Limited to 10 regular-season games since April 2012, Rose is expected to make it 11 on Wednesday night when the Bulls and the Knicks meet at Madison Square Garden.Season openers are always fraught with meaning. For the Knicks, the game will mark the official start of the triangle-infused Phil Jackson era. For Rose, though, his simply being on the court will come as a small triumph, one celebrated by much of the league.Few players command more respect from their colleagues than Rose, the league’s most valuable player in 2011. Other players are aware of his unique gifts. They remember the player he used to be — the speed, the strength, the savvy — and they have seen what he has endured in his attempts to return to the court and reinvent himself and reshape his game.Rose’s injury history is as worn as an old paperback by now, familiar to nearly everyone with even the most casual interest in basketball. After tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee during the 2012 playoffs, Rose missed the entire 2012-13 season. He returned to the Bulls at the start of last season only to tear the meniscus in his right knee last November. The injury ended his season.Some players can relate to Rose’s struggles more easily than others. The Knicks’ Iman Shumpert, a fellow Chicagoan, tore up his left knee on April 28, 2012 — the same day, in fact, that Rose sustained his first knee injury. Unlike Rose, who took 17 months to return to the court, Shumpert was back by the following January.But it was the process — the mere act of getting up and down the floor — that was most important, and its benefits were clear when he joined the Bulls for training camp. In eight preseason games, he averaged 16.5 points while shooting 48.4 percent, including 43.3 percent from the 3-point arc. The rhythms of the game were coming back to him.For now, Rose appears to be handling what he can. It is a start.
This is why Rose said his latest setback hasn't left him down. After all, this is a player well-versed in overcoming adversity. "Just having faith and knowing at the end, this is a little process I'm going through right now," Rose said. "It won't matter. I think we're going to have a big year. I think I'm going to have a big year." |