3. A
t a downtown shoe store
Saturday, Derrick Rose
held his newest signature
shoe, the D Rose 5 Boost,
up for the cameras.
This season, he plans on wearing it,
too.
After playing 10 games over the pre-
vious two seasons thanks to two differ-
ent knee injuries, the Chicago Bulls star
is raring to go for his second comeback
season. Third, if you count the season he
wound up missing.
No need to hype this “Return.”
The Bulls finished a 4-4 preseason
with a loss to the Minnesota Timber-
wolves on Friday in St. Louis. They are set
to open Wednesday against the Knicks in
New York, then to return to Chicago for a
much-awaited home opener against LeB-
ron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers.
While the Bulls lost their final two
preseason games, Rose was better than
ever, scoring 57 points on 58.5 percent
shooting, hitting 7 of his 12 3-point tries.
Rose was on a minutes watch for
most of the eight-game preseason slate
and didn’t crack the 22-minute mark
until the sixth game. In his final three
games, he averaged just under 25 points
in 28 minutes per. His speed is definitely
still there, and his skill at getting to the
rim seems intact. Even his jumper, which
was missing during the FIBA Basketball
World Cup in Spain, looked steady.
“I think the whole preseason I’ve been
switching up my gears,” he said. “I hav-
en’t been playing at one pace the entire
time. You see little bursts of speed here
and there. You don’t get a steady diet of it.
I’ve been trying to use little things in my
offensive game, floaters, using the back-
board on my floaters, hitting my jump
shots. Just using little things to keep them
off balance.”
Rose started his Saturday at an event
at the Adidas store in Water Tower Place
for kids from After School Matters, a
charity that supports after-school activi-
ties for Chicago teenagers. Rose donated
$1 million to it this fall. He spoke to 20
kids, sharing life lessons and taking ques-
tions for almost an hour.
Then he trekked to a Foot Locker
store, where fans camped out to meet
Rose and get his newest shoes. The first
50 got to meet him.
Three years ago, he released his first
signature shoe at this store during the
NBA lockout. Back then, he was the de-
fending MVP.
The next two years saw massive, glitzy
Adidas events, including the now-derid-
ed hype campaign for “The Return” in
2012. The hype was toned down a bit this
time around, and the result was a more
organic, natural feel. That’s Rose’s appeal.
He’s a local kid made
good.
“You come out
here and you got
people standing
outside wearing
your stuff, it kind of
freaks you out a little
bit,” Rose said.
There was a host
of Adidas employ-
ees in town for the
event, and, like Bulls
employees, all are
hopeful that Rose
is finally healthy.
It’s tough to sell the
signature shoe of a
player in a suit and
tie. His shoes are
selling quite well
overseas, and as the line snaking around
Foot Locker showed, fans in Chicago still
believe in him.
As for the rest of the basketball world,
after two missed years, and three lost
postseasons, no one is quite sure where
Rose, now 26, stands in the NBA firma-
ment.
One recent example: Rose was ranked
No. 28 in ESPN.com’s collaborative True-
Hoop rankings, or one spot lower than
Suns guard Goran Dragic, the victim in a
classic Rose dunk from yesteryear.
“I mean, I hear about the rankings
here and there,” Rose said. “But I know
where I am with my game. I know I’m not
a top-30 player, I know I’m much higher.
But everyone has their own opinions, so I
can’t get mad.”
RETURNSBy: Jon Greenberg
Jon Greenberg has lived and worked in
Chicago since 2003. He has been a writer
for Espn.com since 2005.
