Tribune: Thibodeau stresses players should play if .....

[babblin-on]

I just wanted to repost this because it is being disregarded in the last couple of pages of posts. Rose had what appears to be the SAME injury last year. He sat one game, played the next and never had a recurrence. I think this is a huge part of why everyone (player, coach, doctors) all decided that he would be able to play. This is not rocket science. There is medical history that has proven successful in this particular ailment with this particular patient. Seems reasonable to follow the same protocol. And you know what, they also closely monitored the situation and pulled him/limited his minutes as they saw his actual condition. I don't think there is anything to talk about here other than seeing in hindsight that they probably could have won without him even suiting up. We did not know that would be the case and if you are trying to get a #1 seed, you can't take that risk - I don't care who the opponent is!

Actually, no it is not the same, because the one game he sat last year was because of the stiff neck. So he didn't have to sit last year because of the back spasms. This year it flared up against Milwaukee, then even after treatment he was unable to finish the next game, and then it was bothering him again in New Orleans. And it is still tight today: http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/ba ... 9863.story

So yeah, again, not the same because if it was, we'd have heard of it Saturday and never again.

I'm really not understanding the opposition to the idea of resting a player who has an injury that is treated in part by rest:

Treatment

As soon as possible after the injury, the patient may be treated with rest, ice and compression.

http://www.cedars-sinai.edu/Patients/He ... Spasm.aspx

Did you read the article? The one I posted? Thibs clearly said that rose had this same problem last year. Perhaps Rose did not actually miss a game. Or perhaps, the neck thing was mis-reported and was really this same back issue. Are you saying Thibs is lying?

It is possible that the neck problem that caused him to miss the game last year could've in fact been back spasms. Fairly unlikely that all sources involved would've incorrectly called lower back spasms(which he's having now) neck spasms, but you know, whatever.

I'm not saying Thibs is lying in saying that Rose had back spasms last year, I am saying he, and you, are obviously incorrect in saying it was the same, as unless Thibs is lying that issue really only lasted a day. We're approaching a week in this case. It seems clear that even though in both cases the injury can be called back spasms, this year it certainly seems more severe.

Regardless, just because you posted a link to a medical website you think that is a credible source?

so you are saying Cedar-Sinai is not credible?

Or, that it is more credible than the doctors that actually examined him?

Maybe, maybe not. I've been somewhat skeptical of the Bulls' medical staff ever since they failed to diagnose Deng's broken leg.

Then the player himself? Then the coaches that work with him?

Yep. They are not medical doctors.

Come on now! Get over yourself. Sure, teams and doctors make mistakes. But, you really think that I should go by what you say? You aren’t even a doctor. And, even if you were, you haven’t examined the patient. You are diagnosing the amount of rest needed by reading a couple of blurbs in the press? Really?

I really don't care what you go off of, because unless you're THibs, DRose, or Fred Tedeschi, you have no bearing on what happens. I'm just here expressing my opinion based on a couple of blurbs, the same as YOU, I just have a different opinion.

And, if the premise is that he shouldn’t be playing because he is in pain, then you should really be saying that they should rest Rose until the playoffs because of his toe. Or maybe, until next year when the toe has fully healed. Right? He has a long career ahead of him, why risk a career ending injury this year? Right? You need to be consistent here. The doctors have cleared him regardless of the fact that his toe is not completely healed and they had cleared him regardless of some tightness in his back. Are they right on the toe and wrong on the back?

Where'd anyone say sit him til' playoffs? Is there no middle ground between having a guy play injured and seemingly unable to perform to the best of his abilities and sitting him until the playoffs?

[northbrookrich]

Well then maybe some of us in the Rest Rose camp are right, then? Because the back pain began in Milwaukee, knocked him out of the game in NJ, limited him in NO, and is still a problem 6 days later.

And it really doesn't take much retrospection to have come to this conclusion. We knew that his back was still stiff in warmups in NJ. We knew it was still stiff in warmups in NO. And now we know it's still stiff prior to this Charlotte game. It doesn't take an incredible leap of faith to conclude that rest might be the best option.

Again, his back was stiff against Milwaukee. Six days later and his back is still acting up. How is this not irrefutable evidence that Rose should have rested against NO?

his toe still hurts too. I guess that is irrefutable evidence they should shut him down for 6 months, right?

[GetBuLLish]

Well then maybe some of us in the Rest Rose camp are right, then? Because the back pain began in Milwaukee, knocked him out of the game in NJ, limited him in NO, and is still a problem 6 days later.

And it really doesn't take much retrospection to have come to this conclusion. We knew that his back was still stiff in warmups in NJ. We knew it was still stiff in warmups in NO. And now we know it's still stiff prior to this Charlotte game. It doesn't take an incredible leap of faith to conclude that rest might be the best option.

Again, his back was stiff against Milwaukee. Six days later and his back is still acting up. How is this not irrefutable evidence that Rose should have rested against NO?

his toe still hurts too. I guess that is irrefutable evidence they should shut him down for 6 minths, right?

Umm....what?

First and foremost, you do realize that Rose sat out five games because of the toe, right?

Second, you do realize that Rose admitted to playing too soon on his injured toe, right?

[northbrookrich]

Umm....what?

First and foremost, you do realize that Rose sat out five games because of the toe, right?

Second, you do realize that Rose admitted to playing too soon on his injured toe, right?

You do realize that he is not yet healthy, right? You do realize that he has been told it will take months of rest for his toe to heal, right? You are drawing very odd lines based on absolutely no information.

I am relying on a coach who won coach of the year, a team that has brought this city 6 championships, a player who won MVP and doctors who may not be perfect, but are better then merely linking to some random medical website. You really don't get it, do you? If you have something REALLY SERIOUSLY wrong with you, do you self diagnose on a website or do you see a doctor? I try to go to an expert in the field. The best X type of doctor when I have X type of injury or maladay. That is why I say just linking something is not credible. It is not credible when you take into consideration that you merely did a search of something that may or may not be exactly what is wrong with said patient.

This is not the difference between my opinion and your opinion. This is the difference between your unsustained opinion with very little evidence and an organization that has all the data and information making an informed decision. You keep pointing to the back still being stiff 6 days later. But, that is not what we are arguing about. We are arguing about whether they should have played him on Wednesday. The information they had to make the decision on Wednesday was that he has had back spasms in the past that have cleared up with a day’s rest. He said he felt fine, the doctors said he looked ok and the coach made an educated decision to play him. Now, that the stiffness has lingered for so long, there will be a completely different decision that will need to be made tonight and they very well could choose not to play him. And, I would support that decision as well. They have the data, we do not. And, even though they let him give it a shot on Wednesday, they saw he was hurting and they limited his minutes. I have no problem with that and no link to a medical site is going to change that for me.

[northbrookrich]

Where'd anyone say sit him til' playoffs? Is there no middle ground between having a guy play injured and seemingly unable to perform to the best of his abilities and sitting him until the playoffs?

Derrick Rose's toe is going to be hurt all season if he keeps playing on it and he may not be able to play up to the best of his abilities until it is fully healed. His doctors have cleared him to play through the pain. If he rested until the playoffs, perhaps he would be full strength in the playoffs. Similarly, his doctors have cleared him to play through his back pain. No one has said that him playing is going to cause the injury to linger this is merely assumptions of some journalists, bloggers and posters.

If the point is that they can rest him now because they are playing teams that are bad and they should beat them without Rose, I don't agree with that view. In many ways, a loss to a team like Charlotte is worse than a loss to Boston. The other teams competing for the #1 seed are much less likely to lose the gimmes to Charlotte. You have to win the gimmes and then win your share of the tough matchups.

If the Bulls sat Rose and he did not need to be sat and we found this out in a loss to Charlotte, this board would freak out. Some might even feel that this would be a firable offense. The post-game thread would be 50 pages long and everyone would be talking about trading the team away for Dwight Howard again. You can't have it both ways. If you say that you are willing to give up seeding in exchange for health and to avoid guys being worn down, I can respect that opinion (even if I don't agree with it). Just don't think you are guaranteed to get it both ways.

In some ways this reminds me of all the questioning of Jay Cutler's toughness in the NFC championship game last year. People making assumptions based on body language without real facts. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt - why aren't you?

[GetBuLLish]

1. I didn't link to any websites. That was someone else.

2. Do you not believe that it's better for someone with an ailing back to rest rather than play basketball?

This is not the difference between my opinion and your opinion. This is the difference between your unsustained opinion with very little evidence and an organization that has all the data and information making an informed decision. You keep pointing to the back still being stiff 6 days later. But, that is not what we are arguing about. We are arguing about whether they should have played him on Wednesday. The information they had to make the decision on Wednesday was that he has had back spasms in the past that have cleared up with a day’s rest. He said he felt fine, the doctors said he looked ok and the coach made an educated decision to play him. Now, that the stiffness has lingered for so long, there will be a completely different decision that will need to be made tonight and they very well could choose not to play him. And, I would support that decision as well. They have the data, we do not. And, even though they let him give it a shot on Wednesday, they saw he was hurting and they limited his minutes. I have no problem with that and no link to a medical site is going to change that for me.

Per the underlined, Rose didn't exactly say he was fine. He admitted that his back was still feeling stiff but getting better. Then he played against NJ. We all know what happened there. Then he admitted that his back was still feeling stiff but getting better. Then he played against NO. Now he's saying his back is still feeling stiff but getting better. We'll see if he plays tonight (probably will).

[coldfish]

nycrich is on fire. I'm just going to follow Duck's advice and post +nycrich in every thread he enters. I do want to add this:

If the point is that they can rest him now because they are playing teams that are bad and they should beat them without Rose, I don't agree with that view. In many ways, a loss to a team like Charlotte is worse than a loss to Boston. The other teams competing for the #1 seed are much less likely to lose the gimmes to Charlotte. You have to win the gimmes and then win your share of the tough matchups.

You can't give away these games. The Bulls are currently only a few losses out of the 3 or 4 seed. Getting the 3 or 4 seed is a killer for winning a title.

[GetBuLLish]

In some ways this reminds me of all the questioning of Jay Cutler's toughness in the NFC championship game last year. People making assumptions based on body language without real facts. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt - why aren't you?

This is basically the exact opposite of the Jay Cutler situation.

Here, we are advocating that Rose should rest. With Cutler, a bunch of idiots advocated that he should have played and that he wasn't "tough" for not doing so.

Again, the situations couldn't be any more different.

[GetBuLLish]

You can't give away these games. The Bulls are currently only a few losses out of the 3 or 4 seed. Getting the 3 or 4 seed is a killer for winning a title.

Sitting out a hobbled Rose does not equal giving away games.

Can you tell me how much Rose contributed to our win in NJ w/ his 10 minutes of play? Can you tell me how much Rose contributed to our win in NO with his 6 points and 6 assists?

Can you seriously tell me that we would have seriously risked losing those games had Rose not played in those limited minutes?

You guys are hopping around to extremes to try to prove your point.

"Why not just sit him until the playoffs?!"

"We can't give away games!"

[BIGGIEsmalls 23]

Look fellas. There have been some DAMN good & well-thought out posts in this thread. I only want to add a point that I've attempted to make for a month regarding "overuse" of minutes & "incompetence" of Thibs regarding injured players.

The two main players that this Bulls board seems to concentrate on are D-Rose & Deng. People, there is NO way in hell that John Paxson (loves him some D-Rose) or Jerry Reinsdorf (loves him some Luol Deng) would EVER allow Thibs to over-extend nor make an injury worse when it comes to those two players. If Pax beat the sh*t out of VDN for harming Noah, what do you guys think the outcome would be for Thibs if he harmed "The Franchise" D-Rose?........If JR gave the green light to fire a coach that was still owed money because he harmed Noah, what do you guys think the outcome would be for Thibs if he harmed "JR's favorite" Luol Deng?

Basically, I understand the nervousness that some posters may feel, especially considering the history of injuries involving Chicago professional sports franchises. Also, some may feel that the magic surrounding our Bulls team is simply "too good to be true" & something bad is bound to happen. The truth of the situation is that NONE of us know what's going on behind closed doors at the Bulls headquarters. We're all giving an OPINION. The reason that I'm comfortable about my OPINION is that JR & Pax finally have the closest thing to a Dynasty since the MJ era, thus I don't see them ruining a good thing by allowing a "mad scientist" to destroy their two foundational players.

[BeKuK]

Can you tell me how much Rose contributed to our win in NJ w/ his 10 minutes of play? Can you tell me how much Rose contributed to our win in NO with his 6 points and 6 assists?

Can you seriously tell me that we would have seriously risked losing those games had Rose not played in those limited minutes?

You guys are hopping around to extremes to try to prove your point.

"Why not just sit him until the playoffs?!"

"We can't give away games!"

[northbrookrich]

1. I didn't link to any websites. That was someone else.

my mistake

2. Do you not believe that it's better for someone with an ailing back to rest rather than play basketball?

I'm not a doctor, but it would seem that if you sleep 20 hours a day and never move further than your bathroom you certainly are less likely to get hurt than if you get up out of bed. I have had a sore back before and have found that getting some exercise and physical exertion to loosen it up actually helps the healing process. So, I guess I would trust my doctors on that one. Question for you - do you listen to your doctors or do you just make your own decisions based on whatever unrelated degree you have or are earning?

This is not the difference between my opinion and your opinion. This is the difference between your unsustained opinion with very little evidence and an organization that has all the data and information making an informed decision. You keep pointing to the back still being stiff 6 days later. But, that is not what we are arguing about. We are arguing about whether they should have played him on Wednesday. The information they had to make the decision on Wednesday was that he has had back spasms in the past that have cleared up with a day’s rest. He said he felt fine, the doctors said he looked ok and the coach made an educated decision to play him. Now, that the stiffness has lingered for so long, there will be a completely different decision that will need to be made tonight and they very well could choose not to play him. And, I would support that decision as well. They have the data, we do not. And, even though they let him give it a shot on Wednesday, they saw he was hurting and they limited his minutes. I have no problem with that and no link to a medical site is going to change that for me.

Per the underlined, Rose didn't exactly say he was fine. He admitted that his back was still feeling stiff but getting better. Then he played against NJ. We all know what happened there. Then he admitted that his back was still feeling stiff but getting better. Then he played against NO. Now he's saying his back is still feeling stiff but getting better. We'll see if he plays tonight (probably will).

"[My] back is feeling better," Rose said following Wednesday's shootaround. "I should be ready to go tonight; game-time decision. I'm going to see how it is when I go out there and I should be all right."

seems pretty clear to me - http://espn.go.com/chicago/nba/story/_/ ... ns-hornets

[northbrookrich]

Lots of good stuff here everyone. By the way, for those thinking that playing against bad teams guarantees a win even if Rose does not play, please explain how the 72-10 Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan lost to the 21-61 Toronto Raptors? For those wondering, no this was not a Raptors team with Vince Carter OR Tracy McGrady. Wins are NOT guaranteed if you don't bring your A game. AND 1 game certainly looks like it could be the difference between a 1 seed and something lower.

I'm sorry to repost what I already did, but how anyone could think that the mindset GOING INTO a game is not that it could be lost regardless of opponent baffles me. Sure, hindsight is really helpful. But, reality is that the Bulls could lose. I don't want to come back here tonight and say I told you so if the Bulls lose and Rose sits. But, IT COULD HAPPEN. It would really, really suck, but it could. You have to make sure you win these games and playing Rose gives you the best chance. Of course, if the doctors are concerned that he could hurt himself worse or that it will increase his healing time, I am willing to go with them on that decision as well. Play guys if they are healthy, sit them if they are not. Don't make the decision based on the opponent. That's all I ask.

[northbrookrich]

In some ways this reminds me of all the questioning of Jay Cutler's toughness in the NFC championship game last year. People making assumptions based on body language without real facts. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt - why aren't you?

This is basically the exact opposite of the Jay Cutler situation.

Here, we are advocating that Rose should rest. With Cutler, a bunch of idiots advocated that he should have played and that he wasn't "tough" for not doing so.

Again, the situations couldn't be any more different.

This is where your analytical skills are failing you. It's like an SAT test question. What is similar about the two situations? In both cases, people (Jones-Drew I'm talkng to you buddy) made unwarranted decisions based on what they thought they knew without the full information about what was really going on. The doctors knew, the patient knew, the team knew - the fans and the media and Jones -frickin'- Drew DID NOT KNOW.

[GetBuLLish]

2. Do you not believe that it's better for someone with an ailing back to rest rather than play basketball?

I'm not a doctor, but it would seem that if you sleep 20 hours a day and never move further than your bathroom you certainly are less likely to get hurt than if you get up out of bed. I have had a sore back before and have found that getting some exercise and physical exertion to loosen it up actually helps the healing process. So, I guess I would trust my doctors on that one. Question for you - do you listen to your doctors or do you just make your own decisions based on whatever unrelated degree you have or are earning?

1. I'm working on my law degree. I plan on using it to self-diagnose any health problem I ever come across.

2. If rest isn't the best thing, why was Rose's minutes limited against NO? If he's cleared to play and wants to play, what's the point of limiting his minutes? You either play or you don't, right? And if playing basketball won't exacerbate the problem at all, why play him the least out of all the starters?

Hell, against NJ, why didn't he just come back into the game? Playing basketball apparently has no bad affects on a stiff back (unless we get a certified physician on this board to tell us otherwise).

You guys have kept on repeating the idea that "If a player is medically cleared to play and wants to play, then he should play as if he's healthy." But while Thibs preaches this same philosophy publicly, he actually doesn't follow it completely. Because if he did, he wouldn't be "managing" Rose's minutes. So obviously, this back problem is different than the toe issue because once he came back from that, he immediately got heavy minutes. But with this back issue, he's being limited.

I said this after the NO game in the PG thread: Rose playing only 22 minutes was kind of like a middle ground between the people advocating rest and the people saying he was fine and should be treated like normal.

"[My] back is feeling better," Rose said following Wednesday's shootaround. "I should be ready to go tonight; game-time decision. I'm going to see how it is when I go out there and I should be all right."

seems pretty clear to me - http://espn.go.com/chicago/nba/story/_/ ... ns-hornets

I don't feel like looking it up but I am absolutely certain that he said his back was still bothering him before the NO game. You can take my word for it, or not.

This is where your analytical skills are failing you. It's like an SAT test question. What is similar about the two situations? In both cases, people (Jones-Drew I'm talkng to you buddy) made unwarranted decisions based on what they thought they knew without the full information about what was really going on. The doctors knew, the patient knew, the team knew - the fans and the media and Jones -frickin'- Drew DID NOT KNOW.

No, I definitely saw that similarity. But it seems to be such an irrelevant similarity that I didn't give it any attention. So you're telling me that an organization has more information than people outside of the organization to make decisions about its organization? Holy crap. Shut down this board then, because there's no point in discussing anything.

Board Member A: "We should have Deng guard their SG."
Board Member B: "No, you are unqualified to say that. You are not a basketball expert. And you don't have nearly as much information as the Bulls organization does. They have numerous paid and qualified experts (coaches) making this decision. Plus they have thousands of hours of game footage that you don't have. You also don't see what goes on in practice. Deng might be guarding our SG's in practice and doing a terrible job at it. Thibs also personally talks to players and knows what players like and don't like. Deng might have told Thibs that he doesn't like to guard SG's. So again, you simply don't have the expertise or information to make this kind of assertion."

Shut down the board folks. We are all unqualified and are not inside the Bulls organization so we don't really know what's going on. Experts with access to more information clearly know better than all of us. Any criticisms will now be banned. Only cheerleading and praise allowed.

[fleet]

Shut down the board folks. We are all unqualified and are not inside the Bulls organization so we don't really know what's going on. Experts with access to more information clearly know better than all of us. Any criticisms will now be banned. Only cheerleading and praise allowed.

Doc Rivers is an accepted "expert". So there. [Joan Rivers]Can we tawk?[/Joan Rivers]

[northbrookrich]

GetBullish – so many things to respond to, I don’t know where to start.

I hope things go well with your aspirations to be a lawyer. Once you begin practicing in a particular area, I hope people that know absolutely nothing about that area don’t tell you that you don’t know what you are talking about and are wrong. Unfortunately, it happens and it is very frustrating – just ask the Bulls doctors.

Why were Rose’s minutes limited? I don’t know – you would have to ask the training staff and coaches. He played until the 2:40 mark of the 1st quarter when the score was 21-8. Then, he played until the 1:52 mark of the 3rd quarter when the score was 66-39. He wasn’t needed in the 4th quarter because they were ahead by almost 30 points the whole quarter. Do you really think he would have only played 22 minutes if the game was tied at the end of the 3rd quarter? So, what does managing minutes really mean? Thibs appears to have managed the game more than the minutes.

But, really you aren’t making sense. If playing will exacerbate the problem, then why did the team decide to play him? Are you claiming the team was trying to hurt their best player? That they were intentionally playing him so that he would miss more time with a more serious injury? He was cleared to play, he started and he played the important minutes of the game when the Bulls established their dominance. The Bulls won by 23 and they were +28 with Rose on the floor (the highest +/- of anyone on the team).

I don’t know if Rose ALSO said that his back was bothering him or what he said to the coaches and doctors. And, neither do you. But, he did say in that specific quote that he was fine and ready to play. I think it is a fair assumption that he also told this to the coaches and doctors who cleared him to play the game.

As a future lawyer that needs to use analytical thinking, I’m surprised that you don’t see the importance of the similarity between the Cutler situation and the Rose situation. When you are citing precedent, sometimes you will need to go to the rule of law, even if the holding does not go your way. I am not citing Cutler to say that Rose is really injured when people think that he is not. I am citing Cutler to show that doctors, players and team are in a better position to judge the health or injured status of a player than the public. Maybe you are just a 1L, but you need to be able to grasp these types of analogies to be a successful lawyer.

Also, the fact that you can’t distinguish between things that we have just about zero information on (Rose’s health) from basketball strategy is also shocking. Your analogy would not hold up in a court of law. Sorry. There are certainly cases of basketball strategy that a team would have MORE information, but no situation that I can think of where I would have little more than a quote saying my back is hurting, now its not, now it hurts a little….

[dougthonus]

You do realize that he is not yet healthy, right? You do realize that he has been told it will take months of rest for his toe to heal, right? You are drawing very odd lines based on absolutely no information.

I am relying on a coach who won coach of the year, a team that has brought this city 6 championships, a player who won MVP and doctors who may not be perfect, but are better then merely linking to some random medical website. You really don't get it, do you? If you have something REALLY SERIOUSLY wrong with you, do you self diagnose on a website or do you see a doctor? I try to go to an expert in the field. The best X type of doctor when I have X type of injury or maladay. That is why I say just linking something is not credible. It is not credible when you take into consideration that you merely did a search of something that may or may not be exactly what is wrong with said patient.

This is not the difference between my opinion and your opinion. This is the difference between your unsustained opinion with very little evidence and an organization that has all the data and information making an informed decision. You keep pointing to the back still being stiff 6 days later. But, that is not what we are arguing about. We are arguing about whether they should have played him on Wednesday. The information they had to make the decision on Wednesday was that he has had back spasms in the past that have cleared up with a day’s rest. He said he felt fine, the doctors said he looked ok and the coach made an educated decision to play him. Now, that the stiffness has lingered for so long, there will be a completely different decision that will need to be made tonight and they very well could choose not to play him. And, I would support that decision as well. They have the data, we do not. And, even though they let him give it a shot on Wednesday, they saw he was hurting and they limited his minutes. I have no problem with that and no link to a medical site is going to change that for me.

I think we should all pack up our stuff and go. Clearly no one on this forum can intelligently discuss the situation because everyone else in the organization knows more than the rest of us, therefore they can't be wrong. As such, we should not discuss signings, trades, the draft, substitution patterns, the offense, defense, or anything else related to the team that has an expert who knows more than us, because we're just all a big dumb sack of morons.

Sorry, I completely reject that notion. There are many times where experts in sports completely screw crap up in ways which are incredibly obvious and don't require expert knowledge to see. Derrick Rose on the corut against the Hornets when he looked physically pained in a game the Bulls led by 30 for most of the way and where the opponent had virtually no chance whatsoever to win is one of those times.

Derrick Rose playing 38-40 minutes a night is not one of those things, but Derrick Rose playing while clearly hurt with an injury like back spasms which frequently get worse through play just doesn't make much sense.

[GetBuLLish]

Why were Rose’s minutes limited? I don’t know – you would have to ask the training staff and coaches. He played until the 2:40 mark of the 1st quarter when the score was 21-8. Then, he played until the 1:52 mark of the 3rd quarter when the score was 66-39. He wasn’t needed in the 4th quarter because they were ahead by almost 30 points the whole quarter. Do you really think he would have only played 22 minutes if the game was tied at the end of the 3rd quarter? So, what does managing minutes really mean? Thibs appears to have managed the game more than the minutes.

I can't even get you to admit that his minutes were managed? Ughh.

First of all, Rose even said Thibs was managing his minutes. Case closed right there.

Second, even without Rose explicitly saying his minutes were managed, it is entirely clear that his minutes were managed. He played the least out of all the starters. Let's do a quick comparison between the starters' regular minutes vs their minutes against NO. Deng (-4), Boozer (-2), Noah (0), Brewer (-1), Rose (-13).

Any of those stick out to you? Come on, man. It's clear Rose's minutes were manages more than any other player. And if you were watching the game, it was very simple to understand why. Rose's back was clearly bothering him. Thibs noticed this, and limited his minutes.

But, really you aren’t making sense. If playing will exacerbate the problem, then why did the team decide to play him? Are you claiming the team was trying to hurt their best player? That they were intentionally playing him so that he would miss more time with a more serious injury? He was cleared to play, he started and he played the important minutes of the game when the Bulls established their dominance.

Man, you are building houses with all these straws.

I have brought up these examples over and over and over again. Yet the people who I'm debating against seem to conveniently never address them. Hopefully you will now.

1) On multiple occasions, Rip came back too early from injury and had to miss time after (especially the Detroit game).

2) Rose has admitted to coming back too early from his turf toe injury.

Now what do these events do to your "if he's cleared to play, he should be play and no one should question this" philosophy? Was the team "trying to hurt their" their players in these instances? Was the team "intentionally playing [them] so that he would miss more time with a more serious injury"?

Please address those instances of players coming back too soon from injury, THIS YEAR.

I don’t know if Rose ALSO said that his back was bothering him or what he said to the coaches and doctors. And, neither do you. But, he did say in that specific quote that he was fine and ready to play. I think it is a fair assumption that he also told this to the coaches and doctors who cleared him to play the game.

This was before the NO game. I'm not sure what Friedell's basis was for stating this:

Nick Friedell @ESPNChiBulls
Rose is a game time decision. His back is still bothering him but he says he's going to try and play.

Maybe you are just a 1L, but you need to be able to grasp these types of analogies to be a successful lawyer.

Thanks, buddy.

Also, the fact that you can’t distinguish between things that we have just about zero information on (Rose’s health) from basketball strategy is also shocking. Your analogy would not hold up in a court of law. Sorry. There are certainly cases of basketball strategy that a team would have MORE information, but no situation that I can think of where I would have little more than a quote saying my back is hurting, now its not, now it hurts a little….

1. Find me one case of basketball strategy where you have equal or more information than the Bulls. You can't because you don't.

2. My point is that you are acting as if because we are not on the inside, we have no foundation to make an opinion. That's absurd. We may not have inside access, but we do have some information. We have quotes from players and coaches. We have second hand inside information from writers. And most importantly, we have eyes that we can use to see if a player is actually healthy or not. My eyes told me that Rose's back was bothering him during the New Orleans game. And practically every other person came to the same conclusion. From there, people can disagree on how to attack the problem. But for some reason, you seem to believe that there is simply no room for debate and that the Bulls organization is infallible.

And I don't understand that belief when JUST THIS YEAR we have seen multiple players come back too early from injuries.

More over, we have the case of the whole Thibs vs. Doc Rivers dilemma. I know that the Boston situation was completely different than the Bulls' one. But there, you had two people who had all of the same exact (inside!) information. Yet they came to wildly different conclusions on how to approach the situation.

It is very easy to draw parallels from that situation.

[dougthonus]

Either Rose aggravated his injury and is now hurt worse [hopefully not] or the coaching staff has decided to rest him up before Boston [hopefully].

Either way, it looks like the merits of the "rest Rose while he's hurt" camp seem to have been proven out.