The Chicago Bulls rollercoaster season just hit another low. The team simply cannot avoid the injuries as the year started with Derrick Rose out followed by the season-ending shoulder issue to Joakim Noah and appendicitis to Nikola Mirotic. Now Jimmy Butler has been taken as the latest victim. Will all of the injuries force the Chicago Bulls into trade deals with their spot in the Eastern Conference dropping?
According to ESPNChicago.com, Butler will miss the next three to four weeks with a left knee strain after suffering the injury against the Denver Nuggets. Butler went down and had to be carted off the court leaving many to fear the worst. It is no secret this is a huge blow to the Bulls who have been riding the success of Butler all year. The swingman has been averaging 22.4 points and 5.2 rebounds per game as the leading scorer. Without him, the Bulls have a major hole to fill.
The injury to Butler could force the Bulls to consider a trade deal. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the team has limited assets they could give up without blowing up the core of the roster. Noah is on an expiring contract, but worth nothing with the injury. Pau Gasol would be a nice one-season rental, but the team cannot afford to deal him. Taj Gibson is more valuable than ever to the Bulls as he remains the best player they have at the moment. Getting any type of deal to fill the void of Butler might be impossible if those players are not available.
Tobias Harris, Kenneth Faried, Kyle Korver and Markieff Morris are the latest names circling the rumor mill heading into the league trade deadline. Any of those trades would require the Bulls to give up someone they cannot afford to part with thanks to injuries. Instead the team might have to heavily rely on depth. That will not please a number of players on the roster right now who are unhappy with the current situation Chicago is in. Kirk Hinrich and Mike Dunleavy are stepping up to replace Butler along with Doug McDermott, but it is not enough and players like Gibson are speaking out.
"What was our identity?" Gibson said, via ESPN.com. "Our identity was defense and then we went offense. But you got to look at it, we got a whole different group of guys from previous years. In previous years, we had a lot of defensive guys that [had] dog in them. Now we got a bunch of young guys [with an] offensive mentality. Now we're just trying to figure out a new system."
Right now the Bulls might have a hard time improving. Rose is sitting for soreness along with the long list of injuries. If the team cannot make a trade or get a few players back on the court, they will be in trouble.
