Derrick Rose Still Holds the Key to Chicago Bulls' Season
CHICAGO — All that’s left to do is wait.
For how long, nobody knows. It could be this Wednesday against the Bucks in Milwaukee. It could be next Sunday against the Cavaliers in Cleveland. It could be a little longer. But at some point this season, Derrick Rose is going to return to the Chicago Bulls’ lineup. Then and only then will we know what they’re capable of.
In the meantime, the Bulls can only do what they’ve been doing for much of the year: try to build the kind of continuity that has evaded them all season; create a level of chemistry that will allow Rose to seamlessly transition back in before the playoffs, whenever that may be.
“The more that the guys are together, the better it is,” head coach Tom Thibodeau said on Saturday night, after the Bulls’ 111-80 blowout win over the New York Knicks. “Even where we are with Derrick, he’s not playing in the games but he is practicing. So anytime we can have an opportunity to have our entire team together, it’s a plus. But we’ve had so many guys out all year. It’s not only coming back, but they have to play well.”
Rose’s recovery timeline has never been crystal clear, but all signs point to optimism in the short term. He’s doing everything in practices and shootarounds except full-contact work, and that could come this week. Once he’s taking contact, it’s just a matter of having a few days to ramp up his conditioning before he’s ready to go.
The exact date Rose returns doesn’t matter much. Unless there’s another setback, he’ll be back in the lineup before the end of the regular season. Everything that happens between now and then is irrelevant. Except for next Sunday’s meeting with the Cavs, the Bulls’ schedule is made up entirely of teams they should beat without much trouble.
It’s taken five months of stops and starts, but the Bulls are in the exact position they’re supposed to be in with just a few weeks to go until the playoffs. This is a team that knows who they are, what their strengths are and how to execute.
The Bulls of January or February might have let this atrocious Knicks team hang around, as they have with plenty of bad teams this season. On Saturday night, they took care of business, taking a 20-point lead into the half and never letting up.
That’s where they are until Rose is back. Once he’s back in the lineup, the Bulls can start worrying about how to reintegrate him into an offense that has found ways to click without him over the last month.
After a season full of injuries and inconsistent play, the Bulls are peaking at the right time. They’re 3-0 since Jimmy Butler’s return to the lineup, and 4-1 since the return of Taj Gibson. They’re doing everything they can right now to put themselves in a position to be successful in the playoffs.
But they’re still missing Rose. In whatever form this latest return may take, Rose still holds the key to their playoff hopes. There’s a chance he struggles when he returns, but just the threat of him attacking the basket is something opponents need to plan for, something that isn’t replicated anywhere else on the roster.
Or, Rose could come back and play the way he has in short spurts this season, looking every bit the player he was before the knee injuries started.
Either way, the Bulls will find out what they’re getting from Rose in the coming days. From there, they’ll either go on the playoff run they saw for themselves in training camp or they won’t.
Until then, they just have to keep doing what they’re doing now: staying sharp, taking care of this stretch of winnable games and most of all, staying healthy. There is no more evolving for this team to do, just waiting for its most important player.
“He looks good,” Mike Dunleavy said of Rose after practice Friday. “But unfortunately the games are full contact. He’s got to be looking good when he starts doing contact and practicing and that will come in due time, hopefully in time for our playoff run.”
By all indications, Rose’s return to contact—and ultimately to game action—is coming sooner rather than later. That’s the final piece. In the meantime, the Bulls just maintain.
Sean Highkin covers the Chicago Bulls for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @highkin.
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