The Chicago Bulls are in a bit of a rut right now as they have lost four of their last five games. On Friday night the Bulls lost an extremely ugly game to the Dallas Mavericks where they only scored 77 points but that might not be the worst news to come out of the game. Joakim Noah separated his shoulder for the second time in a short span and his season may be in jeopardy, according to Vincent Goodwill of CSN Chicago.
Noah first injured the shoulder towards the end of December against the Brooklyn Nets which forced him to miss nine games. Noah came back from the injury less than a week ago but on Friday he played only six minutes before he got tangled up with JaVale McGee and he re-injured that shoulder.
"He'll be out awhile, the second time it pops out is not good. Whatever has healed has been injured again along with usually more stuff," said an NBA team's medical personnel.
The outlook for Noah seems very bleak and at the very least he will miss much more time than he did with the first shoulder injury. Noah has been coming off the bench this season and has not had nearly as big of a role as he is used to but he still is an important member of this Bull's team due to his leadership and defense. Noah is averaging 8.8 rebounds per game in 21.9 minutes and his teammates look to him as a leader specifically emotionally. The mood in the locker room after the game was reportedly very somber as Noah's teammates realized he might be done for the season and his Bulls tenure could be coming to a close.
Noah is set to become an unrestricted free agent after this season and since it looks like the Bulls are headed in a different direction he likely will be playing elsewhere next year. Noah has been in a lot of trade rumors this season but this injury likely ends all of that considering there is a good chance he doesn't play again this year.
The Bulls should be fine on the court for the rest of the season as they are extremely deep in the frontcourt with Pau Gasol, Taj Gibson, Bobby Portis and Nikola Mirotic. The place where they will miss Noah most is from an energy and leadership perspective and for a team that seems to be missing something this year, this isn't the kind of news they needed.
