When Luol Deng was first injured, the Bulls listed him as day-to-day and no one thought much of it.  After keeping him as day-to-day for two weeks, they finally came out and said that he was injured and would be out at least two weeks with the possibility of surgery.  No big deal, right?  Just a normal injury and an organization trying to put a positive spin on it as long as they could.  Well maybe it’s not that simple, as Rick Morrisey alludes to when discussing how they first handled the injury:

“He has been restricted from high-level activity since [Feb. 28],” team physician Brian Cole was quoted as saying. “At this point, he will undergo ‘active rest,’ meaning that he will be encouraged to challenge himself physically, and if symptoms remain minimal, he will be allowed an expeditious return to play.”

That the Bulls were going to encourage Deng to “challenge himself physically” was interpreted to mean: “Can you believe this guy? What a wimp.”

Though Morrisey is not making the same point as I am here in his article, his comments made me think.  What is the story with NBA organizations?  It’s a simple formula they use really, but it is somewhat sleazy and does it really do any good for anyone?  What I’m talking about is when an organization loses interest in one of its players and wants to deal that player.  When the player is well-liked by the fan base, as Deng is, the organization feels that they have to bring the athlete down in the eyes of the fans so there won’t be a huge backlash when they trade him.  It happens all the time.  Look at Phoenix as recently as this year.  Kerr decided that he wanted to get rid of Amare, but he knew the fans in Phoenix would be very unhappy if that happened.  So he started a campaign to dismantle Amare’s character, planting seeds of doubt in the fans about not only his play (his defense came under heavy criticism), but also his locker room presence (stories started mysteriously leaking to the press about how Amare was unhappy playing next to Shaq and how he wanted to be “the man”).  Then when Kerr tried to trade him, the city didn’t turn on the Suns as badly as they would have.

It appears the Bulls are trying to do something similar here.  They may be unhappy with Deng, but they won’t ship him out unless they can convince the city that he is a detriment to the team.  I know this all sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory, but it happens around the league all the time.

Or….the Bulls are just run by a bunch of idiots who don’t understand the implications of what they do.  I’m not ruling that option out in this case.  It’s just something to think about when it comes to professional sports franchises and the relationships they have with their talent.