The 76ers conjure up some bad memories for the Bulls. Next month brings the two-year anniversary of Derrick Rose tearing his left ACL in the opening game of the NBA playoffs. Joakim Noah’s grotesquely sprained ankle and the eighth-seeded 76ers’ upset of the top-seeded Bulls followed. Noah is in a different place, drawing strong praise at every NBA stop, including Wednesday’s remarks from 76ers coach Brett Brown. Rose is rehabilitating his second straight season-ending knee injury, with coach Tom Thibodeau reiterating Rose is “nowhere near to practicing” but added “maybe he’ll get a couple of practices at the end” of this season. Either way, Rose’s meniscus is expected to be rehabilitated enough to allow him to participate in this summer’s USA Basketball minicamp that will decide the roster for the FIBA World Cup in Spain in September. Rose, USA Basketball officials and Bulls’ management all support his participation. Read more http://www.chicagotribune.com/sport...ibodeau-derrick-rose-20140319,0,5445204.story
IIRC Team USA plays in august, which would be 9 months after he damaged his knee, and I believe his recovery process is supposed to take 4-6 months, so it should be well after his knee is healed. If that's true then I would definitely hope he plays. You could say "but he might injure it"....but if he can't handle Team USA for a few months he won't be able to handle playing for the Bulls either. And we've got this little problem of having a franchise player who hasn't played in two years. I'd think that playing with Team USA would be great prep for the season.
Every time a player steps on a court, there's a chance of injury. The more intense the competition, the bigger the injury risk. I'd rather that every Chicago player spend his offseason in low-impact, skill-enhancing activities. I don't want Noah playing for France or Rose playing for Team USA. If Dunleavy says he wants to play for Ireland, tell him I said no.
http://www.82games.com/pelton25.htm For the most part, the two groups show up as virtually identical. There does seem to be a slightly higher probability of minor, nagging injuries for the players who participated on USA Basketball, but this effect is mild at best. In his answer I referenced earlier, Hollinger did add a second half of his theory - if playing over the summer does have any injury effect, it shows up for players like Wade who already saw their summers shortened by a lengthy playoff run: "[T]he only players who did this coming off long playoff runs are Wade, Dirk, Diaw and Barbosa," Hollinger wrote. "So if you're looking for impacts, look to those guys first." Defining a long playoff run as advancing at least to the conference finals, six players in my study qualify: Allan Houston and Steve Smith in 2000, Paul Pierce in 2002 and Tim Duncan, Richard Jefferson and Jason Kidd in 2003. Kidd missed 15 games in 2003-04 and would undergo microfracture knee surgery in the summer of 2004, while Duncan missed 13 games. However, the other four players missed just eight games combined. Six players isn't really a big enough sample to say anything remotely definitive about whether a long playoff run plus international play means trouble, but I think we can confidently say that in general playing over the summer doesn't mean more injuries down the road.
