alsOnce again -- and painfully, at that -- the Chicago Bulls issued an all-too-familiar statement:
MRI on Monday.
This time, it's Jimmy Butler, the Bulls' leading scorer and best wing defender and probably the NBA's most improved player. He ran into a DeAndre Jordan screen in the third quarter, which is pretty much the same as running into a wall, and his left elbow crashed awkwardly into Jordan. Butler was done for the day with what is for now being called a hyperextended elbow. Once again, a lost basketball game was secondary news to an injured Bull.
To recap: Derrick Rose is out at least a month, and could be psychologically ailing longer than that, following his third knee surgery in three years. Taj Gibson is out for who knows how long with a sprained ankle. And now, Butler is out, pending Monday's MRI. That's three of the team's top five players (with Joakim Noah and Pau Gasol being the others).
You're not going to get a cynic's take in this space or read that Bulls executives, by publicly talking about a four- to six-week recovery for Rose, have somehow put Rose on notice ... even though dozens of active players have had the procedure and all talk about it being a four- to six-week injury. The Bulls' issues aren't about management versus players; they're related to good health -- or the lack of it.
The Bulls can't go on a deep playoff run without Rose. They can't go on a deep playoff run without Butler. They are unlikely to go on a deep playoff run without Gibson coming off the bench. These players' specific, individual talents and how those talents relate to team play are, in each case, essential. There's no "more than enough" or "next man up," even though that's exactly what coach Tom Thibodeau has to try to get his team to believe, starting Tuesday against the Wizards.
With Butler on the floor, the Bulls might have found a way to beat the Clippers. With Butler in the locker room, the team's best player at creating opportunities for others was probably rookie Nikola Mirotic. With a fresh round of injuries (this started in the preseason, with Butler hurting a finger and missing the start of the regular season), it's difficult to imagine a stretch of games in which the Bulls have the preferred starting five (Rose/Butler/Noah/Gasol/Mike Dunleavy Jr.) and the full complement of bench players (Gibson/Aaron Brooks/Kirk Hinrich/Mirotic/Tony Snell).
The slew of injuries visiting NBA teams -- even ones locked into playoff spots -- could dramatically alter the postseason. The Oklahoma City Thunder is likely to have to play at least a couple more games without Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. The Clippers still don't have Blake Griffin. The Pelicans have no chance to make a move on the No. 8 spot without Anthony Davis. And so it goes.
But no team in the league seems as vulnerable to injuries, for the third straight season, as the Bulls. The latest Rose setback, even five days after it occurred, has players shaking their heads. Chris Paul, who torched the Bulls with 28 points on 12-for-19 shooting, talked afterward about coming back from his own meniscus tear six years ago.
"I suffered it playing against Derrick Rose ... in New Orleans," Paul said.
Like so many others who've successfully come back from a torn meniscus and been asked about their recovery in the context of Rose, Paul said, "The hardest part is the mental aspect ... regaining the trust that you can do all the things you could do before tearing it. Look, each injury is different, and each player is different. I was never as athletic as Derrick Rose was ... He plays at such an athletic level."
Paul talked about not wanting to ease back after the injury, about playing the entire season with a brace. Then, for the sake of comparison, Paul said of Westbrook, "You look at Russ [when he returned], and you wouldn't know anything had happened to him."
Another former NBA player who attended Sunday's game talked about playing three weeks after the tear but added he didn't have the history of injuries Rose does, which will surely impact Rose's ability to trust the knee again. Another former player, now a scout, said he was back on the court in four weeks, even though that was more than 20 years ago, when nothing about rehabilitation was as sophisticated or advanced as it is now.
That was the good news that framed the discussion before the game. But by the third quarter, with Butler out, Gasol sick as a dog and Gibson on the shelf, the discussion had spiraled pretty close to rock bottom, which is the case far too often when it comes to the Bulls and health the past three seasons.
It's hard to even address the impossibly slow offense that shot just 31 percent and committed way too many turnovers (12) relative to baskets scored (27). But getting into their sets so late in the shot clock and often having the ball in the wrong player's hands in the final seconds of possessions only underscored how important Rose is, even if he's shooting poorly.
When you're missing three of your top five players, it obscures even the advances of young players such as Snell (13 points, seven rebounds) and Mirotic (career-high 29 points, nine rebounds). In a world with kinder basketball gods, Mirotic and Snell would have played enough by the end of March to make a contender even stronger. But that presumes they are in support roles, that Rose, Butler and Gibson are back and ready to play a string of games uninterrupted, that not a single Bulls player will leave the bench for the trainer's room in the middle of the game, that the first document to be reviewed after the game is a box score -- not a breakdown of which players need an MRI.