Sports

Derrick Rose: Phil Jackson’s meddling doomed my Knicks

This excerpt of “I’ll Show You,” by Derrick Rose with Sam Smith, is presented with permission from Triumph Books. For more information or to order a copy, please visit http://www.triumphbooks.com/derrickrose

With the basketball, the way Phil [Jackson] had talked, and with [Joakim Noah] and [Carmelo Anthony], I really thought we were going to do something.

But when it came to the basketball, I knew right away that we were s–t.

I played through it, 60-some games, but I could tell right away it wasn’t the season I was expecting. Lot of different priorities. Melo’s there. You know how he plays. Can’t change that. That’s what I realized being there. And he’s a great dude; I loved being around Melo. He ain’t gonna rub you the wrong way. Great dude, great spirit, great person, great teammate.





I don’t say much, but Phil could tell. Phil was telling me to be patient. He said I had a lot going on with the trial and all. He was honest with me. Everything he talked to me about, he was honest, I’ll say that.

Our relationship was a little weird, though. He was cool the whole time I was there, but he wanted that $60 million he was owed by the Knicks.

As for me, I liked Phil, but, come on, man, you’re still running the triangle? He was still forcing them to run it. I’m a slasher, a driving point guard. The triangle is okay, but not for the personnel we had. Melo couldn’t play that way, didn’t want to.

With me leaving Chicago, I really was into the game, really wanted to do something. New York with Jo and Phil and Melo and leaving Chicago, it just sounded like it was going to be special. Getting back to winning. I had high expectations and I wanted to perform. I felt the spark. But we never had a flow on the offensive or defensive end. I felt like being there we never did the extra things to win the game, make the hustle play or the extra pass. We played numerous games where we’d hit a point where it just all fell apart. We had an alright start, playing around .500 ball into December, but you could tell it was getting worse. We knew it was only a matter of time.





Coming in, especially in the East, a team like that you know can compete, a team with that talent. They were trying to do it for Melo; he didn’t want to start over so they wanted to get the veterans for him. But he can’t play with a lot of guys, he’s gotta be the main guy. Supposed to be a top-five team. You should just fall into winning games with that much talent, but we were struggling to stay in it at halftime. It was frustrating, but at the same time all of it was out of our control. Jo and I used to talk about that all the time. Phil wanted us to play a certain way and we had to listen. What can you do?





Early on in the season, Phil really didn’t force anything. But as time went on, it converted all the way to the triangle and we played through that almost the whole year. For the team we had, I think deep down [coach Jeff] Hornacek really wanted to play that more up-tempo style. But being in that position, being a new head coach, having to listen to the front office, it’s hard on that coach to say something. He’s moved around, he’d been fired in Phoenix. I guess Hornacek got tired of hearing about it, having meetings about it, so he just said, “We’re gonna do it and see.”

It also took a lot out of us. It’s hard to go into games knowing there’s a point during the game where the game slips away. You can feel it. The whole team can feel it. But that was every other night.





There were times during a game where we would play free. And it didn’t matter what we did. We’d end up coming back, and Phil would be like, “What’s that?” I remember one time we beat Boston and he told Hornacek he didn’t like the way we finished that game. We ended up winning the game. Melo got kicked out the game or something like that, something crazy, but Phil didn’t like the way we finished that game. It’s like, “Damn, in the league you’re happy to get a win.”

Most coaches come in and they’re like, “That was ugly, but bring it in! Enjoy your night. Nothing crazy tonight.” You know what I mean? Enjoy it because it’s hard to even get one win in this league. I’ve talked to Kobe [Bryant] about the triangle — you saw it with the Bulls and [Michael Jordan], you can do it and it works — but we were a new team with new players and a new coach, and because of Melo and the way he played, we needed to do something now, and you need some time with that offense.

I actually loved my experience being in New York. Cool place. With the way things were the last couple of years in Chicago, I saw I needed a break.

When I left the Knicks that day in January 2017, that’s what it was about. I just needed to go home.

I went to the crib with my mom. Everybody came over to the house to talk. That’s the first time, one of the few times, where we sat down as a whole family and had a serious discussion like that.

I had decided I was done playing. I saw the same thing that was happening with the Bulls was going on with New York. I could tell that the season wasn’t going to be the season everyone thought, that I thought. I didn’t know if I wanted to hoop anymore. Especially when it started to feel like a business. Of course, you know it’s a business. They always say that. But you know it’s also hoopin’. But it had started to feel like all business, no joy. That’s when I wanted out. I wasn’t having fun.

The court case probably had something to do with it when I think back on it, but the love wasn’t the same. I had too many distractions.

Yes, a lot of that falls on myself. I didn’t have to leave, but at the time it felt like I was the only one going through what I was going through. My family talked me into going back.

It was the family, a long conversation, a lot of crying, yelling. It was crazy, but it’s good to know they were behind me. It was a mixed feeling in the room; they know me and they know I know what I want to do. You got one group saying that and you got one group who’s like, “F–k that! You gotta get through. You gotta play the games.”

That’s when I realized it was a game within the game. I wasn’t good at playing the game, at bullsh–ing. Like I said, with me growing up where and how I did and seeing everything, I tried to avoid becoming someone who did that. But the profession I was now in kind of demands it.

I feel like I played great, but then had to have surgery again at the end of the season with the Knicks. By then I had changed my way of thinking. I really was in a great place. I wanted to be a Knick. It was just I had to have a surgery again. I had to prep myself for a rehab again. But I was now working with Judy Seto, this great lady who worked for the Lakers, the Dodgers, and I knew I would come out of this right.

I should have said something to someone that I was leaving to go home that day, but it was me just being me, me doing what I wanted to do. Looking back, I understood it probably worked against me with them. They felt they couldn’t trust me, maybe. I wanted to go back to my family. Phil knew they — the Knicks — wouldn’t have understood where I was coming from. Phil was always the coolest for me to deal with. But even my family didn’t understand where I was coming from at that time. That’s why I really needed to do what I wanted to do. And then come back because it was what I wanted to do after we all talked about it.

But the whole experience did open my eyes to a lot of things. New York, they could have given me my Bird rights before getting rid of me. That or working some kind of deal where, “Derrick, we’re thinking of going in another direction. We’re thinking of this Ntilikina kid in France. We respect you, but we wanna go in another direction.” I would’ve respected that. Maybe something like what Sacramento did for George Hill, keep a veteran around to help the kids get going. Sacramento paid him and knew he was going to be the backup to De’Aaron Fox. You know what I mean? They looked out for him.

New York could have done the same thing. I would have done that. Me stepping away from the team that day had nothing to do with them; I was good with New York. But they didn’t sign me, didn’t even talk to me. No communication. I thought, “I just gave y’all 18 a game. At the point guard position. And you go draft a point guard?”

Steve Mills is talking all this black dude stuff with me, like we’re brothers and all this. He’s saying that s–t, making me think it’s going to make us closer. Come on, be yourself.

I loved New York. We were losing but I felt I was playing great. I felt like they still could have built something — or attempted to. They got rid of me but I definitely wanted to stay there.

It was a new way of basketball life for me, to not be sure where I was going to play next. I knew I’d be playing, so I just focused on working out, keep up with rehab, get in shape, and have to show you again.





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