Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau was all for this — let Derrick Rose shake off some of the rust from a couple seasons of inactivity following knee surgeries with Team USA. Go to the team tryouts this summer starting in Las Vegas in the end of July, get in a little run with the best in the world, and even if he decides (or the coaches decide) that going to Spain for the World Cup is not in the cards, he gets to test himself. Then he can hit the ground fully running come training camp.
Except Derrick Rose isn’t so sure about that.
He told Marc Spears of Yahoo he’s still deciding about that.
“I still don’t know yet,” Rose told Yahoo Sports at the Drew Gooden Foundation Basketball Camp on Sunday. “If I’m feeling right and the time is [right], for sure I will go out there. My body is responding good, but you never know.
“Right now, I haven’t really thought about that. I am just worrying about just trying to get back every day and I’m really taking rehab one day at a time instead of trying to think about competing.”
This is who Rose is. He doesn’t look ahead, tries to think day-to-day and wants to be 100 percent so he can go all out.
(It ties into his “I won’t recruit guys including Carmelo Anthony” thing — he’s loyal to the guys in the locker room and if someone wants to come there they should want to do it so badly they don’t need a teammate kissing their… you know.)
I still expect Rose will give it a shot this summer. Whether he decides to go all the way to Spain with the team will depend on how he feels (and plays), but I expect when camp opens in Las Vegas at the end of July he will be there.
