Rose May Miss Season Opener

October 20th, 2009 by Andrew Wamboldt

According to Vinny Del Negro via ESPN.com, Derrick Rose may be forced out of the season opener due to the injury he suffered early in the preseason.

CHICAGO — Derrick Rose is convinced he’ll be ready to play next Thursday on opening night. Coach Vinny Del Negro still isn’t so sure.

Bulls coach Vinny Del Negro said Monday it wasn’t out of the “realm of possibility” that Rose would be sidelined when his team opens up the regular-season schedule against the Spurs next week.

The Bulls coach continues to take a day-to-day approach when evaluating Rose, who has an inflamed tendon behind his right ankle and has not played since the preseason opener against Indiana.

“We want to use this time to get him out there practicing and get everybody comfortable with things,” Del Negro said after the Bulls preseason loss to the Magic on Monday night. “But we always want to be smart, knowing the regular season’s around the corner and looking at [the] big picture.”

Rose concedes he is about “80 percent” right now, but he seems adamant about opening up the season against San Antonio.

“I’m playing, I know that,” Rose said with a smile, when asked about the possibility of missing the first game.

It looks like Rose’s injury is a lot worse than the Bulls originally let on. I feared from the beginning that Rose’s injury might be bad. We saw Luol Deng’s 2007-2008 season tarnished with a similar injury, and it’s not like the Bulls medical staff have a good history of diagnosing or properly treating an injury (See them sending Paul Shirley on a plane back to Chicago with a lacerated spleen and fractured kidney).

The Bulls start off the season playing San Antonio, Boston, Miami, Milwaukee, and Cleveland in their first five games. Without Derrick Rose, the Bulls could easily find themselves starting the season 0-5. Hopefully Rose can come back for the opener, or at least early on in the season, and this isn’t one of those injury that we all know where the Bulls, where the injury just keeps getting worse and worse, and the player just keeps staying out longer and longer.