Derrick Rose is only 23-years-old and with a $95 Million dollar contract which isn’t counting his Adidas deal, which is more than double that amount, and his first born on the way, the basketball star is the reining King of the only city he has ever known- Chicago, IL. A city the Bulls MVP calls home but also imprisons him in a wall of solidarity. The city is convinced that he is the second coming of Michael Jordan…
In the May issue of GQ Magazine Rose was interviewed by Will Leitch. D Rose talks fame, living in the Trump Tower, his missed press conference after returning from injury, growing up protected in Chicago, thirsty Bulls Chicago Fans and Lebron James.
Interview Excerpts:
How Do You Like Living In The Trump Tower:
“I like living here,” he says. “They just try to make you comfortable. The people here, they are mostly from out of town; they don’t know who I am. That’s why I picked this place.” (It’s easy to understand why one would enjoy working in this building, too. When Rose orders two bottled waters for us during our chat, he hands the bellhop two $50 bills.) Presidents talk about how the White House begins to feel like a prison. Rose speaks the same way about the town that adores him. “It gets on my nerves that I just can’t go out,” he says. “It’s just boundaries now. People are like, ‘You can’t go here, you can’t go there, you got to let that person know where you’re going.’ It’s just weird. I’m never alone. Ever.”
On his first game back after injury Derrick Rose had a 90-79 Victory over the Atlanta Hawks. The media was circled around his locker like vultures waiting to interview him.. However D Rose never showed up. Why?
”It was just too much,” he says. “I just couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t deal with it. There were so many people. I saw them there from the other room. And when I thought about having to go in there, I just couldn’t work my way up to it.” He pauses and takes a sip of water. His eyes go somewhere beyond my left ear. “There were so many of them. I hope they’ll forget about it.”
Nick Friedell, the Bulls beat reporter for ESPN Chicago, said. “He has almost never done that since I started working this beat,” he said. “I’m stunned.” The conversation turned to how Michael Jordan never pulled this, how he always made an appearance no matter what.
Derrick on the Michael Jordan Comparisons:
“I’ve run into him a couple of times, but we don’t have a relationship,” he says. “His titles drive me. I’m not scared of him; if anything, it makes me work harder when I do train.”One Chicago icon for whom Rose does genuflect? President Obama. The famously Bulls-crazy POTUS has an open dialogue with Rose. “I know that if I really wanted him to come out and support an event I’m going to in Chicago,” Rose says, “I know it could probably get done.”
On Introducing President Obama last year:
“That was my first time ever speaking to that type of crowd,” he says. “I was so nervous and scared. Just a two- or three-minute thing, but, like, thousands of people were there. I was nervous as hell…but I got it done, and it helped me being more vocal, too, by doing that.” One difference between Rose and other athletes who have palled around with the prez is that Rose has known him since back when. “I remember when he wasn’t our president, when I was a kid, when he’d just be walking down the street, a state senator. He was just always there. I didn’t appreciate it then. I was in high school and just wanted to see rappers.”
