Cowley: Thibodeau Out Of Rose's Health Equation
(CBS) For the second time in as many games, there was serious pregame confusion Tuesday night as to who would be in the starting lineup for the Bulls.
After the Bulls listed point guard Derrick Rose (sprained ankles) as "probable" to play against the Magic with the understanding that he'd go through warmups before a final decision would be made, PR and scoring officials said about an hour before tip-off that Rose would be in the starting lineup Tuesday. That seemed logical enough, given the front everyone had put on most of the day.
About 10 minutes later, new word came: Rose wouldn't be in the starting lineup. About 10 minutes after that, it was announced Rose wouldn't play at all. The scene was similar to what unfolded Saturday at Minnesota.
Anywhere else, this flip-flop might've gone unnoticed. In Chicago, where the front office and coach Tom Thibodeau are known to have a distant relationship, it's a talking point, seemingly another sign of the disconnect in how to handle the face of the franchise as he continues a return from two major knee surgeries.
Rose has played in two of Chicago's four games this season, sitting out the past two after spraining both ankles in Friday's loss to Cleveland.
Thibodeau hasn't been a part of that decision-making process at all, Sun-Times beat reporter Joe Cowley told the Mully and Hanley Show on Wednesday morning. That jives with Thibodeau's short comments on the topic, in which he's said he defers to the medical and training staff.
As Cowley explained, Thibodeau -- who's long been criticized for pushing players too hard and extending their minutes -- has completely taken himself out of the Rose health equation, as it's a no-win situation for the coach and prevents him from being a fall guy down the line in regards to Rose.
"Here's what's going on to me between all the rhetoric," Cowley said. "The front office and Tom are not in a good place again ... Rather than be a guy that they can point to and say, 'Well, we're not happy with the way you did minutes,' blah, blah, that same old thing, Tom has taken himself out of the equation, the Derrick Rose equation. That way, it is now between Derrick, (director of sport performance) Jen Swanson -- who is probably the second-most powerful person in the organization now below (owner) Jerry Reinsdorf -- and then Gar Forman and (John) Paxson to make all those decisions.
"They tell Tom right before the game you either have him or you don't, and Tom coaches accordingly. His mentality is, 'I am not going to be that guy that pushes guys and have that foxhole mentality like I could with (Kevin) Garnett (in Boston), like I could with Joakim Noah. I'm not going to do that with Derrick Rose, because at the end of the day, I don't want to have fingers pointed at me.' Which is the best way he can approach this. Because there's power struggles going on. If that's one of the cases they want to make against you at the end of the day, you make sure you're no longer part of that case. And I think that's what's going on. That's why there's three different lineups given to us in a five-minute span in back-to-back games. Because there's no communication."