Rose's torn ACL caps off ultimate "What if?" year in Chicago sports

Derrick Rose tore his ACL this afternoon against the Philadelphia 76ers, a tough, yet familiar sight for Chicago sports fans this year

It’s not like Chicago sports fans aren’t used to this.

Using the term “what if?” is almost second nature to a Chicago sports fan. At least if you root for the baseball team whose home is in the north side of the city. Cubs fans have always pondered about sequences that didn’t go their way that they felt should have. Namely the Steve Bartman fiasco in the year 2003.

And even with that said, no Chicago sports fan was expecting the penultimate blow to the stomach that they were dealt this evening. Their hero, their hometown-bred superstar, their MVP Derrick Rose suffered a torn ACL in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals against the Philadelphia 76ers. It was a non-contact injury that Rose suffered as he was driving to the basket with time dwindling in the game as the Bulls were capping off a blowout win.

All systems were a go, the cylinders were blazing, the Bulls looked as good as they had all season. And that’s saying something for the team that won 50 games in the lockout-shortened season. And then when they least expected it, a dagger was stabbed in their backs, and Rose crumbled to the ground in excruciating pain and was carried to the bowels of the United Center, never to return.

And won’t return until sometime next season. Leaving their championship prospects up in smoke. But make no mistake, this wasn’t the first time this happened in the last calendar year.

We could slot Adam Dunn’s misfortunes in the 2011 baseball season into this if we really wanted to find a starting point. Dunn was an acquisition by the Chicago White Sox in the 2010 offseason and it looked like the south side had added a great deal of ammo to their lineup. Unfortunately, Dunn had a horrid 2011 season, and considering that the White Sox looked like they were within games of clinching a playoff berth in the dying months of the season, one could wonder how close they could have gotten had they got even 50-percent of what they were expecting.

But surely, nobody was expecting what Dunn brought to the plate.

The season flipped from summer to fall, and all of Chicago’s eyes were laid on, well, who else? Da Bears. And the Bears looked good. The “Monsters of the Midway” hit a bit of a wall in the early goings of the season, but then went on a torrid run all the way to going 7-3 heading into a game on Novmeber 20th. The Bears won that game 31-20 against the San Diego “Super” Chargers, but the end result was anything but super.

The Bears’ franchise quarterback Jay Cutler, who was finally getting rid of all the doubt that surfaced after his “controversial antics” in the NFC Championship Game, broke his throwing-hand thumb when he was trying to make a tackle. Subsequently two weeks later, star running back Matt Forte found himself on the shelf two weeks later, spraining his MCL. The Bears, after being 8-3, would flounder to a 9-7 record, their only win in the final few weeks of the season coming against the lowly Minnesota Vikings.

After looking so dominant, so formidable, and possibly being the only team to challenge the defending Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers (we’d later find out that that wasn’t true), their playoff dreams went up in smoke and much like Cutler’s thumb, shattered.

And then there were the Blackhawks. The 2010 Stanley Cup Champions came into the season with high hopes amongst most of the NHL. Corey Crawford looked great in the 2011 Quarterfinals against the Vancouver Canucks (a series they would lose) and was rewarded with a contract extension. The core was still intact, and things were looking great for the Blackhawks and a Stanley Cup was in their sights.

Unfortunately, the theme remained the same, and this time the blow would be dealt to another franchise player.

Captain Jonathan Toews suffered a head injury after it looked like he would be on his way to a career-best season. He wound up missing at one point 13 straight games, and while they went 8-4-1 without him during that time period, Toews’ impact was felt later on when the Blackhawks tumbled, and even though he invigorated them, the Blackhawks never looked the same after the injury, and just last week were eliminated by the Phoenix Coyotes in the Quarterfinals.

Who knows what would have happened to them if Toews were healthy? No one. Much like nobody knows where the Bears, the White Sox, or the Bulls if their fortunes were different.

And that's a real, real shame. 

As The Windy City once again is dealt a fierce, cold and painful gust from their premiere point guard’s catastrophic injury, the same question that has been asked for nearly an entire year still rings out.

“What if?”