If Superstar Derrick Rose Doesn't Return This Season, Then He Never Will

Derrick Rose is one of the most overanalyzed players of his generation. The Chicago Bulls star means too much to his city and to the NBA world at large to not be talked about, so his game stays under the microscope even when he’s playing only 10 contests over two seasons.

This makes for some very hypothetical, theoretical conversation. Rose has become more of an idea than an actual human athlete since tearing his ACL in the 2012 NBA playoffs, and we’re at a bit of a loss with understanding who he is as a player anymore.

But the buck has to stop somewhere. And this, the 2014-15 season, is just where it will. The proving ground for Rose has arrived. If he doesn’t return to superstar form this year, it should be safe to say that he never will. Rose can still be an effective, useful point guard (a remade could've-been in the style of Grant Hill), but reaching the level he was at before his body broke down (twice) is another issue.

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The most important factor in Rose’s return to prominence is still his health. Being robbed of his on-court continuity is arguably just as devastating to Rose’s career as losing two years in the prime of his youth. He can’t become one of the game’s best players again without a critical mass of continuous action. Playing through mistakes over and over is how anyone gets to be elite at what he does.

So long as Rose doesn’t have more hiccups in his process, he has the chance to be who he once was, again, this season. But if he goes down with a serious ailment again, the basketball jury will largely settle on Rose—once an MVP, he faces the realm of fleeting nostalgic legend if he can’t get another full season under his belt.

Rose’s singular, lane-penetrating moxie—the trait that, above all, makes him so valuable—will likely take time to return. From Bleacher Report’s Grant Hughes:

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Rose's jumper won't matter quite as much if he scores in transition and attacks the rim like he did three years ago. The problem: Chicago still doesn't know if he can do those things. Deferential to a fault in the World Cup, Rose offered up only the briefest flashes of his old head-down, run-through-a-wall style. A little discretion is probably a good thing for a player coming off two seasons lost to injury, but even just one sustained stretch of vintage Rose would have eased the Bulls' concerns about his physical health and mental state.

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Rose’s ability to get to the rim before defenses have time to turn their necks can be as much mental as it is physical. Luckily for Bulls fans, the point guard looks to still have his extreme speed and acceleration. But seeing the holes in coverage and instinctively cutting through them is also a matter for master strategists, and we can't call Rose that until he’s had the opportunity to go through the ceaseless mental gruel of an 82-game season again.

Rose's jumper has also been a key talking point throughout his rehabilitation. Without full use of his legs, he's focused on becoming a better outside threat—never one of the stronger aspects of his game when he was at his peak.

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And although Rose's form and arc have looked more educated and finer from what we've seen, the results have actually been worse. In his brief time with the Bulls last year, he shot just 35 percent from the field, a career low. Through FIBA, he shot just 5.3 percent from beyond the arc.

Rose's jump shot could take as long as the rest of his game to come back. Through all our worrying and waiting, there's still been nothing close to an appropriate sample size with which to judge his progress. There is still cause for real fear, though: It's not Rose's struggles in limited court time that should scare us, but the limited court time itself. Like Hill and Penny Hardaway before him, Chicago's megastar might have been playing at an unsustainable clip, now facing the challenge of becoming a much different player.

Skeptics are certainly wise to wonder if Rose is more Hardaway—a player who was always "coming back" until it was clear he never would—than Hill. Rose might have to find the middle road between MVP status and washout. Like Hill, he still has more than enough ability to tool himself into a useful player, even if he'll never be the most dynamic player on the floor again. This, ultimately, could be the best outcome for Rose.

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But patience is still the No. 1 virtue in Rose Watch. It could be well after Christmas until we’re able to say what kind of player he is in 2014-15. Regaining his edge will take Rose a while—through the World Cup tournament, he certainly looked hesitant at times. Team USA head coach Mike Krzyzewski even said as much, per K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune:

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He’s being very unselfish, trying to be a good teammate. It all comes from a good place. He knows the defensive ball pressure is there. He wants to distribute the ball. He’s in a lot of times when DeMarcus (Cousins) is in to try to get him the ball. We would like for him to look for his stuff as well.

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Basketball is more complicated than it often looks, especially at the professional level. Rose was once one of the best in the world at it, but now he’s looking up a high mountain as he struggles back to its summit. If he can’t stay healthy and focused enough to go through some prickly trials and get there—or close to it—this year, we might be better off saying goodbye to our MVP vision of Rose.