FOX Sports NBA writer Jimmy Spencer questioned whether Derrick Rose will ever get his career back on track Tuesday on The Jason Smith Show.
If Rose does turn his career back around, it probably won’t be in Chicago, Spencer said.
“The fact that [Tom] Thibodeau is not having his back now,” Spencer said, “it’ll be interesting to see how the locker room responds. They’ve always had his back, especially guys like Joakim Noah. They seem to jump to his support. But if the coach isn’t gonna play him — I’ve been his biggest defender the last two years, but right now it’s really hard to imagine him getting his career back on track, maybe even more so in Chicago.”
Many players have had their careers derailed by injuries, Spencer went on to say, and Rose doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt purely because he’s a former MVP.
“We all have our toughness level,” Spencer said. “Some guys are more tough than others, they’re willing to play through things and take a risk. For whatever reason, it’s in Derrick Rose’s head that he doesn’t want to play basketball the way he used to. That might be where Thibodeau is taking the hard line. Maybe Thibodeau said, ‘Look I know you’re a little bit hurt, there’s a lot of guys hurt and we need you to go 100 percent.’ And we already know Rose has said he’s backed off that gas pedal.”
Listen to the full interview here.
