Derrick Rose to critics: 'I don't need your f------ validation'

Ryan Young
·Staff writer
Newly signed Minnesota Timberwolves’ Derrick Rose watches his new team in the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Boston Celtics Thursday, March 8, 2018, in St. Paul, Minn. The Celtics won 117-109. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)
Newly signed Minnesota Timberwolves’ Derrick Rose watches his new team in the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Boston Celtics Thursday, March 8, 2018, in St. Paul, Minn. The Celtics won 117-109. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

Derrick Rose has a message for those who don’t believe in him anymore: He doesn’t care.

The former Chicago Bulls star and league MVP signed with the Minnesota Timberwolves on Thursday, reuniting him with his former coach Tom Thibodeau, and former Chicago teammates Jimmy Butler and Taj Gibson. While he may have lost the confidence of fans in recent years, Rose isn’t taking any of their criticism to heart.

“This is how I feel about it, the whole perspective on it: You could have your perspective on me, as far as I’m a bum, I can’t play, I can’t shoot, this and that, alright cool,” Rose said on Saturday. “I have no hard feelings with that. I’m cool with that. (If) that’s how you feel, that’s how you feel.

“But at the same time I don’t need your f—— validation. I know who I am, I know what type of player I am. So you respect that and I respect that (point of view) and we should be good. That’s how I feel about it.”

Rose averaged nearly 10 points, 1.8 rebounds and 1.6 assists this season with the Cleveland Cavaliers, but only appeared in 16 games due to an ankle injury.

The Timberwolves will be the fourth team that the 29-year-old has played for — his third in the past year. Yet the chance to revive his once shining career — which was sidelined due to a string of knee injuries and a 2016 civil rape trial in which a federal jury found him not liable — is one that Rose is ready to take full advantage of.

“I’m still here,” Rose told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “That shows everybody about my character and all that. I’m still here playing. I still love the game. I can sit here and tell you all this by expressing it with words, but I want to do it with action, by me going out there and playing the way I wan tot play and playing the way that’s going to help this team win.”

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