Stage 1: Denial.
“This…this can’t be happening. Not to Derrick. Not now. He’s already missed so many games. He’s hardly played in months. His body should be healthy and rested. And how could he have possibly been hurt making a jump stop? He’s done that, like, a million times. He didn’t even get touched on the play.”
Stage 2: Anger.
“Why Derrick? This isn’t fair! Why was he even in the game? What was Tom Thibodeau thinking?!”
Stage 3: Bargaining.
“Maybe he’s not hurt that badly. Maybe it’s just a hyper-extension or a sprain. Maybe he’ll only miss a couple games.”
Stage 4: Depression.
“Torn ACL? Out for the season? It’s over. It’s all over. The team’s playoff run is finished. I’m so bummed out I don’t think I can even watch the rest of their playoff games. There’s no point anyway.”
Stage 5: Acceptance.
“Okay. Derrick’s gone for now. But the team played without him for a large part of the season…and they kept winning. They may not win a championship, but if they do go down, these Bulls will go down fighting. There’s still basketball to be played.”
So accurate, although I’m not entirely convinced that Acceptance and Denial aren’t the same stage right now.
I’m frankly a little disappointed with this blog right now. I’ve been reading for a long time and I wasn’t expecting the constant and consistent messages about how the Bulls are done or won’t win this year etc…
The Bulls win games with Defense and Rebounding. Right?
Rose wasn’t critical to either of those things.
The Bulls have won games with Derrick all season. Right?
The team has chemistry like no other team in the league without their star. The Heat without their stars aren’t even a playoff team. The Bulls without Rose are still top 5. Top 5 can win a Championship.
I assume you saw what Korver wrote on his Facebook page…us Bulls fans need to believe and expect them to out work everyone during these playoffs and I expect they can/will do that.
Have some faith Bulls By The Horns staff and readership–we got this.
Being able to post on this site again is the only good Bulls news right now.
Tomorrow I’ll get to stage 5, we got a team to support and they got a Game to win to go up 2-0 in the series.
Can Derrick Rose recover? Torn ACL is a major surgery. Who are other players that got this and did they return to normal or is Derrick Rose done?
Stage 4 sounds like something a fair weather bulls fan would say. I still think that the bulls can still make a playoff run.
I laughed because I went through all of these in the matter of an hour. I did bounce back to anger a couple of times though. Derrick is out, and all we can do is wish him a speedy recovery for next season to either defend a title or get us to one.
The question is, where do the Bulls go from here? Do we just write them off as a legitimate contender? No, of course not. The Bulls are still a force to be reckoned with. Defensively, we are among the best in the league. Deng is going to have to step up as a leader now, and play like the All Star he is. Rip Hamilton is playing like the Bulls need him to play, and has to continue that. Boozer needs to step up give the Bulls 20+ points and 10+ rebounds like he did in Utah and does seldomly with the Bulls. Noah has found that spark that was missing for a while, and needs to run with it. And while we lost some depth at the point guard position, if Watson can play some consistent Basketball, contribute 10 to 15 points and set this team up offensively, it’s all we can ask of him. We still have one of the deepest teams in the league. Korver is a clutch offensive shooter and has stepped his defensive up as well. Brewer is a great defender, and needs to find his shot he had early on in the season. Asik and Gibson are probably one of the best Defensive tandems in the league, and John Lucas III can produce on offense. Jimmy Butler, while having limited play time during the regular season, is an outstanding young player, and where else than the playoffs than to let such a player shine. As a long time Chicago Bulls fan, I am not ready to just accept defeat. While a title run seems unlikely to most, I believe in my team and will stand by them.
Let me be the next person to say that I too went through just about every one of these stages and felt the despair of the lost hopes of Rose & Co. triumphantly dispatching Miami in the ECF. But, as we’ve all seen, this season has been a far cry from storybook so far. I believe in this team. I believe in them so much, that I can honestly say that I’m going to watch them fight till the bitter end knowing that they will leave it all on the court. No other team in the NBA has the chemistry, to use a buzzword, or to me the family feel that the Bulls embody. I’ve been watching the Bulls since Jordan came back from his injury plagued second season and have enjoyed the ride of each and every year, this year being no exception. Although, after last seasons exploits, it’s now trendy to realize what a franchise we have in Chicago, I’m a fan during the ups, and more importantly, the downs. While this down may be the lowest low I’ve felt about them in recent memory, I will continue to believe that we can collectively push forward and make someone earn the right to advance past us. Go Bulls!
A thread of reasoning that gave me some hope yesterday was this: if you look at the starting five we now have and compare them to last year’s, the difference in talent/ability between Rip and Bogans is way bigger than that of CJ and DRose. That is I’d like to think if we made it to ECF w/ DRose & Bogans, I’d link to think we can do so w/ Rip & CJ. And everyone else has shown improvement. So that’s what I’m holding on to.
Great article and well said. Bulls are 7-5 this year against playoff teams without Rose. 4-3 is all you need to move on to the next round.