The hits keep coming to the Chicago Bulls. What started out as a season with championship aspirations has now been redefined by a roster ravaged by injury. First it was Derrick Rose. Then Taj Gibson. And now, Jimmy Butler, the team’s leading scorer, goes down. The Bulls were still the #2 seed in the Eastern Conference heading into the home loss yesterday to the L.A. Clippers. Where they’ll end up once the real season begins (the playoffs) is anyone’s guess.

Because now they will head to the finish line in April sans their starting back court.

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Do you remember the 1-hit wonder duo named “Tag Team?” In 1993, they had the song of the summer, a smash hit single entitled “Whoomp! There it is” which ended up the second most popular song of the entire year. “Whoomp! There it is” went quadruple platinum has over 4,000,000 copies of the single have been sold.

However, not much has been heard from Tag Team since 1993. The United Center in Chicago is one place where the song has never gone away.

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Get ready for a steady dose of Kirk Hinrich while Derrick Rose convalesces. If Rose meets the optimistic timetable, 4 weeks, he’ll be back for the final nine games of the regular season. If it takes until the pessimistic mark, 6 weeks, he’ll return for the final three games, and the postseason.

Until then you’ll get a lot of Aaron Brooks, but there will be lots of Hinrich, with a dose of Tony Snell and then maybe a splash of E’Twaun Moore once in a great while. Hinrich might be emblematic of the new expectations (now with Derrick Rose out for 4-6 weeks) for the current Chicago Bulls.

That’s because Hinrich is the only link to the team, the 2006-07 Chicago Bulls, who’s final end result could mirror this season’s.

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The Chicago Bulls announced that Derrick Rose will have surgery tomorrow. The procedure will be a menistecomy, which means his torn right medial meniscus will be removed. The removal of his meniscus is the strategy for repairing his damaged knee.

Rose suffered the same exact injury 15 months ago. Now I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, so I turn it over to this Chicago Tribune article.

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Losing to the Charlotte Hornets at home, a team missing their leasing scorer in Kemba Walker no less, was rather disheartening for the Chicago Bulls. As bad as the Hornets are, nine games under .500 with the win, Charlotte is now tied with the Brooklyn Nets for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

Michael Jordan’s franchise has now moved out of lottery land for the time being, and the Bulls fell from third to fourth. It’s tragic what’s happened to Derrick Rose. His career arc has drawn comparisons to Mark Prior, Penny Hardaway and Grant Hill.

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Credit GarPax (slang for Chicago Bulls GM Gar Forman and Vice President John Paxson) for signing point guard Aaron Brooks and combo guard E’Twaunn Moore this summer. With Derrick Rose, you must embody the official motto of the Boy Scouts of America: “be prepared.”

Derrick Rose has only played in 62 games since the end of the 2011 Eastern Conference Finals, and when you count both the regular season and the playoffs, he’s only played in about 33% of the Bulls schedule over this four year period.

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Derrick Rose will miss significant time due to injury- yet again. It’s really unfathomable at this point. What are the odds? How can lightning strike the same guy three times like this?

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Only five teams in the Eastern Conference, the weaker of two conferences in the NBA, give up more points per game on average than the Chicago Bulls. That means there are nine teams who are better defensively in the East than your Chicago Bulls.

It just sounds so weird to say: a Tom Thibodeau team is below average (or close to it) defensively. It’s a figurative paradox. like “military intelligence, two words combined that don’t make sense,” as the heavy metal band MegaDeath once famously said.

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Doug McDermott doesn’t appear to be the potential answer for the Chicago Bulls at the small forward position. The first string three Mike Dunleavy will miss his 17th straight game tonight. (more on that, and on his potential return here)  Tony Snell has started two of the last three games, with Coach Tom Thibodeau deciding to start two power forwards in the other.

Still, no love for Dougie McBuckets thus far.

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It’s much more than a sprained right ankle that’s keeping Mike Dunleavy out of the lineup for the Chicago Bulls. He didn’t practice today and is out for the game at Houston tomorrow night. So that will be 17 straight games he’s missed.

Officially, he is day-to-day, but it’s very likely he could miss the Bulls next three games (at New Orleans, Orlando), which comprise the second portion of the current road trip. Then the Bulls have two home dates (versus Cleveland and Sacramento) leading into the All-Star Break in New York February 13th-15th.

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Joakim Noah played 22 minutes yesterday, and 23 minutes in the previous contest. However, he’s just not truly himself. Noah is active, but the he’s the Noah we know and love who was first team All-NBA and the league’s Defensive Player of the Year.

Joakim Noah has entirely missed 12 of 46 games this season, and the Chicago Bulls miss him. Like the deserts miss the rain. (credit the late ’90s Saturday Night Live re-occurring character “Mango” who made that song popular)

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