Is D. Rose coming home again?! 🏀

Desperate times require desperate measures [READER]( The Daily Reader June 27, 2023 Monday night I was at Millennium Park, enjoying the Eddie Palmieri Salsa Orchestra, when a text came in from listener Frank showing me a tweet from a guy named “Die-Hard Chicago Bulls Fans”. And, no, “Die-Hard” is not my alias. Obviously, I’m not the only die-hard Bulls fan in Chicago. Die-Hard’s tweet read . . . “The Chicago Bulls are interested in signing Derrick Rose, per the Stein Line.” The Stein Line is a Substack newsletter run by Marc Stein, NBA guru for ESPN. Back to Die-Hard . . . “Buzz around the league is D Rose will return home to finish his career in Chicago.” Instantly, I jumped into action—right there in Millennium Park! I scanned the internet to see if there was any breaking D Rose news. None. I looked to see if other NBA gurus had tweeted out this rumor. They hadn’t. I looked to see if the Bulls had announced something. Nope. So in reality, this was one desperate, die-hard, Bulls fan trying to fire up other desperate, die-hard, Bulls fans at a moment when we’re especially desperate because the Bulls future looks really bleak. I should have put my phone away and gone back to the concert. But, as they say, desperate times require desperate measures. So . . . I texted Die-Hard’s tweet to a bunch of my Bulls-fan friends. Then waited for their responses to come in. But, first, a brief explanation for non-sports fans out there . . . Derrick Rose was born and raised in Chicago. Graduated from Simeon Career Academy (formerly known as Simeon Vocational High School) in 2007. He’s a real hometown hero—the greatest basketball player from Chicago in this century. Sorry, Anthony Davis. Rose was drafted by the Bulls in 2008. He seemed on the verge of leading them to their first post-Jordan championship, when . . . He blew out his knee. I still remember where I was when it happened. But I won’t tell you because it’s still too painful to recount. After an arduous recovery he came back, but he was never the same. The Bulls traded him to New York. He bounced around the league for a while, eventually winding up back with the Knicks, who released him last week. Apparently, they think he’s over the hill at age 34. But maybe, just maybe, he has a little gas left in the tank. Maybe he’ll get rejuvenated if he returns to Chicago, where everything looks so bleak right now. And it will be a Hollywood ending, like Roy Hobbs’s story in The Natural (the movie, not the book—you definitely don’t want an ending like the book’s). And here are some of my reply texts from other Bulls fans . . . Anthony: Let him retire a Bull . . . Mick: It makes me happy. But will it make the Bulls better? Devin: Nice. Rachel: Hell yeah. I might need a D Rose jersey. Norm: Love it. LET’S GO BULLS! Mueze: Hope this happens. Jauwan: Might reverse Jordan curse. LOL. The Jordan curse is the one the Bulls inflicted on themselves by letting the greatest player who ever played the game leave town back in 1998. An event still painful for me to recount. Hmm, will signing D Rose kill the curse? That’s a monster curse. But it can’t hurt. C’mon, Bulls, sign D Rose and kill the curse. Better to have some dreams then no dreams at all. 🎙Listen to [The Ben Joravsky Show]( 🎙 [What Ben's Reading] [Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton]( a great novel by an immensely talented writer. It starts out one way and goes in another direction. I was up all night waiting to see what happened. Steve Krakow: pianist [Dorothy Donegan]( gave zero fucks Ben Joravsky on Mayor Johnson’s [first city council meeting]( [Best of the Ben J. 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