The Basketball Thread

[The Skipper 20,593]

I cant open the article!

It's unthinkably misguided that Derrick Rose's continued rehab of a career-threatening knee injury has become a referendum on his manhood, that something as vague as being "cleared to play" suggests not being in the lineup one year after suffering an absolutely devastating injury means he's shirking his responsibility or is some kind of slacker. It's unthinkably misguided that we're more interested in Rose proving his toughness than in his long-term viability or what makes the most sense in terms of the Bulls getting back into championship contention in reasonable time.

AP Photo/Kathy WillensDerrick Rose's teammates, and various other players, support his decision to not rush his return.

You want to revel in more of that nonsense you'd better look elsewhere because you're not reading here that Rose needs to play Thursday night against the Nets, or if he's a real man he'll suit up against the Miami Heat in the next round if the Bulls advance. I'll leave it to others to compare Rose's comeback to Ricky Rubio, whose next explosive play will be his first, and Iman Shumpert, who's been a shadow of his rookie self … as if either Rubio or Shumpert has been a league MVP or led a team to the NBA conference finals or is truly a franchise player.

Add the words "cleared to play" to the sight of Adrian Peterson coming back, yes miraculously, in another sport and now Derrick Rose is a bum because he's paying attention to his own body and taking seriously and responsibly his long-term commitment to his career and the Chicago Bulls? The biggest mistake of this season was Bulls management not coming out in October and saying, "As far as we're concerned, Derrick Rose will sit out this season and anything else will be a bonus, a complete surprise."

That's what somebody in the front office should have announced the first day of training camp; instead Rose is just out there, doing what he (and many players who've suffered this kind of injury) thinks is the smart thing to do, but twisting in the wind from a public relations standpoint. This is a perception problem more than anything else and the people at the top, starting with Jerry Reinsdorf, should have shut off the conversation before the season began. Hell, that's why Gar Forman (very, very wisely) put together a bridge roster with a bunch of one-year contracts, BECAUSE THEY KNEW IT WAS VERY POSSIBLE ROSE WOULDN'T PLAY THIS SEASON!

But because this false-hope speculation became rampant, the Bulls now have a 24-year-old star who was easily the most beloved player in Chicago sports since Michael Jordan, under attack, first nationally and now, unbelievably, locally.

Before you buy into this nonsense, if you haven't already, do some research. Look up some of the players who had their careers wrecked by serious knee injuries … or if not wrecked, then derailed for a long while, meaning a full season or more. Players such as: Penny Hardaway, Gilbert Arenas, Tim Hardaway, Antonio McDyess and Bernard King.

That's a tiny sample of NBA players, explosive players, who had their careers sabotaged by knee injuries similar to the one that felled Rose. That's a handful of former All-Stars, four of them former All-NBA players, who I bet would give anything to do their rehab over again and take more time than they did before returning to the court. All played again, all had very productive seasons again. None was ever close to his pre-injury form.

Rose seems intent on not joining that group, on coming back much closer to the MVP he was before ripping up his knee. But the chorus of critics, which grows larger and louder by the day it seems, is equally intent on deriding him as being soft for doing so, even in Chicago where impatience is plain goofy. Wouldn't we rather have Rose back as close to his old form as possible than to just have him back? To do that, "cleared to play" can't be the bar he's trying to clear. And even if "cleared to play" was a magical sentence that healed all scars and took away all pain, how come all those NFL players, who were at the time "cleared to play," are suing the NFL over medical and safety issues?

Gallery: Derrick Rose's Career

From preps to the Bulls, ESPN Chicago focuses on point guard Derrick Rose.

Gallery: Rose's career Bulls blog »

Hot Button: Vote: Will rep take hit? »

The reason you shouldn't be clamoring for Rose to play right now is Gilbert Arenas, who just six years ago was Rose before blowing out his knee. Arenas was an all-NBA scoring point guard in 2005, 2006 and 2007. His best years were the first of those two, when he was 23 and 24 years old. He was an explosive player, not as much as Rose but 100 times more than Rubio. Arenas was determined to come back in less than a year; he had unfinished playoff business with LeBron James. So Arenas rehabbed with a vengeance, was praised by the talk show radio heads and so many of the people who were really impressed by his manhood …

… and Arenas is playing in China now. He's 31 and in all likelihood done in the NBA. This was before guns and other crazy issues. Arenas went from having a team in contention in the Eastern Conference -- he beat the Bulls, remember, in a seven-game playoff series after the Bulls led 2-0 -- to playing in China because his knee wouldn't let him do what he did brilliantly for three seasons. Look up his numbers, find him on YouTube.

That not enough for you? Look up Penny Hardaway's career. First-team all-NBA in his second season, first-team all-NBA in his third season. Was 23 and 24 years old when he was arguably the best lead guard in the NBA, just like Rose was. He blew out his knee in his fifth season, came back (I'm sure he was "cleared to play") and then hurt other stuff, a foot, then a knee that needed microfracture surgery. And then, the great and diligent Penny Hardaway -- and yes, he was on the way toward historic greatness -- was done in the sense of being a player of impact. You think Penny Hardaway, who had championships in him before that first injury, wouldn't love an extra two or three months and maybe a training camp if he had it to do all over again?

That not enough for you? Look up Tim Hardaway, a Chicago kid just like D. Rose. Timmy reached 5,000 points and 2,500 assists faster than anybody but Oscar Robertson. Tim Hardaway invented the modern crossover. But he blew out his knee and had to miss 1993-94. Yes, miss. He was savvy and determined enough to re-shape his game and by 1997 was again one of the best guards in the NBA, but he wasn't himself for entire seasons in the meantime and never got back the explosiveness of his early years at Golden State. Perhaps you saw Hardaway's comments to the Sun-Times. In case you didn't, Tim Hardaway said it took him 11 months before he was ready to play in an NBA game. "My biggest thing," he said, "was getting my head and knee on the same page, so I could do the same things I did before the injury -- doing the crossover, exploding to the basket [and] not being afraid to lay the ball up over a big guy ... I had to get to the points where I didn't fear leaping off my [injured] leg ... That was the biggest challenge I had to overcome ... It's something you just have to go out and do."

At one point, Hardaway wasn't ready to go out and do that, and Rose isn't at the point, either, not yet. You want to say he's physically been cleared but isn't mentally ready to play? Fine. That's the most difficult part, any honest athlete will tell you, about returning from a serious injury. Rose has admitted this, and if you think that makes him weak it tells me more about the person sitting in judgment than it tells me about him.

David Sherman/NBAE/Getty ImagesRicky Rubio plays a different style than Derrick Rose, which makes comparing their return from ACL surgery less relevant.

Magic Johnson tells the story about a knee injury early in his career, after he'd already won an NBA championship. He had been medically "cleared to play" and came back because he thought he was supposed to but he couldn't find his form, felt lost on the court. It wasn't until the summer, when Magic dunked over a bigger player in a summer league game, that he was psychologically ready to be Magic Johnson again.

What I love about Rose is that he's not a follower. In a brief conversation last week he made it plain to me that if doing the smart thing means braving being trashed on sports talk radio and Twitter then he'll survive it. It's so sad and misguided that it's coming to that. As somebody who has covered pro basketball for 30 years and developed some sense of how difficult it is to come by a true franchise player, one with sober judgment to go along with a great skill set, I hope the relationship between Chicago and Rose isn't going to be irreversibly damaged. Fortunately, Rose's teammates seem to have maintained some common sense about this. They know they're not playing with Rubio or Shumpert.

If Rose goes to Thibs before Thursday's game against the Nets and says, "Put me in Coach, I'm ready to play" then fine, even though incorporating a player as dominant as he is would be an enormous and likely unsuccessful strategic challenge in the middle of a playoff series. Teams need three or four games to do that (ask the Lakers about Pau Gasol) and you don't have that luxury in the postseason. But if Rose wants to yell his encouragement from the bench in a stylish suit, so be it. It means he'll at least, come November, have a better chance than people who suffered similar injuries in previous years and never really got their groove back.

[Rmpr 8,977]

@The Skipper, not reading that right now!

EDIT: I promise to do it tomorrow morning and answer you with a few of my thoughts...

[Amblève. 4,995]

Fuck Karl, fuck Masai, fuck everyone who thought a team without shooters and a post-presence could win a series!

[Amblève. 4,995]

YES SIR!

"I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay," says Jason Collins.

No one wants to live in fear. I've always been scared of saying the wrong thing. I don't sleep well. I never have. But each time I tell another person, I feel stronger and sleep a little more soundly. It takes an enormous amount of energy to guard such a big secret. I've endured years of misery and gone to enormous lengths to live a lie. I was certain that my world would fall apart if anyone knew. And yet when I acknowledged my sexuality I felt whole for the first time. I still had the same sense of humor, I still had the same mannerisms and my friends still had my back.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/magazine/news/20130429/jason-collins-gay-nba-player/

[The Skipper 20,593]

YES SIR!

"I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay," says Jason Collins.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/magazine/news/20130429/jason-collins-gay-nba-player/

LOL I KNEW IT!

[Amblève. 4,995]

LOL I KNEW IT!

That he'd come out?

[The Skipper 20,593]

That he'd come out?

Not that he'd come out but that he was gay, me and my friends always used to joke about it when watching him play!

[Rmpr 8,977]

@The Skipper, I highly disagree with it, but whatever...

D Rose should be playing right now and he wouldnt be rushing with it in the slightest. It is all in his head and that is unfair with his teammates, his coach, his club and his fans. Bulls have the best chance in more than a decade to win something and he is throwing it all away just because he is afraid.

I know the injury he has had is a very big one, knee injury is serious as hell. However, he is this team's leader and he is acting exactly like the opposite. Noah is being way more of a leader, playing through some pain (which is not the case with Rose) and lifting the team up and he is not the one in 16mi/season!

[Amblève. 4,995]

Not that he'd come out but that he was gay, me and my friends always used to joke about it when watching him play!

Not sure what you are on about...?

[Rmpr 8,977]

Not sure what you are on about...?

I dont want to be rude, but what you dont understand?

He is just saying him and his friends knew he was gay from the start. They probably felt it on the way he played, walked, talked, etc...

P.S: Sorry, I dont want to be rude, but I couldnt find any other way to be clear!

[Kieran. 6,317]

YES SIR!

"I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay," says Jason Collins.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/magazine/news/20130429/jason-collins-gay-nba-player/

LAD. Can't imagine the guts the man has.

[Amblève. 4,995]

I dont want to be rude, but what you dont understand?

He is just saying him and his friends knew he was gay from the start. They probably felt it on the way he played, walked, talked, etc...

P.S: Sorry, I dont want to be rude, but I couldnt find any other way to be clear!

It's crystal clear to me what he's saying. But it's also clear to me that it wasn't the right thing to say. How do you actually see if a basketball player is gay or hetero? The way Skippo said it was kinda inappropriate IMO, so I wanted to know what his reasons for suggesting that Collins is gay are.

Anyway, maybe I'm blowing some shit up by saying his words were not well chosen (at least in German it doesn't sound politically correct).

[The Skipper 20,593]

Not sure what you are on about...?

Just the way he walked, talked in interviews etc. I've got nothing against it but basically what I'm trying to say is that I'm not that surprised that he is gay because of his mannerisms.

[Rambo 1,729]

@The Skipper, I highly disagree with it, but whatever...

D Rose should be playing right now and he wouldnt be rushing with it in the slightest. It is all in his head and that is unfair with his teammates, his coach, his club and his fans. Bulls have the best chance in more than a decade to win something and he is throwing it all away just because he is afraid.

I know the injury he has had is a very big one, knee injury is serious as hell. However, he is this team's leader and he is acting exactly like the opposite. Noah is being way more of a leader, playing through some pain (which is not the case with Rose) and lifting the team up and he is not the one in 16mi/season!

IMO it's unfair to make those type of comments regarding his health. He is by far one of the toughest and hardest working players in the league and you can tell by his body language and expressions on the bench that he's clearly not satisfied with his role as a spectator. For a point guard of his caliber I think it's better for the bulls in the long run for Rose to return 100% fit and healthy to avoid any setbacks that can potentially damage his career. I think it's a safe bet to announce the Heat as this years champions unless the Spurs/Thunder can do something about it. The Bulls have a great young team and will be competing for rings in the next 2-3 years if Rose can stay healthy.

[Rmpr 8,977]

IMO it's unfair to make those type of comments regarding his health. He is by far one of the toughest and hardest working players in the league and you can tell by his body language and expressions on the bench that he's clearly not satisfied with his role as a spectator. For a point guard of his caliber I think it's better for the bulls in the long run for Rose to return 100% fit and healthy to avoid any setbacks that can potentially damage his career.

That is where you two are getting it wrong. He has been training full time for more than 2 months, MORE THAN 2 MONTHS!

He is more than ready, way past the point. It is just a total lack of confidence from a total individual decision....

I think it's a safe bet to announce the Heat as this years champions unless the Spurs/Thunder can do something about it. The Bulls have a great young team and will be competing for rings in the next 2-3 years if Rose can stay healthy.

One more reason for why Rose is missing one huge opportunity. Next 2-3 years, others teams will be contenders just like the Chicago Bulls, while this year would be basically only beating the Heat.

[Rambo 1,729]

That is where you two are getting it wrong. He has been training full time for more than 2 months, MORE THAN 2 MONTHS!

He is more than ready, way past the point. It is just a total lack of confidence from a total individual decision....

One more reason for why Rose is missing one huge opportunity. Next 2-3 years, others teams will be contenders just like the Chicago Bulls, while this year would be basically only beating the Heat.

It takes time for someone who's missed a years worth of action to get back to game shape, especially in a playoff atmosphere where the tempo is much tougher to adjust to. Who are we to say whether he's ready or not? It's still possible he can return later on if they do face the Heat.

[Rmpr 8,977]

It takes time for someone who's missed a years worth of action to get back to game shape, especially in a playoff atmosphere where the tempo is much tougher to adjust to. Who are we to say whether he's ready or not? It's still possible he can return later on if they do face the Heat.

He is ready, he just doesnt want to play this season. Stephen A. Smith made some very, very good points about why he is wrong in not comming back (if you could listen to First Take podcast), like me, he firmly believes he is way past the point to return and he is being selfish about it.

Also, D Rose cant came back in a series against the Miami Heat. He will embarrass himself without playing time and it will all be seen a act of desperation by both the Bulls and Tom Thibodeau.

Anyways, I dont want to make the playoffs a Derick Rose discussion. It is just very frustrating as a Bulls fan!

[Amblève. 4,995]

He is ready, he just doesnt want to play this season. Stephen A. Smith made some very, very good points about why he is wrong in not comming back (if you could listen to First Take podcast), like me, he firmly believes he is way past the point to return and he is being selfish about it.

Also, D Rose cant came back in a series against the Miami Heat. He will embarrass himself without playing time and it will all be seen a act of desperation by both the Bulls and Tom Thibodeau.

Anyways, I dont want to make the playoffs a Derick Rose discussion. It is just very frustrating as a Bulls fan!

IMO he has every right to be selfish, if that's how you wanna call it. If he's not feeling ready and isn't trusting his body 100% sitting out is the only valid option. Anybody who has watched Rose the last few years knows how competitive he is. It's killing him to watch his team play.