Chicago Bulls Medical Staff - No Progress?

[boogydown]

As many of you know, we had some topics earlier this year about the Bulls Medical Staff. Does anyone have any information here?

While we can't put total blame on the Bulls medical staff for what happened with all the injuries last season, they aren't incident either. The fact is that Rose openly complained about the Bulls Medical Staff and it's been 5 months and so far I have yet to hear any reported news of them changing or making adjustments the medical staff or improving the way our players are being treated.

Those who are attending the Bulls meetings on Monday should consider bringing this up. I think most of have forgotten about this but I would hate for us to go through a repeat of this again this season and end up landing a lottery pick (though some deep down still support this).

[BobbyBuckets]

Must have missed it, but what did Derrick say about the medical staff?

[Seinfeld]

Rose complained that the Bulls make their players tape their ankles, and Derrick prefers to wear ankle braces. He said that the ankle sprain and sore foot he had late in the season were the result of his ankles being taped too tightly.

[MAQ]

Must have missed it, but what did Derrick say about the medical staff?

Rose didn't say a damn thing about the medical staff.

The medical staff doesn't tape ankles.

[LobosJordan]

http://www.csnchicago.com/basketball-ch ... kID=693194

Even if Rose was upset at the training staff. I don't think its an issue at all. Contrary to popular belief, the training staff doesn't want to injure any of our players. I do think his ankle issues were caused by the tape though, so they aren't completely without blame.

[Seinfeld]

http://www.csnchicago.com/basketball-chicago-bulls/bulls-talk/Did-ankle-taping-further-Roses-injury?blockID=693194

Even if Rose was upset at the training staff. I don't think its an issue at all. Contrary to popular belief, the training staff doesn't want to injure any of our players. I do think his ankle issues were caused by the tape though, so they aren't completely without blame.

Sure they do.

It's all part of Reinsdorf's master plan to save money, if other teams think our players are injury-prone they won't be as coveted on the free agent market, which means JR can get them to re-sign for less than they are worth...

[BULLHITTER]

boozer, noah, deng, hamilton and now rose have all suffered a litany of injuries during their bull tenure as well as they guys with prior clubs. the last two seasons have been directly affected by injury to key guys, and fans by and large wield it as a bandage over their hurt to the constant refrain of "if healthy, the bulls would've".....

JR's culpability aside, their value most definitely is affected by that fact. no one has any knowledge of how other team's view that at the bargaining table.

[kulaz3000]

Really? Now we're getting on our medical staff of all things?

There is good things about the internet and all the information we are able to consume, and then there are things which make you regret that the internet even exists, this is one of those moments.

Yes, lets blame our medical staff, while we're at it, lets blame the security people, as well as the adminstrators. Lets blame those people who surface and lay out the floor before games, if you polished and fixed those damn floors, maybe players wouldn't roll their ankles so much. And damn you ball boys, I noticed you in a few of last seasons games, YOU ARE MEANT TO BE INVISIBLE!! Last but not least, DAMN YOU NBA!! Why must you make these players play basketball when they get injured. Stupid sports.

[mhsiao]

Personal I dunno how tapping Ankle would cause Ankle injury. Both tapping and bracer are support in case player turn their ankle. I can't seem to find it but I know there is a photo that Jordan has ankle tapped by Bulls training staff and It was from a Jordan biography book.

[Mobby]

To everyone saying the medical staff is fine, there's a reason that the Suns players have played beyond their years. Their medical staff employs osteophatic medicine and uses a holistic approach to injuries and minor complaints. They fix the issue at the core, not simply treating the "problem-areas." Working on Rose's ankle or back when he injures it might help those areas, but it won't help the toe that he's been having minor (which turned into major) issues with, which had a profound effect on his further injuries (back and ankle, etc.).

The Suns medical staff would have worked that one the moment Rose started having minor issues. The body is one entity, not a combination of separate properties. The Bulls medical staff doesn't seem to understand this (though this might be an exaggeration, you wouldn't know it based on their treatment tactics).

[coldfish]

Really? Now we're getting on our medical staff of all things?

There is good things about the internet and all the information we are able to consume, and then there are things which make you regret that the internet even exists, this is one of those moments.

Yes, lets blame our medical staff, while we're at it, lets blame the security people, as well as the adminstrators. Lets blame those people who surface and lay out the floor before games, if you polished and fixed those damn floors, maybe players wouldn't roll their ankles so much. And damn you ball boys, I noticed you in a few of last seasons games, YOU ARE MEANT TO BE INVISIBLE!! Last but not least, DAMN YOU NBA!! Why must you make these players play basketball when they get injured. Stupid sports.

The odd year for the medical staff began in the summer of 2011. Noah, who was playing for the Bulls, couldn't get medical clearance to play for France several weeks later due to injury.

Then the season started. First Rip was cleared to play and immediately re-injured himself and missed a ton of time. Then Rose hurt his back and was cleared to play, after hobbling around on the court for a few minutes, Thibodeau pulled him and he missed more time. The final episode was Noah being cleared to play on a non functioning ankle.

When you have all this stuff going on, people start remembering things like that time the medical staff screwed up with Deng's leg or the time they misdiagnosed Eddy Curry's weight loss pills.

When you add in the comments from KC and Rose, there is *objective* evidence that there is something going on and its hurting the on court performance of the team. After that, what exactly is going on is a matter of speculation which is what happens on the internet.

I can understand being irritated by uninformed internet speculation but anyone who is objective and looks at the results of the medical and training staff for the past year(s) is going to think "yeah, there might be an issue there."

[kulaz3000]

I'm not saying team doctors don't have an influence on players health, but we are acting like we have some doctors out there who are out there to hurt players or something.

I think it's easy to point out the negatives with the fragment of information we receive, and be entirely oblivious to the positives because we don't have that information. Being misinformed because of lack of information if you will, or more specifically an incomplete amount of information, which is the case here.

I just can't imagine our front office or whoever is in charge of team doctors employment would keep incompetent doctors on board purely out of loyalty, and not from their performance which they'd likely be aware of more closely than any of us. Again, it's easy to speculate and point fingers from afar, and use little tidbits of information to form our own conclusions; it's the same thing we do with trade rumors, we read it and it doesn't happen and somehow it's all on our front office and no one else.

As for RIP, I believe he hurt his shoulder on a play where he made direct impact on that exact part of his shoulder he had injured previously. Could he have waited until he was 100% healed? Sure, but if that were the case for all players, you'd see most players missing significant games year after year. Sometimes freak accidents happen and it's unavoidable. Then their are players who want to push forward, amidst doctors orders. What about players who lack conditioning, putting their bodies are higher probability of being injured? Is it the doctors fault? Is it our teams fault? Is it the players fault? Perhaps it's their parents fault without putting hard work values into them growing up, which resulted in their injury.

[coldfish]

You are right kulaz. At the end of the day, we don't know what's going on behind the scenes and most of us aren't doctors. Its basically impossible for us as fans to judge the activities of the medical staff.

That being said, given that we have basically had two years in a row ruined by injuries and a whole bunch of oddities going into that, I think its easy to understand why fans bring it up. I personally don't assume anything either way. I don't exactly 100% trust that the front office is going to look into it. I have seen far too many cases of incompetent people keeping their jobs out of loyalty in different walks of life to make that assumption. That being said, I don't assume that the front office is incompetent either.

I wish Paxson would address it publicly. I trust him. The one person I do not trust is Gar when speaking to the public. He clearly acts as press secretary in that regard and lies through his teeth just to tell people what they want to hear.

[Michael Jackson]

To everyone saying the medical staff is fine, there's a reason that the Suns players have played beyond their years. Their medical staff employs osteophatic medicine and uses a holistic approach to injuries and minor complaints. They fix the issue at the core, not simply treating the "problem-areas." Working on Rose's ankle or back when he injures it might help those areas, but it won't help the toe that he's been having minor (which turned into major) issues with, which had a profound effect on his further injuries (back and ankle, etc.).

The Suns medical staff would have worked that one the moment Rose started having minor issues. The body is one entity, not a combination of separate properties. The Bulls medical staff doesn't seem to understand this (though this might be an exaggeration, you wouldn't know it based on their treatment tactics).

The suns have the best medical staff in all of professional sports.

[jl342323]

phoenix having great weather helps too

[FillTheRafters]

Before people make judgmental comments about professionals in a field (medicine) that they likely know nothing about, it is first important to recognize that the Bulls training staff and medical staff are completely different entities and organizations.

The trainers sit on the bench, make daily recommendations, tape ankles, ice players down, etc, etc.

The medical staff ("team doctors") are consulted only when serious injuries arise.

I think this distinction is important, particularly if people are going to toss around uninformed accusations of causality and attempts to link freak injuries to the performance of our team's various medical professionals.

[FillTheRafters]

For the sake of transparency, I personally know many of the team doctors, including Dr. Cole (the man that did Derrick's surgery). Midwest Orthopedics at Rush is one of the most revered and respected sports medicine groups in the country, and there is certainly no group in Chicago that can do a better job than them. The team doctors for the Bulls are the same people that put Peavy's detached lat back together (an almost unprecedented surgery in baseball) and had him throwing essentially unaffected a year later.

It bothers me when contributors to this forum link "Derricks ankles being taped too tight" to an accusation that the Bull's medical staff (an unspecific and blanket term encompassing both the training staff and unrelated team physicians) is somehow under-performing.

[Seinfeld]

For the sake of transparency, I personally know many of the team doctors, including Dr. Cole (the man that did Derrick's surgery). Midwest Orthopedics at Rush is one of the most revered and respected sports medicine groups in the country, and there is certainly no group in Chicago that can do a better job than them. The team doctors for the Bulls are the same people that put Peavy's detached lat back together (an almost unprecedented surgery in baseball) and had him throwing essentially unaffected a year later.

It bothers me when contributors to this forum link "Derricks ankles being taped too tight" to an accusation that the Bull's medical staff (an unspecific and blanket term encompassing both the training staff and unrelated team physicians) is somehow under-performing.

I hate to make generalizations, but quite a few posters here rip the Bulls management for whatever reason they can find, even if it's a ridiculous notion they are bitching about.

Boozer and Brewer each played 100% of the regular season for the first time in their careers last season, and that was basically without a training camp and during a condensed season. But you won't ever hear about that, because it doesn't make Bulls' management look bad.

[Mobby]

@FillTheRafters - You're right; I suppose my semantics were off. I change my statement to "trainers and medical staff that don't take a holistic approach."

@Seinfeld - I can't speak for everyone, but my statements apply to all medical staffs that under-employ a complete, holistic approach. I suppose I'm just more upset about it on the Bulls' staff because it's the team I chiefly support.

[Seinfeld]

@FillTheRafters - You're right; I suppose my semantics were off. I change my statement to "trainers and medical staff that don't take a holistic approach."

@Seinfeld - I can't speak for everyone, but my statements apply to all medical staffs that under-employ a complete, holistic approach. I suppose I'm just more upset about it on the Bulls' staff because it's the team I chiefly support.

I'm pretty sure the Suns are the only team that uses a holistic approach, but I could be wrong.