Chicago's owner sees an unfortunate comparison between Derrick Rose and ...
18.05.12
Chicago Bulls fans have been uneasy all season about the one small stain on coach Tom Thibodeau's otherwise sterling resume, and that's the handling of his starters in the late stages of blowout games. Chicago has a terrific bench and is leading the NBA by a wide margin in point differential, topping teams by an average of 10 points per game, but regular watchers of Bulls games will notice Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, and especially Luol Deng in the lineups late in what appear to be already-decided games. Complicating things further is the fact that Noah and Deng, due to both fatigue and plain bad luck, have been injury-prone over the course of their careers. And Rose is set to miss his third straight game due to back spasms after missing five games with turf toe earlier in the season.
Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf, while not exactly calling coach Thibodeau out, sees a parallel between this mini-controversy and his own time spent with Phil Jackson coaching Bulls teams featuring Michael Jordan. From ESPN Chicago's Melissa Isaacson :
Source: Yahoo! Sports (blog)