Jon Greenberg, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

Rose return would help exorcise bad mojo

CHICAGO -- On my way into the United Center for Gar Forman’s "State of the Derrick Rose" press conference, I saw Pau Gasol walking to his white Range Rover.

Given that the Chicago Bulls' shoot-around for Friday’s game against Minnesota was just beginning, it seemed like an ominous sign.

But as it turned out, Gasol is just sick and Rose’s knee is in better shape than we thought after seeing Tuesday night’s apocalyptic press release.

Forman, the Bulls' general manager, revealed Rose’s meniscectomy surgery, where "the torn part or the damaged part of the meniscus was removed," was a success, as all sports surgeries are immediately classified. But the real news is, well, rosy.

The Bulls predict Rose will be back in four to six weeks, putting the latest “return” optimistically around the end of the regular season.

No speculation this time. Just a goal.

So there’s a chance, a good chance it seems, that Rose won’t miss his fourth-straight postseason since blowing out his left ACL in the first game of the 2012 playoffs.

For the second straight season, the Bulls gave a timeline for Rose’s return, and it’s not an accident.

Cynics would say the Bulls were just trying to control the message. I’d argue there’s truth to that, but given this injury is much less serious than Rose’s previous ones, I’d argue they also just wanted to share the good news.

When Rose previously tore his medial meniscus in Nov. 2013, the Bulls immediately ruled him out for the season after his surgery.

From a public relations standpoint, that was a smart move too.

The previous season, the Bulls, Rose and his advisors all but eradicated the goodwill he enjoyed in Chicago and around the NBA by letting vague, conflicting reports dominate the coverage of his return from an ACL tear that wildly altered Rose’s legacy and the fates of a formidable team.

It started at media day in Sept. 2012, when Forman, while optimistic of Rose’s chances to return, said there wouldn’t be regular updates on Rose’s condition.

Reporters, and the fans, never knew if and when he was returning, and it created a speculative narrative that Rose was selfish and controlled by his brother and agent. Reggie Rose made things much worse for his brother in an amazingly candid interview with our Scott Powers.

What some people don’t get is that Rose, while quiet, is both very pensive and very stubborn. Yes, he hears his agent and his brother, but other people close to him have told me over the years that his intractability is internal. Or as one friend said to me, “He don’t listen to no one.”

In reality, Rose was just being careful with his knee and his body in 2012. Overly careful? Maybe. A little too worried mentally? Perhaps.

But an ACL tear is serious business, and Rose’s game is about explosion. So it made sense to be careful at 24. But the whole situation was communicated poorly, illuminating other problems around the organization. It was also annoying for reporters and fans, who lived in a state of limbo.

Reporters like myself found ourselves lingering around the court before games, watching Rose shoot, never knowing when he’d be back. Once, I made a Vine of him driving to the rim, and it wasn’t much of a drive, and the next thing I knew it was on “SportsCenter” and “Pardon the Interruption.”

That’s how thirsty we were for real news.

The Bulls were proactive this time. They sent out a succinct press release at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, albeit scaring everyone in Chicago with news of another surgery.

Since then, the Bulls let it be known they were optimistic Rose’s injury was minor, in comparison to his previous ones, and that he could return this season.

Forman, like many in his position nowadays, never has much on-record content to share. But this press conference, which lasted around 15 minutes, was fairly forthright.

“I would think when we have news, we’ll update,” he said. “We tried to be really transparent earlier this week on what was going on, when he was having the surgery and now to let you know how the surgery was and where’s he at. We’ll be as transparent as we can be with what’s going on with it.”

That’s not a flare to Rose that he has to come back or else. You can read it this way. But think about it this way: If you were Rose, would you want to sit out again? If you were his advisors, wouldn’t you be aware that his reputation, and yes, his legacy, can’t handle another missed postseason?

When Rose speaks, he should try to be positive about the challenge. Sometimes his words belie his actions.

“You look at Derrick. Derrick’s a basketball player and he wants to play basketball," Forman said. "And what he's had to go through the last few years, take anything any of us don’t enjoy doing and say you have to do that several hours a day, 365 days a year and that’s difficult. But he’s fought through that, and he’s come back. And I thought he showed this year, he came back and was in a good place physically.”

Joakim Noah, who has spent the season working through his own offseason knee surgery, thinks Rose will push himself to return sooner rather than later.

"I'm happy that he's going to be all right," Noah said. "Time will tell. Rehab is no joke. Especially (since) he's been doing it for three years now. I think it's mental at this point, having to put in all this work all the time. It's repetitive, it's very boring, especially when the games are going on. You want to play."

For all the criticism about Rose’s errant shooting this season, he had only missed three games from December until now. He kept telling people his game would come together.

Now, his only goal is to make it back before the playoffs. If he does, it will do a lot to exorcise the bad mojo that surrounds his name.

Until then, I’ll be courtside, aiming my phone at Rose and hoping to capture some truths along the way.

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