Imrem: It still all comes down to Rose for Bulls
One theory is that the Bulls' window to win an NBA title is open for this season and next.
However, another rarely mentioned theory is that the window was shut tight nearly three years ago with few realizing it.
Back then Derrick Rose suffered the first of two knee injuries that required surgery. Ever since, he has been trying to regain his old league-MVP form, and the Bulls have been trying to regain their status as legitimate NBA title contenders.
If Rose doesn't accomplish the former, the Bulls won't accomplish the latter.
It's as uncomplicated as connecting those two dots.
Monday night, Rose was a little better than ordinary, more a facilitator than a dominator.
That was good enough for the Bulls to beat the Bucks 87-71 in the United Center but won't be good enough to beat better opponents in the playoffs.
Rose shot 1 of 13 from the field, was 1 of 7 on 3-pointers and scored 8 points. He did have 8 assists and 5 rebounds, but the undermanned Bucks pretty much beat themselves.
"He had a great rhythm going," Bulls head coach Tom Thibodeau said of Rose. "I liked the way he played even though he didn't shoot well."
Rose blamed his recent poor shooting on the nine-day all-star break during which, he said, he didn't touch a basketball.
That, of course, led to the issue of whether Rose is still driven to be great.
Between now and the postseason, Rose could return to consistently being a transcendent player. Or he could remain much less after losing all but 10 games of the past two seasons to knee injuries.
If Rose resembles his old self, the Bulls do have an opportunity to climb out the window and into the NBA Finals. If Rose doesn't, the window will have accordion bars on the outside like a closed liquor store in a bad neighborhood.
Sometimes, Rose flashes signs that he can do everything he did as a younger player worth hundreds of millions of dollars in salary and endorsements.
Other times, not so much.
Rose is alternately tantalizing and frustrating while ranging from spectacular to efficient to ineffective.
The Bulls can be a playoff team without Rose at the top of his game but unlikely to be a title contender.
So, what if Bulls fans have been kidding themselves about the Bulls' future with Rose? What if it's naive to believe he will ever be what he was?
The Bulls need Rose as the centerpiece around whom everybody else revolves. As of today, however, he still has to prove that the window isn't shut on him ever being that type of force again.
So much money was devoted to Rose's guaranteed contract that it guaranteed that the Bulls wouldn't be able to add another superstar in his prime to go with him.
The supporting cast is better now, but everything depends on Rose, who remains a question mark in search of an exclamation point.
It seems nobody - not his teammates or Thibodeau or anyone else - is certain what to expect from Rose from game to game.
"He has to be patient and contribute in as many ways as he can," Bulls forward Pau Gasol said.
The best hope is that Rose continues to evolve from those two knee surgeries and two lost seasons.
If Derrick Rose can make it all the way back, the Bulls' window is wide open.
If he can't, the possibility is that it was shut longer ago than anyone around here wanted to acknowledge.