Masked Derrick Rose eager to return to Bulls lineup
The theme at the Advocate Center on Thursday might as well have been: Derrick Rose, unmasked.
As practice wound down, Rose could be seen shooting baskets while wearing the clear protective mask on his face to protect a broken orbital bone below his left eye.
Then Rose removed the mask and wore a wide smile as he walked across the gym to face reporters. Talking publicly for the first time since the injury occurred on Sept. 29, Rose was very much at ease and even showed a sense of humor when asked how long he expects to use the mask in games.
"Who knows man? I hate getting my face touched," Rose said. "So if it's a thing where I come out and I'm hot, I'm feeling it and we're playing good, you might see it for the rest of my career."
Well, now that Richard Hamilton has retired, the NBA might be ready for another permanently masked man.
"Yeah, I'm going to roll with it," Rose said with a smile. "Who knows? It could become an alter ego, who knows?"
Detailed information was not available Thursday. Rose doesn't know when he'll be cleared for full-contact practice or if he'll be able to play in the regular season opener on Oct. 27 against Cleveland.
He did confirm Taj Gibson as the teammate who caused the injury. Gibson caught Rose with an accidental elbow when the point guard drove into traffic during the first scrimmage of training camp.
Rose mentioned he's not feeling any pain and could probably see well enough to play in the NBA game tomorrow.
"I think I can. I can't open my (left) eye," Rose said. "That's when I get double vision. But with one eye open, I think I could play pretty good."
As Rose might say, it's easier to play with one eye than on one leg.
"I'm just happy that it's not my knees," he said. "My eyes, anything else, I can deal with it. As long as it's not my legs, I'm fine."
His return is unclear, but Rose did give a rundown of what's he's gone through since having surgery the day after the injury occurred.
"Coming out of surgery, I had a tough time looking up and down and left and right just off the strength of the surgery and the stitches and everything," he said. "Now it's just breaking up the scar tissue and getting the eye mobile and getting my blood pressure back.
"When I got out of surgery, I had to stay in the house two weeks. I couldn't get my blood pressure high. I couldn't watch the movies I wanted to watch. There were a lot of things I couldn't do. But it comes along with it."
Beyond updating his injury, Rose also talked about how much he's looking forward to joining new coach Fred Hoiberg's faster-paced, less-structured offense.
"It's a lot of open space, a lot of drives," Rose said. "I don't think there's no reason why I shouldn't average over 7 assists with all the shooters that we have and the way he lets us shoot the ball. I'm excited. I'm anxious actually to go play."
The Bulls have just three preseason games remaining, and Rose is not expected to play in any of them. So Hoiberg has it work cut out when it comes to getting everyone on the same page before LeBron James and the Cavs arrive for the opener.
"A couple of coaches were out there getting (Rose) caught up with everything (Thursday morning)," Hoiberg said. "And he was really good. He was moving, cutting full speed, getting full-speed shots up. So it's encouraging, what we saw out of Derrick today.
"I kind of added some new things to our team. So it was good to have Derrick be a part of that."
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