Who Will Be Better After Injury? Dwight Howard vs. Derrick Rose

Regardless of public opinion around a star player — and Derrick Rose and Dwight Howard could scarcely be more different in the eyes of many critics — an injury to an All-Star, let alone two faces of the NBA, is always a blow to the league and its fans. No matter how far modern medicine has come, there’s always the notion the player won’t be back as strong as he was. It goes without saying that few could do what those two could on the court when healthy. Is it time to dampen expectations for their futures, or believe they could be back at full strength?

Howard and Rose have every motivation to return to their lofty heights. Howard wants to prove wrong what seems like a majority of NBA fans for his offseason move, while Rose has an MVP trophy on his mantle to live up to. So who will be the better player when they return, a player closer to his pre-injury greatness? We debated. Who do you agree with?

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DERRICK ROSE

They may call him Superman, but Dwight Howard’s back injury proves that he’s no man of steel. When he had a herniated disk in his back repaired and fragments removed surgically in April, Howard started down a rocky road for a 6-11, 260-pound man. That injury could, in time, prove to be his kryptonite. We all know Dwight’s a physical freak, but back injuries just don’t bode well for men his size. It won’t help the rest of his career that so much of his game is based on being an incredible leaper. The back, of course, is the part of the body he needs to be strongest for him to dominate in his new L.A. home. If he injures it again or suffers a setback this year, his game would have to change tremendously.

Of course, ACL’s are nothing to play with either. We’ve seen Tim Hardaway go down with the very same ACL tear Derrick Rose suffered against Philadelphia in the first round of last season’s playoffs and lose the burst that made him special. In many ways, Rose is in the same boat as Howard. The quickness and agility that mark Rose’s game as distinctly elite is just as dependent on healthy knees as Howard’s rebounding rests on the health of his back.

Rose’s injury, of course, is much more severe than Dwight’s herniated disk. Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf hopes to get his superstar back on the court around January, but sitting out the entire season remains a distinct possibility, whereas Dwight has only been ruled out for the season opener so far. You just can’t rush that anterior cruciate ligament.

So the question has to be, how the guy who might miss an entire NBA season could possibly come back stronger from it than the guy who could be back a couple weeks into the NBA year. The only concrete way we can go about saying Rose will be better is by looking at other players who have torn their ACL’s and gone on to have prosperous careers. The list is long and includes players such as Al Jefferson and Kyle Lowry who are currently enjoying very above-average NBA careers.

The big name on that list, though, is Baron Davis. For while it’s nice that Al Harrington can come back from his ACL tear and continue to jack up corner threes uninterrupted, it tells us a lot more that a (once) speedy and athletic guard could come back from it and succeed. Current medicinal techniques make it possible for the players who are athletic freaks to continue to be athletic freaks after what was once a career-destroying tear, just ask Adrian Peterson.

But, as I wrote earlier, the Bulls will not be rushing Rose back into action anywhere near as soon as the Vikings put Peterson back out with pads on. That’s why he’s going to come back much stronger than Howard.

While the Lakers will be incredibly reliant on a healthy Dwight to cash in on the dream season hype surrounding them, the Bulls are much more open to putting out their team without their centerpiece in order to ensure they keep him as the face of the franchise for many years to come. The Bulls know they’ll only be getting by without Rose, but it doesn’t concern them.

Neither of these two players are going to outwork each other to come back better than before. They’re both incredibly focused. Both are rare athletic specimens. Both know that the rest of their careers rest on the rehab they go through for their respective injuries. Rose, however, is the one with the MVP trophy and the one who didn’t spend all of last year trying to get traded. Those reasons, of course, are nothing close to being concrete indicators of a healthy return. But we’re talking superstars here, players who succeed above the rest at their position in part because of their excellent intangibles. Their returns, much like their careers up to this point, will rest heavily on the things we can’t quite pin down. With that in mind, I’ll take Rose over anyone else in the league, every single time.

— Rodger Bramley

DWIGHT HOWARD

By the end of last season, the NBA was filled with injuries. And by the time the playoffs rolled around many were worried about their team’s players staying on the floor.

We knew that health could be an issue when playing a condensed 66-game season. We didn’t know what players were in game-shape and what players weren’t. By the end of the season we found out.

Two of the most notable names on the injury list were Rose and Howard, the two top candidates in the MVP race the year before. Rose carries a Chicago Bulls team on his back on every possession and no one affects the floor on both ends like Howard.

They both suffered injuries that are very hard to recover from. Rose faced injuries all season
long to his legs, feet, and knees. All of these injuries and the compiled rust all culminated into a torn ACL for Rose. And to make it worse, it was in the middle of a playoff series.

Howard’s injury kind of snuck up on us. The public thought that Howard just didn’t want to play for the Magic that bad. It turned out that this injury was something that was very serious and needed to be taken care of.

Returning from these injuries will be an ordeal for each party involved, but I truly believe that Howard’s injury will be something that’s easy to recover from and possibly work through. Though a herniated disk is a lingering injury, it takes about six months for your spine to recover and shrink back to normal size. You may experience problems, i.e back spasms, but those are something that many players have been able to work through.

Rose’s injury is going to be something that is much harder to deal with. A torn ACL is something that normally takes about 9-12 months to recover from. With the right amount of grueling rehab, Rose could be back as early as March. However, he won’t be the same player. The pressure that Rose puts on his knees every time he plays is probably some of the most stressful in the NBA. He’s the most explosive player on the floor and he uses it on every possession. He needs to be able to start, stop, cut and jump on the dime.

It generally takes a player two years to fully recover from an ACL surgery and be back at 100 percent. Rose could go through next season being at 75-80 percent at best. It might be best for him to take a year off an recover fully before coming back to the Bulls. At the end of the day, it’ll help more than it hurts.

Howard is in a much better situation in LA though. That team won’t depend on him nearly as much as the Bulls depend on Rose to win. He’s in no rush to come back and will nearly be at full strength once he does return. He’ll continue to dominate just as he did before the injury.

— Michael Sykes

Who do you think will have a stronger return?

Follow Michael on Twitter at @Mike_Nasty11.

Follow Rodger on Twitter at @BramleyBeats.

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