Letter to Derrick Rose

A Game 7 for the Bulls vs Nets.  The series has gone back N forth.  Nets won game 1, Bulls won games 2,3 & 4.  Now the Nets have won games 5 and 6, to go from 3-1 down to a deciding game 7 @ the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.  The Nets gained back home court advantage winning game 6 in Chicago, but the Bulls are the real story in this Series. 

Chicago has been injury depleted from game one.  Not game 1 of this series, but game one of the regular season.  All-Star and 2010-11 MVP Derrick Rose tore his ACL in the first round of the 2011-12 Playoffs.  This year, the Bulls won 45 games in an 82 game schedule without Rose.  Last year they won 50 games in the lockout-shortened 66 game schedule and attained the number 1 seed for the playoffs with him.

The absence of D-Rose has lingered for Bulls fans the entire season.  With guts and great coaching from Tom Thibodeau, they were still able to get the 5th seed in the Eastern Conference.  But now that the 2013 NBA Playoffs are well underway, people are starting to wonder when Derrick Rose is going to play.  It's been an entire year since Rose's injury and he was cleared to play by Doctors, March 9th.  It's May 3rd now.

The Bulls are wrecked!  The heart of the team, Joakim Noah, has been playing with Plantar Fasciitis since the end of the regular season.  Rip Hamilton is still
recovering from a bad back and will be let go next year in favor of rising star Jimmy Butler.  Kirk Heinrich has a deep calf bruise that has kept him sidelined since the end of game 4.  Now the Bulls are dealing with a virus being passed around their locker room, which hampered Luol Deng, Taj Gibson and Nate Robinson in game 6.

Suffice it to say, the Bulls need a Rose!!!  Now more than ever!  It's time to come back!!  Right Now!!!  We need you Derrick!

Watching Derrick Rose sit on the bench in his $10,000 suits, while the rest of his teammates are hurt, injured, sick, hobbled and desperate has become a seething & perplexing practice.  Seething in that Derrick has been practicing for 2 months & perplexing in that Derrick has been practicing for 2 months.  What is this guy waiting for!?!?  How can he just sit there watching when the rest of his team is hurt and they're still playing?!?!  Granted, coming back from a torn ACL is a whole different ball game than playing with a foot hurtie (plantar fasciitis).  But it's been 2 FREAKIN MONTHS since he was cleared to play.  Get on the court already dude!!!  Your team needs you.  It's game 7.  Suck it up.  Get a Heart.  Grow a Pair.  Remember the campaign?  #TheReturn The Come-Back.  Well where you at D-Rose?  "I'm All-In."

If Rose doesn't play in game 7 and the Bulls go down, they will lose respect for him if they haven't already.  That team has shown more intestinal fortitude than
any NBA team in recent memory.  They have no superstars, only guys who play hard, share the ball & play hurt.  No one is saying Rose needs to start.  No one is saying he needs to play 40 minutes.  Everyone is saying he needs to play.  They won't admit it, but so are his teammates.