ESPN

Some may view Derrick Rose's ascension to NBA superstar as following in the footsteps of Michael Jordan, but it's probably more accurate to view Rose as following the path set by another former point guard from Chicago.

Isiah Thomas is the last point guard to be the leading scorer on a team that won the NBA title, and the 6-3 Rose sought out Thomas' advice after the Chicago Bulls were eliminated by the Miami Heat last season.

Thomas likened being a 6-foot-1, 180-pound point guard playing and winning in the NBA to "a salmon swimming upstream and the bears are at the side of the bank." He remembered driving down the lane in his first NBA game as a rookie and getting plucked out of mid-air by then-Milwaukee Bucks 6-11, 250-pound center Bob Lanier.

"The first time I drove through the lane, I went past Quinn Buckner and scored and I was feeling pretty good about myself when Bob Lanier grabbed me out of the air, set me down and said ‘Don't come in here anymore.' My jump shot got pretty good the rest of the night," Thomas told ESPNChicago.com on Wednesday.

But Thomas said he quickly learned that wasn't the path to a title.

"You abandon that thought because you come to the point in your career, and it seems like Derrick did it rather quickly just as I did, when you say, ‘You know what? You may be bigger, faster and stronger than me? But just like you want to win, I want to win too. Either you're going to kick my ass or I'm going to kick yours. So let's fight," he said.

Thomas played through a dislocated toe early in his career and acknowledged, "Derrick is 190 pounds getting hit by guys 240, 250, sometimes bigger and make no mistake, the hits do hurt. You're like Sugar Ray Leonard trying to fight Mike Tyson.

"[My toe] was painful. Anything below the hips for a point guard definitely changes your game and then for small guys, you have to be so fine-tuned that anything of that kind throws off your rhythm in terms of your knees, ankles or feet.

"That that's your advantage. Big guys have height and size as an advantage, so they can get away with a lot of [injuries] we can't. Those injuries are devastating to us because our greatest strength is our speed. But what Derrick has got to transfer from is that now his greatest strength has to become his mind and not necessarily just his physical gifts."

Thomas said he looks at the evolution of the point guard and sees it coming around again.

"When I came into the league, everyone wanted a big point guard like Magic Johnson," he said. "If you looked across the league, there was Magic, Chicago got Reggie Theus, Milwaukee got Paul Pressey, everybody had a 6-8, 6-9 point guard and the small guys like myself were thought to be extinct.

"But I like to say when I came in, everybody wanted a point guard like Magic and when I went out, everyone wanted a point guard like Isiah."

Can the Bulls, however, win an NBA title, as the Pistons did, without an elite big man like Dwight Howard teaming with Rose?

"This is the little man's challenge," Thomas said. "I had to beat Magic and Kareem Abdul Jabbar and if the numbers don't lie, Kareem is the best big man to ever play the game. Then you had to beat [Michael] Jordan and [Scottie] Pippen, and [Larry] Bird, [Kevin] McHale and [Robert] Parrish in the years we won it. I think I was probably the only player who ever won a championship in my era who didn't have a top 50 player on my team.

"So yeah, that's a challenge and [Rose] is swimming upstream. Can he do it? Yeah, he's got to beat LeBron [James], but I had to beat Michael. A lot. Can he beat Kobe? Well, I had to beat Magic. So yeah, you have to do it. Or you can take the easy way out and not accept the challenge. I admire him for taking it. He has to beat Dwight Howard. He and Thibs can be saying ‘We don't have enough,' or ‘I'm too small.' But I'm down with the little guy saying ‘Hey, Charles Barkley, I'm kicking your ass.' "

The encouraging news for Rose is that Thomas says he has "no aches, no pains" at age 50.

"I've got a lot of scars but I've also got the rings," he said. "Had I not won a championship, I would consider my career a total bust, a total failure. I would venture to say if you ask all the point guards in the league that question, Chris Paul probably thinks that way and Derrick thinks that way.

"It's different for small guys. There's no way around it. Either you're going to pay the price, sacrifice and win or you're going to pile up great statistics and you'll never win. And Derrick's choice seems to be he wants to win a championship and I admire him for taking that path because he can have a very long career and play forever, have great numbers and never win. But I have to give Thibodeau a lot of credit for allowing Derrick for taking this courageous path he's choosing to take."

Among those whom Derrick Rose sought advice and solace from in the days after the Chicago Bulls were eliminated by the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals last May was the last point guard to lead his team in scoring while winning an NBA title.

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Few current or former players can relate to Derrick Rose’s rise to greatness like Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas.

Thomas, a two-time NBA champion and a native of Chicago’s West Side, said on Tuesday’s “Waddle & Silvy Show” that several local greats who came before Rose must be watching his breakout season with a large measure of envy.

“Every Chicago kid that grew up in Chicago, he’s living all our dreams,” Thomas said. “Mark Aguirre, myself, Doc Rivers, Michael Finley, we all grew up wanting to play for the Bulls and play in Chicago. So I'm glad Derrick Rose is living all our dreams.”

As for Rose’s production, Thomas gave him the edge in the league’s MVP race.

“He’s excelling,” Thomas said of Rose. “He’s playing at an MVP level. You look at what he’s doing right now ... I can’t really see anyone else who you can throw in the category of the MVP race in terms of what he’s doing and what’s expected. You also have to give some credit to coach [Tom] Thibodeau because he’s done an exceptional job. When you look at the job that he’s done from a coaching standpoint, it’s definitely allowed Rose to be the MVP of the league. But if you got the MVP of the league, you also have the coach of the year in coach Thibodeau.”

Going back several years, Thomas reflected on his actions after the Bulls eliminated Thomas’ Detroit Pistons from the 1991 NBA playoffs. Then the defending champs, Thomas and the Pistons were swept by the up-and-coming Bulls in the Eastern Conference finals. After the defeat, Thomas and his teammates walked off the court without shaking the opposition’s hand. Thomas admitted he regrets his actions.

“There’s two answers to that,” Thomas said when asked about the snub. “The first answer is … when we beat the Celtics to take the torch from the Celtics, Boston walked off the court [without shaking hands]. …When we passed the torch to the Bulls, we did what Boston did to us. Now, should we have shaken their hands? Yes. Was it poor sportsmanship? Yes. If we had to do it all over again would all of us do it differently? Yes. But the way the torch was passed to us, that’s the way we passed the torch to the Bulls. Then, after that, it became a more kinder, gentler NBA where everybody you know, hugs, shakes hands before the game and you know you do all the other stuff that you do. Back then, when you lost people ran off the court. … “

While on the subject of the Bad Boy Pistons and the Bulls’ dynasty, Thomas came out in support of a player who won titles on both sides. Thomas hopes that this is the year Dennis Rodman joins him in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

“Most definitely. [Rodman] should have been in a long time ago,” Thomas said. “He won like five or six championships, eight rebounding titles, two defensive player of the year titles. I don’t see anyone in our era of basketball that’s done more than him. …”