Lonzo Ball expected to see first action Wednesday

[jnrjr79]

A lot of teams would have medically retired him.

Given he has consistently been rehabbing/trying to come back and has now done so successfully, it seems doubtful those efforts would have succeeded (and Lonzo gets paid his full salary either way).

That did not matter. If he could not get back on the court. They would have gotten. He missed 2 1/2 seasons. The Bulls always had to pay him.

I don't totally follow your post, but if you're saying that it was likely that they could have medically retired him while he was attempting to come back, no, I do not agree. The amount of time he missed doesn't somehow magically give you that ability. An independent physician has to conclude that his NBA career was over, not just interrupted by a lengthy rehab.

It's not impossible, because I suppose a physician could have concluded Lonzo was in uncharted territory and given the lack of comparable cases he/she didn't think Lonzo could pull it off, but obviously that physician's opinion would have been incorrect.

[FriedRise]

It's his wrist so no gloom and doom required. This comes at a good time. The Bulls can play Terry and THT, even Duarte a bit more. There's the option of having Zach take minutes at guard so Craig and Phillips play more at the forward spots.

The Bulls have deep, if not spectacular bench, this affords them the chance to play some guys and showcase them for potential trades.

Carter too, who I think is more used to a space/pace type system anyway. He's always good for a transition 3 or two a game.

He started doing that last year, but I noticed how he had to slow down his game considerably because we didn't wanna play with pace.

[kodo]

Sounds a bit worse than your typical wrist sprain...
Chicago Tribune:

An MRI after the game revealed a Grade 2 sprain. Due to the current swelling in his wrist, Ball said playing through the discomfort would risk upgrading it to a Grade 3 sprain, which could require surgery.

[KissedByaRose1]

Sounds a bit worse than your typical wrist sprain...
Chicago Tribune:

An MRI after the game revealed a Grade 2 sprain. Due to the current swelling in his wrist, Ball said playing through the discomfort would risk upgrading it to a Grade 3 sprain, which could require surgery.

Well that was fun while he lasted. Guy just can't stay durable enough to be a reliable NBA contributor. I'd be very surprised if he was back before December. As much as it stinks this actually will really help the tank, Ball and Giddey really make us better.

[GoBlue72391]

Sounds a bit worse than your typical wrist sprain...
Chicago Tribune:

An MRI after the game revealed a Grade 2 sprain. Due to the current swelling in his wrist, Ball said playing through the discomfort would risk upgrading it to a Grade 3 sprain, which could require surgery.

Well, it was a fun 4 games.

[sco]

Sounds a bit worse than your typical wrist sprain...
Chicago Tribune:

An MRI after the game revealed a Grade 2 sprain. Due to the current swelling in his wrist, Ball said playing through the discomfort would risk upgrading it to a Grade 3 sprain, which could require surgery.

Well, it was a fun 4 games.

I'm rooting for him to stay healthy in his legs and play just good enough for us to keep him and not play enough minutes for any other team to want him for more than a min deal so that we can keep him on a cheap deal.

[sco]

Bumping this forward. Has there been any update on Ball?

[dougthonus]

I don't totally follow your post, but if you're saying that it was likely that they could have medically retired him while he was attempting to come back, no, I do not agree. The amount of time he missed doesn't somehow magically give you that ability. An independent physician has to conclude that his NBA career was over, not just interrupted by a lengthy rehab.

It's not impossible, because I suppose a physician could have concluded Lonzo was in uncharted territory and given the lack of comparable cases he/she didn't think Lonzo could pull it off, but obviously that physician's opinion would have been incorrect.

Given the known facts, without being able to evaluate Lonzo as an individual, it would have been reasonable to think medical retirement was an option, but that isn't how the process would have played out.

If they evaluated him physically, they would have seen that he is very likely to resume his career, and even if they granted medical retirement, it would have meant nothing, because it seems overwhelmingly likely that he'll hit 12 games this year which would have put the money back on our books.

Given we likely had insight into his rehab, we probably knew there was a good chance he was healthy enough to hit that mark or that it would be a significant risk, so we'd have been capped at the same limit anyway as we wouldn't use up his space and then have him come back with another team and get hit with 20M in luxury tax bills.

I was a fan of going the medical retirement route based on the data we had before which was 2 different surgeries no one came back from, multiple years away, and no meaningful visual evidence to the contrary, but with the data we have now, it's easy to see it wasn't going to be a viable option.

[Jvaughn]

Bumping this forward. Has there been any update on Ball?

Said he still has some discomfort, but was recently cleared to begin back dribbling. Still no timetable. They did note his knee feels great and there's been no setback in regards to that, so....

[FriedRise]

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[GoBlue72391]

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Ah, so he'll be out for the next 2.5 years.

[Chi town]

Dude is a glass house. Don’t know how he will get another contract.

[weneeda2guard]

Man bones made of spaghetti noodles smh

[The Force.]

Can we just get Lonzo on a stem cell IV drip?

[Stratmaster]

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Ah, so he'll be out for the next 2.5 years.

A brutal, but understandable, reaction lol.

[kodo]

He was talking about avoiding surgery, so not surprised. That isn't your normal wrist sprain.
I guess it's good the knee is solid?

[FriedRise]

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[Dan Z]

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At this point does anyone expect anything out of Lonzo this season? He's played 3 out of 18 games.

I'm glad his knee seems to be okay, but he's often injured. He averaged 54 games per season before the Bulls traded for him. On the Bulls he's played a total of 38 games out of 264.

[dougthonus]

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At this point does anyone expect anything out of Lonzo this season? He's played 3 out of 18 games.

I'm glad his knee seems to be okay, but he's often injured. He averaged 54 games per season before the Bulls traded for him. On the Bulls he's played a total of 38 games out of 264.

Eh, I'm not sure I believe in "injury prone" when it comes to injuries like a sprained wrist. That to me feels more fluky to me. Thus, I feel more positive about him today than before he played in pre-season and I had no idea what he'd look like. He looks like he can be a positive impact player when on the court, and his injuries this year do not pose any long term concern or relation to injuries in the past.

I generally still subscribe to the theory that IF all of his procedures work well enough for him to regain NBA style athleticism, then the skill is still there (visually confirmed already from what we've seen) and the type of surgeries he had should be preventative of any recurrence in that knee. He effectively has all new muscle and cartilage implanted, so if it works for a decent period of time then my level of concern over it is actually a lot smaller.

The biggest hump for me was proving he'd ever be able to play at all.

[Dan Z]

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At this point does anyone expect anything out of Lonzo this season? He's played 3 out of 18 games.

I'm glad his knee seems to be okay, but he's often injured. He averaged 54 games per season before the Bulls traded for him. On the Bulls he's played a total of 38 games out of 264.

Eh, I'm not sure I believe in "injury prone" when it comes to injuries like a sprained wrist. That to me feels more fluky to me. Thus, I feel more positive about him today than before he played in pre-season and I had no idea what he'd look like. He looks like he can be a positive impact player when on the court, and his injuries this year do not pose any long term concern or relation to injuries in the past.

I generally still subscribe to the theory that IF all of his procedures work well enough for him to regain NBA style athleticism, then the skill is still there (visually confirmed already from what we've seen) and the type of surgeries he had should be preventative of any recurrence in that knee. He effectively has all new muscle and cartilage implanted, so if it works for a decent period of time then my level of concern over it is actually a lot smaller.

The biggest hump for me was proving he'd ever be able to play at all.

I agree with you that a wrist injury is fluky, but when you've missed as many games as Lonzo has throughout his career how can you not call him injury prone?

Its impressive that he's come back from the knee injury and looked as good as he has (in the limited amount that hes played), but i still don't expect much from him. I wouldn't be surprised if he's on limited minutes and at some point misses more games for whatever reason.