Injuries to Derrick Rose, Jimmy Butler Hit Chicago Bulls at Worst Possible Time

CHICAGO — There’s never a good time to be injured. The Chicago Bulls know that as well as anybody. But with the playoffs six weeks away and a schedule full of contenders, the basketball gods couldn’t have picked a worse time to give the Bulls the three-day stretch they’ve just endured.

It’s been an eventful week in Chicago, and not in a good way.

• Friday morning: Derrick Rose undergoes surgery to repair a torn medial meniscus in his right knee. The prognosis is optimistic, and he should be back before the end of the regular season, but he’s still expected to miss four to six weeks.
• Friday evening: Taj Gibson sprains his left ankle in a win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. He’s expected to miss at least a week.
• Sunday afternoon: Jimmy Butler runs into a DeAndre Jordan screen and leaves the Bulls’ loss to the Clippers with a sprained left elbow.
• Monday morning: The Bulls announce that Butler will miss three to six weeks recovering from the elbow injury.

That’s a three-day span in which the Bulls lost their entire starting backcourt and their most important bench player. They’ve been shorthanded most of the year, playing just three games with their entire roster healthy and 19 games with their full starting lineup (they’re 15-4 in those games).

“That’s the nature of the league,” Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said Monday after practice. “No one’s going to feel sorry for us. Just got to go out there and get it done.”

It’s not going to be easy. The Bulls have 14 games remaining in the month of March, and nine of them are against teams currently slated to make the playoffs.

They play the Toronto Raptors twice and the Washington Wizards once. There’s a back-to-back with the San Antonio Spurs and Memphis Grizzlies. They play two games against the Oklahoma City Thunder, who will likely have at least Russell Westbrook back for both games, and maybe Kevin Durant for the second one.

Of their two upcoming games against the eighth-seeded division-rival Indiana Pacers, their March 18 matchup at the United Center falls right after Paul George’s reported target return date.

In other words, it’s a stretch of schedule for which the Bulls would have benefited from having something close to a healthy roster. Even in a best-case scenario, which would have Rose and Butler hitting the shorter end of their timetables and returning before the end of the month, they’re going to be overmatched and shorthanded for a few weeks. And it’s a crucial few weeks, one in which teams are starting to figure out who they are and battle for playoff seeding.

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“It’s obviously a challenge,” Bulls guard Kirk Hinrich said. “It’s that time of year. Every team is kind of looking at the standings, trying to move up, and better their situation. We’re going to try to do the same.”

Right now, they’re still in the thick of that battle. At 37-23, they sit in third place in the Eastern Conference, trailing the Toronto Raptors by half a game for the second seed and holding a half-game lead over the fourth-place Cleveland Cavaliers.

If they’re still there in a month, the stretch can be considered a resounding success. But that’s a tough thing to expect.

The Bulls could sign a player with their open roster spot to shore up their depth, but there isn’t a lot out there.

“I’m sure Gar [Forman] and John [Paxson] are looking at all the possibilities,” Thibodeau said. “If something makes sense, we’ll do it. They’re always looking around to see what’s available.”

Truthfully, there isn’t much on the free-agent market that will move the needle for the Bulls. Former fan favorite and 2013 playoff hero Nate Robinson has been thrown around as a possibility since last week’s Rose injury news. Mike James and Ronnie Brewer are favorites of Thibodeau and always seem to find their way back to the Bulls. But those players are marginal contributors at best, and the Bulls don’t have time to teach Thibodeau’s notoriously difficult defensive schemes to someone on a 10-day contract.

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So the Bulls will have to get through this stretch with what they already have, just like they have countless times. In the coming weeks, they will learn a lot about what they have.

After playing sporadically early on, Tony Snell averaged 13.6 points per game and shot 52.2 percent from three-point range in the month of February. That clip may not be sustainable, but he’s played well when given consistent minutes. And with Butler out, he’ll get plenty of chances to stay in the rotation.

Nikola Mirotic will also get an extended opportunity this month. In Sunday’s loss to the Clippers, he scored a career-high 29 points with nine rebounds. After some initial success, Thibodeau’s experiment with playing Mirotic at small forward has produced mixed results. Now, Mirotic will be forced to play out of position, and play well, on a consistent basis. If he’s going to learn how to play small forward at the NBA level, this is when he’ll have the chance to do it.

The biggest question mark in the Bulls' short-term rotation will be Doug McDermott, who has only played spot minutes since returning from the knee surgery that kept him out most of December and January. But with Snell's recent emergence and Mike Dunleavy healthy, the rookie is probably not a part of Thibodeau's immediate plans.

The Bulls have dealt with injuries before. It would be easier to list the times over the past three years when they haven’t been down a key player or two. But three at once, on this roster, with this schedule on the horizon is going to be tough to survive.

Sean Highkin covers the Chicago Bulls for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @highkin