Derrick Rose: Roses Were Red, Roses Are Now Blue, Can He Regain His MVP-Form By Starting Anew?

With an opportunity to turn a new chapter in his basketball career, can Derrick Rose revive his MVP play as a member of the New York Knicks?

Derrick Rose is Chicago. Chicago is Derrick Rose.

For the better half of this decade, Rose was everything Chicago Bulls. His rise was meteoric — the Rose that grew from the concrete; the Rose that catapulted into the league’s youngest MVP.

He embodied all of the characteristics of your classic Chicagoan guard — a tough, ball-handling wizard who could break anyone off in a one-on-one setting and an ability to finish around the rim with a Michael Jordan-esque flair.

Playing for his hometown team, however, made his fall just as fervent, tearing the hearts out of the souls of entire Windy City as he lay wounded with a torn ACL.

Last week, the Chicago Bulls finally parted ways with their favorite son, trading Rose to the New York Knicks for a war chest of mediocre assets.

His departure was long overdue, as the writing had been on the wall for quite some time now.

Over time, injuries have not only taken a toll on Rose’s game, but also on his standing love affair with the city.

Jimmy Butler had slowly overtaken the Englewood native as Chicago’s savior, and there were even times when his hometown turned on him by criticizing his perceived low pain-tolerance.

Sam Smith on Derrick Rose. https://t.co/qiMLOH1xXA pic.twitter.com/UTMqLNriCm
— HoopsHype (@hoopshype) June 25, 2016

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At this point, the breakup was mutual — both the Bulls and D-Rose desperately needed a clean slate and a fresh start.

Although most often times reserved, Rose has always been genuine. He will be bringing a piece of Chicago with him to New York by donning the No. 25 — the number Benji Wilson, an Illinois high school legend who was tragically killed as a teenage phenom, wore at Simeon High School.

The narrative makes for a classic Hollywood-style comeback, but can Rose actually regain some modicum of his 2010-11 MVP form and rekindle the spark within his new basketball-crazed home?

Looking back and watching some of his full archived games pre-torn-ACL, you forget just what a nuclear athlete Rose was back in the late-to-early 2000s to 2010s.

He essentially combined Kyrie Irving‘s ankle-breaking ballhandling, manipulation off of the pick-and-roll, and insane body control/body contortion while finishing at the rim, with Russell Westbrook‘s combustible athleticism.

The drastic drop in explosiveness is painfully obvious as soon as you switch the year of his game tape to 2016.

The biggest difference between MVP Rose and post-injury Rose is his ability, or inability, to blow by his opponents coming off of a screen and roll when the opposing big drops back.

He used to be so dynamic in close quarters that it was basically game over every time a big was put in a helpless position of retreating back on a hard-charging Rose.

But fast-forward to present day, and you’ll find Rose struggle to recapture his ability to explode past defenders in tight spaces.

He still shows consistent flashes of mesmerizing speed in a straight-line, downhill scenario, but when put in a situation where he has to navigate through a crowd, it usually ends in a forced, highly contested floater or a turnover.

In addition, his ability to finish at the rim has seriously waned. Before the injury, Rose finished from three feet and in at a 58.3 percent rate, including 61.1 percent in his MVP year, per Basketball-Reference.

But over the past three seasons, that number has plummeted down to 52.9.

His jump shot has also suffered as a result of his injuries. As a genuine “jump” shooter, you’d notice most of Rose’s perimeter attempts usually fall short.

A young D-Rose use to make hay as a stop-and-pop mid-range jump shooter, combining his ability to stop on a dime and bionic leaping ability to create a clean look anytime he wants.

In fact, from 2008-12, Rose converted on 43.2 and 42.4 percent of his field goal attempts from 10-16 and 16-23 feet, respectively. Those numbers have since dropped to 40.9 and 35.3 percent over the last three years.

Rose’s floater game has also deteriorated since his comebacks, but that has more to do with being a bit rusty and over-rushing most of his offensive possessions.

Where Rose can improve on is his off-the-ball game, an aspect he’ll have plenty of time to improve upon playing alongside Carmelo Anthony.

Carmelo on the Derrick Rose trade: "I like it. I like it a lot." Says he's a big fan. "I'm glad he's on my team now."
— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) June 27, 2016

For most of his life, Rose has played one way: as the center of attention with the ball in his hands. With the absence of his otherworldly athletic ability, Rose needs to find other ways to contribute offensively — most notably, eliminate his sedentary ways when the ball is not in his hands.

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Rose was also once a fierce on-the-ball defender, especially when coach Tom Thibodeau came on board in 2010. When fully engaged, D-Rose was known to turn his defensive pressure up in big games versus marquee point guards like

Chris Paul

Over the years, that defensive fire has evaporated.

Who knows? Maybe playing 66 games last season has unearthed a level of rekindled comfort within Rose that allows him to regain his MVP explosiveness next season. But chances are, the days of cyborg Derrick Rose are long gone.

With an opportunity to turn a new leaf with the Knicks, it is the perfect avenue for Rose to redefine his game by embracing a more methodical, cerebral mindset.

More specifically, work off of Melo, play the pick-and-pop with Kristaps Porzingis, and concentrate on slowing the game down to create quality looks everytime down.

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The Rose had already grown from the concrete once, can he make it prosper another time, this time 790 miles east in the Big Apple? We’ll find out in four months.