Robert Paul Rose (born 27 December 1964) is an American-Australian retired professional basketball player. He played the majority of his career in the Australian National Basketball League (NBL), where he won a championship with the South East Melbourne Magic in 1992 and was a two-time NBL Most Valuable Player in 1993 and 2001. Rose was nicknamed "Australia's Michael Jordan" due to his clutch shooting and defensive abilities.
Early life
Rose was born in Rochester, New York, as the youngest of nine children.
Rose had planned to attend an NCAA Division III school to play basketball when he was noticed by Bob Ward, a volunteer assistant with the George Mason Patriots who was at home for Christmas break in December 1981. Rose was a second-team All-ECAC South selection in 1985 and a first-team All-CAA selection in 1986. He ranks in the top 10 of points (9th), rebounds (9th), steals (3rd), blocks (6th), field goal percentage (4th), free throw percentage (8th) and free throws made (9th) in Patriots program history.
Rose then signed for a three-year stint with the Canberra Cannons where he was selected to the All NBL First Team in both 1996 and 1997. He led the Cannons to the Semi Finals in 1996 and Elimination Finals in 1997 before just missing out on a play-off berth in 1998. He then signed with the struggling North Queensland team of the Townsville Crocodiles. Rose would turn the franchise around captaining them to the semi-finals and grand final in the 1999–2000 and 2000–01 seasons. Rose capped off his team's performance by winning his second league MVP award. However the Crocodiles would be defeated by the Wollongong Hawks in the deciding game three of the grand final series.
After the 2005–06 season, at age 42, the Crocodiles decided not to renew Rose's contract. He then signed with North Queensland rivals the Cairns Taipans for the 2006–07 season before retiring in December 2006 having played in 472 NBL games.
Personal life
Rose owned a sports card shop in Melbourne and had a collection of 50,000 cards in 1996.