Rip Hamilton could be out month for Bulls, maybe less

While a number of NBA players will miss games this season with irritation and pain in their plantar fascia — the connective tissue that runs along the bottom of the foot — Richard Hamilton tore his.

What does that mean? He could be out a month he told Chicago media, including Aggrey Sam of CSNChciago.com. But it could be less.

“It’s getting a little better every day. I’m really working hard on it. I’m trying to get flexibility, trying to get the swelling and blood that’s in there down, things like that, so every day it gets better. The good thing about it is there hasn’t been a setback or anything like that,” he said prior to the Bulls’ morning shootaround Friday at the opulent campus of the Detroit Country Day School, alma mater of retired NBA player Chris Webber and current Miami Heat forward Shane Battier. “They [the Bulls’ medical staff] said four weeks, but they said that I can probably come back before that. Everybody’s body’s different. It’s just one of those things where you just want to try to get better every day.

They could use him back. As expected, the Bulls offense is struggling without Derrick Rose there to score and create shots for everyone. Hamilton was second on the Bulls, giving them 13.9 points a game and hitting 37.5 percent of his shots from three. He’s been playing better than he did last year for the Bulls (slightly) but now where he was even at the tail end in Detroit.

The Bulls are going to need him before Rose returns, and not to have a huge drop off once he does. But it looks like it will be a while before we see him.