Why Derrick Rose viral All-Star moment with LeBron stands out to Damian Lillard
01/04/2025 10:18 PM
Saturday night is Derrick Rose night at the United Center as the Chicago Bulls are celebrating an all-time great throughout their contest against the New York Knicks. Ahead of the celebrations, a lot of players shared fond memories of Rose, and one player who talked about the Chicago star was Milwaukee Bucks guard Damian Lillard.
Damian Lillard talked about his favorite Derrick Rose moment, and it took place at the 2012 All-Star Game. Lillard was impressed with how Rose carried himself at that event.
“That's the context of my favorite moment, which was at the (2012) All-Star Game,” Lillard said, according to an article from the New York Times. “He was an All-Star starter. They introduced all the starters, and they all came up on stage and they were dancing and doing all that stuff. And he just kind of walked up and was, like, ‘That ain't me. I'm not about to be a follower and do what everybody else is doing.’ He just did him. I recognized the behavior.”
Rose was never someone that was going to make the moment about himself. Lillard noticed that and he respected it.
“I always looked at D. Rose as someone who, out of all the stars in the NBA before I was in the NBA, he was the type of person that would be in my circle of people that I grew up and ran with,” Lillard said. “I always looked at him like he was that star because he was always humble. You could tell he came from something. You could tell his background was like how my background is — and he wasn't loud. He was quiet, but you could tell he had ‘it’ about him.”
That moment at the NBA All-Star Game showed Damian Lillard that you be one of the best while still carrying yourself in a certain way, and that’s why he remembers the moment so well.
“As solid as I always thought he was even from afar, just seeing something like that, it just reassured me that you could be a superstar and you ain't got to get on the train and do what everybody else is doing,” Lillard added. “You can do you, and a lot of people love him for that. Even if people don't talk about him, and if he doesn't buy into the superstar (role) of ‘You've got to do this, you've got to do that,’ I respect him for the way he did it. That's a moment that always stuck out to me.”
Derrick Rose has always been a special player, and he is now getting celebrated like he deserves in his hometown of Chicago.
The post Why Derrick Rose viral All-Star moment with LeBron stands out to Damian Lillard appeared first on ClutchPoints.
