Mostly lost in the drama over whether Derrick Rose plays or sits is that the Chicago Bulls are nonetheless building a team that is increasingly less dependent on him.
Rose was exactly where he should have been Monday night: sitting on the bench in street clothes. The Bulls started the seven-game circus road trip being as conservative with Rose as they've been all season, so far. Erring on the side of caution with Rose is the only responsible approach. The Bulls don't need him on the court in November; they need to do everything possible to bring him along slowly so he can be as effective in May as he was in Toronto the other night before he strained his hamstring.
This isn't a difficult choice, and it shouldn't be entirely up to Rose whether he plays -- not yet, and maybe not for a few more months. John Paxson and Gar Forman should borrow a page from the personnel manual of Gregg Popovich and take over the day-to-day decision-making, if they haven't already, on whether Rose will play. His long-term health is too important to this season, too important to the well-being of the franchise, whether or not impatient bloggers and radio talk show callers get it. Presumably, the Bulls have decided they're all in on trying to seriously contend for a championship this season -- not having Rose win a Tough Man contest.
Coming off the surgeries he's had since 2012, Rose, like anybody else, was going to be susceptible to ankle, calf and hamstring injuries in his first months back on the court. Physicians and trainers know this. These comebacks usually don't go seamlessly. Impatiently insisting Rose be on the court so he can prove how tough he is or how high his tolerance for pain is can't be part of the equation for a sustained and productive return. One of the benefits of playing for Team USA over the summer was easing back into it; Rose in some respects is probably six to eight weeks ahead of where he would have been without the summer participation.
If the Bulls take the Popovich approach and get ahead of this, it would probably eliminate some of the public relations nightmares of the past two years. Anybody ever blame Tim Duncan or Manu Ginobili when they're told to sit? No. Popovich handles that as he sees fit.
Predictably but sadly, this has all obscured an interesting start to the Bulls season, one that has them 6-0 on the road and the only team without a loss away from home. Monday night's win in Los Angeles against the Clippers was their second win over a sure-fire playoff team, with last week's win in Toronto the other. OK, the Clippers aren't yet what they were at the end of the past season, when they beat the Warriors in seven games, but the Clippers were playing with a full deck Monday night, while the Bulls were without both Rose and Pau Gasol, who sat out with calf injury.
Joakim Noah, who, to the annoyance of some, decided to work his way back gradually and under a minutes restriction, is slowly starting to look like the first-team all-NBA center he was the past season. With 11 points, 16 rebounds and 6 assists, Noah delivered something really close to his old impact. Few folks would have guessed Nikola Mirotic would have as big a role as he does, but he did just fine in Los Angeles, with 12 points and seven rebounds in 18 minutes essentially in relief of Gasol.
Jimmy Butler's improved offense has been a revelation. Even on a night when Butler had no shooting touch (6-for-17), he was probably the most important player on the floor when the Bulls had the ball. Butler gets to the line with great regularity (9-for-10 versus the Clips and eighth in free throws attempted this season, tied with LeBron James and ahead of Carmelo Anthony and Blake Griffin), and he can now catch the ball 15 feet from the basket, put it on the floor to get himself to the basket or command the double-team that opens up a shot for somebody else. Butler's eight assists versus the Clippers were one more than Chris Paul had in 37 minutes.
Butler's newfound effectiveness on offense means the Bulls can generate offense through Noah, Gasol, Butler and Rose, which addresses the primary problem the Bulls have had over the past four seasons: scoring.
In fact, while the Bulls are a perplexing 11th in defense and inexplicable 15th in rebounding (which surely must be driving Coach Thibs to madness), the Bulls can at least go out and be fairly certain of going toe-to-toe with most of the league's top offensive teams. Against the Clippers on Monday, the Bulls were down 14 points and wound up completing a 30-point turnaround to win 105-89.
The Bulls are currently 10th in scoring, up 20 spots from the end of the past season. They're fifth in field-goal percentage, eighth in 3-point percentage and sixth in adjusted field-goal percentage. Against the Clippers, the Bulls committed only nine turnovers -- again, without their best ball-handling guard.
The Bulls' biggest shortcoming, besides not putting forth the effort on defense that Thibs wants to see, is being totally disinterested in playing against weak teams.
Celtics (3-6) at the United Center? Not interested.
Pacers (4-7) at the United Center? Totally bored.
The teams that really have gotten the Bulls' attention since they lost in OT to Cleveland are the Raptors, who were undefeated at home, and the Clippers, who more than a few people have chosen to reach the conference finals.
People who looked skeptically at the Bulls' starting this long road trip with Rose in street clothes surely must have felt "be careful what you ask for" when several players said they were looking forward to the long road trip that resumes in Sacramento with the dramatically improved Kings and then goes to Portland.
Would it be fun to watch Rose go at it with Damian Lillard? Of course. If Rose can practice the next couple of days and look strong enough to play 25 minutes or so, he should be in the lineup. But for every game the Bulls win on this road trip, I'd be less and less inclined to put Rose in the next game. It matters far less to me what he says, even if it's completely clumsy, than what he does with this lineup that could be as talented as it is deep, presuming Thibs can reverse this annoying and potentially destructive disinterest in defense and rebounding.
For now, Rose's absences -- and the surrounding drama -- have produced a lot of sizzle but very little, yet, in the way of basketball substance.