Lonzo Ball and injuries have a pretty bad record when you put those two together. The Bulls guard missed out on almost three seasons in the past due to recurrent health issues, and now he’s missed out on his seventh-consecutive game with a right wrist injury this weekend.
Despite rumors of the player not coming back this campaign, coach Billy Donovan refuses to shut him down for what is left of the season. The latest news to come out of Chicago is that he didn’t travel with the team on the latest six-match road trip, which opened last night in Houston.
With 15 games left to the season, there still isn’t a timeline for his return. All we know it that this is the same injury that kept him out of the first 15 games of the current campaign.”I think the intention that he’s doing right now is just trying to get himself back to playing.
“Doctors aren’t saying, ‘Hey listen, you gotta sit out.’ It’s just when he feels that he can do things on the court that he’s comfortable with,” Donovan said before the game at Houston,” Donovan told the press this weekend, and explained that there’s no plan on him having surgery.
Ball, who has averaged 7.6 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3.3 assists in 35 games this season, wasn’t available for this weekend’s loss to the Rockets. Even though the defeat snapped Chicago’s four-game winning streak, the team played well despite missing Josh Giddy and Ayo Dosunmu.
“Tonight we came up a little bit short,” Coby White said. “They made a couple more plays down the stretch than we did. So for us we look back and learn what things we could have done better. They’re third in a loaded West, so they’re a really good team.
Coby, who led the Bulls with 23 points, believes Houston are one of the season’s best teams. “You’ve got to give them credit for how they play to their identity night in, night out,” he said postgame. “We were right there. We don’t really do the moral victories, but it’s definitely some stuff we can take from this and some positives we can take as well.”
