Here's Derrick Rose Discussing The Difficulties Of Being A Professional Athlete, Such As Holding In His Pee

Ty Lue wanted to sub Derrick Rose in late in the game Friday but Rose wasn’t on the bench. Why? He had to, um, empty the tank. pic.twitter.com/3bFRqu4ios

— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) January 27, 2018

​“I would say it’s the small things. Hydrating. I think that a lot of people hydrate. It’s one of the reasons Lue got mad at me yesterday. I was in the bathroom. I didn’t know he wanted me to come back in the game. It was just miscommunication.

“But the way I think about it, when I say little things, guys are out there for two hours straight playing basketball for two hours and nobody takes a bathroom break. For real, just think about it. It blows my mind, bro. Whenever I come out the game, I go right to the restroom, hydrate, then I’m right back in it, but that’s what I mean by just learning from my past and doing anything just to stay on the court. I’ve come a long way, but I’m happy where I’m at. I’m happy we got the win yesterday.” - Derrick Rose

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Let me be the first to congratulate you on your victory if you were anxiously waiting for "lack of bladder control" on your Derrick Rose BINGO card of extremely odd unprofessionalism. Can't say I expected to hear an NBA-level athlete talk himself through how difficult it is to maintain a delicate balance between staying hydrated and nearly wetting himself in front of tens of thousands of people, but now that I have? I'm not all that surprised who it ended up being.

I suppose maintaining the "lost a fist fight to a weed wacker"-esque facial hair you'd expect to see on someone whose bathroom etiquette knows not an appropriate time nor place is partially responsible for my lack of shock. However, the fact that the former phenom who was picked first overall constantly makes the most fundamental aspects of adulthood sound inconceivable makes this realization something less than completely unexpected.

In the last two years, Derrick Rose has failed to call his employer prior to completely no-showing a game, taken an in-season sabbatical, and run off to take a tinkle when called upon for a much more taxing type of relief. Don't get me wrong, I generally subscribe to the "when you gotta go, you gotta go" philosophy, but that's typically when I'm on the last leg of a road trip or between bars after six beers. Slightly more excusable scenarios than being a professional basketball player that can't properly pre-plan for 90 minute increments (if that) in which using the potty is off limits.

I don't like to make fun of Derrick Rose's injury woes for two reasons. One, it's nearly impossible to do so with any sort of originality. And two, it really does suck how much of his transcendent talent went wasted. That's why, unless you're pinning all of his immaturity on what's been a sprain-stricken career, it's nice to be able to make a case that even as a picture of perfect health he would have held himself back from true greatness. Consider that his presence at the workplace has been as unpredictable as that of a meth addict and that he apparently has the situational wherewithal of a 5 year old desperately dancing around holding his junk at a funeral service. Now, can you really tell me the guy who finds himself flummoxed by those that can suppress their urge to go pee-pee for a fairly short and uniform period of time wouldn't have pissed away some of his limitless potential on his own?