Chandler Hutchison is having surgery after failed attempt to ‘play through’ injury

Remember Chandler “Crutch” Hutchison? He’s back...on the shelf. For the rest of the season.

The latest in a series of bizarrely-random (in their eyes) injuries that have affected John Paxson’s 12th ‘core group of guys that we really like’, Hutchison’s shoulder has kept him out since before the All-Star break on Februrary 11th.

Prior to that, he had “played through it” for 18 games after first injuring the shoulder in late November.

Here was Hutchison, when he didn’t come back after the break, in a thoughtful admission of the Bulls philosophy towards injury.

“It’s just something that I’ve been battling. The last three or four games leading into break, it was kind of like, ‘Push through. We’ll have this All-Star break to rest. Maybe see somebody to see what I can do to help kind of push through it.’ But the Wizards game I got banged up quite a bit”

Commendable for the players to ‘battle’, but concerning when it’s the organization influencing them to be this way. Especially in a lost season, didn’t they give the excuse to Lauri Markkanen that his absence wouldn’t have occurred if it was the playoffs?

We don’t need to cite all the examples of Hardscrabble Paxson and Jimmy the Grand Rapids Riveter Boylen outing themselves as behind the times when it comes to injuries and the ‘importance’ of playing through them. But here’s a particularly relevant one just least year when Hutchison saw that season cut short too.

And just over the weekend as part of an embarrassingly weak defense of himself and his coach, Paxson said:

Jim can’t control the injuries.

Can no longer blame Tom Thibodeau, of course. Maybe it’s still the players fault? Or perhaps it might be long past time to address ‘Bulls culture’ and who is leading that.