Derrick Rose’s final act as an NBA player was a letter to the basketball world, detailing the highs and lows he experienced during his 16-year professional career.

And with that his career ended, on his terms.

Rose, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2008 NBA draft by his hometown Chicago Bulls and the league’s MVP in 2011, announced his retirement on Thursday. He was, and remains, the youngest MVP winner in NBA history, winning the award when he was just 22.

“You believed in me through the highs and lows, my constant when everything seemed uncertain,” Rose wrote as part of his letter to the sport, which served as an announcement of his retirement. He posted the letter online and also took out full-page ads in newspapers in every city where he played during his NBA years.

“You told me it was okay to say goodbye, and assured me you would always be a part of me no matter where life takes me,” he wrote.

Rose was the league’s Rookie of the Year in 2008–09 for the Bulls, was the league’s MVP two seasons later and was an All-Star selection in three of his first four seasons. A serious knee injury during the 2012 playoffs forced him to miss nearly two entire seasons, and he considered retirement several times due to other injuries, but always found ways to get back on the court.

Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf said Rose represents “the courage, resilience and heart” of Chicago.

“He is one of the strongest and most determined athletes I have ever known, constantly fighting through adversity that would have broken most,” Reinsdorf said. “It has been a great honor to watch him grow from a star in the Chicago Public League to the youngest MVP in NBA history as a Bull.”

In addition to the Bulls, Rose would also play for New York, Detroit, Minnesota, Cleveland and Memphis. He spent last season with the Grizzlies, returning to the city he called home for his one season of college basketball.

Last season he played 24 games for the Grizzlies and at the end of that season Rose spoke at length about what returning to Memphis meant to him.

“It’s all come full circle,” Rose said in April. “Coming back here, having my family here, my wife’s family is from here, being back in this arena, having some of the people that came to my college games now come to my professional games here, it’s all love.”

The Grizzlies added in a statement Thursday congratulating Rose on his career: “We are grateful for your meaningful contributions to this team and this city, and wish you the very best in this next chapter of your life.”

Rose has undergone multiple knee surgeries over the years and took some time off in 2017-18 to consider his future while battling ankle problems. He also sat out almost two full seasons after the knee injury in 2012, when he should have been in his prime.

Rose averaged 17.4 points and 5.2 assists in 723 regular season games. He averaged 21 points per game before his ACL tear 12 years ago, and 15.1 per game in the seasons that followed.

“With D-Rose, it was never about his talent,” Basketball Hall of Famer Dwyane Wade, a former Rose teammate, said in 2018. “It was always about his health. And when he was healthy, everyone saw all the talent.”

Rose flashed that MVP-level talent many more times in the years that followed his knee problems. He had a career-high 50 points for Minnesota in a 128-125 win over Utah on Oct. 31, 2018 — a game that moved him to tears. He had a 12-assist game for Detroit in a 115-107 win over Houston on Dec. 14, 2019, his first such game in nearly eight years.

“I know the person he is, the character he has,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau, who coached Rose in Chicago, Minnesota and New York, said in 2018 while leading the Timberwolves. “And it shows.”

Rose was a serious contender for the league’s Sixth Man of the Year award in three straight seasons — 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21 — and even received a first-place vote as MVP again in that 2020-21 season, a decade after he won the award.

He announced his star presence quickly, winning the league’s skills challenge — as a rookie — during All-Star weekend in 2009, then winning rookie of the year and scoring 36 points in his playoff debut. It was a meteoric rise for someone who grew up poor in suburban Chicago and subsequently saw basketball as an escape and a way to provide for his mother and family. In 2006, he made a run for an Illinois state high school championship. Just five years later, he was named NBA MVP.

“The kid from Englewood grew into a legend in Chicago,” the Bulls posted on social media Thursday, along with a video of Rose’s highlights with the team.

___

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba