Hey, good news! Derrick Rose is like practicing and stuff now. He’ll also be playing in the season opener Thursday night against the Spurs. Hooray, hurrah, huzzah. But this does not mean Rose is 100 percent. He still seems far from being able to floor his accelerator. He’s more in the neighborhood 25 MPH zone. From the Trib:

“It’s going to be tough, I’ll tell you that,” Rose said. “I’m like an old man. I gotta wait 20, 30 minutes into practice to get loosened up. And it gets stiff when I stop playing.”

Pressed on how many minutes he thought would be realistic, Rose backtracked a bit into vagueness.

“At least 20,” he said. “I just want to play more. I don’t care if it’s 5 or 10. I just want to be out there. It’s up to (the medical staff). Right now, I’ll play whatever minutes they want me to play.”

Rose obviously isn’t the only cog in the Bulls’ wheel: John Salmons and Luol Deng need to score in bunches; Joakim Noah needs to board and not try and get too crazy on the offensive end; Tyrus Thomas needs to prove his worth in a contract year; Brad Miller needs to keep being Brad Miller. But Rose’s maturation — especially defensively and shooting-wise — is also key to this team, and against Tony Parker and Rajon Rondo the first two games of the season, the defense might struggle. After putting in a lot of time in the summer working on his shooting, this injury, and the time he spent off from it, might have set him back in that department.

But, whatever: things could be far worse. Rose will play. And as long as he doesn’t do more damage to his ankle — something the Bulls are being cautious with and keeping a close eye on — he’ll round into shape eventually.