Derrick Rose
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50 free Derrick Rose trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Derrick Rose's career reads like two different stories. In the first, a kid from Chicago's South Side is drafted first overall by his hometown Bulls and, within three seasons, becomes the youngest Most Valuable Player the NBA has ever had. In the second, a run of knee injuries takes away the explosiveness that made him famous, and he has to rebuild his game, and his place in the league, almost from scratch. This quiz covers both. The questions run from his high school and college days through the Rookie of the Year and MVP seasons in Chicago, the injuries and comebacks, and the later stops that included a career-high scoring night ten years after he entered the league. There are also questions on the people around him: coaches, teammates, rivals and the players whose records he matched or broke. It is written for Bulls fans, for anyone who watched him at his peak, and for players who know the name but not the whole story. Each answer comes with a short explanation, so you will leave knowing more than you arrived with.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Derrick Rose in 2011 became only the second Chicago Bulls player to win NBA MVP, after which legend?
Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan won five MVP awards in Chicago before Rose added a sixth for the franchise. Rose was 22, the youngest winner in league history.
Q 02At which school did Derrick Rose play one college season, reaching the 2008 national title game?
Memphis
Memphis won 38 games with Rose as a freshman, then a record for one season. The NCAA later wiped every one of them from the books.
Q 03Which knee ligament did Derrick Rose tear in the 2012 playoffs, costing him all of the next season?
ACL
ACL in the left knee: Rose tore it with 1:22 left in a playoff opener that his team led by 12 points. He had surgery two weeks later.
Q 04Which sportswear brand gave Derrick Rose a 2012 contract extension reported at $185 million?
Adidas
Adidas had first signed Rose as a rookie in 2008 for about $1 million a year. Its D Rose signature line was still adding new models a decade later.
Q 05For which team did Derrick Rose score a career-high 50 points on Halloween night in 2018?
Minnesota Timberwolves
Minnesota Timberwolves teammates mobbed a tearful Rose after he sealed the win with a block as time expired. It was his first start of the season.
Q 06Which board game is Derrick Rose known across the NBA for playing avidly away from the court?
Chess
Chess has no bigger fanatic in the NBA than Rose, in the judgment of The Sporting News.
Q 07Derrick Rose in 2012 became a part-owner and spokesman of which Chicago chain known for stuffed deep-dish pizza?
Giordano's
Giordano's was founded in Chicago in 1974 by two brothers working from their mother's recipe. Rose grew up on the city's South Side.
Q 08Which position did Derrick Rose play, attacking the rim so explosively that he was NBA MVP at 22?
Point guard
Point guard Rose stood 6 ft 3 in and recorded a 40-inch vertical leap at the 2008 NBA Combine.
Q 09Besides "D-Rose", which nickname shared with a storybook bear is used for Derrick Rose?
Pooh
Pooh sits beside a far fiercer nickname for Rose: the Windy City Assassin.
Q 10Derrick Rose won gold medals with the United States in 2010 and 2014 at which international tournament?
FIBA World Cup
FIBA World Cup golds bookended Rose's worst injuries: the first came just before his MVP season, the second after two lost years.
Q 11Which coach recruited Derrick Rose to college after seeing him play AAU ball, later leaving for Kentucky?
John Calipari
John Calipari sold Rose on a program with a record of sending players to the NBA. Rose stayed one season and reached the national final.
Q 12Which school beat Derrick Rose's college team in overtime in the 2008 NCAA championship game?
Kansas
Kansas trailed by nine with two minutes left, then tied the game on a three-pointer with 2.1 seconds to play.
Q 13Whose three-pointer with 2.1 seconds left forced overtime against Derrick Rose's team in the 2008 NCAA final?
Mario Chalmers
Mario Chalmers hit the shot moments after Rose missed the first of two free throws that could have put the title out of reach.
Q 21Derrick Rose in 2009 was the first number-one draft pick since which player to win NBA Rookie of the Year?
LeBron James
LeBron James won the award in 2004, and the next four top picks all missed out before Rose averaged 16.8 points for a playoff team.
Q 22At the 2009 NBA All-Star Weekend, Derrick Rose became the first rookie to win which event?
Skills Challenge
Skills Challenge victory meant Rose had beaten several All-Stars, months before he was voted the league's best first-year player.
Q 23Derrick Rose scored 36 in his 2009 playoff debut, an overtime road win over which defending champion?
Boston Celtics
Q 14Why did the NCAA strip Derrick Rose's college team of its entire 38-win 2007–08 season?
A voided SAT score
A voided SAT score made Rose retroactively ineligible, even though his school had investigated the claim and cleared him to play.
Q 15Derrick Rose wore No. 23 in college because his usual 25 was retired for which 1990s Orlando Magic star?
Penny Hardaway
Penny Hardaway had his 25 retired by the school in 1994, and in 2018 he came back to coach the same program.
Q 16Derrick Rose wore No. 25 in high school to honor which murdered star of the same Chicago school?
Ben Wilson
Ben Wilson was rated the nation's top high school player when he was shot in 1984. Rose was the last to wear his number before it was retired.
Q 17At which Chicago high school did Derrick Rose win back-to-back Illinois state titles in 2006 and 2007?
Simeon
Simeon went 120–12 during Rose's four years and became the first Chicago Public League school to win two straight state crowns.
Q 18Which future No. 2 NBA draft pick later won four state titles at Derrick Rose's Chicago high school?
Jabari Parker
Jabari Parker scrimmaged with Rose on a sixth-grade visit to the school, then enrolled and won the state championship every year.
Q 19Which forward went second in the 2008 NBA draft, right after the Chicago Bulls chose Derrick Rose?
Michael Beasley
Michael Beasley was left for the next team because Chicago had won the lottery with only a 1.7 percent chance at the top pick.
Q 20In which South Side Chicago neighborhood did Derrick Rose grow up, taught the game by three older brothers?
Englewood
Englewood courts were where brothers Dwayne, Reggie and Allan taught Rose the game, while their mother kept outside recruiters away from him.
Boston Celtics won the series in seven games, but Rose's opening night tied Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's record for a rookie in a playoff debut.
Q 24Which coach guided Derrick Rose's MVP season in Chicago and later reunited with him on two other NBA teams?
Tom Thibodeau
Tom Thibodeau was in his first year as a head coach that season and was named Coach of the Year after 62 wins.
Q 25Which former NBA guard was head coach of the Chicago Bulls for Derrick Rose's first two seasons?
Vinny Del Negro
Vinny Del Negro went 41–41 and made the playoffs in both seasons, yet Chicago dismissed him in May 2010.
Q 26Derrick Rose in 2011 broke which Hall of Fame center's 42-year-old record as the NBA's youngest MVP?
Wes Unseld
Wes Unseld won it as a 23-year-old rookie in 1969, and no younger winner appeared until Rose, at 22.
Q 27Which team beat Derrick Rose's 62-win Chicago Bulls in five games, one round short of the 2011 NBA Finals?
Miami Heat
Miami Heat closed the series by erasing a 12-point deficit in the final three minutes of Game 5, winning 83–80.
Q 28Which Chicago Bulls forward scored a career-high 40 points in 2010 on a night Derrick Rose had 13 assists?
Luol Deng
Luol Deng, who fled Sudan as a child, became an All-Star beside Rose in 2012, giving Chicago its first pair of All-Stars since 1997.
Q 29The NBA's 2011 "Derrick Rose Rule" lets a decorated young star coming off a rookie deal sign what?
A larger max contract
A larger max contract, 30 percent of the salary cap rather than the standard 25, was open to Rose alone when the rule arrived, thanks to his MVP.
Q 30On Christmas Day 2011, Derrick Rose's floater with 4.8 seconds left beat which team 88–87?
Los Angeles Lakers
Los Angeles Lakers were the opponents in the first game of a season cut to 66 games by a lockout, so the shot won opening night.