Scottie Pippen and Dwyane Wade on Derrick Rose

Scottie Pippen on Rose’s comeback (via Comcast SportsNet Chicago):

“He’s going to be a bigger, better, stronger player. I think it’s great to have something like this happen if it’s going to happen at a young age (23). He’s going to heal fast, and he’s going to push himself now to be better than he probably would have ever been.”

This sort of keeps with Dr. Brian Cole’s assessment that Rose can potentially get back to 125% of where he was before. I have no doubt Rose will push himself. But the truth is: Nobody really knows how for sure well Rose will recover from his ACL tear. Not doctors. Not Pippen. Not Rose himself. Only time will tell.

And so Bulls fans watch. And wait. And wait some more.

Dwyane Wade on D-Rose’s injury (also via Comcast SportsNet Chicago):

“You just feel bad for [Rose]. We all deal with injuries and every time you deal with an injury, you hope it’s not the big one. You hope it won’t end your season. So to see a guy like D-Rose, who was battling injuries all year, minor injuries, and then it took its toll. And it was sad to see.

“We didn’t want to see it and we want to play the Bulls. We want to play the best teams. We want him and his family to be fine, so to hear he was in high spirits and doing well, outside looking in, as a fan of the game, I’m excited for him.”

Wade — who recently admitted his free agent visit to Chicago “messed me up” — also told ESPNChicago that Rose might eventually change his mind over his refusal to recruit other great players to join him on the Bulls:

“Derrick’s still young (23). When I came into the league (in 2003), when all of us came into the league, you never can tell me that this day would come where I play with guys like LeBron (James) and Chris (Bosh) because I wanted to be the young gun. I wanted to be the one who leads my team to a championship, I had that mentality.

“And then you get to a point where you understand, even with me winning a championship in my third year, it took Shaquille O’Neal, it took Gary Payton, Antoine Walker, James Posey, all these guys to make it possible. This league is very good and you’re not going to win it alone. So when you’ve had a very good team like Derrick has had, you don’t need to recruit, but when you’ve hit rough stages and injuries hit and all these things, and you have a year like we had where we won 15 games (in 2007-08), and now we’ve got to rebuild back, it becomes a little different. Hopefully, he doesn’t have to experience that, but things change.”

The whole “recruitment” thing hasn’t hurt the Heat or the Lakers. As much as I love Derrick’s humility, I wouldn’t mind him working a little more to bring some more star power to the Windy City. Management could probably use the help.

One last bonus quote from Wade, this time on the LeBron versus M.J. debate-that-shouldn’t-be-a-debate-yet, from the Chicago Sun-Times:

“Michael is the greatest player I’ve ever seen play. I think LeBron is in that conversation of one day becoming. It’s all speculation, in a sense. He has a long way to go. He knows that. He has one championship. Michael has six! There’s a lot to say about that. LeBron is a dominant player. .?.?.But Michael Jordan is the greatest of all time.”

Agreed. And that’s exactly where this “debate” should remain. For now.