It seems like Derrick Rose’s season will again be cut short by another knee surgery. Rose tore his meniscus in his right knee. The same knee he had repaired last season as well as he previously tearing his ACL in his left knee in the first game of the 2012 postseason. It is not clear when he will undergo surgery. Considering how long it took him to get to where he’s gotten, it’s unreasonable to expect him to get much further after another lengthy rehabilitation, and certainly not until far into the future. “There was always hope that at some point in this season, or perhaps the postseason, he would bloom and the petals from the blossoming Rose wouldn’t wilt for a while,” bleacher report released in a statement. He’s certainly had his moments that evoked the players when he was at his peek. “He’s been out along time,” Tom Thibodeau said, “You measure your point guard really by how the team plays. I want him to have the mental toughness to get through it. He had a great rhythm going before the break, He’ll get back into it.” He’s going to have to get through something much bigger, something that will require more mental toughness than simply getting over a few bad games. It’s a battle Rose has fought before, twice. For all the criticism he’s taken, it speaks volumes of this character and his mental toughness that he worked his way back from both of his previous knee injuries, never losing confidence in his ability to return to MVP form. “ It’s a blow because one of our teammates is down.” Kirk Hinrich said. “It hurts to see anyone go down, especially someone who is as good a person as Derrick is and the history he’s had with injuries. I’m still shocked. I can’t imagine what he’s going through these past three years. Just when it seems like he was hitting his stride, playing great, the team felt like he had put this earlier struggles behind him, for this to happen is devastating.”

The internal hope for his teammates is that Rose will be able to come back and try and help lead the Bulls to an NBA championship. The Bulls will attempt to contend for a title without him. They’ve been here before, and this time, they have more talent than they had the last two seasons, when they still managed to be a competitive playoff team without him.