CHICAGO — Derrick Rose knew he was going to cry.

It took two minutes for Rose to take off his glasses, bowing his head at center court of the United Center, pressing his hand to his eyes as tears leaked out onto the hardwood. Former teammate Taj Gibson was forced to pause as well, voice cracking as he attempted to articulate what Rose meant to him, to the Bulls, to Chicago.

Rose knew he would cry long before his jersey was lofted in Saturday’s retirement ceremony, the No. 1 forever emblazoned over the Bulls court. He even packed a tissue, proactively stashing it in his pants pocket. This happens often now. Rose doesn’t mind. To be moved like this — in joy, in gratitude — is a blessing in itself.

“I cry every day,” Rose said. “Every day. And if you ask about what, it’s just — being joyful.”

Chicago knows how to define excellence. That’s evidenced by the names adorning the jerseys and banners already hanging in the rafters of the United Center. Jerry Sloan. Bob Love. Scottie Pippen. Michael Jordan. This is a city that understands greatness after witnessing the ultimate echelon of basketball dominance.

But Rose was different. Always. From the moment Chicago met that kid, it claimed him as its own. It went beyond the basketball court, beyond the record books and the scorelines. Jordan was the GOAT. But Rose was Chicago.

Stardom transforms its subjects. To be elite is to be untouchable. But that wasn’t the case with Rose. He was tangible, a local kid like and unlike any other. He was the same as any kid from the South Side — shaped by his city, eager to make it proud, unwilling to let himself or Chicago down.

Yes, he was different. He elevated above expectations and beyond recrimination and at times, that man could fly. Still, Rose never outgrew Chicago. Maybe it was the rapturous proximity of his ascendance, a rumbling rumor about a kid who could be a star that rose to a fervor as he grew into the youngest MVP in NBA history. Maybe it was the humility of his decline, which came too early to ever be fair. Maybe it was simply the fact he claimed the city back, every time, without fail.

Rose was Chicago even when he wasn’t here. When he left after starring at Simeon — first to Memphis for a year of college, then to New York and Minnesota and Cleveland and Memphis after the Bulls — he carried the city with him. It never mattered what jersey he wore when he came back. This was always home. There was no extricating one from the other.

And he felt it. He always felt it. Rose knew that Chicago would always be looking at him, hoping to see themselves in his reflection. And his understanding of this reverence and connection shaped his entire approach to his initial year of retirement.

“This journey was never about me,” Rose said. “Right from the jump, it was about creating a synergy that somehow people from the city can pull from. And somehow I was that beacon or that vessel for them from hooping. But now being 37 and looking at the totality of it, it never was about me. It was about everybody that found ways to come to my games. Somehow, we had some type of vibration that connected. It was always meant to be.”

He felt it again Saturday night as a sold-out crowd of more than 20,000 fans packed the United Center despite frigid and icy conditions outside, where a winter storm bore down on the Midwest.

Former teammates packed his suite, waving towels and shouting to fans to cheer louder every time the camera glanced their way. The Chicago philharmonic welcomed him back onto the court with a live rendition of “Sirius” by the Alan Parsons Project. Speeches and introductions were drowned out by the same chant of the same phrase: “MVP.”

“It’s a Chicago thing to even show up here and fight through that and still go to an event,” Rose said. “It’s huge. It’s something that I’m grateful for.”

Rose had to leave basketball to come home. He moved his family back to Chicago shortly after announcing his retirement last year. His eldest son, PJ, is a 13-year-old at Skinner West Elementary School.

Some days when the Bulls don’t have a scheduled practice, Rose brings PJ’s AAU team to the Advocate Center, coaching them through drills on the same site of his training in the final years of his Bulls tenure. It’s equal parts reunion and redefinition, PJ like and unlike his father in so many ways.

These moments with PJ are the closest Rose comes to the basketball court nowadays. That’s how he wants it. Rose is done with basketball. At least for now. When Rose talks about the future, he still talks about aspiration. He’s seeking something he describes as “rarified air.”

Rose already pushed his body to its limits. Now, he wants to push his mind.

“The astute group of people that I’m chasing after, they’re not on the ‘gram,” Rose said. “They’re reading. I feel like that’s the sacrifice I have to make right now. In order to get to my goals, I have to make a gambit move.”

Rose always felt misunderstood. His presence on the court never matched his identity off it. With the ball in his hands he was swaggering, forceful, undeniable. He snarled, he shouted, he stared opponents down. But that version of Rose didn’t quite exist outside of the court. Away from basketball, he was a little quiet, a little shy. At times, he fumbled with his words.

But without basketball, Rose knows all that’s left now is himself. He wants this version to be more authentic. At 37, he’s still crafting his identity as an entrepreneur, as a creator, as a man. And it took leaving basketball behind to begin to find himself again.

“This is the reason why I did retirement — to show people that I’m more than what you all thought I was,” Rose said. “You thought I was an athlete. You thought I did this and all that on the court but wait until you see what I was thinking all these years.”

From an early age, every basketball player learns the same mantra — don’t finish on a miss.

It’s the same whether you’re practicing and warming up for a game or just shooting around at the park. Don’t let a miss be the last shot you take. Keep going until the ball goes into the basket. It’s a stern stricture — and one that Rose no longer feels the need to follow.

In the final minutes before the opening tipoff of Saturday’s Bulls-Celtics game, Rose found himself in a familiar setting: his feet planted behind the 3-point arc of the United Center court, a ball cradled in his hands.

Everything that happened next came naturally. Rose lifted the ball, crooked his elbow and sent the ball flying, trapped in a whirlwind spiral as it sank into a collision course with the net. Swish. Rose cracked a grin, jogged to a different spot on the perimeter. Swish. Fans craned their necks and lofted their phones to grab a snippet of video documenting the moment. Swish. More than a year after his retirement, that shot still couldn’t be denied.

Rose took one last shot from the corner. The ball arced up, up, before descending just a touch too far to the right. The shot glanced off the inside of the rim, skittered down to the floor and bounced away. For a moment, Rose watched it go. Then he shrugged, concealing a half-hidden smile as he turned toward the exit and walked away from the hardwood.

Some stories need a happy ending to finish with a sense of permanency, of closure. Rose doesn’t need that. He has everything he needs to end this career at peace.

His family.

His legacy.

And Chicago, forever.

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