We have heard a fair few members of the NBA community talk about Derrick Rose being bigger than the great Michael Jordan in the city of Chicago, and an Illinois native has now said that as well. Former NBA player Iman Shumpert, who is from Berwyn, Illinois, explained why Rose trumps Jordan during an appearance on the Club Shay Shay podcast.
“Mike’s more to the game,” Shumpert said. “To Chicago, we choosing sides. Mike a North Carolina boy. We happy we got him. We happy what he did for the city. Pooh was born here, and really did this. They followed him in high school. We followed him to Memphis. We followed him to the league. Then he the youngest MVP. And he brought that s*** home to Chicago. He held that motherf***** up in Chicago. Oh man!”
Jordan led the Bulls to six NBA titles in the 1990s, but he wasn’t a Chicago boy. He grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina. Shumpert says Chicago appreciates all that Jordan did, but Rose is one of their own. He was born in Chicago and then went to Simeon High School in the city.
Rose had already made a name for himself by the time he went to Simeon, and his reputation only grew there. He famously led them to back-to-back state championships in 2006 and 2007.
Rose averaged 25.2 points, 9.1 assists, 8.8 rebounds, and 3.4 steals per game as a senior and became quite the sensation. He then headed off to the University of Memphis for college, but was back home soon enough.
The Bulls won the draft lottery in 2008 and selected Rose with the first pick in the 2008 NBA Draft. He’d become the youngest MVP in league history in 2011 and was on quite a trajectory. Unfortunately, the injury bug struck.
Rose tore his ACL in the 2012 playoffs against the Philadelphia 76ers, and the injury nightmare never really ended after that. It meant he never even got close to fulfilling his potential and became one of the biggest what-ifs in recent NBA history.
While Rose only has state championships and that one MVP to show, Shumpert says he’s ultimately Chicago’s own, something Jordan could never be.
“Everything about Pooh was Chicago, Chicago, Chicago, Chicago,” Shumpert stated. “We got to witness it, see everything. It’s like, yeah, he went to the league, and you might not ever get six rings like Mike, but Mike could never be from here.”
Simply put, Jordan may be bigger for the Bulls, but Rose is bigger for Chicago. That’s something that Kendrick Perkins and Draymond Green, two men who tend to disagree on almost everything, do agree on.
Perkins pointed out that Rose is beloved not just for what he brought from a basketball standpoint, but also for all that he did for the community. He called him the king of Chicago and reckons he’s the biggest athlete to come from the area.
Green, meanwhile, said Rose even stops crime in Chicago. He believes there is no one bigger than him in the city.
Rose also had his No. 1 jersey retired by the Bulls on Jan. 24, 2026. The 37-year-old didn’t lead them to the Promised Land as everyone in Chicago believed he would, but he still went down as one of their greatest players.
