Derrick Rose and the Chicago Bulls Are a Microcosm of This NBA Lockout Season

The 2012 NBA season started out with so much promise for Derrick Rose and the Chicago Bulls.

The front court was finally healthy after struggling with injuries last season. The shooting guard position looked like it had some options with the acquisition of Rip Hamilton. Most of all, the youngest MVP in history was coming back with a year of playoff experience.

It's almost humorous how fast things went wrong.

Things started to slide downhill on January 11 when Derrick Rose missed five out of seven games with turf toe. Then he went down with back spasms on February 6. Then he pulled his groin on March 12. Then he sprained his ankle April 8.

That doesn't even count Luol Deng tearing a ligament in his left wrist and playing through it! Nor does it count Rip Hamilton missing 38 out of a possible 66 this season. And, of course, the death knell for this season came when Rose tore his ACL in Game 1 of the first round against the 76ers.

When fans look back at this season for their beloved Chicago Bulls, they will see a season that was wasted. This is a year of Derrick Rose's prime which he will not be able to make a playoff run. This is a year of solid Carlos Boozer production that we won't get back.

Perhaps the worst part about it is that Rose and Deng won't even be back at the beginning of NEXT season, so we've lost part of another season just based off this year.

When you look at the Bulls, you see this NBA season in a nutshell. The team just wasn't at full power because of injuries. That's the story of this NBA season.

Even Commissioner David Stern is finally admitting that injuries have something to do with the shortened season. Teams were not, and are not, able to play to their full ability with so much of their roster inhibited. Basketball just flat out suffered this year.

At the end of the day, whoever wins this title will have an asterisk. Whoever wins the title will be whichever team is healthiest heading through the playoffs. Whoever that team is will have to know that they won the title because the team with the best record in the league was missing their top two players.

This has absolutely been a season to forget. It makes you almost wish the lockout lasted all year...all we can do now is be thankful we have another five years before this happens again.