Derrick Rose was “surprised” the New York Knicks fired his former longtime head coach Tom Thibodeau. … More
Derrick Rose was as surprised as everyone when he heard news of Tom Thibodeau’s firing.
The New York Knicks parted ways with Thibodeau after he led them to their first Eastern Conference Finals appearance since 2000. Despite leading the Knicks to back-to-back 50-win seasons for the first time since 1995, Thibodeau found his way out on the outs after their six-game series loss to the Indiana Pacers.
Rose played under Thibodeau for a number of years, including during their time with the Chicago Bulls and more recently with the Knicks, where Rose last played for him during the 2022-23 season. There’s perhaps no NBA player more familiar with Thibodeau than Rose. The three-time All-Star guard became the youngest MVP in NBA history when he played for him during the 2010-11 season.
“I think everybody was surprised,” says Rose in a one-on-one interview. “There’s no bad blood and he’s in great spirit out still here on the East Coast, living life.”
The 67-year-old head coach is known as an old school, hard-nosed type. Thibodeau began his NBA coaching career as an assistant for the Minnesota Timberwolves in 1989 and won a championship as an assistant coach for the Boston Celtics in 2008. He has routinely led teams deep into the playoffs as a head coach and has won the Coach of the Year award twice, the first time during the 2010-11 season with the Bulls and the second time during the 2020-21 season with the Knicks. Both times were with Rose on the roster.
“He put a lot of pressure on and that’s why I love him because I’ve never wanted to crack — I never wanted him to see me crack,” says Rose. “He knew how good I was, and I wanted the challenge. He used to challenge me certain games about certain point guards or certain matchups. I took on that challenge.”
Under Thibodeau, the Bulls never won less than 45 games in a single season and they made it to the playoffs every year. While with the Knicks, Thibodeau led the franchise to the playoffs in four out of five years, including to at least the semifinals in each of the past three years. It’s been their greatest three-year run since the turn of the millennium.
“Thibs helped with me becoming a student of the game,” says Rose. “Me watching film, because we watched a ton of film, the terminology of the game, time management, the history of the game, hearing him talk with other coaches, talk about just the history of the game and certain plays and certain games. He’s a historian, especially when he gets around people that he’s thoughtful with.”
Rose became one of the best guards in the NBA very early on in his career under Thibodeau’s tutelage. Although they had a good relationship, Thibodeau wasn’t the type of coach to hand out a lot of compliments. It kind of goes hand in hand with his old-school style approach of tough love.
“Trying to impress him on the court when I did do certain things, because he was hard to impress as a coach,” says Rose of playing under Thibodeau. “But our relationship — we had like a quagmire relationship — where I don’t even think after the MVP year, I rarely heard him say, ‘Congrats.’ That’s not in a bad way.”
Despite the contrast in personalities, Rose says he “loved” his relationship with his former head coach. Rose played a total of eight seasons under Thibodeau.
“We just had a funny relationship, where on the court, we both wanted to win, win every game, and we knew how passionate each other was about the game of basketball,” says Rose. “How much we both put into it, but we both have two totally different personalities, which a lot of people look at as weird, but I loved our relationship. I love our relationship now.”
Derrick Rose Partners With Panini To Release Autographed Cards For First Time In Over A Decade
Rose is less than a year removed after retiring from the NBA, but he’s enjoying his post-basketball life. The 36-year-old is partnering with Panini for an exclusive multi-year partnership. The partnership includes new autographs from Rose on trading cards, which is the first time in more than a decade that he’ll have autographed cards available.
The former Bulls great details why he stopped signing autographs years ago and how it actually ended up helping the value of his autographs.
“I stopped signing a while back, and that kind of helped me with my value of my signature, because I stepped away from signing,” Rose explains. “Once you come in, you sign right away, where you have the deals, and some people they go to the black market and they sign and I kind of stayed away from that, because I was going through a lot of things at the time.
“Financially I was stable,” Rose continues to say. “That helped me. It prevented me from going out and killing the value of my signature by overloading the market, and it helped me know the importance of this business by me slowly walking into it as a collector, because I’m collecting now too also.”
Rose, who was speaking at an activation event in New York City at Dave & Adams Store in New York, is a big chess player. He’s keeping busy in his post-NBA career with a chess event going on in Las Vegas on July 12 and 13. The purpose of the event is not just for competitive purposes, but to put more eyes on the sport.
“We’re going to try to put eyes on the game and the visibility,” says Rose. “That’s one thing, but the biggest part is putting the capital in player’s pocket. They dedicate their whole lives to this sport. It’s only right that get paid the right way and get seen the right way. That’s one of the reasons why I have joined freestyle chess and Magnus Carlsen — a five-time World Chess champion — because we have the same approach and the same common goal, and that’s to put the eyes on the game.”
