Heading into the 2014-15 NBA season, we all emphasized the importance of health for a Chicago Bulls roster that looked loaded for bear after bulking up their frontcourt this summer, but has seen its last two seasons scuttled by critical injuries. Well, hours before their nationally televised Wednesday night season opener against the New York Knicks, the Bulls have already been bitten by the injury bug. The thing is, nobody seems to know just how bad the bite really is.
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While most anxiety surrounding Chicago's health focused on Derrick Rose's surgically repaired knees and the precarious plantar fascia of Joakim Noah and Pau Gasol, it's Bulls swingman Jimmy Butler who will start the season on the injured list. How long he'll stay there, though, seems to be a matter of some debate, according to K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune:
A confusing shootaround at Madison Square Garden started with Jimmy Butler glumly saying he'd miss Wednesday night's season opener versus the Knicks because of his sprained left thumb, but adding that he hoped he'd be ready for Friday's home opener against LeBron James and the Cavaliers.
It continued with coach Tom Thibodeau declaring Butler, who previously had been called day-to-day, out for two to four weeks. Thibodeau later dropped that estimate to one to three weeks. And a team public relations official said the timetable starts from when Butler first sprained the thumb on Oct. 19.
"No one knows, that’s the thing," Thibodeau said of Butler's absence. "Two to four (weeks), one to three, I don’t know what it is. He’s not comfortable going yet, so when he is, he will. We know that he wants to be out there, and injuries are a part of the game. Just deal with it."
"Just deal with it," of course, has long been the Bulls' mantra when it comes to injuries. Recall, if you will, Luol Deng being termed a game-time decision on the day he underwent a spinal tap that could have threatened his life. (A procedure, by the way, that was botched, leading to 15 pounds of in-season weight loss due to persistent vomiting and diarrhea.) And that Deng was playing with a fractured thumb and a torn wrist ligament throughout that period. And that the Bulls' docs let Deng play on a right tibia stress fracture back in 2009.
The hits don't stop with Deng, though. Former Bull Omer Asik somehow got cleared for Game 4 of the 2011 Eastern Conference finals despite the Turkish center suffering a fractured left fibula during Game 3. Chicago's staff let Mike James play on a sprained knee ligament in December 2013. The Bulls termed the left knee procedure Noah underwent back in May as "minor arthroscopic surgery," which didn't quite seem to dovetail with the expected eight to 12-week recovery timetable; let's just say it wasn't too shocking to hear Noah say last week that his surgically repaired knee still has "a ways to go" before it's back to 100 percent.
And everybody knows all about Thibodeau's insistence on monster minutes for players like Deng, Noah (despite his history of foot and ankle injuries) ... and, of course, Butler, who finished second in the league in minutes per game (38.7) last season, who played the full 48 minutes in five of Chicago's final seven playoff games during the 2013 postseason, who missed six games last fall after being reinserted into a game after he'd injured his toe, and who was reinserted into the preseason game in which he sprained his thumb without even being checked by the medical staff on the sideline.
The Bulls' troubling history of erring on the side of throwing caution to the wind when it comes to their players' well-being takes on a particularly concerning character as it relates to the 25-year-old Butler, who's coming off a strong preseason and who — as a first-round pick in the 2011 draft — finds himself staring down an Oct. 31 deadline to either negotiate a contract extension with the Bulls or confirm his entrance into restricted free agency next summer. Negotiations between player and team are still ongoing — some sources say the two sides might be getting closer, others say a deal's unlikely — and while Bulls general manager Gar Forman has said Butler's injury won't have any impact on the talks, any uncertainty it introduces into the situation — missed time, a potentially poorer start to the season, depressed numbers, decreased role, etc., etc. — could wind up having a trickle-down effect at the bargaining table next summer should the two sides fail to come to an agreement by Friday.
In the immediate future, the Bulls now seem to be one perimeter stopper short in the pursuit of locking up New York All-Star scorer Carmelo Anthony in their season opener. Longtime Bull Kirk Hinrich is expected to slide into the starting lineup, and primary 'Melo duties are likely to fall to rising sophomore Tony Snell or veteran Mike Dunleavy Jr. Should Butler miss extended time, rookie shooter Doug McDermott could see increased minutes on the wing in the early going, as well.
Butler, of course, wants to get back as soon as possible, but is for the moment exercising caution, according to Johnson of the Tribune:
"I’m still taping it but there’s just a lot of pain in the joint and the muscle around it," Butler said. "I just don’t want to make it worse right now. I try to come back early and that’s not always the best thing to do. They’re just making sure when I do come back, I won’t have any restraints and be able to go 100 percent."
If Butler's return does skew closer to the one-month end of the spectrum than the "I'll be back by Friday" timetable, a Bulls team heavily dependent on his ability to dampen wing scorers could have to once again skew its expectations south, from soaring to the top of the conference down to "getting by for now and aiming to hit our stride in the second half." It's not the start that anyone in Chicago was hoping for; now they'll just have to hope that a quick Butler return is a sign of legitimate healing rather than the same old concerning song and dance.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!
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