



Chicago Bulls superstar point guard Derrick Rose sat out the entire 2012-’13 season as he recovered from left knee surgery to repair a torn ACL. With Rose being medically cleared to play, and the team refusing to rule him out at any point, fan anger continued to build. The 24-year old Rose explains that he had to be “selfish” with the injury, and the organization seems to believe he’ll back to his old self next season. Per the team website, via the Chicago Tribune: “I’m not a selfish guy at all,’ Rose said. ‘But having this injury and knowing what I had to go through and being smart, this is something I had to be selfish with. I couldn’t worry about anyone else but myself and my health.’ Rose never ruled out returning whenever he spoke to reporters during the season, even though it was widely assumed he would sit out the entire campaign when he didn’t return in March. He addressed what it felt like to miss an entire season. ‘It was hard, one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to go through in my life,’ Rose said. ‘After surgery when you start running . . . when you have an injury like this there are stages you have to go through. I’m still going through my stages. I’m not done yet. This is the most I ever worked on my craft and most focused I’ve ever been in my NBA career.’ […] Rose reiterated he wanted badly to return. ‘Every day I was working out like my leg is going to feel better,’ he said. ‘I was pushing myself every day, eating right, just trying to take care of my body so I could be out there as soon as possible. It didn’t happen.’ Plenty of fan backlash developed for Rose, particularly when teammates played through less career-threatening injuries during the playoff run. ‘They saw how hard I was working in practice just trying to rebuild my leg,’ Rose said. ‘All my teammates that were going through their injuries used to tell me don’t rush back just because they were going through stuff.’ Rose said his only goal is to win a championship and that he hopes to show fans next season that sitting out 2012-13 was the right decision.”

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