laugh at it and smile at it because I don’t need that karma to even speak on them or even waste my energy trying to defend myself with people like that.”
Derrick Rose has been in the NBA for 10 years, won an MVP, and led the Bulls back into national prominence for a short period. By all accounts, he has had a successful NBA career. Rose really has nothing to prove at this point and would be better off focusing on helping the Timberwolves make the playoffs.