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

[kyrv]

Thibodeau disagreed with his own head coach in Boston about how long to run their main guys in the regular season. The story has been recounted numerous times. Thibs wanted to go all out for regular season wins, HCA, what have you, and Doc, having an older team, wanted to scale back with more of a Popovich approach (who has actually sat guys entire games for no reason other than more rest- is he just a moron?).

As we know the Celtics went on to lose in the Finals in the final game, while being without Perkins. We can't say Doc's prevailing strategy caused them to do better for sure, but I think most reviews of the situation paint him as having made the right call.

Now the Bulls are a much younger team, and thus we can argue such rest matters less. Or we can take each game and situation on it's own merits, (I thought Rose's use was fine last night, have not liked others such as guys in very late up 20+).

But with the Boston account in hand, it would be silly to argue that Thibs is just doing what any other coach would and does do. By example, we can see that coaches don't always have the same philosophy.

Well stated. It's something that we can ignore but it's a 'thing'.

Granted, what Thibs said is what he should say to the paying public, but, it's very possible if not likely that he's being 100% honest. Something to keep an eye on.

He certainly knows what he is supposed to say.
I don't want to question the veracity of his statements. Like George Costanza would say, Tom, its not a lie if YOU believe it. His interpertation of his own terms is what could be a little weird or extreme.

Thibs is type A so this fits in with his passion and drive for success. Thibs intensity was a huge question before he started coaching here. We do see a pattern for sure, as Re said, more so than (to me) should be ignored.

I am most definitely not a poster that looks for negative things on the Bulls, I don't think, and I'm certainly not going to claim this will lead to bad things. Just...bears watching more so than ignoring to me.

[Rerisen]

NBA Executive Vice Presidents, General Managers, Coaches, Trainers, Medical Staff, Agents - people whose jobs could be adversely effected by endangering their franchise player through overplaying him and playing him while he is hurt. These people are all in 'the know' and know exactly what is going on. They have looked at all the information and have helped determine whether your favorite player goes out onto the court night after night and for how long.
...
Who am I to trust? To believe?

Indeed, who to trust. Ask Luol Deng?

The Bulls got a lot of public-relations mileage out of a statement they released a week ago about Deng's condition. It was widely viewed as a fed-up team standing up to a pampered professional athlete.

"He has been restricted from high-level activity since [Feb. 28]," team physician Brian Cole was quoted as saying. "At this point, he will undergo 'active rest,' meaning that he will be encouraged to challenge himself physically, and if symptoms remain minimal, he will be allowed an expeditious return to play."

That the Bulls were going to encourage Deng to "challenge himself physically" was interpreted to mean: "Can you believe this guy? What a wimp."

There's a lesson we can't seem to learn in our little corner of the world: Never question the severity of someone's injury. You have no idea what an athlete is experiencing. You have no idea how much pain he's trying to overcome. And there's always the chance the diagnosis isn't complete.

All of the above is true with Deng's situation. The Bulls announced Tuesday he will be out at least two weeks with the stress fracture, and there's a possibility he will need surgery. That comes on the heels of news that Deng recently met with an orthopedic surgeon who has extensive knowledge of stress fractures of the lower leg.

What is Deng's team of doctors saying now?

"I just have to avoid as much weight as I can on my leg," he said.

So running would be bad. Cutting would be bad. Jumping would be very, very bad.

In other words, everything a basketball player does is potentially harmful for someone with Deng's condition.

This is the injury that many people thought Deng was using to shirk his duty. Trib

So... is the lesson to just trust the player? Lu knew he was hurt more than the experts were telling him. Well I don't know if that is the answer either. Richard Hamilton knew he wasn't 100% but just had to play vs his old Pistons team, and then he does, and aggravates his groin again.... There aren't easy answers with these things often.

[kyrv]

So... is the lesson to just trust the player? Lu knew he was hurt more than the experts were telling him. Well I don't know if that is the answer either. Richard Hamilton knew he wasn't 100% but just had to play vs his old Pistons team, and then he does, and aggravates his groin again.... There aren't easy answers with these things often.

I do think just saying if he's cleared, he's okay to play, is too cut and dried, as much as I love binary there's a huge gray area.

I mentioned above, if a doctor tells Rip he can play but it's up to him, isn't the doctor acknowledging that he's hurt/injured in some capacity?

Players know their own bodies, but they aren't objective, and they aren't always smart.

[fleet]

^^^and the countless anecdotes from football players who played while and after concussed. Or took a knee problem too far on the field. Or took too many antiflamatories to mask the pain and made things worse and chronic as a result. And admitted how wrong they were to do it, but that was under huge pressure to suit up. Rose has admitted to indulging in the anti inflamatory route. One possible way out of popping a handful of pills to play in pain is to not play when you can get away with it.

[transplant]

Thibodeau disagreed with his own head coach in Boston about how long to run their main guys in the regular season. The story has been recounted numerous times. Thibs wanted to go all out for regular season wins, HCA, what have you, and Doc, having an older team, wanted to scale back with more of a Popovich approach (who has actually sat guys entire games for no reason other than more rest- is he just a moron?).

As we know the Celtics went on to lose in the Finals in the final game, while being without Perkins. We can't say Doc's prevailing strategy caused them to do better for sure, but I think most reviews of the situation paint him as having made the right call.

Now the Bulls are a much younger team, and thus we can argue such rest matters less. Or we can take each game and situation on it's own merits, (I thought Rose's use was fine last night, have not liked others such as guys in very late up 20+).

But with the Boston account in hand, it would be silly to argue that Thibs is just doing what any other coach would and does do. By example, we can see that coaches don't always have the same philosophy.

Very true and the only way fans can judge one philosophy versus another is by results.

Popovich is generally considered the best head coach in the NBA, and as you point out, he's at the far end of the "give 'em rest" spectrum. Last season, even with his very cautious approach to managing his players' minutes, his team won 61 regular season games and had the #1 seed in the West.

Pops even continued his conservative approach in the playoffs by holding Ginobili out of game one against the Grizz (Spurs loss) due to a sprained elbow he suffered in their last regular season game. Reportedly, Ginobili wasn't happy about it. As we all know, the Grizz took out the presumably well-rested Spurs in 6.

Of course, this doesn't mean that Popovich's approach is wrong or bad, but by the same token, it doesn't provide compelling evidence that Pops' way is right either.

I sure as hell don't know what the right answer is here. I'm surprised so many other folks believe that they do. Of course, our opinions don't cost us anything.

Thibs has his "sit if you're injured, play if you can" story and he's sticking to it. In the end, he's responsible for the result. Here's hoping he comes out smelling like a Rose (pun intended).

[kyrv]

Thibodeau disagreed with his own head coach in Boston about how long to run their main guys in the regular season. The story has been recounted numerous times. Thibs wanted to go all out for regular season wins, HCA, what have you, and Doc, having an older team, wanted to scale back with more of a Popovich approach (who has actually sat guys entire games for no reason other than more rest- is he just a moron?).

As we know the Celtics went on to lose in the Finals in the final game, while being without Perkins. We can't say Doc's prevailing strategy caused them to do better for sure, but I think most reviews of the situation paint him as having made the right call.

Now the Bulls are a much younger team, and thus we can argue such rest matters less. Or we can take each game and situation on it's own merits, (I thought Rose's use was fine last night, have not liked others such as guys in very late up 20+).

But with the Boston account in hand, it would be silly to argue that Thibs is just doing what any other coach would and does do. By example, we can see that coaches don't always have the same philosophy.

Very true and the only way fans can judge one philosophy versus another is by results.

Popovich is generally considered the best head coach in the NBA, and as you point out, he's at the far end of the "give 'em rest" spectrum. Last season, even with his very cautious approach to managing his players' minutes, his team won 61 regular season games and had the #1 seed in the West.

Pops even continued his conservative approach in the playoffs by holding Ginobili out of game one against the Grizz (Spurs loss) due to a sprained elbow he suffered in their last regular season game. Reportedly, Ginobili wasn't happy about it. As we all know, the Grizz took out the presumably well-rested Spurs in 6.

Of course, this doesn't mean that Popovich's approach is wrong or bad, but by the same token, it doesn't provide compelling evidence that Pops' way is right either.

I sure as hell don't know what the right answer is here. I'm surprised so many other folks believe that they do. Of course, our opinions don't cost us anything.

Thibs has his "sit if you're injured, play if you can" story and he's sticking to it. In the end, he's responsible for the result. Here's hoping he comes out smelling like a Rose (pun intended).

I don't know that there is a right answer. it's never going to be cut and dried imo. Maybe the ideal goal is to not be on one extreme or the other.

Re the embolden, I think people are worried that injured players ARE playing, I think that's the whole deal.

Thibs has a great credo, I agree with it. I hope he does, and the players and FO do as well.

[Dr Genius]

He is going to injure half of our starting lineup by the playoff. The dude is clueless. Why are we putting our studs on the floor when we are up by 20-30 pts? GTFO.

[joshcxa]

He is going to injure half of our starting lineup by the playoff. The dude is clueless. Why are we putting our studs on the floor when we are up by 20-30 pts? GTFO.

I trust that the staff at Chicago know what they're doing with the players.

[Mr-Bulls]

He is going to injure half of our starting lineup by the playoff. The dude is clueless. Why are we putting our studs on the floor when we are up by 20-30 pts? GTFO.

So the guy that turned this team to the best defensive(maybe even offensive) unit is "clueless"?

I for one think that Thibs is having some flashbacks from the ECF when we gave up the lead in the fourth Q several times, including the big oopsie in Game 5, that might keep him from pulling back the starters, just an idea.

[dougthonus]

I've never had back spasms. But I've seen dozens of NBA players over the years play with them, even getting in game treatment. Can you definitively tell me that someone with back spasm should absolutely not engage in physical activity? That this act inflames the problem and limits recovery? That advising an athlete to play limited minutes as a facilitator (which is clearly what Rose was doing last night) might actually help loosen up the muscles better than sitting idle?

I don't know the answer to any of these questions. They involve sports science and medicine. And require pointed and specific knowledge of the first hand information known internally.

I'm not defending it. I'm operating on the presumption that the Bulls medical staff is not committing malpractice with regard to the franchise player to win a regular season game against the Hornets.

Why is Richard Hamilton not playing for the third time this year? Oh yeah, because we brought him back too early and played him two much the first two times he came back.

Why did the Bulls tell Luol Deng that he is encouraged to test his physical limits and have active rest, and basically call him a pussy in an official press release when in fact he had a broken leg?

Let me also say that as someone who has to do professional level risk management as a fair portion of their job, that the decision to play Rose in yesterday and tomorrow's games would be viewed as completely ludicrous from any reasonable risk model. Of course, team's don't use risk models, because they aren't critical to their continued existence like at my company which would likely be out of business within 5 years if we abandoned modeling risk.

It's similar to the question of why is the government so bad at managing money? Because they have no true accountability for doing it badly. Team's don't have true accountability for bad management of risk except for a bad season, but then people immediately forgive them because "it was just bad luck".

If you've never had back spasms, but let me say yes, playing basketball through them can absolutely drastically lengthen your recovery time. I would say in my experience (personally and with people I know who have suffered through them) that this is by FAR the most likely occurrence of trying to play through them, and that to have a full recovery rest is very helpful.

I'm not going to pretend that all back problems are the same though, and I have no idea what Rose is personally going through or how bad his are. Obviously professional athletes have a treatment team totally different than what I have as an individual.

[kyrv]

^^ Doug that's a good business way I think of explaining the situation/issue, that it's about the risk versus reward. About being healthy and fresh come playoffs versus does player X need to play in this game if he's banged up?

Obviously that can be carried to the extreme (like Thibs did), but, when dealing with banged up players, can be useful. Doesn't make Popovich right but he has a team that tends towards injuries and has age so he uses risk reward pretty well.

And, they are saying they will be careful and conservative now with Rip.

But...not with the franchise player? (Again I'm fine Rose played last night just in general, Rose has been banged up and played at times fairly obviously banged up.)

[dougthonus]

NBA Executive Vice Presidents, General Managers, Coaches, Trainers, Medical Staff, Agents - people whose jobs could be adversely effected by endangering their franchise player through overplaying him and playing him while he is hurt. These people are all in 'the know' and know exactly what is going on. They have looked at all the information and have helped determine whether your favorite player goes out onto the court night after night and for how long.

RealGM posters, sportscasters, pundits, radio hosts, blog writers - people whose lives are minimally impacted by whether their favorite/star player is playing injured or playing too much. These people are generally NOT in the know. They do NOT have detailed information on the players condition. They have not spoken with the player in private or hung around them long enough to fully evaluate their condition. At worst, these people will be mentally crushed should their favorite/star player go down to injury or not be able to take their team to the championship.

Who am I to trust? To believe?

This is the equivalent of saying "you can't argue with anything the team does because they know more than you, and thus their opinion is better than yours". The problem with this theory is that teams quite frequently do really dumb things that are obviously dumb at the time. Playing Rose while he was clearly hurt against a team we could beat if we rested our top five players is one of those things.

[northbrookrich]

Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said he remembered Rose dealing with back problems last season.

"He had it one time last year and it was similar. It was one game, then the rest, then he was fine after that," Thibodeau said. "And never had it again. But I guess he's had this since high school. I think he knows how to deal with it pretty effectively.

This was in an article yesterday - http://espn.go.com/chicago/nba/story/_/ ... ns-hornets

So, the decision to play him was not only based on clearance from Thibs, Rose and the doctors/trainers, but it was also based on an apparent similar injury last year that went away after one game. They may need to re-evaluate the conclusion, but prior to yesterday's game it would seem that they could reasonably expect that it was a one game thing that would be gone for the NO game.

[micromonkey]

POP!

Let's burst the "Pops rests guys myth"--For a real comparison look at what Pops was doing with Timmy when he was Roses age--that is right "running him into the ground" playing him 39+ MPG until he was 26 (largely--maybe a low year of 38.6 in there). By Pops standards Thibs isn't playing Rose enough. Now Tim is 35 so if he plays 27 mpg it's okay--he can "turn it on"--sitting on the bench while his 4 rings are clanking together --its okay for him. And if they play cold—like you could argue they did last year then maybe Pops is wrong—but maybe he didn’t have many options with the older squad and rust was the risk he could accept; who knows this isn’t a Spurs board.

During the 99’ Lockout Pop’s RODE Duncan—had him playing 39.3 MPG. They had the leagues largest point differential that year as well--so he had to be playing him in blowouts.

The Spurs are an older squad with multiple titles--typically have been 1-3 seed every year (outside of 2 years in the last 12). How they manage their minutes is totally unrelated to what the Bulls should do. Spurs--older squad knows how to win it all--Bulls younger squad learning how to win it all.

Rose is only playing 35.5 MPG--that is close to what Duncan was playing at age 29 (34.8)

Another thing--HCA and high seeding matters. Trying hard all year matters to build the good habits--numbers agree with Thibs here. Part of those habits is being able to play hard the whole game—you don’t run 2 miles to train for a marathon.

There hasn't been a team with a seed higher than 3rd that has won it all in the past 11 years. There isn't a team that gets hot like in Football and rolls while taking 1/2 or 1/3 of the season off. No one pops out of nowhere in a mid or low seed and wins it all. Championship teams play good all year (and often the year before). Sure Celts won it all in a year but they were a 1 seed, played well and had the best SRS all season—they didn’t slink in with a mid seed.

11' Mav's were a 3 seed but a 2 seed the year before (pointing to prolonged playing well)
10'-08' Before that Lakers/Lakers/Celtics were all 1 seeds
'07 Spurs were a 3 seed but a 1 seed the year before
'06 Heat were a 2 seed but a 1 seed the year before
'05 Spurs were a 2 seed (3 seed year before/ 1 seed year after)
'04 Pistons were a 3 seed but 1 seed year before
'03 Spurs were a 1 seed
02'-01' Lakers were a 3/2/1 seed

No one has even won a championship as a 3 seed without being at least a 2 the year before (ie Mavs and Pistons). And the one case of someone rising to a 1 seed from nowhere and win it all (ie Celtics) is pretty easily explained.

Thibs is trying to build a winning culture and he has a young team that hasn't won a title yet. Resting players can possibly only be proven useful after this culture has been solidified with titles and older players.

[kyrv]

Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said he remembered Rose dealing with back problems last season.

"He had it one time last year and it was similar. It was one game, then the rest, then he was fine after that," Thibodeau said. "And never had it again. But I guess he's had this since high school. I think he knows how to deal with it pretty effectively.

This was in an article yesterday - http://espn.go.com/chicago/nba/story/_/ ... ns-hornets

So, the decision to play him was not only based on clearance from Thibs, Rose and the doctors/trainers, but it was also based on an apparent similar injury last year that went away after one game. They may need to re-evaluate the conclusion, but prior to yesterday's game it would seem that they could reasonably expect that it was a one game thing that would be gone for the NO game.

Listening to sports radio today (ya, I know ;p) some (well most) who had an opinion were mildly upset to pretty upset that Rose played.

I don't agree, I can't micro manage every injury as you note there are things we just don't know, but again it's a general concern to keep an eye on.

[coldfish]

I <3 micromonkey.

[kyrv]

[Wow micromonkey that was a great read!!

Won't quote the whole thing, but fascinating numbers. The finish:

No one has even won a championship as a 3 seed without being at least a 2 the year before (ie Mavs and Pistons). And the one case of someone rising to a 1 seed from nowhere and win it all (ie Celtics) is pretty easily explained.

Thibs is trying to build a winning culture and he has a young team that hasn't won a title yet. Resting players can possibly only be proven useful after this culture has been solidified with titles and older players.

Well stated. This of course isn't mutually exclusive to the idea/issue of players playing injured, but again great read and angle and big picture viewpoint.

[GetBuLLish]

There's a difference between playing through pain and playing injured, and as a professional, elite athlete, I'm sure Derrick knows his own limits better than anyone on this board. And he doesn't need Thibs to be his babysitter.

Rose has EXPLICITLY admitted that he came back too soon from his toe injury and that it cost him more games. This idea that players know best and are infallible is beyond belief to me. Haven't you guys heard the hundreds of stories of players admitting that they came back too early from an injury and that it ended up costing them?

This is in reference to Doug,

KCJHoop K.C Johnson
RT @TeddyGreenstein: Rose: "The back’s feeling better. I should be ready to go tonight. "

This is coming from the horses mouth.

If you were coach and your star says what Rose said, do you then proceed to say, screw you, you are sitting down?

Again, Rose has admitted that he's come back too soon from injury before.

Also, it doesn't take a "screw you" to tell Rose that he's going to sit a game. Let's not build strawmen arguments here. If Thibs told Rose that he wasn't playing, the odds of Rose suddenly becoming anti-Thibs and fueling a coup against Thibs, ala Ben Wallace, is about 0.

I'm not defending it. I'm operating on the presumption that the Bulls medical staff is not committing malpractice with regard to the franchise player to win a regular season game against the Hornets.

You're just building a strawman argument. A doctor's job is to tell a player whether or not he can play, what steps he can take to remedy an injury, etc. The Bulls doctor is not thinking about HCA or the probability of beating NO without Rose.

This is what some of us are arguing. That we could have and would have easily beaten NO w/o Rose. And that resting Rose would have been better for his ailing back than playing. This last sentence you can't disagree with. You don't need a doctor to tell you that not playing basketball is better for an ailing back than playing basketball.

And one other thing: I've seen countless players play with back spasms in the NBA over the years, even getting treatment on the sidelines during the games in an attempt to stay loose. And Rose's issue hasn't even been calling for that type of in-game management.

Wrong. Rose was getting back massages on the sidelines during the Bucks game. And when he came back in, he was clearly being hampered by his back.

You make it sound like Thibodeau was in Rip's face telling "i don't care if you're hurt, you're playing!" Rip himself has said that he really wants to be on the floor and guys can play through injury. Is it a coincidence that Rip was out for a few games, came back for Detroit then sat out for 5 more games. You think Thibodeau got in his face saying "I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE HURT, YOU'RE PLAYING DAMNIT, ICE!!!!" Not a chance; Rip wanted to stick it to his old team and re aggravated the injury because of it.

It's about as simple as this: if you say you can play, you'll play. Thibodeau will lean on his best players to win games when they're available. The only gripe you'll find from Cliff Levingston about Thibodeau is that he waits too long into blowouts to empty the bench. That's it.

And this is exactly the philosophy that a number of us are railing against.

I don't understand how you someone can see what happened to Hamilton after we used that philosophy, and then strongly continue to advocate for that philosophy.

Rip wanted to play. Rip was medically cleared to play. Rip has now missed more games after playing.

How does anyone not see a problem with that?

Rangers coach on 24/7 had a great view of injuries.

Something like "Being hurt is a mindset, there is a difference, if you can't play then you don't. But if you're in the training room, asking for games off, and getting massages I think that's a slippery slope. Playing hurt is a mindset that everyone has to deal with"

That's not exact, but it's the overall message. I agree 100%. Playing hurt is just something that happens. I'm sure a lot of you have done it. Things do heal. You can play through a lot of things, and you should because at some point you are going to have to.

It's not like one day you can say "okay, now I'm going to push myself through this" ...No, it's a mentality that you work for. You see how deep you can go mentally. You find where you can get that inner strength. It's completely and 100% necessary to be a champion and I think a lot of times (or even all of the time) this gets over looked on this board.

Play through pain, it's a mentality, and it's so so important.

First of all, I definitely appreciate the mental approach of pushing through injuries. And let it be known that John Tortorella has had no influence on me understanding this.

But do you really think that Rose sitting out against the Hornets (or Bobcats) would really all of a sudden turn him into a giant p*ssy? You think that he would all of a sudden forget how to play through pain?

That's preposterous. Rose is one of the toughest players in the entire league. He's one of the most competitive players I've ever seen. A coach deciding to rest him (against Rose's will) for a game or two won't change that.

Also, you talk about this mentality. So what does that say about Rose that he was only able to play 11 minutes against the Bucks? That he played the least minutes out of all the starters against NO? Does this mean that he doesn't have the mentality to fight through injuries?

Obviously not.

Cliff Levingston has got to agree with coldfish here and expand on it.

The moment you get complacent and think you don't need to play guys or play hard against sub-par competition, you get beat (or almost lose). Look at the Heat this year and their losses to some bad teams: can it be explained any other way really? That team has no excuse for losing to the Bucks twice.

Really? Are you seriously arguing that the Heat lost to the Bucks because the Heat have been overresting their players? There is absolutely no correlation between the two.

If Derrick says he can play, he'll play, and did. Thibodeau had a pretty quick hook for him when A. it was apparent that Rose wasn't 100% and B. we had a huge lead.

If it was apparent that Rose wasn't 100% and had to have his minutes reduced more than any other starter, what was the point of having him in the game to begin with? Were we going to lose without his 6 points and 6 assits? Did we gain some much needed chemistry in those 22 minutes that we will need in the playoffs?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The main point is that this idea that "if player X wants to play and is medically cleared to play, he should play and no one should argue with this" has been entirely discredited.

1) Rip was cleared to play and wanted to play, but he continued to reaggravate it and now he's out indefinitely. Could it have possibly been more beneficial if Thibs had told Rip that he won't play until he's 100%? I'd argue that this is very possible. You guys seem to think this is crazy talk.

2) Rose has admitted to coming back too soon from injury. Again, your philosophy failed. And again, Thibs could have made the right move by telling Rose to sit more. Instead, he adopted your philosophy and it hurt the team.

So right there, we have two instances in which this philosophy failed. What I'm arguing is that other factors need to be looked at and that it's not such a simple minded process.

Rose started having back problems against the Bucks. Then before the Nets game, he said his back was still bothering him. Then he ended up playing only 11 minutes and could barely walk w/o pain.

Then we played the Hornets, the 2nd worst team in the league. A simple cost/benefit analsyis would tell you that benefits of resting Rose clearly outweighed the costs. The only real cost was the chance of losing (losing being a HUGE cost, b/c I consider HCA vastly important). But the chance of losing was very small. If the other players took the game seriously, the odds were incredibly in our favor. The fact that we won while Rose played only 22 mins and had a whopping 6 and 6 is evidence of this.

The benefit of resting Rose was that it would help heal his back. It was clear during the game that his back was bothering him. Can anyone tell me that he would not have benefited from not playing in the game, not going through shoot around, and not warming up? Anyone who has ever had a back problem (including myself) knows that rest is the best medicine. And I don't need to talk about the benefits of having a healthy Rose, do I?

And just as a last quick question, can someone tell me what we gained by having Rose play 22 minutes last night while being clearly and visibly hampered by his back?

[BeKuK]

Well done GetBuLLish!

[DuckIII]

He is going to injure half of our starting lineup by the playoff. The dude is clueless. Why are we putting our studs on the floor when we are up by 20-30 pts? GTFO.

Name the injury caused by minutes: Go!