Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

The bloom is off Rose for eight months to a year, doctor says

CHICAGO -- The doctor who operated on Derrick Rose's knee insists the Chicago Bulls' star can dominate again.

It will take time, though. Rose faces a recovery of eight months to a year.

The assessment by team physician Dr. Brian Cole on Tuesday means the point guard could return around mid-January to early February, or miss next season. The doctor added there is a chance Rose could be back sooner, but "we're not going to rush it."

The Bulls had already said Rose has a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. Cole said there were also two tears in his meniscus cartilage.

He said Rose is "doing great," that the surgery went "extremely well" and he can still be an explosive player.

"It's impossible to predict tomorrow," Cole said during a news conference at Chicago's Rush University Medical Center. "Statistically, he should be that player and then some. That doesn't mean he's guaranteed. It's a whole lot better than we were accustomed to years ago."

General manager Gar Forman insisted the Bulls won't rush Rose, that they are more focused on the long term than the short-term hit they'll take without him. The GM is "hopeful" and his franchise player will return next season but isn't sure he will.

"In putting this team together, everything was looking at the big picture, long term," Forman said. "I think it's our job to stay focused and to continue to look at what we feel is a long window of opportunity to have success and that's how we'll approach it."

Rose had surgery on Saturday after being injured two weeks earlier in Chicago's playoff-opening win over Philadelphia, a major blow for a team eyeing its first championship since the Michael Jordan-Scottie Pippen era. The Bulls simply weren't the same without their superstar point guard and bowed out in six games, making them the fifth top seed to lose to an eighth seed.

-- The Associated Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 16, 2012 C5

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