It’s been exactly nine months since Derrick Rose crumpled to the floor at the United Center. I consider that day to be possibly the worst single day of my life. It’s certainly in the top five.

It’s really hard to explain what goes through your head when something like that happens. I went through the five stages of grief in about an hour, a whirlwind of emotion that I in no way was prepared for. I spent most of that day muttering “this can’t be happening” to myself over and over again.

Yesterday, we found out that Rajon Rondo would miss the rest of this year with a torn ACL of his own. For a scuffling Boston Celtics team that was teetering on the edge of playoff contention even before Rondo went down, this is essentially the worst-case scenario.

Paul Pierce’s reaction when he was told about Rondo’s ACL after a hard-fought, double-overtime win against the Miami Heat says it better than I ever could.

As a Bulls fan and a Chicagoan, I am hardly fond of the team from Boston. In particular, Rondo’s performance in that Bulls-Celtics playoff series in 2009 drives me up a wall. The combination of his superb play and the way he fouled Brad Miller and threw Kirk Hinrich into the scorer’s table made me essentially hate him.

But there’s no way that I can avoid sympathizing with Boston fans over this. Rondo is an immense talent and has been an integral part of the Celtics the last few years. Losing him is a stomach punch, and that might be an understatement.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this: It’s important to keep things in perspective. I mean that.

To my fellow Bulls fans, I would say this: You may despise the Celtics. You may despise Rajon Rondo. That is your prerogative and I would never take that away from you. But remember that those in Boston — players and fans alike — are just people. They’re people who happen to support/play for one specific sports team in one particular city. In pretty much every way that matters, they’re just like you. Show some class and support them as they go through this tough time.

And to Celtics fans, I would say this: It gets better. I know it sounds cliche and all, but it honestly does get better. Nine months later, as we’re getting ready to welcome Derrick Rose back to the Bulls, I’m in a much better place than I was in May. You learn to live with the pain, the stupid photoshops, the incessant reminders of what happened.

Does it suck? HELL YES IT SUCKS. But life is like that sometimes. You have to slog through the crap sometimes, but hopefully you learn something along the way. For instance, I learned that watching basketball can still be fun, regardless of the circumstances. My happiness did not depend solely on the presence of one player.

That said, I would trade everything I’ve learned about myself and about sports over the past nine months for a healthy Derrick Rose in a heartbeat. A f***ing heartbeat.

Well, that was mildly depressing. Here is a picture of a kitten with a basketball.

You’re welcome.

If you’re questioning this team’s success, I would like to remind you that simply having Dwight Howard wearing your uniform all but guarantees a top defense, and the same goes for Steve Nash and offense. Yes, Mike Brown is still the coach and the bench is…meh at best and Kobe is getting older, but those top four are fearsome. Nash/Howard pick and rolls are probably as close as it gets to guaranteed points, and if and when Nash plays off the ball, you have the best shooter of all time spotting up on the weakside while you still have to deal with Dwight and/or Kobe and/or Pau. That’s not even fair.

— Pacific Division 2012-2013 Preview: I Can’t Stand The Lakers (10/25/2012)

Yeah…about that.

So, as it turns out, it wasn’t quite that simple. Yes, there have been mitigating factors: Nash, Howard, Pau Gasol, Jordan Hill and Steve Blake have all missed significant time with injuries — Hill is out for the season — and Dwight is clearly not 100 percent after a back injury forced him to miss the end of last year and have surgery in the offseason. Said injuries have thrown LA’s bench into chaos, with players’ roles changing from game to game, largely by necessity. And Dwight, who should be able to make the defense solid by himself, just isn’t the same player. His offensive game fluctuates on a game-to-game basis, but his defense has been pretty meh all year. 82games.com tells us that the Lakers allow about 107 points per 100 possessions with Howard on the court. That’s terrible. The historically awful Charlotte Bobcats of last season gave up points at only a slightly higher rate than that.

Jan 20, 2013; Toronto, ON, Canada; Los Angeles Lakers center Dwight Howard (12) reacts to a technical foul called against him against the Toronto Raptors at the Air Canada Centre. The Raptors beat the Lakers 108-103. Mandatory Credit: Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports

To be perfectly fair, the rest of the team is hardly without fault in that. Steve Nash and Pau Gasol are solidly below average defensively — an understatement in Nash’s case and a product of position in Gasol’s, more on that later — to say nothing of Kobe Bryant, who is more or less awful defensively these days. He’s above-average when defending the ball, I guess, but his off-ball defense is atrocious. If you don’t believe me, go read this excellent breakdown from a couple of weeks ago. The Artist Formerly Known As Ron Artest is solid, but he’s getting old and can only do so much.

The Lakers’ struggles ultimately come down to a couple of things: terrible injury luck, as detailed above, poor defense — eight of their 10 most-used lineups give up points at a significantly below average rate, per 82games — and the fact that their best five players can only kind of play together.

That last one is hard to explain, but here’s the most important piece: Pau Gasol is not a power forward. He’s a center. It’s kind of unclear if he’s a good center or not — I would say he probably is, but that’s mostly just an opinion — but he’s a center. He struggles to guard power forwards and he’s best off playing from the foul line down. Unfortunately, with Dwight Howard around, that’s both impractical and unproductive. Furthermore, Mike D’Antoni’s system calls for the power forward to help space the floor, and Pau can only sort of do that. He’s not a three-point shooter, as much as D’Antoni would clearly like him to be, and while he’s hit a decent number of his shots from 16-to-23 feet, he’s struggled from everywhere else except at the rim.

So, the solution is simple: trade Gasol, or stagger his minutes such that he and Dwight spend as little time on the court together as possible. That doesn’t really fix everything, given that the plan was always to have Nash/Kobe/The Artist Formerly Known As Ron Artest/Gasol/Dwight close games, but it’s entirely possible that it’s just not a good idea. Then again, it’s hard to think anyone is going to give the Lakers fair market value for Gasol right now. But it is the Lakers…

Anyway, LA is currently 12th (!!!) in the West, only a game and a half ahead of the Sacramento Kings. They’re starting to seem like longshots to even make the playoffs, and a championship is basically a pipe dream at this point. Dwight needs to get healthy, Pau needs to figure things out and they need a lot of luck. But it’s the Lakers, so don’t count them out entirely. These things always seem to work out for them.

The Lakers take on the Chicago Bulls tonight at the United Center. Tipoff will be around 7:30 central time.