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Over the next few weeks, we'll take a closer look at each player on the Bulls roster and see where they fit in for the future.

C.J. Watson

Position: Point guard | Age: 28 | 2011-12 salary: $3,400,000

Season recap: Watson played well at times, but his year was marred by a constant stream of injuries that started in the first week of the season. He sustained a dislocated left elbow on Jan. 1, a concussion in February, a sprained ankle in March and other various ailments throughout. After the season he had a procedure on both feet to alleviate pain from plantar fasciitis. The veteran guard was consistently praised by coach Tom Thibodeau for the toughness he showed, but his play suffered towards the end of the season. After grinding his way through a productive year, Watson struggled badly in the playoffs in place of an injured Derrick Rose.

Season highlight: Even with an active Rose in place, it was Watson who helped deliver the Bulls one of their most impressive wins of the season on April 12 against the Miami Heat when he scored 16 points and hit several huge shots down the stretch. Thibodeau decided to bench Rose in the fourth quarter and overtime and rode Watson's hot hand to victory.

Season lowlight: The playoffs. After Rose went down in Game 1 against the Philadelphia 76ers with a torn ACL in his left knee, Watson went just 13-for-54 from the field in the last five games of the series, struggling to find any kind of offensive consistency.

Notes: Watson deserves a large amount of credit for the way he continually played through injuries and tried to stay in the lineup while Rose battled a laundry list of his own injuries. But when the Bulls needed Watson to step up the most he just couldn't find his shot. Watson earned continuous praise from his teammates, but his postseason performance left a lot to be desired, even if he was dealing with something as painful as plantar fasciitis in the end.

Quotes: "I think C.J.'s a warrior," Bulls center Joakim Noah said in March. "He's somebody who's still playing injured, but we need him to play. For him to come back like that just shows the sacrifice he's making for the team. Not playing for five, six games, coming back against Miami; throwing him in the fire and stepping up for us, controlling the game. Point guard is not an easy position to play and Speakington, as we call him, he was huge."

What's next?: Watson will begin to rehab his body from the wear and tear it took during the lockout-shortened season. He will likely begin training back in Las Vegas, his hometown, later this summer. The question for Watson and the Bulls becomes: Will the team pick up his $3.7 million option for next season? With Rose likely sidelined for at least the first 2-3 months of next season, he may be one of the best options the Bulls have for the price. Especially given that it's very unlikely Steve Nash will be coming to Chicago.

FINAL GRADES -- Regular Season: B-. Postseason: D.

Chicago Bulls guard C.J. Watson was "doing well" after procedures on both of his feet Thursday morning, according to his publicist.

Watson had been battling plantar fasciitis all season, and it grew progressively worse toward the end of the season.

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CHICAGO -- Derrick Rose's former high school coach spoke with Rose Tuesday and said the Chicago Bulls star was in good spirits and is ready to work his way back from recent surgery to repair a torn ACL in his left knee.

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Dealing with the frustration of a first-round exit and the helplessness of being sidelined by injury again, Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah enters the offseason hoping for brighter days with Team France in the Olympics.

"I'm gunning for it," Noah said recently. "I'm hoping that I'll be healthy and be able to play."

Noah sprained his left ankle in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference quartefinals against the Philadelphia 76ers and missed the final two games as the Bulls became the fifth No. 1 seed to be knocked out by an eighth seed.

Noah missed 34 games last season, largely due to a torn ligament in his hand. He also sprained an ankle and missed three games in April, 2011. The ankle had to be re-examined by doctors before he was cleared to play for France last summer.

"I've got to strengthen my ankles," he said. "Too many ankle injuries throughout the years. I've got to strengthen up my ankles.

"I'm just frustrated because I really feel like I really worked hard on trying to keep my body right. I feel like the ankle injury was unfortunate. I think just going full speed onto somebody's ankle and landing on somebody's foot, that could have happened to anybody. It's frustrating, but nobody died. You learn from it and move on."

With Derrick Rose out with a torn ACL, the Bulls' frustration was based in the fact they weren't able to see what they could do with a healthy roster.

"I think it's just important for everybody to regroup mentally and to make another run at it," Noah said. "Because you know what, Derrick is going to come back, and it's adversity but it's just another challenge for us like (coach Tom Thibodeau) always says. We are very privileged people, doing what we love to do. Let's just go out there this summer and come back hungrier than ever and make a run.

"I think the unfortunate part of this year is that we don't know, we didn't measure up against the teams that we wanted to measure up against. But I think that, I personally believe that this group could compete against anybody. We had tough breaks throughout the year and that's unfortunate but it's also part of the game. You learn from being injured, you learn from the hard times that will make the good times even better."

CHICAGO -- Carlos Boozer always believed the Chicago Bulls would be headed back to Philadelphia on Thursday night -- even when things were at their bleakest.

As the rest of his teammates filed out of the locker room on Sunday afternoon after Game 4, Boozer peeled some money out of his pocket to give to the visiting locker room attendants.

"Just so you (guys) know," he said. "We will be back."

At the time, it wouldn’t have been surprising if the young men laughed in his face. After losing Derrick Rose (torn ACL) and Joakim Noah (sprained ankle) in the span of a week, the Bulls looked emotionally broken as they left Philadelphia down 3-1. Boozer never lost faith in himself, though. He was always convinced that he could have a solid Game 5 and help push the series back to Philadelphia.

It turns out he was right.

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CHICAGO -- With the Chicago Bulls on the brink of a season-ending collapse, Luol Deng stepped up and showed he has more than enough ligaments to shoot with.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Tom Thibodeau Coaching Robot’s mantra, “We’ve got more than enough to win with,” you probably didn’t laugh at that joke. If you’re sick of hearing Thibodeau say those words after the soul-crushing loss of Derrick Rose and a mind-numbing three-game losing streak, you probably winced at it.

But ThibsBot doesn't lie. Or if he does, he believes it. The losing streak is over and despite another late Ankle Moment, the half-dead Bulls are still alive in their first-round series against the Philadelphia 76ers after a non-artful 77-69 win at the United Center on Tuesday night.

Just when everyone had finished their obituaries.

Deng, hampered for more than half of the season with a torn ligament in his left hand, has battled through pain to try and erase any lingering, if not misguided, notion that he’s a soft player. But it wasn't just about Deng's reputation. He wanted to play, rather than get surgery, because Deng knew this was going to be a special season. And it almost was. Now the O'Brien Trophy is out of reach, but the Bulls want to keep playing out of stubborn pride. Forget the beach, give them Philly and then Boston or Atlanta.

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CHICAGO -- The Chicago Bulls' injury problems continued Tuesday night when Taj Gibson injured his right ankle with 2:06 left in the third quarter in Game 5 of the team''s first-round series against the Philadelphia 76ers.

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DEERFIELD, Ill. -- Poor Rip Hamilton. He gets no burn in the fourth quarter and the Chicago Bulls make him address the media on an off-day.

A day after sitting out the majority of the fourth for the third time in four games of the most depressing series since "Twin Peaks," Hamilton was trotted out as designated veteran to appease a press corps that is ready and willing to give his team their last rites.

"Right now it's live or die," Hamilton said at the Berto Center. "It's win or go home. It makes the game more challenging. It makes it better, I think, because you're not looking to another game. This has to be the game."

Inspired yet?

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Whose fate was more disappointing, the Bears and Jay Cutler or the Bulls and Derrick Rose?

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PHILADELPHIA -- Chicago Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau has never wavered in the confidence he's shown towards his team. His coaching mantra is, "We have more than enough to win with."

He said it again on Saturday afternoon just seconds after all but admitting that Joakim Noah wasn't going to play in Game 4. Thibodeau's philosophy is that no matter who steps on the floor, the Bulls can win. It goes beyond talent for the veteran coach. He believes that if he puts his team in the right position and the players follow his direction, they will find their way.

But at some point, no matter how well a team executes an offense or runs plays, talent must win out. Clutch players have to make tough shots in big situations and the Bulls found out the hard way during the fourth quarter in Game 3 that without Derrick Rose, and to a much lesser extent Noah, the Bulls have a team full of guys who are still learning how to come through with the game on the line.

The Bulls shot just 6-for-25 in the final 12 minutes and looked inept at times down the stretch. It wasn't so much that a 14-point lead evaporated, it was how it happened so quickly. The Bulls ran down the floor on certain sets and appeared to have no idea what they wanted to do. Whether it was John Lucas III dribbling around with no particular purpose or Kyle Korver missing the open looks that he did get, the Bulls had no rhythm to their game. Luol Deng and Carlos Boozer, two key offensive weapons the Bulls needed to step up in place of Rose, finished the quarter a combined 1-for-7, with Deng's only shot coming in the final seconds.

As Thibodeau watched the tape on Saturday, it's hard to believe he didn't get sick to his stomach.

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NEW YORK -- LeBron James doesn't want to hear anything about an asterisk.

With a rash of injuries across the NBA and several playoff teams crippled because of it, there has been some talk that this might be remembered as a tainted season because of last year's lockout. There was some stigma attached to the last lockout season in 1998-99.


For years Phil Jackson referred to the San Antonio Spurs title that year as having an asterisk attached to it because of the circumstances of that shortened season.

The mere mention of that fired up James on Saturday as the Heat had a practice at Madison Square Garden. The Heat will look to close out the New York Knicks Sunday in Game 4.

"I don't think that's right to say," James said. "I'm not going to get involved in it. Every team works hard no matter if it's a lockout year or not. There's not much of a difference between 82 games and 66 games."

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PHILADELPHIA -- Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah turned his left ankle during the third quarter of Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals against the Philadelphia 76ers on Friday night.

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"I expect him to come back and fully recover and be better than ever." -- Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau

We all do. But at the same time, when we get down to what's really in the back of our minds, we know that thinking is extremely wishful. Hopeful. OK, I'll be the one to say it: Doubtful.

Not that we doubt Derrick Rose's ability to come back 100 percent from the ACL tear that ripped out Chicago's heart in a way not felt since Gale Sayers went down, but a simple flashback of his season this season leaves us vulnerable to levels of pessimism that usually aren't in the DNA of most Chicagoans.

In his first three NBA seasons, Rose missed five games. This year: 27 games in four months. His body breaking down in front of us. And then ... this. An athlete's worst nightmare not requiring microfracture surgery.

Can he come back? Will he come back? When will he come back? All of those questions floating around in our heads, coming out of our mouths. But stuck in our hearts, the one question that instills the most angst, anxiety and fear: Will we ever see that 2010-11, pre-lockout, pre-new contract, pre-new adidas deal, best point guard in the game, MVP Derrick Rose again?

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DEERFIELD, Ill. -- Funny, but when Kyle Korver said it Monday, it didn't feel sappy. Funnier than that, it didn't sound impossible either.

"I don't know one good sports movie where the 1-seed cruised to the championship," he said humorously but oh so seriously.

While still sad about the news of Derrick Rose's season-ending knee injury and realistic about the impact of losing last season's league MVP, Korver, his teammates and coach Tom Thibodeau actually seem eager for the challenge.

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DEERFIELD, Ill. -- Despite losing superstar point guard Derrick Rose for the rest of the season with torn ACL, Chicago Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau isn't about to let his team feel sorry for itself now.

"I think we all feel awful for him," Thibodeau said after Sunday's practice. "Derrick's not only a great player, he's a great teammate, he's a great person, but it's not a death sentence. It's not a death sentence for him, it's not a death sentence for our team. He's going to come back. He'll come back better than ever. It's just the way it is and we've got to deal with."

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