Why Derrick Rose's injury should have no impact on Rajon Rondo's return date

If you like basketball, the Derrick Rose injury is the type that makes your stomach drop. After missing 18 months while recovering from a torn left ACL, one of the most fun players in the league is now out indefinitely after tearing the meniscus in his right knee.

It's terrible news for Rose, the Bulls and the entire NBA. Obviously, Rose's injury has caused many folks to draw the connection between he and the Celtics own All-Star PG who is recovering from knee surgery - Rajon Rondo. Rondo continues to get closer and closer to making his much anticipated return, ramping up his activity at Celtics practice.

The question that is seemingly being asked since Rose went down, is whether or not the Celtics should be even more conservative with Rondo than they're already being to try and prevent something similar from happening.

The answer is no.

Rondo should come back when he's ready, regardless of Rose

As terrible as Rose's injury is, it speaks more towards the randomness of injury than it does anything else. Rose had possibly the most conservative rehab in the history of sports, waiting 18 months to come back from the ACL tear he suffered during the 2012 playoffs. "The Return" spawned hundreds of "So-and-so will return before D-Rose!" jokes, dozens of Adidas commercials, and quite a bit of criticism for Rose as his Bulls team played without him last season. Despite the ultra-conservative approach, he finds himself injured again. Rose's injury is to the opposite knee, and happened on a non-contact pivot play. This was not a situation where he put his "good knee" in a bad position to protect his "bad knee" thus opening the door for an injury (example being if he jumped in the air and stuck out his good knee in an unorthodox fashion to protect the bad one). He simply pivoted with his right leg..something that happens thousands of times in every NBA game. Something that occasionally causes injury.

That's why, while the Celtics should continue to be conservative with Rondo, there is no reason for this injury to impact his return date. The whole purpose of being conservative is to make sure that the player's injury is healed to the point where they have no additional risk of injury than any other player on the court. If the Celtics goal is to wait until the point where Rondo is immune to any further injury..they'll be waiting forever.

At this moment it has been 9 months and 13 days since Rondo's ACL was reconstructed. It seems fair to assume that he will be out until at least the 10 month mark (which would be December 13th), if not closer to the 11 month mark. If at that point Rondo is 100% (and ACL protocol says he will be), it's time to get him back on the court. Don't get me wrong, as someone who is all for the losses piling up this season, I'm for a very conservative approach with Rondo. If he and the team end up waiting until January or even February, that's fine by me. But it should not be because of D-Rose's injury. Unfortunately, this type of stuff happens, and there is no preventing it. Ricky Rubio came back in less than nine months from his ACL tear, and hasn't suffered any further injury. Rose on the other hand waited 18 months, and his other knee went up in smoke.

Injuries suck, but they happen all the time in sports. Overreacting to this one would be a bad idea for the Celtics.

Follow Mike on twitter - Mike_Dyer13

For more of my articles, click here