*Chicago Bulls b-baller Derrick Rose is finally speaking out about his season ending ACL tear.
In an interview conducted in LA last month with CSNChicago.com, he says the injury was the “closest thing to death” he’s ever experienced.
“I remember it,” he recalled. “I remember everything. I remember jumping in the air and coming back down, and just that popping sound. I felt it actually tear when I laid all the way out and it just let go.
“I didn’t have that much pain after that. In the beginning I did, but I didn’t want to yell or anything. When that happened, all I could think about was people just talking. You could hear the whole arena, people just whispering all around — one of the things, like ‘Not again. Come on, man. First game back. We had the win’ — and I was just hoping [it was] nothing serious,” Rose continued. “Then, we got to the hospital, got in the MRI machine, the whole time praying.
“Dr. [Brian] Cole, the Bulls doctor [who also performed the subsequent surgery], came up to me and told me it was torn. I couldn’t believe it. That’s the closest thing to death, the closest to death I’ve got to right there, where it just seemed like the wind and everything was taken out [of me].
Read/learn more at Yahoo Sports.
I hope Rose fully recovers and doesn’t rush coming back. He’s still young and has a lot of time ahead of him. He might not be as explosive as he was, but I still hope he retains his speed.