CHICAGO — For a half-hour interlude in an otherwise unimportant game between the Chicago Bulls and the New York Knicks on Saturday night, the city of Chicago sank into nostalgia.

It wasn’t the way most of the city had dreamed it up over the last eight years. But that didn’t matter. Fans lined up for hours in the subfreezing temperatures and packed the stands earnestly to wait until halftime to hear a handful of words that had become a familiar, galvanizing cry for the city.

And now … frommmmmm Chicago … at guard, No. 1, 6-foot-3 … Derrick Rose.

For a few minutes on the United Center hardwood, the youngest MVP in NBA history came home.

And on a night designed to celebrate Rose, the former guard returned the favor by celebrating his hometown in a simple statement of gratitude: “Thank you, Chicago, for forcing me to be great.”

The Bulls hosted a retirement celebration for Rose months after the three-time All-Star announced his retirement after a 15-year career.

Attendants handed out individual roses as fans walked through security. Black shirts emblazoned with the same rose design adorned every seat. Some fans pulled them on. Others left them on their seats in preference of their favorite Rose jersey — Bulls black and red, Knicks orange, Simeon blue.

Even the date — 1-4-25 — was selected with a combination of purpose and serendipity — the 1 (January) for his jersey number in Chicago, the 4 (day) for his jersey number with the Knicks and the 25 (year) for his number at Simeon. Players from both teams wore warmup shirts that bore a design featuring those three numbers.

During timeouts, the video board featured messages from a variety of Rose’s former teammates — Luol Deng, Taj Gibson — many of whom also were in attendance. Each new tribute earned a different ovation, sending fans to their feet to cheer as the camera shone down on a different adoring face.

The halftime celebration was simple, highlighted by speeches from broadcaster Stacey King and Rose’s former teammate Joakim Noah. All the speakers were forced to pause as their words were drowned out by raucous chants of “MVP.” Noah stood up to urge fans to shout them louder. And even the boos for Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf were muffled on a night focused on celebration.

Throughout the ceremony, Rose maintained his trademark calm — until Noah took the mic.

“You always put your city on your back and you carried that with you,” Noah said. “You’re not only the MVP, Pooh. You’re the people’s champ.”

The words broke through Rose’s stoicism. The guard took off his glasses as he wiped away tears, eventually rising to his feet to embrace his friend.

This wasn’t just a celebration for a sports team. It was one for the city. Rose made that clear in the days leading up to his retirement celebration Saturday, lining up events to meet as many Bulls fans and Chicagoans as possible.

Fans jostled in a line that wrapped around multiple blocks and crawled across the Dearborn Street bridge for a meet-and-greet at a pop-up flower shop. Rose and his son PJ played in exhibition games at Simeon in a private event at his alma mater Friday night. And the former guard debuted the Rose Garden, a pollinator garden at Growing Home’s urban farm in Englewood aimed at fighting food insecurity in the city.

This was always the balancing act for Rose. Chicago cheered him and challenged him. The city saw the best of itself and the worst of itself in him. At its core, Chicago needed more from Rose than perhaps any other player in the team’s storied history. The pressure was unrelenting. So was the love.

Rose shook off the notion that delivering upon the dreams of his city ever felt like a burden. But he knew from a young age the weight that followed his every step on the court — the assurances and expectations from sixth grade onward that he would make it to the league, that he would make Chicago proud.

Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau — who coached Rose in Chicago and Minnesota — praised Rose for seeking humility while carrying those expectations early in his career.

“People don’t realize how difficult it is to play in your hometown,” Thibodeau said. “He did so many things behind the scenes that nobody knew about. That’s just not who Derrick is. He contributed a lot to the community — not just here, everywhere he’s been — and that says a lot about him as a human being.”

It was strange, then, for a player who carried those dreams for so long to end his career in another city.

Rose said he never seriously considered returning to Chicago to retire as a Bull. Part of that was because Rose couldn’t think about retiring from basketball. He had a different relationship with the game. It wasn’t just love. It was an obsession.

But in the offseason pause last summer, Rose began to feel a pull somewhere else — to his eldest son, PJ, who turned 12 last year. As Rose began to consider retirement, he didn’t think of Chicago. He just thought about his son.

On Saturday, Rose began his halftime speech by urging his son to “be great, not good.” His son beamed back, wiping away a minor flood of tears at his father’s words.

“When I did make the decision (to) stop playing, I didn’t care where I was,” Rose said. “His time — I couldn’t trade that in.”

There’s another thing Rose didn’t let himself think about — the question everyone considers when they look back on his career: What if the injuries never happened? What if nothing went wrong? What if he stayed in Chicago?

Rose doesn’t let that question haunt him anymore. Maybe he would have won a championship. Maybe more. But Rose has found peace in embracing the fact every challenge he faced in his career — the knee surgeries, the ankle injuries, the years on the bench and the refusal to leave the game behind — build the man he is today.

“Who knows?” Rose said. “With me being obsessed, I wouldn’t have found out who I was as a person. If I would have won one championship, I would have wanted four. And that would have pulled me further and further away from finding self knowledge, self revelation, identity. Everybody’s story is different. For some reason, mine ended up being this way. So coming from Chicago, we rolled with the punches.”

This is only the warmup event in a lengthy series of fanfare for Rose. The Bulls will retire his jersey next season. In 2027, he officially will become eligible for the team’s Ring of Honor. And former teammates, coaches and fans already are beginning the long-term campaign for Rose to be selected to the Naismith Hall of Fame — beginning with Thibodeau.

“There’s no question in my mind, he’s a Hall of Fame player,” Thibodeau said.

But on Saturday night, the city took a moment to embrace Rose in a more intimate way — as a young kid from Chicago who finally was coming home again.

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