Derrick Rose called his 2012 ACL tear “the closest thing to death.”
He’s not the only member of those derailed Bulls to describe the injury in extreme terms.
Joakim Noah, via Zach Lowe of ESPN:
“When I found out Derrick tore his ACL, I remember the smells, who I was with, everything,” Noah says. “I had the same feeling of when I saw the plane hit the tower [on Sept. 11, 2001]. People will be like, ‘He’s crazy for saying that.’ No. I’m telling you how I felt.”
Noah is right: People will be like, “He’s crazy for saying that.”
That said, it’s not totally absurd for someone to feel similarly about a more-distant, though more significant, tragedy and a calamity that hits closer to home. Rose’s injury personally devastated someone Noah was close with and upended Noah’s own strong ambition to win a championship.
Noah did not say Rose’s injury was as bad as Sept. 11.
