Derrick Rose is out for the season, again, and the Bulls front office has some questions to answer.
For the second straight year, Derrick Rose will watch a season from the bench. The Bulls announced yesterday that Rose would undergo surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee and will miss the remainder of the season. Obviously, this is a bummer for every NBA fan. Even if you hate the Bulls (like I do), you miss watching Rose get to the bucket and finish. You miss the way he can take over a game. In the bigger picture, you miss the threat that the Bulls with Rose presented the Heat. Now, a Miami-Indiana matchup is all but inevitable in the Eastern Conference Finals. The series will be fantastic and I’m sure no one will be upset with a third postseason meeting between the two. Yet, Derrick Rose and the Bulls could have beat, or at least challenged, both teams. The Bulls without Rose simply can’t and right now, no other team in the East could either. The Nets and Knicks are competing for the coveted most embarrassing team in New York title. Detroit has yet to figure out how to play basketball together and might never figure it out. Washington and Cleveland seem to have regressed somehow. Toronto’s best player is Rudy Gay. Atlanta, far-and-away the third best team in the East, looks halfway decent and maybe good enough to get the 7 seed out west. The rest of teams are actually trying to lose games or play in Milwaukee. Without Rose, the East sucks even more and the Bulls are right in the middle of the heap.
For basketball fans, Rose’s injury bums you out and will make you look up youtube highlight reels of the young star. For the Bulls front office, the injury set off this reaction.
The team is completely built around a healthy Rose and they don’t have a lot of cap space to make moves to win this year. They do, however, have assets to help the team going forward. First though, Owner Jerry Reisdorf and GM Gar Forman must answer a question that no wants to ask. Is Derrick Rose still your franchise cornerstone? By the time he returns, Rose will have missed basically two entire seasons. He will have a serious injury history with both his knees, including two very arduous and long rehabs. This season, Rose shot a career worst 35.4% from the field and 24% on shots 3-24 ft from the basket. He is one of the league leaders in passes per game at 60.6, but has struggled to create scoring opportunities for his teammates with just 15.2 points created per 48 minutes. The stats from the first 10 games say 2013-14 would be Rose’s worst season yet. But, let’s not overreact to 10 games. He looked rusty and unconditioned from the year off. I think he would have returned to something close to the Derrick Rose of 2010. I still believe he can return to his old self or at least 80% of it after this surgery. He isn’t injury prone based on these two knee injuries because they are different in nature and aren’t due to chronic issues. So the Chicago front office can still consider him a superstar and cornerstone, but should cautiously build around him and always have a backup plan in case his injuries become constant.
The Bulls have three franchise players in Rose, Joakim Noah, and Jimmy Butler. They can move forward with those three and expect to compete for a championship every year. Butler isn’t due a contract extension until 2016 and his current deal is a great value if he takes a step forward this season. Noah made a big leap last year and is the heart and soul of the franchise, even when Rose is healthy. Outside of those three players, the Bulls’ roster breaks down like this:
| Untouchables | Tradable assests | Trade fillers/Pieces | Amnesty him already |
| Derrick Rose (4 years/$19M a year) | Loul Deng (1/$14M) | Mike Dunleavy (2/$3M) | Carlos Boozer(2/$16M) |
| Jimmy Butler(3/$2M) | Taj Gibson(4/$8.23M) | Mike James(1/$1.4M) | |
| Joakim Noah(3/$13M) | Kirk Hinrich(1/$4M) | Nazr Mohammad(1/$1.4M) | |
| Marquis Teague(4/$1.75M) | |||
| Tony Snell(5/$2M) | |||
By far, the two most tradeable assets are Deng’s expiring deal and Taj Gibson. Deng will fetch a good haul for the right time, especially as injuries start taking out key players on contenders. If he has a impressive year, the Bulls could get a late first rounder and young talent like Ed Davis or they could go for an older player on a good deal like Paul Milsap.
Chicago has to trade Loul Deng to move the Franchise forward
Normally, we could fire up the trade machine to create a fake trade that would never happen. But this early in the year, teams aren’t trying to make moves and the landscape will change when they decide they want to so there’s no point in whipping out the TM. Gibson provides teams more value because of his contract, but teams might not want commit to its length. Realistically, Gibson won’t be traded in-season. I think he will be a Bull for the foreseeable future because Chicago needs to put a competitive team on the floor this year and he fits that franchise so well. I doubt the Bulls can trade Boozer because he is making $15 million this year(!!) and $16.8 million next year(!!!!). But, he can still put up 16 points and 8 rebounds a game so exploring trade possibilities involving Boozer will be worth Chicago’s time. He should’ve been amnestied this summer (or the last) and still could be, but I suspect the Bulls will keep him through the contract. Chicago’s historically frugal front office won’t like the idea of paying Boozer $16 mil to play elsewhere. The rest of team isn’t particularly attractive to other teams. The immediate concern for Chicago must be trading Deng. His contract ends after this season and getting something for his massive contract is paramount to their future success.
The most logical move for the Bulls right now is exploring trade options for everyone on their roster, making sure teams know Deng is available, and trying to get enough cap space to sign helpful pieces in the offseason. This season will be another lost year for Chicago and, hopefully for Bulls fans, the front office realizes that. They need to start planning for next season and the future. Tanking would be advisable, but Thibs is too good of a coach and the team is too talented to achieve a good tank. Thibs could rest some of his main guys like Noah and Butler, but he hasn’t exactly managed his players’ minutes in the past. Whatever direction the Bulls decide to go, Derrick Rose’s recovery is the key. If he can come back and be a superstar, the Bulls can ignore everything I just said and compete for a title. If he can’t, the franchise will be in ruin.
Get well soon Derrick. We miss you
Gabe Ibrahim 