MVN - Most Valuable Network

MRI shows “mild” tendinitis in Rose’s right knee

Less than a week after I pushed the panic button on Derrick Rose’s ailing right knee, the MRI results from this past weekend show only slight tendinitis.

I’m obviously not a doctor, but that prognosis seems pretty erratic. Bulls’ physician Brian Cole, who performed the test on Monday afternoon, stated Rose has mild tendinitis in his official statement. And while I have absolutely no idea what the hell “mild” means in terms of a basketball injury, it’s mildly interesting (har har) how the Bulls remain discreet on all concerns around the No. 1 overall pick.

Personally, I’ve always been a strong advocate of avoiding the middle ground—you know, either tell me Rose is pretty banged up or that everything is hunky-dory. Then again, we are all fans, therefore we’ll always have to deal with all the beating around the bush nonsense. Fantastic. Now we wait until Halloween to find out how serious the situation truly is. Isn’t the sweat just beading down your face in anticipation?

Rose did miss the Bulls’ final three games of summer league play after aggravating his knee on a jump stop in the lane, but the front office claims the benching was completely precautionary. After all, Derrick dealt with the soreness all throughout his freshman year at Memphis.

GM John Paxson said last week that Rose would enlist in a strength and conditioning program to help ease the recovery progress. Whew. Thank God. The future of the franchise is going to be rehabbing and making best friends with ice bags for the next couple of weeks. Nothing to worry about.

Wrong!

That’s right folks, this “precautionary” injury (as Pax keeps calling it) will unfortunately not prevent the Chicago phenom from competing with the USA Basketball men’s select team. Sure, representing the United States of America is an absolute thrill not to mention the opportunity of a lifetime, but there will be other chances for a gold medal quest. And the sight of Rose playing with upper-echelon point guards Chris Paul and Deron Williams makes me very happy in terms of the developmental process … but what about the knee?! That’s what should be the most important issue here.

Rose will begin training and scrimmaging with his new Olympic teammates next week in Las Vegas. Last week, the Bulls didn’t want him stepping foot on the court, yet we’re allowing him to travel across the country and risk injury just five days later? Pfft. New coach Vinny Del Negro said last week in Orlando he planned to accompany Rose. And you know Cousin Vinny will be sweating bullets the whole time worrying about his diamond in the rough messing up his immediate plans for the next generation of Bulls basketball.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m stoked about Rose being selected as one of the nation’s top players. I’m enthralled that he gets to represent his country against the world’s greatest competition. And I’m enthused that his right knee has only slight tendinitis. However, if something goes wrong in Vegas and Rose seriously hurts his knee before he ever dons the red and white—I will round up the troops and boycott Bulls basketball.

And you can count on that.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 2:44 pm and is filed under Derrick Rose, Memphis, Southside Perspective, Vinny Del Negro, USA Basketball, Deron Williams, Chicago Bulls, John Paxson, Chris Paul, Sam Panayotovich, NBA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.