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

[northbrookrich]

How about if a player is visibly bothered by his injury, as in this case?

Given your ongoing stance, should we assume that you disagree with Thibodeau's decision to sit Rose tonight?

Players are visibly bothered with injuries ALL THE TIME. Many of them play through it and recover. Rose will be visibly bothered by his toe injury all year, unfortunately. What is your point?

We do not have sufficient information to question this particular decision. If you want to make the point that the Bulls have a sub-par medical staff based on a couple of unusual instances, more power to you. I think you can probably go across the league and find instances where players came back too early and reinjured themselves. So, maybe you should just be complaining about the state of medicine in sports. Now, that would be an interesting topic.

[northbrookrich]

Nycrich, that entire post was you rambling on and on in any sort of way just to avoid admitting you're wrong.

By the way, I very well may be wrong. I don't have the information to determine whether the Bulls coaches, doctors and Rose made a bad decision in playing him in the NO game. Maybe they did. All I can go by is what was reported, just like you. Based on what was reported at the time the decision was made, it seemed perfectly reasonable for the Bulls to play Rose. Based on what has been reported since that time, it seems perfectly reasonable for the Bulls to sit Rose tonight. Those decisions do not necessarily contradict each other at all since more information was available to the decision makers between the first decision and the second decision.

[babblin-on]

How about if a player is visibly bothered by his injury, as in this case?

Given your ongoing stance, should we assume that you disagree with Thibodeau's decision to sit Rose tonight?

Players are visibly bothered with injuries ALL THE TIME. Many of them play through it and recover. Rose will be visibly bothered by his toe injury all year, unfortunately. What is your point?

There's a stark difference in the extent to which the toe has hampered his play and the extent to which the back has. That is the point. Not all injuries are the same.

We do not have sufficient information to question this particular decision. If you want to make the point that the Bulls have a sub-par medical staff based on a couple of unusual instances, more power to you. I think you can probably go across the league and find instances where players came back too early and reinjured themselves. So, maybe you should just be complaining about the state of medicine in sports. Now, that would be an interesting topic.

Yes yes. You think expressing about sports injuries should be verboten unless it is in support of the team's decision. Moving on.....

[dougthonus]

2: People are complaining that he played a visibly hurt Derrick Rose against the second worst team in the league while it was missing it's two best players due to injury. Neither conventional wisdom or common sense are on Thibodeau's side there.

Without Rose, the Bulls are missing their starting backcourt. You are using the advantage of hindsight, that the bulls won handily, to change the argument. Just last night, a fully healthy OKC team lost to a pretty bad Sacramento team. Miami lost to Milwaukee . . . twice.

There is a risk that the Bulls can actually lose these games, which you guys are completely ignoring. Before the game, Thibodeau doesn't know if tonight is going to be that night. In order to mitigate that risk, he puts the best team he can on the court.

It didn't work, so he sat Rose. In hindsight it didn't hurt the Bulls at all.

There's no hindsight here. It's a risk comparison.

What is the risk of the Bulls losing one game to the Hornets whose best player suiting up is Jarrett Jack. Jarrett Jack would be the 9th or 10th man on the Bulls, but he's the Hornets number one option.

What is the risk of Rose more seriously injuring his back when he is visibly hurt? What is the risk of him missing one game? Two games? Ten games?

It's not a difficult decision to figure out which one of those risks is higher. It's obvious. There is no hindsight involved.

[dougthonus]

Doug - do you want to know what really happened? Derrick Rose has previously had back problems like this going back to high school. He told the team that when it has happened in the past he took a day off and was fine with no re-occurrences. Thibs claimed that this scenario took place the year before with Derrick missing one game and then coming back the following game with no further back issues the rest of the season. Get Bullish claims that this isn't the case - so either Thibs is lying or he is mis-remembering. Regardless, Thibs must have used this information in his decision making process. Then, Rose said all day the day of the NO game that his back was fine reported in an ESPN article for all to see (though Fridell may have heard differently). Then the doctors examined him and he seemed to be OK to go. So, guess what, they gave him a chance to play. And, guess what, he looked a little gimpy out there while playing AND the Bulls were blowing out NO. So, guess what else Get Bullish, they limited his minutes. Based on the blow out and based on the way Rose was playing. I don't know what they would have done if the game was closer or if Rose was not wincing out there during the game - do you?

So, they took all of this new information and the way he responded to further treatment over the next two days and, what happened? - they decided that this back injury must NOW be worse than what he has experienced in the past. (I'm not saying that he injured it worse by trying to play, I have no idea if that is the case). Therefore, the smart doctors, coaches and player decided together that he would not play tonight. Was this decision based on the quality of the opponent? Maybe. But, I hope not. If Rose is not healthy and needs time to heal, I would prefer that they rest him until he is healthy. Don't play him on national TV on Sunday against the Celtics.

So, Doug, to address your other point, I don't know what qualifies you or anyone else on this board to diagnose Rose's injury. But, this is completely different than commenting on basketball related issues such as trades and free agency and even game strategy. People are making stuff up with absolutely no information about the severity of the injury or whether playing with the injury has potential negative consequences.

So the real question is Dr. Doug and Dr. Get Bullish - how long should he sit out? Since you are armchair doctoring, why don't you tell us when he should come back? Are you going to trust the doctors next game, next week, next month? Or are you just going to sit back with the ability to criticize whenever a player re-injures himself claiming that it must be bad doctors or coaches forcing guys/letting guys play before they otherwise should have. It sounds like Doug just wants to sit Rose against bad teams and assume that we will win anyway. Is that right?

Dude, this is hilarious. Your whole entire premise, long rants, and condescending high horse talking has been disproven tonight by actual fact and the decisions of the Bulls coaching staff, yet you are still throwing out jabs and insults.

Bravo, you have some serious balls.

I'm not a doctor, nor am I playing a doctor. One of the many things I do professionally and have studied academically is risk management though. It's very easy to weigh the risk of a guy with a back injury who looks visibly limited in his movements further injuring himself in a game against a team who's best player would be your emergency third string PG vs resting that player.

It takes virtually no medical knowledge at all to come up with a simple risk model to say the odds of Rose hurting himself further and missing more time are greater than the odds of the Bulls losing that game, but hey, get back up on your high horse and keep talking down to us about how the coaching staff could obviously not be wrong.

Well, they either now agree with me [because Rose rested this game] or Rose is hurt more which means I was right and they were wrong. Either way, your argument no longer holds any water.

[aaqubed]

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.

See, I cant go with that.

The opposite side of "rest Rose while he's hurt" is not "play him through pain".

It's more like "The coaching and medical staff and Rose know best....their call is probably the right call"

And they rested him today. Probably a well reasoned, well thought out decision. Just like it was to play him against the Hornets for 22 ticks.

Break this down into a finite amount of cases by answering a few questions:

1: Why did he need rest today but Wednesday?

A: His back is better, but they just wanted to rest him for the heck of it.
--- Would have made more sense to rest him Wednesday then, and we'd probably agree we rested him on the wrong day.
B: His back is the same, but we decided to rest him now.
--- The decision to rest is now arbitrary, but the timing would have made more sense on Wednesday when if rest isn't allowing it to recover he'd have had the option of resting more.
C: His back is worse
--- The overwhelmingly likely scenario in which this is true is that he aggravated it by playing Wednesday in which case we've worsened an injury in a game the Bulls would have cruised to victory in.

In any of the three scenarios, it still ultimately would have made more sense to rest him Wednesday. I don't think it's some ultra critical failure, but it seemed like an obvious choice at the time.

I don't think it's that complicated. On Wednesday, he probably felt a bit of pain but wanted to play through it. We blew them out so he didn't really need to go at full strength. That was the third straight blowout, so it looked like the team is clearly clicking. Combine that with him still feeling some pain today and they decided it's not much of a risk to rest him so that he'd be ready for Boston.

[kyrv]

I don't think it's that complicated. On Wednesday, he probably felt a bit of pain but wanted to play through it. We blew them out so he didn't really need to go at full strength. That was the third straight blowout, so it looked like the team is clearly clicking. Combine that with him still feeling some pain today and they decided it's not much of a risk to rest him so that he'd be ready for Boston.

I think that's the exact point there, you nailed. Who is making the decision, if Rose made the decision 'to play through it' then they need to re-think the decision making process in my opinion.

I wasn't among them, but Doug and tons of others called this.

Not knowing any details at all, I can just say, him playing (apparently injured) then having to miss the next game doesn't look very good.

[aaqubed]

I don't think it's one person making the decision, but at the end of the day, only Rose knows how much pain he's in. So if the doctors say that there isn't much of a chance of him getting more seriously hurt, and that it's just a matter of how much pain he's in, then the only question that's left is how he's feeling. I guess on Wednesday he thought he was feeling good enough to play, and today he didn't.

With me also not knowing anything, I can say -- as long as we keep winning, and he's healthy come playoff time, I don't really care how we get there. I don't care if he plays every other game from now until the end of the season for that matter.

[pduh01]

Derrick Rose should have rest on Wednesday, or matter of fact rest on Monday against the Nets since he hurt his back on Saturday against the Bucks in the first place, then maybe he might be ready to go on Friday if not then rest him a bit longer, and probably be ready to go on Sunday.

Usually back spasm take a week(at minimum.) to go away, and all you need is treatment/ice/massage whatever, and rest.

I am glad he did rest on Friday which he should have done so on Wednesday, or Monday the begin with.

I do not question Thibs at all but I begin to question the medical staff's decisions more what we have seen this season with regarding injuries, come back, re-aggravated blah blah. But hey they are professionals right?

[fleet]

I don't think it's one person making the decision, but at the end of the day, only Rose knows how much pain he's in. So if the doctors say that there isn't much of a chance of him getting more seriously hurt, and that it's just a matter of how much pain he's in, then the only question that's left is how he's feeling. I guess on Wednesday he thought he was feeling good enough to play, and today he didn't.

I guess he didn't. Could playing against the Hornets have had anything to do with that? It would be less than honest not to consider it. Either Rose and or Thibs has learned a little something about what his body is capable of because playing made the injury worse, or the Bulls staff has had a change of heart about trusting Rose to make all the calls. Its up to the coach to step in and be the voice of reason. And I hope he is now doing so.

[kingkirk]

I think i must be in a minority in which i believe more of the blame should be on Derrick rather than Thibs.

[pduh01]

I think i must be in a minority in which i believe more of the blame should be on Derrick rather than Thibs.

He is more of the blame, he wants to play badly, and he end up playing he came back a bit to soon.

This is the second time this season he came back to soon with the injury, one from the turf toe, and now with the back spasm. This happens with Richard Hamilton too who Rip is most the blame for coming back to soon because he wants to play against his former team at their turf, pretty ridiclious if you ask me.

I think he(Rose & even Rip.) and the medical staff are more of the blame than Thibs making bad decision, probably more so on the players.

[fleet]

I think i must be in a minority in which i believe more of the blame should be on Derrick rather than Thibs.

I blame both. Derrick is young and has testosterone. Thibs has low T like all us oldsters, but he is supposed to supplant that affliction with wisdom gained over the years. They both have room to grow.
Thibaa has learned lots about coaching. He still has more to teach himself. Rose is the Leader. Thibs is the boss. Rose respects Thibs. Rose will listen to reason from respectable authority. Thibs has to be as I say again, the voice of reason to a young hard charging superstar who naturally thinks he is bulletproof

[SeniorWalker]

It might be fair for one to say that they don't really trust Rose to make the final call in situations like this one. Rose has been demonstrative of a guy who will want to play through nearly any hampering thing if its possible. We absolutely have to keep him as healthy as possible if we want any chance of beating anyone in a playoff series and his will can, at times, run counter to that philosophy. I would guess that the Bulls top guys are treating their MVP with the best intentions in mind, but perhaps Rose's word should be a little less weighty on the final call.

[kingkirk]

It might be fair for one to say that they don't really trust Rose to make the final call in situations like this one. Rose has been demonstrative of a guy who will want to play through nearly any hampering thing if its possible. We absolutely have to keep him as healthy as possible if we want any chance of beating anyone in a playoff series and his will can, at times, run counter to that philosophy. I would guess that the Bulls top guys are treating their MVP with the best intentions in mind, but perhaps Rose's word should be a little less weighty on the final call.

This is a good post and a plausible one to what may have occurred over the last week.

Perhaps the medical teams and Thibs gave Derrick the benefit of the doubt and trusted his word on how he was feeling. Derrick, like Kobe, would want to play through a heart attack, so maybe he pushed for too much too soon?

Perhaps Thibs overruled his decision to play for tonight?

Good call.

[BeKuK]

It's ignorant to (still) ignore already 4 facts:

Fact: Rose hurts his back in NJ and left the game

Fact: The following two games were against bad bad teams(we knew that before)

Fact: Rose wasn't healthy in NO

Fact: He didn't play in Charlotte = reason = His back

There are absolutely no arguments which any realgm expert could use against these simple facts!

[kingkirk]

It's ignorant to (still) ignore already 4 facts:

Fact: Rose hurts his back in NJ and left the game

Fact: The following two games were against bad bad teams(we knew that before)

Fact: Rose wasn't healthy in NO

Fact: He didn't play in Charlotte = reason = His back

There are absolutely no arguments which any realgm expert could use against these simple facts!

Sure, but we can argue whos fault it is, no?

[BeKuK]

Sure, but we can argue whos fault it is, no?

Sure, and I know whos fault it was/is after seeing him still hurt in NO with playing 22min.

[pduh01]

It's ignorant to (still) ignore already 4 facts:

Fact: Rose hurts his back in NJ and left the game

Actually he start to hurt his back against the Bucks on Saturday, then re-aggravated the injury on Monday against the Nets.

[fleet]

between his back, his knees, and his toe, it sounds like a case where favoring various painful joints is leading to problems in others.