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Chicago Bulls guard launched a new podcast called "What an Experience. On the debut episode, Ball gave and update on how his recovery is going after his latest knee surgery.

"It's coming along, man. Week by week," Ball said. "It's improving, so that's all I can ask for. Still not where I want it to be. Out of 100 (percent), I'd say I'm about 70 (percent). Good enough to play, but it could still get better. I still got a long summer ahead of me. But definitely looking forward to the future."

Ball recently exercised his $21.4 million player option for next season. He hasn't appeared in a game since January 14, 2022. Ball has missed the last two-and-a-half seasons following multiple surgeries on his right knee.

Via Ryan Taylor/NBC Sports Chicago

Lonzo will go down as one of the best Chicago Bank robbers in history.

I hope for his sake and the Bull's sake that this is true. Beyond that, I hope the guy can walk without pain after his career is over. People can be angry about him being an albatross on Chicago's salary cap, but it's really not his fault and you can't blame him for exercising his player option. Who wouldn't do the same?

Come on guys, you make like five articles a week, could you please bother to proofread them?

lonzo_pelota wrote:Lonzo will go down as one of the best Chicago Bank robbers in history.

It's not good, but Derrick Rose situation was worse

Rose missed 228 games in 5 seasons and (22 of 23 playoff games at one point)... while playing on a 95M max contract (28% of the cap)

Bulls were #1 seed of the whole league in back-to-back years when he got hurt and still got two 3-seeds without him.

Lonzo's missed 211 games (and counting) in 3 seasons and 5 playoff games while counting 16% of the cap.
Bulls are maybe a top-4 seed if Lonzo and Caruso are healthy but they aren't getting to the Conf Finals anyway.

(but this is Reinsdorf's strategy. Keep the team just good enough that fans will be tickets on hope)

AWESOME! This is TOTALLY relevant news! I can't wait to see him on the court next week for the ECF. Oh wait....

puja21 wrote:

lonzo_pelota wrote:Lonzo will go down as one of the best Chicago Bank robbers in history.

It's not good, but Derrick Rose situation was worse

Rose missed 228 games in 5 seasons and (22 of 23 playoff games at one point)... while playing on a 95M max contract (28% of the cap)

Bulls were #1 seed of the whole league in back-to-back years when he got hurt and still got two 3-seeds without him.

Lonzo's missed 211 games (and counting) in 3 seasons and 5 playoff games while counting 16% of the cap.
Bulls are maybe a top-4 seed if Lonzo and Caruso are healthy but they aren't getting to the Conf Finals anyway.

(but this is Reinsdorf's strategy. Keep the team just good enough that fans will be tickets on hope)

Reinsdorf strategy is to commit huge sums of guaranteed money on long contracts then have the players go down with injuries?

Unintentionally funny

If I'm Chicago, no way I'm letting him play. I keep sending him to doctors until one says he can't play. Cashing in on that insurance.

puja21 wrote:

lonzo_pelota wrote:Lonzo will go down as one of the best Chicago Bank robbers in history.

It's not good, but Derrick Rose situation was worse

Rose missed 228 games in 5 seasons and (22 of 23 playoff games at one point)... while playing on a 95M max contract (28% of the cap)

Bulls were #1 seed of the whole league in back-to-back years when he got hurt and still got two 3-seeds without him.

Lonzo's missed 211 games (and counting) in 3 seasons and 5 playoff games while counting 16% of the cap.
Bulls are maybe a top-4 seed if Lonzo and Caruso are healthy but they aren't getting to the Conf Finals anyway.

(but this is Reinsdorf's strategy. Keep the team just good enough that fans will be tickets on hope)

Cant compare Lonzo's situation to DRose because Rose was lighting up the league for years including in the playoffs before injuries started to break him down, the Bulls fans love Rose for that.

Not the same with Lonzo.

puja21 wrote:

lonzo_pelota wrote:Lonzo will go down as one of the best Chicago Bank robbers in history.

It's not good, but Derrick Rose situation was worse

Rose missed 228 games in 5 seasons and (22 of 23 playoff games at one point)... while playing on a 95M max contract (28% of the cap)

Bulls were #1 seed of the whole league in back-to-back years when he got hurt and still got two 3-seeds without him.

Lonzo's missed 211 games (and counting) in 3 seasons and 5 playoff games while counting 16% of the cap.
Bulls are maybe a top-4 seed if Lonzo and Caruso are healthy but they aren't getting to the Conf Finals anyway.

(but this is Reinsdorf's strategy. Keep the team just good enough that fans will be tickets on hope)

Cant compare Lonzo's situation to DRose because Rose was lighting up the league for years including in the playoffs before injuries started to break him down, the Bulls fans love Rose for that.

Not the same with Lonzo.

mastermixer wrote:

puja21 wrote:

lonzo_pelota wrote:Lonzo will go down as one of the best Chicago Bank robbers in history.

It's not good, but Derrick Rose situation was worse

Rose missed 228 games in 5 seasons and (22 of 23 playoff games at one point)... while playing on a 95M max contract (28% of the cap)

Bulls were #1 seed of the whole league in back-to-back years when he got hurt and still got two 3-seeds without him.

Lonzo's missed 211 games (and counting) in 3 seasons and 5 playoff games while counting 16% of the cap.
Bulls are maybe a top-4 seed if Lonzo and Caruso are healthy but they aren't getting to the Conf Finals anyway.

(but this is Reinsdorf's strategy. Keep the team just good enough that fans will be tickets on hope)

Reinsdorf strategy is to commit huge sums of guaranteed money on long contracts then have the players go down with injuries?

haha

meaning shooting for playoffs not for championships

rickxdel wrote:

puja21 wrote:

lonzo_pelota wrote:Lonzo will go down as one of the best Chicago Bank robbers in history.

It's not good, but Derrick Rose situation was worse

Rose missed 228 games in 5 seasons and (22 of 23 playoff games at one point)... while playing on a 95M max contract (28% of the cap)

Bulls were #1 seed of the whole league in back-to-back years when he got hurt and still got two 3-seeds without him.

Lonzo's missed 211 games (and counting) in 3 seasons and 5 playoff games while counting 16% of the cap.
Bulls are maybe a top-4 seed if Lonzo and Caruso are healthy but they aren't getting to the Conf Finals anyway.

(but this is Reinsdorf's strategy. Keep the team just good enough that fans will be tickets on hope)

Cant compare Lonzo's situation to DRose because Rose was lighting up the league for years including in the playoffs before injuries started to break him down, the Bulls fans love Rose for that.

Not the same with Lonzo.

Sure not the same player

Just saying Rose's injuries had a bigger financial and winning impact than Lonzo.

his situation "robbed" Chicago of more

puja21 wrote:
Lonzo's missed 211 games (and counting) in 3 seasons and 5 playoff games while counting 16% of the cap.
Bulls are maybe a top-4 seed if Lonzo and Caruso are healthy but they aren't getting to the Conf Finals anyway.

Bulls won 39 games this season thanks to the emergence of Coby White in the backcourt. If you give some Caruso and some White minutes to Ball you think they're suddenly going to win 10 more games?

His PER puts him as a below average starter. Now, yes, he's a solid defender so you can excuse that but he had 2.2 win shares out of 35 games played. Even in the "big" season he had the year prior (why you guys gave him that contract) -- the one season when his PER was over 15 (15.2) -- he still only had 3.2 win shares out of 55 games played. Add that up and he added 5.4 wins over the last 90 games he played. So even if he did somehow play a full season his WS will probably be around 5. And yet somehow he's going to add 10 wins to the Bulls by taking minutes from 2 of their best players?

By contrast, when Derrick Rose got his max extension he was coming off a season with 13.1 WS and a 23.5 PER, not to mention an MVP award and a first team all-nba spot to go with his 2nd allstar appearance. Most importantly, he had only missed 6 games in his career up to that point. Ball had already missed more than 90 games before he signed with the Bulls. He only had one season where he cracked 60 games played. 35 may have been an aberration but considering he averaged 54 a season to that point, was it really that unexpected for him to suffer an injury?

StlHawksFan wrote:Bulls won 39 games this season thanks to the emergence of Coby White in the backcourt. If you give some Caruso and some White minutes to Ball you think they're suddenly going to win 10 more games?

well i think they run their offseasons differently if Ball is healthy

Coby White had a nice season, but his defense numbers are/were terrible

StlHawksFan wrote:Ball had already missed more than 90 games before he signed with the Bulls. He only had one season where he cracked 60 games played. 35 may have been an aberration but considering he averaged 54 a season to that point, was it really that unexpected for him to suffer an injury?

High risk acquisition for sure, but I don't think people were predicting "career ending" knee stuff -- Boston was still looking at Lonzo

Jamaal Murray has missed 160 games in the last 5 seasons-- played an avg of 48 of 82 games in that span-- similarly I don't think people are expecting him to suddenly "not be able to play at all for 3-4 years"