There's still no exact date for the return Chicago Bulls' star Derrick Rose, but according to head coach Tom Thibodeau the former MVP is "close" to returning to the floor.
According to Suntimes.com, that was Thibodeau's response when asked if his star guard was moving any closer to taking the court for a regular-season game in hopes of testing his surgically-repaired anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.
"Yeah, he's close, but he's not going to come back until he's ready," Thibodeau said. "He feels a lot better, but he's still not there. You guys that have seen him play, his skillset is power, speed, stop, go, change of direction, so he has to make sure that he's completely comfortable with that. He's close, but he's not quite there yet.''
Though Thibodeau's response is somewhat of a tease, he's insisted that Rose has continued to look good in practice and through all the drills, but the explosion that he's looking for still isn't there yet.
"To have the ability to do it every day,'' Thibodeau said, when asked what he meant by "close.'' "Like right now, we're not doing a lot of scrimmaging because of where we are so it's hard to gauge. But when we did scrimmage I thought he looked very good. But the most important thing is him being comfortable, so we've got to let him work through it.''
However, Thibodeau did say he's starting to feel that Rose is beginning to play more instinctively lately, "but part of that, though, is just going to come when you get out there in a game. He's gotten more comfortable, he's moving along, he's just got to keep doing the things he's doing.''
As of now there's only eight games left in the regular-season for the Bulls, but Thibodeau still has no opinion on if he expected to see Rose return at all this year.
"No, but again, it's on him, and only he knows,'' Thibodeau said. "So we have to trust him. And as I've said many times, I trust him implicitly, and he'll know when he's ready and when he is he'll go.''
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