I heard an interview this morning with Robert Smith,head bb coach at Simeon HS,Chicago,where he has led Simeon to back to back state titles and 4 titles overall...and he was talking about Derrick Rose back in high school. Simeon had a policy to not play frosh on varsity when Rose came to school. So, his frosh year,he played on the sophmore team,leading them to a city title. The varsity made the state tourny,and Smith broke precedence by inviting Rose to play varsity at state. He wanted to win that bad. DRose respectfully declined. His response to Smith:
'' I am going to play professional basketball someday and will get a lot of attention. Bryan Notree and Calvins Brock(Suntimes POY) have earned the right to get the spotlight on them down at state.''
Then 3 years later when Smith was walking to the arena for the state title game with DRose, Rose commented that he was going to show that he should be rated the #1 pg in the country that day. Smith thought he would lite it up for 40 pts...but Rose only scored 2 points in a rout,but had a ton of assists and steals. Rose was so supremely confident in his own abilities that he knew he could dominate the game without scoring,and let his teammates get the attention.
DRose is the most humble NBA superstar I have have seen,but he has athletic arrogance.