The Bulls’ argument and apparent concern for Deng’s health is rather
undermined, however, by the manner in the which they appear to have
chronically overworked him during a ridiculously compressed 66-game regular
season, especially after he injured his left wrist on January 21.

Far from resting one of their prime assets – like they did consistently with
Rose when he suffered a series of groin and toe injuries before his ACL
rupture – the Bulls have ‘flogged’ the injured Deng to the extent that he
averaged 39.2 minutes per game for the season, the highest in the NBA for
the regular season.

Deng could have opted for surgery in January but decided to bite the bullet
and see the season through with the Bulls and then continue through to the
Olympics, after which he would re-assess the situation.

The Bulls would clearly like him to undergo that operation now, meaning he
would be available for the start of the NBA season, while he insists a
decision over possible surgery can be delayed until mid-August after he has
fulfilled his dream of representing Great Britain at the Olympics.

Straight after the final play-off game of the series against the 76er Deng
re-iterated his intention to compete for Great Britain. “I just know I’ve
got the Olympics ahead of me,” he said. “The fact that it’s in my hometown
that I grew up in a country that gave me opportunity to even be here, I’m
looking forward to it.”

The Sudanese-born Deng moved to London in 1993 with his family who were
seeking political asylum from the Civil War and immediately made an impact
with the Brixton Bobcats and the GB age group teams, once scoring 51 points
against Turkey in a European U16 Championship match. As a senior he has
already represented Great Britain in 32 tests and was the leading scorer at
the Eurobasket Championships in Lithuania last year.

Posted by
Inside Hoops

May
16

If Derrick Rose returns next season, it’s unlikely he’ll be the player he was before he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee April 28.

That’s if he returns. The doctor who performed the successful surgery to repair Rose’s isolated ACL tear and a meniscus tear Saturday morning at Rush University Medical Center said some athletes take longer to recover for reasons that can be physiological as well as psychological.

“There’s no question that happens,” Dr. Brian Cole said. “People ask why don’t you get back to pre-injury level. In some cases, there’s just a level of confidence that they just don’t get, which is why we emphasize it so much during rehab, to help train an individual that it’s safe to do this.”

The Bulls aren’t counting on Rose returning next season. They aren’t even planning for it. But general manager Gar Forman said he will keep the core of a team that had the league’s best regular-season record in consecutive seasons together with an eye toward the future.

– Reported by Neil Hayes of the Chicago Sun-Times

Read NBA fan opinion and share your views in this basketball forum topic.

Chicago Bulls guard Derrick Rose waves to the crowd after presenting the game ball before Game 2 of the first round of the Eastern Conference Playoffs against the Philadelphia 76ers at the United Center in Chicago, May 1, 2012 in Chicago. UPI/Brian Kersey 

License photo

CHICAGO, May 15 (UPI) — Chicago Bulls all-star guard Derrick Rose could be out as long a year following surgery to repair a torn knee ligament, the team’s doctor said Tuesday.

Bulls team physician Brian Cole said last year’s NBA MVP will be out 8-to-12 months after having the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee repaired.

That would mean Rose will miss at least part of the 2012-13 season.

“He really has to meet certain objective parameters that we progress him through,” Cole said in Chicago. “It’s really a series of progressions, very knee-focused initially, which is what we’re doing now. We spread out from there, doing entire body conditioning, performance training and so forth.”

The top-seeded Bulls sorely missed the 23-year-old following his injury at the end of their Game 1 Eastern Conference quarterfinals loss to Philadelphia. Chicago went on to lose the series 4-2.

Rose struggled with other injuries during the lockout-shortened regular season. He missed 27 of the 66 games due back spasms and a pulled groin.

He averaged 21.8 points and 7.9 assists per game when he did play.

(CBS/AP) CHICAGO – Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose faces a recovery of eight months to a year in his recovery from knee surgery.

The assessment by Dr. Brian Cole on Tuesday means the star point guard could return around Feb. 1 or miss next season. The doctor adds there is a chance Rose could be back sooner, but “we’re not going to rush it.”

The Bulls had already said Rose has a torn ligament in his left knee. Cole says there is there is also a small cartilage tear. He says Rose is “doing great” and surgery went “extremely well.”

Rose, last season’s MVP, was hurt in the final minutes of Chicago’s Game 1 victory over Philadelphia in the first round of the playoffs. After Rose went down, the Bulls lost four of the next five games and lost the series.

Compressed NBA schedule to blame for injuries?
Derrick Rose to miss rest of season with torn ACL
Nike designer apologizes for mocking Rose’s injury

Bulls general manager Gar Forman said Rose’s previous injuries or the compressed schedule did not lead to the ACL tear. But players don’t seem so certain.

“There’s a lot of speculation. And it doesn’t matter. We’re in this season, we played the games, we’re in the playoffs now. Hopefully no one else goes down with these type of injuries,” Miami’s Dwyane Wade said last month. “It’s not anything that we want to see for none of our players to go down with injuries. So you don’t know. You don’t know if it was because of the condensed season. You don’t know what the case may be. The biggest thing is that them guys get healthy.”

By K.C. Johnson

Tribune reporter

2:02 p.m. CDT, May 14, 2012

Chicago Bulls forward Taj Gibson reportedly has been named to the U.S. select team, which works out with and scrimmages against finalists for the U.S. national team vying to compete in the London Olympics.

The news was reported by Matt Steinmetz of CSNBayArea, citing sources.

Gibson, who averaged 7.7 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.3 blocks for the Bulls this season, is coming off a stellar postseason performance. He also drew one first-place vote for the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award won by Oklahoma City guard James Harden, finising sixth in that award.

Derrick Rose participated on the U.S. select team in 2008, shortly after the Bulls drafted him with the top overall pick. Rose has called scrimmaging against players who ultimately won a gold medal at the Beijing Olympics critical to his development.

Landing on the select team also is seen as entering the pipeline of the national program, increasing Gibson’s chances for further international play.

The U.S. national team will hold their training camp in Las Vegas in July.

kcjohnson@tribune.com

Twitter @kcjhoop

CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose had surgery Saturday to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.

While the team said in a statement that more information on his prognosis will be provided next week, there’s a good chance Rose will miss the early portion of next season.

Rose was injured late in a playoff-opening win over Philadelphia on April 28, with Chicago leading by 12. He came to a jump stop in the lane with the 76ers’ Spencer Hawes and Lavoy Allen rotating toward him, and his leg buckled. He still went up again and passed to Carlos Boozer in midair before crashing to the court, sending a chill through the arena and setting a bad tone for the Bulls.

Without its leading scorer, Chicago lost the series in six games.

That certainly wasn’t what the Bulls envisioned after capturing homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs for the second straight season despite a long list of injuries. They were eyeing another big run after losing to Miami in the Eastern Conference finals last season but bowed out early, becoming the second No. 1 seed in as many years to fall in the first round.

As if Rose’s injury wasn’t bad enough, the Bulls lost center Joakim Noah to a sprained left ankle in Game 3 and fell into a 3-1 hole before injecting some drama back into the series. They looked as if they were about to force a seventh game with a one-point lead in the closing seconds Thursday, but that changed when C.J. Watson passed to Omer Asik on a break rather than keep the ball.

Asik missed two foul shots before Andre Iguodala drove the length of the court as the defense parted and made both free throws after getting fouled by Asik to give Philadelphia a 79-78 victory.

Rose averaged 21.8 points and 7.9 assists, but it was a difficult season. The MVP a year ago, he missed 27 games because of groin, back, toe, foot and ankle problems that general manager Gar Forman has said did not lead to the ACL tear. Although the Bulls went 18-9 without him during the regular season, they weren’t the same once he went down in the playoffs.

(Copyright (c) 2012 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

Chicago Bulls guard Derrick Rose,
last year’s National Basketball Association Most Valuable
Player, underwent surgery today to repair a torn ligament in his
left knee, the team said.

Rose, 23, tore the anterior cruciate ligament in the fourth
quarter of the Bulls’ win over the Philadelphia 76ers in the
first game of the Eastern Conference playoffs on April 28.

Additional information on Rose’s prognosis will be
disclosed next week, the Bulls said in an e-mail. The surgery
was called “successful.”

Rose, who scored 23 points against the 76ers in the Bulls’
103-91 victory on April 28, averaged 21.8 points and 3.4
rebounds this season. He missed 27 of 66 regular-season games
because of injuries. The Bulls won 18 of those games and lost
nine when he didn’t play.

The Bulls, the top seed in the conference who tied the San
Antonio Spurs for the best record in the league, lost the best-
of-seven series as the 76ers won four games to Chicago’s two
victories.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Nancy Kercheval in Washington at
nkercheval@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Michael Sillup at
msillup@bloomberg.net

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

The Philadelphia 76ers were huge underdogs against the Chicago Bulls before the NBA playoffs started. Yet Sixers fans like myself were startled to actually expect them to beat the Bulls, after Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah both went down. But now that the Sixers aren’t facing a team in the second round that has lost all their superstars, they are back to being underdogs again.

In fact, Philadelphia is probably a bigger underdog against the Boston Celtics than it ever was with Chicago. Virtually every NBA fan and expert has already started looking ahead to a Celtics-Miami Heat Eastern Conference final – without even considering that the Sixers might put up a fight.

Despite beating the Bulls, the general consensus is that Chicago did more to lose that series – both by injuries and fourth quarter collapses – than Philadelphia did to win it. However, while the Bulls fell apart from losing one superstar, the Celtics have four on their roster. What’s more, they already won over the Atlanta Hawks in Game 2 of the first round without a suspended Rajon Rondo, while Paul Pierce plays hurt every postseason and they won a lot this regular season without Ray Allen.

If either Pierce, Allen, Rondo or Kevin Garnett gets hurt, it won’t derail the Celtics like Rose and Noah’s injuries destroyed the Bulls. In fact, given how old the Boston Big Three is, it might be surprising if none of them gets banged up an extra bit in this series. However, they want to be extra healthy if they do head to the conference finals against the Heat after all.

The Sixers won’t be able to take advantage of injuries like they did with the Bulls, since the Celtics have a bit more depth. As such, they will have to win on pure merit – which was hard for them even with Rose and Noah gone. Chicago’s own lack of discipline and late clutch play cost it wins in all three games at Philadelphia – but the Sixers can’t count on that kind of luck when facing the Celtics.

The Bulls had too little playoff experience to find an extra gear in close games, at least compared to the Celtics. Meanwhile, Boston found something extra in the tank in several down to the wire thrillers with Atlanta. As for Philadelphia, its success in close, tight games was suspect in the regular season, yet Chicago helped it get better in the postseason. But will the Celtics be as helpful?

With all these factors in mind, a Sixers upset over the Celtics would likely shock the NBA world more than their win over the Bulls. Of course, no one forsaw just how Philadelphia would eliminate Chicago, so maybe there is another way for them to win that we can’t anticipate just yet. Yet until the Sixers find that way and prove they aren’t a lucky fluke, it will be hard for many people to see it happening.

Robert Dougherty is a life-long Philadelphia resident and 76ers fan.

Other stories from this contributor

Celtics pull out one last brutal win over Hawks

76ers mercifully bring ugly series against Bulls to an end

76ers somehow, someway manage to advance over Bulls

76ers must find killer instinct in Game 6 before its too late

Celtics cough up chance to finish Hawks early