Rose brought this on himself, but if we're taking things on their face, he had an ankle sprain and then a hamstring injury within a 2-week period. We should he grateful that he's played 5 games this season.
Close call at this point. They're younger and on the rise. We're looking at a short window before Kirk gets too old. Well, not just him, but you know.
Kirk better not matter much. When it gets down to the short strokes, Hinrich should be playing no more than 10 mpg.
It's not just him. Pau and MDJ are pretty old, too. Noah isn't as old, but he's not exactly young for an NBA player, either. The knee issues don't help. Taj is the same age as Noah.
Have no idea what's going on with Rose. He might just be a slow-healer/injury prone. He might have some sort of post-injury PTSD that prevents him from stepping onto the court unless he's 110%. The team might be ultra-cautious with him. There might be a lot of internal conflict about when he plays and when he doesn't. Maybe there's a huge Jen Swanson - Thibodeau - Rose triangle behind the scenes. It's really hard to say. The best news I can glean from it is that it's not a serious injury, so we shouldn't have to worry about it affecting him later on in the season. The Gasol injury does not concern me. It looks like a vet who's used to running the NBA marathon. I think Dirk, Duncan, KG, etc play the regular season the same way.
It seems like if Rose really wants to play, he'd be out there. I hope he's at least practicing with the team.
We've all been watching sports long enough to know that hamstring strains, pulls, etc. can be nasty little devils and if you try to come back too early, it's very common to suffer re-injury and be back to square one. It's clear that if the powers that be when it comes to Bulls players returning from boo-boos, whoever they are, are going to err, they're going to err on the side of conservatism...at least during the early regular season. As Rose said, there's so much talent on this Bulls' team that there's no reason for any player to try to play through an injury. Well come Monday we may get to see just how deep that talent is with the prospect of Rose, Gasol, Gibson and Hinrich sitting out the Jazz game.
We should get to see the rookies more, especially Mirotic. E'Twan Moore looked no worse than our other PGs who play in games.
Agree...E'Twan Moore isn't your usual end-of-the-bench cannon fodder. He can play. If both Gibson and Gasol are out, I assume that Mirotic starts and that Bairstow and Mohammed see fairly significant time. Could be fun.
A hidden benefit of a rash of injuries is that it gives certain guys time to get playing time under their belts that they wouldn't otherwise see, which can come in handy later on in the season. This is especially true of Mirotic and to a lesser extent E'Twaun Moore. Neither Kirk nor Derrick have a good reputation for durability and he seems like he can play a little.
