Former Knicks’ Derrick Rose Receives Ultimate Bulls Honor

Former New York Knicks guard Derrick Rose will forever run with the legendary Chicago Bulls.

Leading into the Saturday night showdown with the Knicks (8 p.m. ET, MSG/NBA TV), the Bulls announced that Rose will have his jersey number retired at some point next season. Rose, a Chicago native, wore the No. 1 for the Bulls during his first seven seasons in the NBA upon his entry as the top pick out of Memphis in the 2008 draft.

Rose is set to be honored in a pregame ceremony on Saturday at United Center, one that will recognize a career that also featured four seasons over two stints with the Knicks (2016-17, 2021-23). Both teams will wear special shirts during warmups that will commemorate the date of January 4, 2025, a day where the numerical form (1/4/25) matches up with the jersey numbers that rose wore as a Bull, Knick, and a high schooler at Simeon Career Academy in Chicago.

Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau oversaw some of Rose’s early NBA efforts in the same position with the Bulls, including his legendary run to the 2011 MVP award. The two later reunited in both New York and Minnesota. Of note, Rose placed third in the 2021 Sixth Man of the Year vote after he was traded to the Knicks by the Detroit Pistons during Thibodeau’s first season at the New York helm.

With this honor, Rose will join Jerry Sloan, Bob Love, Michael Jordan, and Scottie Pippen among the ranks of retired Bulls digits in the United Center rafters. No Chicagoan had worn No. 1 since Rose was traded from the Bulls to the Knicks in 2016. Former Bulls Anthony Morrow and Michael Carter-Williams were set to don the digit but opted for new numbers before they took the floor in response to a negative fan reception.

Rose recently remarked that his digit being raised was a personal goal to preserve his hardwood legacy after announcing his retirement shortly before the 2024-25 season opened.

“That would be my way of getting close to the Top 75, and I’m only saying that because it relates to the MVP,” Rose said in an interview with Shams Charania of ESPN. “It’s only a handful, a small group that got that trophy back there. And to think that way of playing, the Chicago way of playing, is not in that 75, it makes you think about it a little bit or question it a little bit.”

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