Derrick Rose has had a bit of a rough offseason. By now, everybody knows that he was the dude at Memphis who somehow jimmied his SAT scores to qualify academically, and if Memphis has to vacate their national runner-up season in 2007-08, Rose will be the reason why. Oops.

There was also the small matter of Rose’s gang sign photo. There is utterly no reason to care about this photo unless you’re stupid, but there are a lot of stupids in this world, and many of them like to talk about Chicago sports. So that was a minor thing.

So, what is an athlete in need of a little minor reputation boost to do? Get your Web 2.0 game tight, son:

Chicago Bulls Rookie-of-the-Year Derrick Rose has been silent since allegations came out about his admission to the University of Memphis, and a picture surfaced of Rose throwing a gang sign. He broke that silence today, talking for about ten seconds at the beginning of a video he posted on his Facebook page. “I want to thank you for your support. I appreciate it. Keep on looking at my page, because I really do look at it, and appreciate it.”

You can watch that video here. I was assuming it would be some sort of non-workout workout, the kind of thing that where Rose does a few dribbling drills, hits a few shots, throws up a few half-courters, smiles at the camera, and scene. But it isn’t. It’s a genuine NBA offseason workout. It’s intense and grinding and every bit as demanding as anything you’ll see in pre-draft workouts, if not worse.

So Rose is a hard-worker. We already knew that, sure, but it’s nice to be reminding every once in a while too. Gee, thanks Facebook!