When my brother broke the Rose-to-the-Knicks trade report not thirty seconds after Adrian Wojnarowski tweeted it, I thought he was surely referencing news that was nearly a week old.
Much like Rose’s first major knee injury, the event itself totally shocked me even though—in retrospect—the signs were clear that it was materializing. I couldn’t even begin to fathom why a franchise would trade a $22 million asset away that conveniently comes off the books for a loaded free agent class in 2017. That this same ‘asset’ was one of the most beloved players in Chicago Bulls franchise history, the youngest MVP in the history of the NBA, and a hometown hero that had given so much of himself to this team, made this all the more astonishing.