“What do I care if Derrick Rose ends his career?”

Cutting edge science from Silicon Valley suggest better ways to prevent NBA injuries

BY HENRY ABBOTT

It was a long time ago, at some swanky dinner. I’m not sure who the guy was, but he was plugged in enough to dine with NBA heavy hitters—an entire front office and at least one deep-pocketed NBA team investor ringed the table. The talk focused on injury prevention. Rose was on his way to an MVP, and I was being critical of his coach, Tom Thibodeau, for grinding Rose to a pulp with too many minutes. (In general, the stars of that Bulls team—Joakim Noah, Luol Deng, Derrick Rose—aged badly.)

This guy (picture Kieran Culkin’s character from Succession) made the point that if the team worked Rose too hard and ended his brilliance early, it was no concern—the team would just get another one. This is too callous and indecent for my taste. It’s also a joke, in a salary-capped sport where 99.99999 percent of the world’s players never touch Rose’s level. The essential crisis of almost every NBA team is that you can’t get an MVP candidate for love, money, or tanking. Rose is still …