The Chicago Bulls have announced that Lonzo Ball will undergo a third knee survey since his initial injury and is likely to miss the start, at the very least, of next season.
Two offseasons ago, when the Chicago Bulls acquired Lonzo Ball and DeMar DeRozan to add to Zach LaVine (who was already on the team’s roster), the belief was that the team was shifting to a win-now mentality and era. But midway through last season, it all began to fall apart for the Bulls. And it all started with an injury suffered by Ball.
Initially, the thought was that Ball would be able to bounce back from an injury suffered in January and that he would be able to return before the start of the playoffs. However, roughly 14 months later, Ball has still not played in another game for the Bulls.
He has missed all of this season as he tries to put this injury behind him and, according to a recent report, there’s a strong chance that he ends up missing all of the 2023-24 NBA season. He’s already been ruled out for the remainder of this season as he’s slated to undergo a third knee procedure.
The hope is that Lonzo Ball will be able to resume his NBA career after a third knee surgery
Of course, the goal in all this misery that Ball is undergoing at the moment is the hope that he can resume his career even if it doesn’t happen until the 2024-25 season. The good news is that Ball is just 25 years old. If he can lose two seasons of his career and still be just 26 when he makes a return to the floor, that’d be huge and you can make the argument that he’d still have a good amount of time left to carve out a nice career in the league.
And the good news is that Ball already got one big payday. And you’d have to assume, especially now, that Ball would opt-in to the 2024-25 season with the Bulls. But that’s probably something to think about in the future. Right now, the focus for Ball is to get healthy.
For the Bulls, though, it really gets complicated for them now heading into the offseason. Now that they know Ball is likely going to miss all of next season, it puts them in a difficult spot.
Some big decisions await the Bulls from a basketball standpoint. Still, you can’t help but feel for this entire Lonzo Ball injury situation.