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He also pointed out that Rose did not tear the medial collateral ligament, making the preparation for the surgery easier.
Cole said patients generally start running about three months after surgery, and trainer Fred Tedeschi said players start shooting around that time. From there, they progress to cutting activities and increase the workload from there.
Whether Rose spends part of his offseason working out in Los Angeles as he usually does or stays in Chicago, Tedeschi said the Bulls will have someone with him monitoring his rehab.
Cole also said Rose should play once he's ready, that he doesn't necessarily recommend sitting out the season as a precaution.
"There's a lot of benefit to playing when he's safe," Cole said. "Whether he has to go 40 minutes, that's a different story. Just getting out there and playing when he's able, that's when his exponential growth is going to come. Lots of athletes go back and play at a very high level but not necessarily initially at the level they were pre-injury."
The Bulls were a different team in the playoffs once Rose went down, after going 18-9 without him in the regular season.
Making matters worse, they lost center Joakim Noah to a sprained left ankle in Game 3 and fell into a 3-1 hole before injecting some drama back into the series.
Besides the injuries to Rose, they were without Richard Hamilton for most of the year because of a variety of ailments.
Then, there's All-Star Luol Deng. He played a significant portion of the season with a torn ligament in his left wrist and has said several times that he plans to represent Britain at the Olympics in London.
Forman basically sidestepped questions about that, saying, "We want to sit down with him and have that conversation with him and our medical staff. I think it would be premature to speculate on anything until we've had a chance to sit down with him. Obviously, we know it's very, very important to him and we want to support our players. The biggest thing is Luol's health."
Forman also said the Bulls will exercise their contract option for next season on coach Tom Thibodeau and will try to negotiate a new deal.
[Associated Press;
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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