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 had their photo taken with the former league MVP outside the Los Angeles courthouse.
Rose, the old Chicago Bull, was free to begin his career with the New York Knicks as just a basketball player, a former superstar felled by injuries trying to approach his previous heights after repeated recoveries knocked him off his seemingly divine path. That’s a story we as sports fans have seen before and inherently understand. He would not have to deal with the annoying distractions of an ongoing case, or the incongruous stain that 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 played eight more seasons in the NBA, a noble professional career that he officially ended Thursday when he announced his retirement. After some difficult years trying to shift his early brilliance, he became a valuable depth lineman and an accomplished mentor. Rose’s path strictly on the court is similar to the career arc of Vince Carter, who will enter the Hall of Fame next month in large part because he has figured out that transition better than any player ever.
With Rose it’s not that simple, right? That shouldn’t be the case either. Being found not liable is not the same as being found innocent. And if Rose can speak glowingly about how basketball was his first love and how it has allowed him to grow and evolve, then it’s only right that his retirement is an opportunity to remind us who he was as a of the smartest players in the league. stars.
And at least for one moment it was terrible – and at the same time it showed us how bad our culture was.
Almost by definition, a civil trial asks a jury to determine whether the plaintiff or defendant’s version of events is more credible. Even without spending time delving into the history of women’s sexual history, which is used against them in cases like this – and that’s a great sentence fragment to think about – which Rose admitted happened was and remains shocking.
• Yes, he and his friends went there to have sex with the woman, who was Rose’s girlfriend of two years.
• Yes, Rose repeatedly sent sexually explicit videos to the woman, asking her to participate in group sex, despite her refusal.
• No, Rose did not understand the concept of consent.
Those things are not up for debate. Of course, it would be naive to think that some of those things don’t happen regularly to other athletes, celebrities, and just regular people. That doesn’t make it okay to shove the case’s findings among the on-field moments of a memorable and unique career. Those things happened; that’s how he operated in this case.
It doesn’t matter that it happened eleven years ago and was tried eight years ago. Yes, Rose has carved out a remarkable career, a hometown player who took one of the league’s top teams out of a lost decade and into the thick of title contention. Understandably, Rose’s fans, especially his Chicago fans, developed a deep emotional bond with him.
That doesn’t mean we forget the people who Rose’s continued presence in the league has made it happen more difficult to follow the sport. Rose’s case reminded us of the right athletes can enjoy and benefit from. Rose likely would not have suffered any consequences, but the NBA and the NBPA jointly negotiated a new domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse policy, which went into effect within a year of the conclusion of Rose’s case. It’s an imperfect policy because we live in an imperfect society, and we can’t say whether it has changed people’s behavior within the league. Incidents still happen, of course, and it can sometimes seem like the most important thing the policy has done is make team building easier.
All this makes Rose’s pension complex. It’s almost impossible to piece together what he did in court and what the trial revealed about him, but it’s also irresponsible not to try. We don’t live in a world that offers us that luxury. Any attempt to separate the two is fundamentally selfish, an attempt to separate the brilliant from the brutal.
The best thing about being a sports fan is discovering what people are capable of in exceptional circumstances. It’s also the worst.
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