GT: Chicago Bulls vs Indiana Pacers Saturday 7 PM WGN

[fleet]

If only Rose listened to his real doctors and not doctor Reggie and bj..sigh

This is the process of recovery, which Rose delayed because he claimed he knew his body more than the medical professionals that deal with ACL injuries daily.

To any professional athlete that get's an ACL injury, or any other injury: Listen to your doctors, they are some of the best on the planet and know what is best for you.

To Reggie: **** you.

not to relitigate this necessarily. That camp never brought any medical opinion to bear. Never. Lots of testimonial anecdotes from ballplayers does not cut it. We can't ascribe Rose's current issues to the Reggie Rose plan with a smoking gun. Yet they sure left it wide open for debate.

I'm less concerned about relating the tweaked hammy to last year - that could happen any time - than I am the rust.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I think seeding is going to be huge this year, and its Rose playing crappy for maybe 10-20 games, that is going to cost the team in the standings, much more so than him missing 2 or 3 games out of precaution of a minor injury.

seeding is extra important in a year you may have to slay 2 dragons in the playoffs not just one. Dammit

[bearadonisdna]

If only Rose listened to his real doctors and not doctor Reggie and bj..sigh

This is the process of recovery, which Rose delayed because he claimed he knew his body more than the medical professionals that deal with ACL injuries daily.

To any professional athlete that get's an ACL injury, or any other injury: Listen to your doctors, they are some of the best on the planet and know what is best for you.

To Reggie: **** you.

not to relitigate this necessarily. That camp never brought any medical opinion to bear. Never. Lots of testimonial anecdotes from ballplayers does not cut it. We can't ascribe Rose's current issues to the Reggie Rose plan with a smoking gun. Yet they sure left it wide open for debate.

I'm less concerned about relating the tweaked hammy to last year - that could happen any time - than I am the rust.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I think seeding is going to be huge this year, and its Rose playing crappy for maybe 10-20 games, that is going to cost the team in the standings, much more so than him missing 2 or 3 games out of precaution of a minor injury.

Seedings schmeedings.
Alls the bulls gotta do is avoid the 4-5 seed to avoid the number 1 . Which could be indy but they arent really worth dodging. HCA for a vet team is overrated.

[Rerisen]

Seedings schmeedings.
Alls the bulls gotta do is avoid the 4-5 seed to avoid the number 1 . Which could be indy but they arent really worth dodging. HCA for a vet team is overrated.

You can't avoid the #1, you have to play them eventually. They won't be upset by the #8. What is important is avoiding having to go through both the top 2 teams in the East outside ourselves.

HCA is always an advantage, its proven statistically, regardless if there are outliers that win in spite of it. Almost every team in the league every year has a better home record than road record, and its not randomness.

Also HCA is traditionally more important for role players and teams made up of balanced depth, than it is to superstars like LeBron James, who can play like supermen anywhere, carry their teams to victory, and also have the backing of the officials to help retain performance on the road.

[bentheredengthat]

is where Dunleavy as the primary swingman really hurts you. At least Bellinelli can conceivably run some team oriented attack with his handles/mobility. Not to turn it towards Nate. Or Teague. In this situation, Mike James needs to be a helpful addition, and Thibs has to be willing use him last night.

The reality of who Mike Dunleavy is, is starting to sink in I think. Or should be. Every year we get a new 'shooter' and there is raving discussion about how they can do more than Kyle Korver. Well technically can he, I guess, but it sure as hell isn't much more. Maybe when he was 25, not at 33. He's pretty much just a shooter now. We've seen no PnR or playmaking from Mike whatsoever, a few times he's tried to put it on the floor he's missed about all of them. He has a slightly safer move which is just a ball fake then one dribble into a shot, but even that hasn't been going in.

He hasn't been a good fit at all for this very mechanical and methodical 2nd unit. He doesn't create enough space on his off ball routes to get consistently open. Whereas Kyle actually created reliable system offense for them. MDJ is a career 15.2 pts/36 scorer, and has held close to that even in his recent past prime years. But so far for us, just 12.6 pts/36, volume has clearly taken a hit.

wow Re you are being really hard on MDJ here.

I've seen him assist Boozer on PNR, I've seen him slash & score on reverse layups, I've seen him swing the ball quickly with good vision all of these things multiple times.

Overall based on how crappy our "designated free agent" for each season typically looks at this point, I'm pretty happy with the guy & optimistic that he's going to fill the role quite well.

[Rerisen]

To be clear, if Rose is hurting at all, he should sit. But I would like to hear him say he is hurting then. And not just sidetrack questions vaguely with stuff like 'just being smart' that kind of suggest he could play but that they are just tacking on extra rest days almost out of superstition more than any real sense it is helping him. Because the most important thing for Derrick right now is to get back to being the player he used to be. And missing more games isn't going to help that.

This team's injury reporting and transparency in decision making is ridiculously bad. After the Cleveland game Rose played everything down, as if he was fine, and then by Friday after the call was made to sit him, said in retrospect that he couldn't even bend down after the Cleveland game. So WTF, those are like two diametrically opposite explanations of his condition.

The coach and the FO aren't much better. When asked about a player injury, Thibs considers it generous if he even differentiates "lower body" or "upper body" as an entire explanation of an injury.

[bentheredengthat]

If you are reading this jen:

If the plan to prevent players from being injured is to simply sit them out whenever they get tweaked and decondition them making future injury more likely .... Im not impressed.

As a diehard basketball follower, you know that hamstring injuries are odd and can linger in strange ways. Don't you think its best to err on the side of caution in November?

Again, to restate with emphasis IF YOUR PLAN TO PREVENT PLAYERS FROM BEING INJURED IS TO SIMPLY SIT THEM OUT . . IM NOT IMPRESSED.

If Rose is really hurting a week after his hamstring pull, of course you sit him.

The larger issue is that he continues to get injured with wear and tear type injuries. I thought that the plan was to have these guys conditioned, stretched and generally prepared to minimize this type of stuff. As others are noting, if Rose keeps getting minor issues and getting held out for precautionary reasons, he will never get on track this season. Hell, we will never see the real Derrick Rose.

Derrick (and everyone else) has to play a month or so of real NBA basketball to get their groove back. That isn't coming close to happening. IMO, holding him out for a week is going to set him back several weeks.

How can you make the assumption that this is their entire plan?

Is it because they sat Noah in PRESEASON? He had a groin which is trickier than hamstring.

But as Duck said hamstring is tricky as well.

We set up an entirely new position in the franchise and hired a specialist & you think that their only move is to sit people?

[fleet]

to be fair though, I wouldn't want to give the Pacers a heads up on his status.

[Rerisen]

wow Re you are being really hard on MDJ here.

I've seen him assist Boozer on PNR, I've seen him slash & score on reverse layups, I've seen him swing the ball quickly with good vision all of these things multiple times.

Overall based on how crappy our "designated free agent" for each season typically looks at this point, I'm pretty happy with the guy & optimistic that he's going to fill the role quite well.

I'm not being hard on Mike, I'm being hard on sloppy kool aid analysis of Mike.

I think he's a good player that will help space the floor for Derrick. But he isn't 'alternative offense' for the 2nd unit in the way Kyle was. When Kyle played with the second unit, probably 25% of the Bench Mob's offense was simply running off ball plays for Korver. Either to get him open, or to create such fear and chaos of him getting open, he made easy passes underneath for scores. You just can't do that to the same level with Mike. He's much slower and doesn't shoot as well on the move, or on those turn and rise ups.

I'm not down on him, so much as down on the way we are using him. We need to stop putting him in Ray Allen sets, and just let him space the floor from the arc. Especially with Rose.

[bentheredengthat]

wow Re you are being really hard on MDJ here.

I've seen him assist Boozer on PNR, I've seen him slash & score on reverse layups, I've seen him swing the ball quickly with good vision all of these things multiple times.

Overall based on how crappy our "designated free agent" for each season typically looks at this point, I'm pretty happy with the guy & optimistic that he's going to fill the role quite well.

I'm not being hard on Mike, I'm being hard on sloppy kool aid analysis of Mike.

I think he's a good player that will help space the floor for Derrick. But he isn't 'alternative offense' for the 2nd unit in the way Kyle was. When Kyle played with the second unit, probably 25% of the Bench Mob's offense was simply running off ball plays for Korver. Either to get him open, or to create such fear and chaos of him getting open, he made easy passes underneath for scores. You just can't do that with Mike. He's much slower and doesn't shoot as well on the move, or on those turn and rise ups.

I'm not down on him, so much as down on the way we are using him. We need to stop putting him in Ray Allen sets, and just let him space the floor from the arc. Especially with Rose.

I'm just going to disagree with you here & we'll see how it plays out.

But I predict our second unit will have better or just a good overall offense with him as with Kyle.

Which isn't fair anyways, isn't Kyle a more highly paid player? But let's not go down that rabbit hole shall we?

[coldfish]

How can you make the assumption that this is their entire plan?

Is it because they sat Noah in PRESEASON? He had a groin which is trickier than hamstring.

But as Duck said hamstring is tricky as well.

We set up an entirely new position in the franchise and hired a specialist & you think that their only move is to sit people?

I said "if".

I want to see the Bulls be a normal team for a stretch and not have to discuss injury status every 18 seconds. I don't care how the team gets there, but so far we are off to a real bad start.

[Sundis]

We're the streak stoppers. We should win this.

[bentheredengthat]

How can you make the assumption that this is their entire plan?

Is it because they sat Noah in PRESEASON? He had a groin which is trickier than hamstring.

But as Duck said hamstring is tricky as well.

We set up an entirely new position in the franchise and hired a specialist & you think that their only move is to sit people?

I said "if".

I want to see the Bulls be a normal team for a stretch and not have to discuss injury status every 18 seconds. I don't care how the team gets there, but so far we are off to a real bad start.

No kidding. Wouldn't that be nice, I can barely imagine...

[fleet]

If you are reading this jen:

If the plan to prevent players from being injured is to simply sit them out whenever they get tweaked and decondition them making future injury more likely .... Im not impressed.

As a diehard basketball follower, you know that hamstring injuries are odd and can linger in strange ways. Don't you think its best to err on the side of caution in November?

Again, to restate with emphasis IF YOUR PLAN TO PREVENT PLAYERS FROM BEING INJURED IS TO SIMPLY SIT THEM OUT . . IM NOT IMPRESSED.

If Rose is really hurting a week after his hamstring pull, of course you sit him.

The larger issue is that he continues to get injured with wear and tear type injuries. I thought that the plan was to have these guys conditioned, stretched and generally prepared to minimize this type of stuff. As others are noting, if Rose keeps getting minor issues and getting held out for precautionary reasons, he will never get on track this season. Hell, we will never see the real Derrick Rose.

Derrick (and everyone else) has to play a month or so of real NBA basketball to get their groove back. That isn't coming close to happening. IMO, holding him out for a week is going to set him back several weeks.

you may be speaking about 2 different things, the Bulls reaction post injury, and the Bulls injury prevention program. Once a guy gets hurt like Rose is, there isn't a lot of debate about how to treat. Its pretty standard fare. If Rose has to sit I'm sure it isn't a controversial decision to be conservative. What used to be controversial was the decision to play through stuff.

From everything I have heard, Rose stretches out and he never used to. I don't know what else the Bulls do to prevent injuries besides targeted nutrition stuff via Swanson. But thats where the questions lay IMO. If anything, Thibs stink eye is being held in check on these decisions to play guys through tweaks if they want to play. And players are being counseled to not get all melty from Thibs hot glare. This sounds like progress. And if we never see old time Derrick this season, I don't see it as caused by the Bulls. More to the player himself and his inability to stay away from Swanson and the training tables. And of course, the final stages of ACL rehab which were needlessly delayed.

[League Circles]

To be clear, if Rose is hurting at all, he should sit. But I would like to hear him say he is hurting then. And not just sidetrack questions vaguely with stuff like 'just being smart' that kind of suggest he could play but that they are just tacking on extra rest days almost out of superstition more than any real sense it is helping him. Because the most important thing for Derrick right now is to get back to being the player he used to be. And missing more games isn't going to help that.

Agreed. Frankly, I think Derrick is weird about his body and mindset with regards to health. That weirdness is probably somewhat natural or expected for an elite, invincible feeling young man after a huge injury, but he needs to be communicated with in depth by team staff because he can't be trusted at his inarticulate, contradictory words. Not that I think he's deliberately dishonest, just not good at expressing what he's thinking at all.

Derrick Rose's injury reporting and transparency in decision making is ridiculously bad. After the Cleveland game Rose played everything down, as if he was fine, and then by Friday after the call was made to sit him, said in retrospect that he couldn't even bend down after the Cleveland game. So WTF, those are like two diametrically opposite explanations of his condition.

Fixed

The coach and the FO aren't much better. When asked about a player injury, Thibs considers it generous if he even differentiates "lower body" or "upper body" as an entire explanation of an injury.

I personally don't really care what they have to say about injuries because it doesn't affect how injuries are handled (just what we know about injuries) and Thibbs especially is about as stubborn and unyielding of a person you could find in conversation. Reporters should know by now that he's just useless to ask.... well..... most questions about anything. Now, the players, specifically Rose, definitely need to be transparent about their injuries, at least to the team staff.

[League Circles]

From everything I have heard, Rose stretches out and he never used to.

From what little I've read, I think you may be right. And that is so fundamentally unacceptable of the Bulls training staff it blows the mind. As far as I'm concerned, Fred T and his people may have known how to better condition and prevent player injuries, but if they couldn't effectively communicate that to players like Derrick and get him to go along with it because they were too intimidated to assert their expertise, they need to be gone. And Jen Swanson's presence is effectively like them being gone. I have a feeling that the one good thing about Rose's "camp" is that they aren't intimidated by him and will tell him how he needs to change, and that's probably how he got linked up with and influenced by Swanson to begin with.

[bearadonisdna]

The bottom line is this is the Pacers superbowl.

[bentheredengthat]

As a diehard basketball follower, you know that hamstring injuries are odd and can linger in strange ways. Don't you think its best to err on the side of caution in November?

Again, to restate with emphasis IF YOUR PLAN TO PREVENT PLAYERS FROM BEING INJURED IS TO SIMPLY SIT THEM OUT . . IM NOT IMPRESSED.

If Rose is really hurting a week after his hamstring pull, of course you sit him.

The larger issue is that he continues to get injured with wear and tear type injuries. I thought that the plan was to have these guys conditioned, stretched and generally prepared to minimize this type of stuff. As others are noting, if Rose keeps getting minor issues and getting held out for precautionary reasons, he will never get on track this season. Hell, we will never see the real Derrick Rose.

Derrick (and everyone else) has to play a month or so of real NBA basketball to get their groove back. That isn't coming close to happening. IMO, holding him out for a week is going to set him back several weeks.

you may be speaking about 2 different things, the Bulls reaction post injury, and the Bulls injury prevention program. Once a guy gets hurt like Rose is, there isn't a lot of debate about how to treat. Its pretty standard fare. If Rose has to sit I'm sure it isn't a controversial decision to be conservative. What used to be controversial was the decision to play through stuff.

From everything I have heard, Rose stretches out and he never used to. I don't know what else the Bulls do to prevent injuries besides targeted nutrition stuff via Swanson. But thats where the questions lay IMO. If anything, Thibs stink eye is being held in check on these decisions to play guys through tweaks if they want to play. And players are being counseled to not get all melty from Thibs hot glare. This sounds like progress. And if we never see old time Derrick this season, I don't see it as caused by the Bulls. More to the player himself and his inability to stay away from Swanson and the training tables. And of course, the final stages of ACL rehab which were needlessly delayed.

Nice post! Until the last 2 sentences!

[bearadonisdna]

If the bulls win this the hate rhetoric will be in full throttle on espn covnvo boards.
Albeit stupid, but some of those things leak through the cracks and gets publicized by another dumb sports interpreter.

[pb-ceo]

The bottom line is this is the Pacers superbowl.

nahh. they are a supremely confident team and I think are where MIA is, that is, "knowing" they are the better team. this team has a swagger. 9-0. that's not easy to do. And if Stephenson continues to improve like a Maniac, you can book home court for them through the playoffs. IND has bigger fish to fry than CHI. It's MIA. And derrick did not help matters much by giving Paul George something to put up on the team bulletin board. Having said that this is a trap game for IND especially if Derrick doesn't play. They are due for a loss and would not be surprised if it's tonight.

[kdapiton]

We're due for a 4 game win streak and IND is due for a loss..


All non basketball signs point to us winning.