It's About Damn Time: At Long Last, The Bulls Have Finally Set A Date To Raise Derrick Rose's Jersey To The Rafters
Jesse D. Garrabrant. Getty Images.At the start of the 2024 NBA season, it came out that the Bulls were "still discussing" the idea of officially retiring Derrick Rose's number and raising it to the rafters, which at the time, I felt was rather insane
While the requirements/criteria of jersey retirements are different for every franchise, to me this one always felt like an obvious no-brainer. What do you mean you aren't sure if you're going to retire Derrick Rose's number? When you looked at which former Bulls the franchise currently has up in the rafters (Jerry Sloan, Bob Love, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen), I'm not really sure what there was to discuss. Yeah sure, Rose's career was derailed by injury. But there are players who got the nod who didn't win titles like MJ and Pippen did. So Jerry Sloan and Bob Love played more games, who gives a shit? Derrick Rose is Chicago. He's the youngest MVP in league history, which he won as a Bull. There is no doubt that had he not gotten hurt, he was well on his way to a first ballot HOF career.
In January of 2025, we learned that the Bulls had come to their senses and were actually going to go through with the jersey retirement, which again should have been a no-brainer from the start
One would have thought it made a ton of sense to do it on the night the team honored Derrick Rose, but that's not exactly how it went down
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I'm not totally sure why the Bulls were so adamant about waiting a full year since the official announcement, but here we are. At least we now have an official date
Why that January 24th date? I tend to believe the Bulls wanted to find an easy opponent to keep the vibes high, and you'll never guess who they're playing on that date.
The depleted Boston Celtics.
Not only that, but the Celts will be on the second night of a B2B, which means by that time of the season, we could very well see them sit everyone of significance. As someone who has lived through the Paul Pierce jersey retirement, which came in a loss to LeBron, and the KG jersey retirement, which came in a loss to the Mavs, I certainly can understand why you'd want to try to do this during a winnable game. The Bulls do play the Lakers on the 26th, but they'll be rested and not on a B2B, so you run the risk of that being a loss.
The Celts are also the choice for the opponent when the Lakers unveil their Pat Riley statue, which also doesn't feel like a coincidence.
While I'm sure there will be some that might push back on the idea of Rose's #1 going up into the rafters, I say what's the harm? For what he meant to both that franchise and that city, for how dominant he was while healthy, it feels like you add all that up and it's the very definition of the type of player that should be honored for the rest of time. Plus, nobody has worn his number in the nearly 10 years since Rose was a Bull, so it was basically already retired anyway.
Maybe it's because I'm getting older, maybe it's because all the players from my era are now getting into the HOF and seeing their numbers get retired, but I just think there's something special about honoring your franchise legends. Considering this is well overdue in my opinion, it's cool for Bulls fans that they now have this celebration to look forward to in what might be another tough season of basketball.
All signs point to it being a pretty long time before we see another Bull get this nod, so I say appreciate it. There truly was nothing like pre-injury DRose