Coby to miss, at least, the first 6 games.

[sco]

They always down play injuries.

I think some concerns are:
- No one talked about the injury until media day, could have easily updated people earlier
- On media day no one said when the injury occurred, it's believed to be early August, no reason to not be transparent about that timeline
- Given the timeline, it was obvious the season opener was at risk given the injury was 6+ weeks old and he still wasn't at full speed, no reason to say we expect him to be ready for the opener based on where he was at combined with the variance on this type of injury

What the Bulls could have done is give a statement like this on media day: "Coby White is dealing with a calf injury he suffered on <insert date>. This is a soft tissue injury with an undefined timeline. We hope to be have him back by opening day, but the timeline for this type of injury is unknown. We will have to see how he progresses and will give updates as he ramps up.".

Then throughout preseason, you could note that Coby has still not been able to practice at full speed. The fact that he didn't even try to go full speed until Saturday when he reaggravated this should have already been a red flag that there is a good chance he won't be ready, and it would have been easy to message that he hasn't been at full speed yet and there is still some risk here earlier based on that.

Even their current "We'll re-evaluate in two weeks" has left a lot of room open for debate and wasn't really spoken of with enough variance. Not to pick on anyone, but I read DuckIII (a really intelligent dude) take the statement to mean Coby should miss six games, when I think the reality is that Coby has been dealing with this injury for eight weeks now and can't go full speed, and we're just going to rest him for two more weeks and see what happens, but we don't really know or have any feeling about it and also (assumption on my part) is that there will be a minimum ramp up period even after the two week re-assessment. Assuming that second part is true, then the statement: "We will re-evaluate Coby in two weeks, but there will be a minimum conditioning period after the re-evaluation and he will miss at least three weeks" would almost certainly be a more accurate statement.

In the end, the lack of transparency on the real risks here, especially when the risks are highly likely, is what gets the Bulls in trouble again and again.

I think many here are suffering from Ball and Rose PTSD. Nobody knows. They made an assessment, they started ramping him up, they got continual feedback as to whether he was aggravating it again, and when he did, they effectively reset his activity back. Guys get injured all the time with stuff like this. Based (only) on Billy's comments. Doesn't sound like the Bulls did anything wrong this time.

I still think this injury stemmed from, what I perceived as a "bulked up" Coby. If there is a systemic problem, after seeing the body progressions of Lauri, Pat, Ayo and Coby, it's that the Bulls are bulking guys up and it has carry-over injury impacts.
Re: the "reevaluated" point, isn't that pretty much universally used now by teams to mean "this player will be back no sooner than," but not predicting that the player will likely be good-to-go upon that reevaluation? It's sort of a best-case scenario rather than a projection/prediction, IMO.

On the timing/transparency issue, I'm not really sure what to say. I think the Bulls legitimately thought that Coby was more likely than not to be ready for the opener. Then, he aggravates the injury in practice and that becomes impossible. I don't really take particular issue with how the Bulls handled things, though obviously their track record in this department means people will be understandably annoyed when this stuff happens.

[DuckIII]

Re: the "reevaluated" point, isn't that pretty much universally used now by teams to mean "this player will be back no sooner than," but not predicting that the player will likely be good-to-go upon that reevaluation? It's sort of a best-case scenario rather than a projection/prediction, IMO.

On the timing/transparency issue, I'm not really sure what to say. I think the Bulls legitimately thought that Coby was more likely than not to be ready for the opener. Then, he aggravates the injury in practice and that becomes impossible. I don't really take particular issue with how the Bulls handled things, though obviously their track record in this department means people will be understandably annoyed when this stuff happens.

When I hear re-evaluated I treat it as the projected return date, subject to extension due to . . . re-evaluating the player's status and making a call in real time. Which is what they do regardless of the language they use in a press release. I believe its just a non-committal PR hedge. But that's just a gut thing that I do not intend to research (though it could be done). Your view could be spot on.

To me it wouldn't be wise to use "re-evaluation" as the best case scenario because you undo the PR benefit of using non-committal language in the first place.

[dougthonus]

Re: the "reevaluated" point, isn't that pretty much universally used now by teams to mean "this player will be back no sooner than," but not predicting that the player will likely be good-to-go upon that reevaluation? It's sort of a best-case scenario rather than a projection/prediction, IMO.

Yeah, I don't think it's terrible, but it's easy to make better.

On the timing/transparency issue, I'm not really sure what to say. I think the Bulls legitimately thought that Coby was more likely than not to be ready for the opener. Then, he aggravates the injury in practice and that becomes impossible. I don't really take particular issue with how the Bulls handled things, though obviously their track record in this department means people will be understandably annoyed when this stuff happens.

Based on what though? He wasn't going full speed in practice, they were sending this to the media like "he could play if he had to, but we are being extra cautious" when that was definitely not true. He hadn't attempted to ramp up yet, and the moment he did, he had a set back, which they also wouldn't define as a set back (literally said he did not suffer a set back) but also decided he should fully rest for two weeks and then be re-evaluated.

[Indomitable]

I think some concerns are:
- No one talked about the injury until media day, could have easily updated people earlier
- On media day no one said when the injury occurred, it's believed to be early August, no reason to not be transparent about that timeline
- Given the timeline, it was obvious the season opener was at risk given the injury was 6+ weeks old and he still wasn't at full speed, no reason to say we expect him to be ready for the opener based on where he was at combined with the variance on this type of injury

What the Bulls could have done is give a statement like this on media day: "Coby White is dealing with a calf injury he suffered on <insert date>. This is a soft tissue injury with an undefined timeline. We hope to be have him back by opening day, but the timeline for this type of injury is unknown. We will have to see how he progresses and will give updates as he ramps up.".

Then throughout preseason, you could note that Coby has still not been able to practice at full speed. The fact that he didn't even try to go full speed until Saturday when he reaggravated this should have already been a red flag that there is a good chance he won't be ready, and it would have been easy to message that he hasn't been at full speed yet and there is still some risk here earlier based on that.

Even their current "We'll re-evaluate in two weeks" has left a lot of room open for debate and wasn't really spoken of with enough variance. Not to pick on anyone, but I read DuckIII (a really intelligent dude) take the statement to mean Coby should miss six games, when I think the reality is that Coby has been dealing with this injury for eight weeks now and can't go full speed, and we're just going to rest him for two more weeks and see what happens, but we don't really know or have any feeling about it and also (assumption on my part) is that there will be a minimum ramp up period even after the two week re-assessment. Assuming that second part is true, then the statement: "We will re-evaluate Coby in two weeks, but there will be a minimum conditioning period after the re-evaluation and he will miss at least three weeks" would almost certainly be a more accurate statement.

In the end, the lack of transparency on the real risks here, especially when the risks are highly likely, is what gets the Bulls in trouble again and again.

I think many here are suffering from Ball and Rose PTSD. Nobody knows. They made an assessment, they started ramping him up, they got continual feedback as to whether he was aggravating it again, and when he did, they effectively reset his activity back. Guys get injured all the time with stuff like this. Based (only) on Billy's comments. Doesn't sound like the Bulls did anything wrong this time.

I still think this injury stemmed from, what I perceived as a "bulked up" Coby. If there is a systemic problem, after seeing the body progressions of Lauri, Pat, Ayo and Coby, it's that the Bulls are bulking guys up and it has carry-over injury impacts.
Re: the "reevaluated" point, isn't that pretty much universally used now by teams to mean "this player will be back no sooner than," but not predicting that the player will likely be good-to-go upon that reevaluation? It's sort of a best-case scenario rather than a projection/prediction, IMO.

On the timing/transparency issue, I'm not really sure what to say. I think the Bulls legitimately thought that Coby was more likely than not to be ready for the opener. Then, he aggravates the injury in practice and that becomes impossible. I don't really take particular issue with how the Bulls handled things, though obviously their track record in this department means people will be understandably annoyed when this stuff happens.

[/quote]
Luol Deng
Noah
Lavine
All of these were not serious. Luol almost died. Noah minor knee issue that destroyed him. Lavine has a broken foot but it not a big deal.

They are misleading and this has lead to the mistrust. They come across as politicians and are slimy.

The organization has created this through constant mismanagement. Who would believe them without question? Only a fool.

[DuckIII]

I'm trying to think about any health related thing that the Bulls management actually had a hand in, medically, that bothered me because it truly mattered. Luol Deng obviously and is a cautionary tale to all professional sports teams. Its one of the sleaziest things I'm aware of that the Bulls have ever done regarding one of their own players.

That's pretty much the list.

Are you guys upset because you want more details about the actual medical conditions involved? I don't really even consider that my business and assume that once a guy is medically cleared by competent professionals, he will return. I'm the same way with my Rams. The only time I really need to know details about injuries is if we are talking about trading or extending a guy. Otherwise, how does me knowing more details change anything at all or even matter?

[dougthonus]

I think many here are suffering from Ball and Rose PTSD. Nobody knows. They made an assessment, they started ramping him up, they got continual feedback as to whether he was aggravating it again, and when he did, they effectively reset his activity back. Guys get injured all the time with stuff like this. Based (only) on Billy's comments. Doesn't sound like the Bulls did anything wrong this time.

If you go in the way back machine, you got the time they gave Deng a spinal tap he didn't need which caused him a severe reaction or the time they encouraged him to ramp up his activity before realizing his leg was fractured.

[League Circles]

I'm trying to think about any health related thing that the Bulls management actually had a hand in, medically, that bothered me because it truly mattered. Luol Deng obviously and is a cautionary tale to all professional sports teams. Its one of the sleaziest things I'm aware of that the Bulls have ever done regarding one of their own players.

That's pretty much the list.

Are you guys upset because you want more details about the actual medical conditions involved? I don't really even consider that my business and assume that once a guy is medically cleared by competent professionals, he will return. I'm the same way with my Rams. The only time I really need to know details about injuries is if we are talking about trading or extending a guy. Otherwise, how does me knowing more details change anything at all or even matter?

Mind boggling that this narrative still exists. The Bulls had a key player complaining of pain that their due diligence absolutely could not provide any reason or explanation for. What were they supposed to do? They encouraged a player that wanted to sit for no identifiable reason to test his pain by trying to play.

Medicine is far from an exact science.

[DuckIII]

I think many here are suffering from Ball and Rose PTSD. Nobody knows. They made an assessment, they started ramping him up, they got continual feedback as to whether he was aggravating it again, and when he did, they effectively reset his activity back. Guys get injured all the time with stuff like this. Based (only) on Billy's comments. Doesn't sound like the Bulls did anything wrong this time.

If you go in the way back machine, you got the time they gave Deng a spinal tap he didn't need which caused him a severe reaction or the time they encouraged him to ramp up his activity before realizing his leg was fractured.

Forgot about that spinal tap. That's two.

[DuckIII]

I'm trying to think about any health related thing that the Bulls management actually had a hand in, medically, that bothered me because it truly mattered. Luol Deng obviously and is a cautionary tale to all professional sports teams. Its one of the sleaziest things I'm aware of that the Bulls have ever done regarding one of their own players.

That's pretty much the list.

Are you guys upset because you want more details about the actual medical conditions involved? I don't really even consider that my business and assume that once a guy is medically cleared by competent professionals, he will return. I'm the same way with my Rams. The only time I really need to know details about injuries is if we are talking about trading or extending a guy. Otherwise, how does me knowing more details change anything at all or even matter?

Mind boggling that this narrative still exists. The Bulls had a key player complaining of pain that their due diligence absolutely could not provide any reason or explanation for. What were they supposed to do? They encouraged a player that wanted to sit for no identifiable reason to test his pain by trying to play.

Medicine is far from an exact science.

You aren't remembering the story completely. Deng got permission to seek a second opinion which immediately confirmed the existence of a fracture. And regardless, the issue there was that the team was using press releases to publicly shame one of their star players to return to the court, effectively branding him a liar or a pussy in the minds of fans.

Despite that his leg was, in fact, broken. Differing medical opinions are one thing. Certainly they happen. This went well beyond that. There was no reason for them to say anything publicly at all about a player who had so obviously lived up to all expectations you would have of a professional athlete to be responsible and hard working.

EDIT - here is the statement, bearing in mind that at the time they released the statement Deng had only missed two games, been injured for 5 days, and had already gotten a second opinion and MRI that showed a stress fracture:

“He will be encouraged to challenge himself physically, and if symptoms remain minimal, he will be allowed an expeditious return to play,” the statement said. “These decisions will be made on a day-to-day basis.”

1. "He will be encouraged to challenge himself physically . . . " He's malingering and we're going to have to coax him to play.
2. "and if symptoms remain minimal . . . " Remain. He already has virtually no symptoms (except for his own statements that its more painful than we are willing to believe).
3. "expeditious return to play . . " He's not just ready already. He's super-duper ready already so once he stops being a lying pussy we'll rush him back onto the court.

That press release is some vile ****. There are a thousand different ways to phrase it, if you even feel its necessary to say anything at all - which it wasn't after a mere 5 days and 2 games. I've never seen anything like it in my life. And when you couple it with the type of person, player and employee Deng had already established himself to be, its even more childish. Not to mention, in fact, medically dangerous. Deng missed the rest of the season despite this stupid ass statement.

[jnrjr79]

Re: the "reevaluated" point, isn't that pretty much universally used now by teams to mean "this player will be back no sooner than," but not predicting that the player will likely be good-to-go upon that reevaluation? It's sort of a best-case scenario rather than a projection/prediction, IMO.

Yeah, I don't think it's terrible, but it's easy to make better.

On the timing/transparency issue, I'm not really sure what to say. I think the Bulls legitimately thought that Coby was more likely than not to be ready for the opener. Then, he aggravates the injury in practice and that becomes impossible. I don't really take particular issue with how the Bulls handled things, though obviously their track record in this department means people will be understandably annoyed when this stuff happens.

Based on what though? He wasn't going full speed in practice, they were sending this to the media like "he could play if he had to, but we are being extra cautious" when that was definitely not true. He hadn't attempted to ramp up yet, and the moment he did, he had a set back, which they also wouldn't define as a set back (literally said he did not suffer a set back) but also decided he should fully rest for two weeks and then be re-evaluated.

Re: based on what - mostly just thinking that a team would have no real reason to frame it this way if they didn't think it to be true, because you're just setting yourself up for backlash. But it's the Bulls, so...let's just say PR strategy is not their strong suit.

[dougthonus]

Re: based on what - mostly just thinking that a team would have no real reason to frame it this way if they didn't think it to be true, because you're just setting yourself up for backlash. But it's the Bulls, so...let's just say PR strategy is not their strong suit.

FWIW, I agree they thought it was true.

I'm saying the idiocy is they thought it was true despite ample reason to think otherwise.
- his type of injury has an undefined timeline
- his recovery time to date was ~6-8 weeks, and they made these statements within a week of season start
- he had not yet demonstrated the ability to play
- he had not yet pushed himself to 100% to test himself out

Based on that, by what reasonable basis would you think he will be ready? It is, best case, a completely unknown, but the likely scenario here is that he would not be ready based on the fact that he has done zero of the steps to show readiness after 6-8 weeks of not being ready.

[jnrjr79]

Re: based on what - mostly just thinking that a team would have no real reason to frame it this way if they didn't think it to be true, because you're just setting yourself up for backlash. But it's the Bulls, so...let's just say PR strategy is not their strong suit.

FWIW, I agree they thought it was true.

I'm saying the idiocy is they thought it was true despite ample reason to think otherwise.
- his type of injury has an undefined timeline
- his recovery time to date was ~6-8 weeks, and they made these statements within a week of season start
- he had not yet demonstrated the ability to play
- he had not yet pushed himself to 100% to test himself out

Based on that, by what reasonable basis would you think he will be ready? It is, best case, a completely unknown, but the likely scenario here is that he would not be ready based on the fact that he has done zero of the steps to show readiness after 6-8 weeks of not being ready.

Got it. In this case, I totally agree. I think the general theme with the Bulls historically has been mis-assessment of injuries moreso than out-and-out lying about them, through they're not exactly savvy at the communication part on its own terms, either.

The one thing I'd add to your list that might have militated in favor of being more conservative on the timeline is this is a contract year, and with a calf, everyone knows if you rush it you can really make things worse, so they probably should have expected Coby himself would not be pushing to come back before he was 100%

I don't follow any other NBA teams closely enough to know whether this "we thought it was minor, but turns out it's not" thing happens as frequently other places as it does here, but I'd be a bit surprised.

[HomoSapien]

My money is on failing to accurately diagnose/predict than on lying, but in any event, yes, they have a track record for under-reporting the severity of player injuries.

As to this specific injury, given how sometimes "calf strain" means "Achilles issue" and seeing what happens when guys try to play through that, I wonder to what extent Coby might just be wanting to be super cautious in a contract year. If he goes out and snaps an Achilles, the impact on him financially would be massive.

They always down play injuries.

I think some concerns are:
- No one talked about the injury until media day, could have easily updated people earlier
- On media day no one said when the injury occurred, it's believed to be early August, no reason to not be transparent about that timeline
- Given the timeline, it was obvious the season opener was at risk given the injury was 6+ weeks old and he still wasn't at full speed, no reason to say we expect him to be ready for the opener based on where he was at combined with the variance on this type of injury

What the Bulls could have done is give a statement like this on media day: "Coby White is dealing with a calf injury he suffered on <insert date>. This is a soft tissue injury with an undefined timeline. We hope to be have him back by opening day, but the timeline for this type of injury is unknown. We will have to see how he progresses and will give updates as he ramps up.".

Then throughout preseason, you could note that Coby has still not been able to practice at full speed. The fact that he didn't even try to go full speed until Saturday when he reaggravated this should have already been a red flag that there is a good chance he won't be ready, and it would have been easy to message that he hasn't been at full speed yet and there is still some risk here earlier based on that.

Even their current "We'll re-evaluate in two weeks" has left a lot of room open for debate and wasn't really spoken of with enough variance. Not to pick on anyone, but I read DuckIII (a really intelligent dude) take the statement to mean Coby should miss six games, when I think the reality is that Coby has been dealing with this injury for eight weeks now and can't go full speed, and we're just going to rest him for two more weeks and see what happens, but we don't really know or have any feeling about it and also (assumption on my part) is that there will be a minimum ramp up period even after the two week re-assessment. Assuming that second part is true, then the statement: "We will re-evaluate Coby in two weeks, but there will be a minimum conditioning period after the re-evaluation and he will miss at least three weeks" would almost certainly be a more accurate statement.

In the end, the lack of transparency on the real risks here, especially when the risks are highly likely, is what gets the Bulls in trouble again and again.

Yeah, that lays things out well. The Bulls always seem to list on their injury notifications that X player will be evaluated in x number of weeks. People always seem to take that as, that player will return on that date but it always just seems to be when they're re-evaluating the injury. My read of this is that he's missing more than 6 games.

[sco]

I think many here are suffering from Ball and Rose PTSD. Nobody knows. They made an assessment, they started ramping him up, they got continual feedback as to whether he was aggravating it again, and when he did, they effectively reset his activity back. Guys get injured all the time with stuff like this. Based (only) on Billy's comments. Doesn't sound like the Bulls did anything wrong this time.

If you go in the way back machine, you got the time they gave Deng a spinal tap he didn't need which caused him a severe reaction or the time they encouraged him to ramp up his activity before realizing his leg was fractured.

Thanks for that ray of sunshine Doug!

[dougthonus]

Got it. In this case, I totally agree. I think the general theme with the Bulls historically has been mis-assessment of injuries moreso than out-and-out lying about them, through they're not exactly savvy at the communication part on its own terms, either.

Yeah, I also don't think they lie about them FWIW. I think they're just horrifically bad at messaging.

[Indomitable]

Got it. In this case, I totally agree. I think the general theme with the Bulls historically has been mis-assessment of injuries moreso than out-and-out lying about them, through they're not exactly savvy at the communication part on its own terms, either.

Yeah, I also don't think they lie about them FWIW. I think they're just horrifically bad at messaging.

I think it is lot of CYA