According to the Chicago Tribune, Kirk Hinrich will visit a specialist on Monday or a thumb injury that he suffered while practicing before the Bulls game against the Blazers.

On the one hand, an MRI revealed the injured ligament remains attached to the bone, unlike last season when Hinrich tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his right thumb and missed 31 games after surgery.

On the other, Hinrich is visiting a specialist Monday, five full days after suffering the injury at a Wednesday practice in Oregon. Coach Vinny Del Negro wouldn’t rule Hinrich out for Monday’s game, but the fact he didn’t practice Saturday and still has swelling doesn’t bode well.

It is hard to get a read on how serious of an injury that Hinrich has right now. It sounds like the injury isn’t quite as bad as what he suffered last year, but how bad the injury appears to be up for debate. The following quote from Vinny Del Negro sheds some more light on the uncertainty of Hinrich’s injury.

Asked if the Bulls have any plans to sign an extra guard, Del Negro demurred.

“We’re going to wait and see what happens with that evaluation on Monday and then make a decision,” Del Negro said. “We weren’t even sure if Jannero was going to practice because of a little shoulder impingement.”

It sounds like the Bulls are completely uncertain of the extent of the injury right now. It sounds like the Bulls won’t truly know how badly Hinrich is injured until the specialist sees him.

If Kirk Hinrich is out for any type of significant period of time, it is pertinent that the Bulls sign someone, as the team will simply fail because of their lack of backcourt depth.

The Tribune lists Wally Szczerbiak, Jerry Stackhouse, and Antonio Daniels as some of the options. Another option that goes unmentioned is Rashad McCants.

Wally Szczerbiak averaged 7.0 points on 58.1 TS% last season in 74 games for Cleveland, shooting 41.1% from three point territory. Unfortunately, Szczerbiak is still rehabbing from knee surgery, and may not be able to give the Bulls immediate help.

Antonio Daniels averaged 3.1 points on 53.1 TS% last season in 61 games with the New Orleans Hornets.

Jerry Stackhouse averaged 4.2 points on 33.3 TS% last season in 10 games for Dallas.

Rashad McCants averaged 10.3 points on 55.3 TS% in 24 games after being traded to the Sacramento Kings at the trade deadline. McCants failed a physical with Houston to begin the year.

The Bulls should immediately cross Antonio Daniels and Jerry Stackhouse off their list of options. Neither player appears capable of positively impacting an NBA team at this point, and would both likely be a downgrade from Jannero Pargo.

Wally Szczerbiak is probably the most intriguing of these options because of his size and ability to shoot the three point shot. However, if he is rendered useless because of injuries, he is not an option. That would leave Rashad McCants, who has health questions of his own.

Even if McCants is healthy, he will not do much to positively contribute to the Bulls. His sole positive contributions would just be being better than Jannero Pargo and Lindsey Hunter, which isn’t much of a contribution of all.

The Bulls of course could explore signing Allen Iverson, but the Bulls front office is unlikely to sign a player like Iverson, and there is also strong rumblings that the 76ers might sign Iverson, so he may not be an option for the Bulls in a few days.

One thing is for sure, if Hinrich is out, the Bulls have to sign someone, and if Hinrich is out, the season will probably get ugly.

The Chicago Bulls defeated the Dallas Mavericks 98-91 at the United Center yesterday.

The Bulls fell down early, 24-5, but Ben Gordon, who had 12 points in the first quarter, got the Bulls back in the game single-handedly.

Luol Deng then helped Gordon with a big 2nd quarter to give the Bulls the lead going into the half.

In the third quarter, Derrick Rose had 14 points to help grow the Bulls lead to a comfortable margin. From there on, the Bulls just put the game in cruise control and eased their way to their fourth win of the season.

Ben Gordon was absolutely phenomenal. He finished with 35 points and 4 assists. Neither Kidd, Terry, or Stackhouse could stay in front of Gordon, and Gordon ate it up, driving the ball play after play. Gordon also continued his great defense. Jason Terry had 16 points, but it was on a highly inefficient 5-14 shooting, and Stackhouse only had 4 points on 1-5 shooting off the bench.

Derrick Rose played poorly in the first half but significantly picked up his play in the 3rd quarter. Rose finished with 16 points, 9 rebounds, and 6 assists. In the first quarter, Rose had a great set up to Deng for a dunk on the fastbreak where he turned his body to fake a pass to the trailing Gordon for three, but bounced it in to Deng for the dunk. At the start of the game, Rose had difficulty creating anything against the Mavericks, but once Gordon captured the Maverick’s attention on defense, Rose was able to get going driving the ball on Kidd.

At one point during the middle of the 4th quarter, Rose had some unkind words for Gordon after Gordon refused to pass Rose the ball after Rose clapped for it. It seems that Gordon was just going with the rest of the offense while Rose was trying to go rogue.

Luol Deng also continues to show signs of improvement. He finished with 20 points and 9 rebounds. His jumpshot looked better and he was able to attack the rim with some good aggressiveness tonight.

When all three of Rose, Gordon, and Deng have it going, the Bulls will be a tough team for anyone in the NBA to beat, and Rose and Deng didn’t even have that good of games, just good stretches tonight. The trio is similar to the Hinrich-Gordon-Deng trio from 06-07, only Gordon is a better player now and Derrick Rose is a much better player than Kirk Hinrich.

Tyrus Thomas had a solid game, finishing with 8 points, 8 rebounds, 2 steals, and 2 blocks. Thomas is so much better when he doesn’t try to take over on the offensive end.

Joakim Noah finished the game with a 0-0-0-0-0 stat line, after Vinny Del Negro pulled him after less than 4 minutes and exiled him to the bench for the rest of the game.

The two former Cavaliers returned to action today. Gooden had an okay performance, finishing with 8 points and 8 rebounds. Larry Hughes had 5 points and provided solid defense off the bench.

Thabo Sefolosha got a DNP - Coach’s decision.

Josh Howard finished with 21 points and 11 rebounds. Dirk Nowitzki had 12 points on 5-17 shooting. Deng did a solid job locking down Deng for most of the game. Ben Gordon even was able to stop Dirk on one posession where Dirk was posting Gordon up off of a switch.

The Bulls next game is Saturday against the Indiana Pacers at the United Center.