Baffoe: Who Cares? Derrick Rose Does
By Tim Baffoe-
(CBS) You don't care, I know, but I was pretty frazzled Monday afternoon. I had put off some homework until the last minute and was power-reading Rosamond Lehmann's The Weather in the Streets before a class discussion later that night.
My eye was on the clock, as I hurried to finish the reading while dreading the upcoming 6 p.m. Derrick Rose press conference I had to take in. A small part of me thought Rose would put himself before the dozens of microphones and cameras and toe the company line, a broken and beaten man bleating the bland words expected from humble athletes.
Four to six weeks for a return from Rose's latest injury, a tear in his right medial meniscus. A simple, successful surgery on Feb. 27 with no setbacks expected. That's what the organization had etched into the media. Rose had no wiggle room otherwise.
Had Rose stood with that thousand-yard stare he gets when he knows his words are being recorded and repeated some party motto, it would have been understandable — desired even by many writers and talkers who just want him to stop saying "stupid" stuff — but sad in its acquiescence.
My greater fear was in anticipation of the aftermath of what Rose chose to do instead. He was noncommittal on a return time. He even said "Who cares?" when asked about the timetable that general manager Gar Forman spoke of after the surgery.
It's easy to take "Who cares?" as "I don't care." It's easy to be disappointed in Rose.
It's also lame and unfair. But that's the dominant takeaway because so many are fed up with the independent Rose.
He's all about himself, again skirting doctors' orders and employers' wishes for the sake of his future. It must be assumed that getting back on the court to try to help this team contend in the playoffs isn't his top priority.
Even though he said of returning this season, "That's the plan," a guy coming off his third knee surgery needs to give guarantees. Anything flimsier shows a heart as sketchy as his lower extremities.
It's harder to consider "Who cares?" to mean "I don't let a clock dictate my body" or "I don't let the expectations of others regulate me." Harder, too, to divorce money from the situation even though money has never driven or defined the behavior of Derrick Rose other than what he could give to his loved ones.
"Who cares?" could very well mean this:
"I don't care what any of you think. I don't care about the stories you need to write about me assuming you know a damn thing about my head and my heart just because you know about my knee. I don't care that I'm something between a villain and a joke in my hometown who genuinely cares about my hometown beyond its perception of me."
Last week, Rose was lauded for his participation in teammate Joakim Noah's powerful documentary on violence and loss. A tearful Rose spoke of how he isn't afraid to show emotion and doesn't care what others think about that. Surely, he doesn't care about the stupid shrine some idiots built — emasculating him with girls' kneepads because perceived weakness must be feminine — that belittles not only Rose's situation but the city's issues with real tragic death. He didn't care to show it when accepting the MVP in front of his mother. He didn't care what people would think of him when he broke down after publicly watching video of his first knee injury.
Rose cares about basketball. A lot. He wants to be out there, and he wants to be with his teammates and help them try to win games. To assume anything less is just cruel, unsubstantiated and an attempt to make a man fit is some comfortable box that he has made clear he won't do no matter how many names you call him or how much you criticize his ability to speak well in public.
By the way, that novel I had to read deals with a protagonist who's been jaded from previous personal life injuries, someone who comes from a background comparably lesser than some circles she runs with, and she's constantly being judged by others while in the pursuit of happiness, an arguably foolish pursuit, but a brave and personal one nonetheless. I recommend it, particularly to some Chicagoans.
You know, if they care.
Follow Tim Baffoe on Twitter @TimBaffoe.
