Derrick Rose clarified a few scathing comments about New York Knicks president of basketball operations Steve Mills, which came out in a recent autobiography, titled I'll Show You, which was released last June.
Bulls.com writer Sam Smith, who helped the Detroit Pistons guard compose the book, was given the freedom to pull from Rose's conversations with Mills, but the latter came across as disingenuous about himself and their relationship during Rose's lone season with the Knicks in 2016-17.
“I haven’t talked to him since then,” Rose said of Mills on Sunday, according to Stefan Bondy of The New York Daily News. “But I didn’t mean for it to come out that way. It’s just that whatever I said, [autobiographer] Sam Smith, I gave him an opportunity to pull whatever he wanted out of our conversation and put it in the book. So we both had that dialogue about how I gave him the freedom to do that. If it was up to me, it was water under the bridge.”
After averaging 18 points per game in his first season with the Knicks, Rose wanted to return but never heard back from Mills.
“No communication,” Rose said in the book. “I thought, ‘I just gave y’all 18 a game. At the point guard position. And you go draft a point guard [Frank Ntilikina]? Steve Mills is talking all this black stuff with me, like we’re brothers and all this. He’s saying that s***, making me think it’s going to make us closer. Come on, be yourself.”
Rose didn't backtrack from the statements made in the book, but rather clarified how it was meant to be narrated.
“If anything, I’m going to man up to everything,” said Rose. “I left. So whatever decision he made, I had to live with it. That’s how I feel. So I’m a man about it. I’m never going to run or use anybody for an excuse. I left and they decided to go in another direction.”
Rose signed with the Cleveland Cavaliers, brought over to back up the recently-acquired Isaiah Thomas. But that stint would be short-lived, as he was gone after 16 games with the team, eventually landing with the Minnesota Timberwolves, which would allow him to continue what many consider a left-for-dead career.
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