It was one of the ugliest off-court moments in recent NBA history. After Derrick Rose was found not liable for the alleged gang rape of his former girlfriend in 2016, jurors took pictures with the former league MVP outside the Los Angeles courthouse.
Rose, the longtime Chicago Bull, was free to start his career with the New York Knicks as just a basketball player, a former superstar felled by injuries who was trying to approach his previous heights after repeated recoveries knocked him off his seemingly divined path. That is a story, as sports fans, we have seen before and innately understand. He wouldn’t have to face the pesky distractions of an ongoing case or the incongruous blemish a different verdict would have caused. The verdict made it easier to forget about the case and focus on his career, if you were so inclined.
Rose went on to play in the NBA for eight more seasons, a noble professional career he ended officially on Thursday when he announced his retirement. After some rocky years trying to relocate his early brilliance, he became a valuable depth guard and a veteran mentor. Rose’s path, strictly on the court, is similar to the career arc of Vince Carter, who will go into the Hall of Fame next month in no small part for figuring out that transition better than any player ever.
With Rose, it isn’t that easy, is it? Nor should it be. Being found not liable is not the same thing as being found innocent. And if Rose is allowed to speak glowingly about how basketball was his first love and how it has allowed him to grow and evolve, then it is only right that his retirement serves as an opportunity to remind us who he was as one of the league’s brightest stars.
And for at least one moment, he was awful — and it showed us how unwell our culture was at the same time.
Almost by definition, a civil trial asks a jury to determine whether the plaintiff’s or defendant’s version of events is more believable. Even without spending time getting into the history of women’s sexual history being used against them in cases like this one — and that is a hell of a sentence fragment to consider — what Rose conceded did happen was and remains jarring.
• Yes, he and his friends went over to have sex with the woman, who was Rose’s girlfriend for two years.
• Yes, Rose repeatedly sent sexually explicit videos to the woman, asking her to engage in group sex, despite her refusal.
• No, Rose did not understand the concept of consent.
Those things aren’t up for debate. Sure, it would be naive to think some of those things don’t happen regularly with other athletes, celebrities and just regular people. That does not make it OK to slide the findings of the case under the on-court moments of a memorable and unique career. Those things did happen; that was how he operated in this instance.
That it happened 11 years ago and was tried eight years ago is irrelevant. Yes, Rose put together a remarkable career, a hometown player bringing one of the league’s marquee teams out of a lost decade and into the thick of title contention. It is understandable that Rose’s fans, and particularly his Chicagoan fans, developed a deep emotional link to him.
That doesn’t condone us forgetting about the people for whom Rose’s continued presence in the league made it harder to follow the sport. Rose’s case reminded us of the entitlement that athletes can enjoy and from which they can benefit. Rose likely wouldn’t have been impacted by this, but the NBA and NBPA collectively bargained a new policy on domestic abuse, sexual violence and child abuse that went into effect within a year of Rose’s case ending. It is an imperfect policy because we live in an imperfect society, and we cannot say if it has changed the behavior of people within the league. Incidents still occur, of course, and it can sometimes feel as if the main thing the policy has done is make team-building easier.
All of that makes Rose’s retirement complex. It is nearly impossible to hold what he did on the court and what the trial revealed about him together, but it is also irresponsible not to try. We don’t live in a world that affords us that luxury. Any attempt to separate the two is fundamentally selfish, an effort to neatly cordon off the brilliant from the brutal.
The best thing about being a sports fan is discovering what humans are capable of in exceptional circumstances. It’s the worst thing, too.
(Photo: Elsa/Getty Images)
