Derrick Rose, Jimmy Butler Tension Shouldn't Derail Chicago Bulls
CHICAGO — When the Chicago Bulls kicked off training camp at the end of September, a roster largely unchanged was greeted with one central question: Is this Derrick Rose’s team or Jimmy Butler’s?
The story had been bubbling for a while, with reports of tension between the two stars dating back to the 2015 playoffs and some eyebrow-raising comments from Butler about wanting to take more of a leadership role.
Butler was exceedingly diplomatic in his response.
“I think it’s all of our team,” he said at media day. “I can’t do it all by myself. [Rose] can’t either. If we work together as a team, we just want one goal, and that’s to win a championship. Everybody would be a winner then, not one person more than another. I don’t think it’s any one person’s team. It’s everybody’s team.”
Still, as Butler’s star continues to rise, and Rose’s remains shrouded in health concerns, the narrative refuses to go away. Like Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook in Oklahoma City, Rose and Butler’s relationship will continue to be picked apart as long as they’re teammates, even when they publicly insist there are no issues.
It’s the reality of two ball-dominant scorers sharing the floor—the instinct is always to assume that one feels slighted by the other’s success, that every pairing of stars is going to turn into an untenable Shaq-and-Kobe situation. If there’s tension between Rose and Butler, it’s a kind that’s natural and even healthy and by no means unworkable.
Over the last decade, it’s been proved time and time again that you can’t win a championship in the NBA without at least two stars. It’s why LeBron James left Cleveland to team with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami, and it’s why his Cavaliers were doomed against the Warriors this past June without Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love.
The need for a second star is the reason the Bulls chased Carmelo Anthony so hard in the summer of 2014, and it’s what made Butler’s emergence as a legitimate first option such a game-changer. They’ve needed a second go-to scorer to play alongside Rose, and now they have one. With that comes the task of figuring out how to coexist.
The tension that has cropped up between the Bulls backcourt mates was inevitable with Butler’s ascent and Rose’s singular belief that he can be 2011-Rose again. In their personalities and in their paths, Rose and Butler are polar opposites.
One was a No. 1 pick who was heavily recruited in high school; the other was the 30th pick and played a year in junior college before a major program made him an offer. One signed a five-year, $94 million contract that was named after him, on the heels of becoming the youngest MVP in league history; the other had to turn down a lower extension offer to bet on himself to earn that money. One is notoriously soft-spoken and introverted; the other participated in a promotional blitz for the Entourage movie with his buddy Mark Wahlberg.
They’re different people, but they’re both basketball players and damn good ones. And neither lacks in confidence, even if they express it in different ways. Rose shuts out the outside world, while Butler embraces and challenges it. Rose has earned the respect and admiration of his teammates with work ethic and perseverance, even as he remains largely unknowable. Butler has demanded that respect and backed it up with a tenacity that’s infectious.
Butler’s breakout year was as much a product of circumstance and necessity as anything. Rose suffered an ankle injury in the second game of the season and missed eight games over the first month, struggling to produce on a consistent basis as he felt his way back.
It wasn’t until the playoffs that Rose started showing consistent signs of playing like he did before the injuries. By then, Butler had firmly established himself as the Bulls’ alpha dog.
Assuming Rose is ready to play opening night, he’s entering the season looking to reclaim that status from the only player who has ever seriously challenged it, while Butler doesn’t want to give it up after climbing this far to get there. There’s going to be some tension inherent in that situation. But finding a middle ground between their personalities and playing styles is not only doable, but it’s in the best interests of everyone involved.
Rose and Butler have been teammates for four seasons, but they’ve only shared the stage as equals for one of them. Butler barely played his rookie season in 2011-12, and Rose was injured for the next two. Even last season, which should have been the true test run for the Rose/Butler pairing, was tripped up by injuries. Rose missed 31 games, Butler missed 17.
But when they were on the court together, the Bulls scored 105.3 points per 100 possessions, per NBA.com, and that was in Tom Thibodeau’s grinding, isolation-heavy offense. Fred Hoiberg’s faster-paced, read-heavy system has the potential to make both players better, both individually and playing off of each other.
Pairing superstars is never a perfect proposition, unless you’re the San Antonio Spurs (who are such an extreme outlier in every respect that it makes no sense to compare their setup to anyone else’s). It’s easy to forget since they won two titles and made the Finals four years in a row, but the James-Wade tandem in Miami was painfully awkward early on as they felt out how to share the ball, and the spotlight, with each other.
But they figured it out. Rose and Butler can too. They don’t have to be best friends. They can both want to be the man, and they can both lay legitimate claim to the “whose team is it?” discussion. Ultimately, they need each other, and the Bulls need both of them. It’s never going to be a perfect arrangement, but winning has a way of making things work.
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