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Tom Thibodeau Believes Chicago Bulls Would’ve Won A Championship Had Derrick Rose Stayed Healthy

Even though LeBron James arguably has been the face of the league for the past decade, Chicago’s finest Derrick Rose stole some of the spotlight when he put an end to LeBron’s back-to-back MVP streak, by being the youngest player to win the award in 2011, leading the Chicago Bulls to a league-best record in the NBA with 66 wins.

This became one of the factors that led many NBA fans to believe that Rose would’ve led the Bulls back to their championship days at some point going forward. But unfortunately, the young Bulls point guard tore his ACL in the first round of the 2012 playoffs against the Philadelphia 76ers, eventually causing their championship hopes to perish.

Making an appearance on ESPN’s First Take, former Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau, who coached the Bulls from 2011 to 2015, reminisced about this Rose-led Bulls that once were destined to become NBA champions.

“The thing that I’m most proud of, in Chicago we had the best record in the league two years in a row,” Thibodeau said. “We had Derrick Rose, who was the youngest MVP in the league. That team had a great chance to win a championship and unfortunately Derrick got hurt, but if Derrick didn’t get hurt, I thought we would’ve been champions.

“The thing I was most proud of, when he did get hurt, the team fought and continued to win and found a way to get into the playoffs.”