Lonzo Ball confirms he will miss season after latest surgery, ponders ‘big what if’ after Bulls’ struggles
Lonzo Ball hasn’t played in an NBA game since Jan. 14, 2022, and won’t take the court until next fall at best
Lonzo Ball won’t take the court this season after his latest knee surgery, he confirmed Monday.
Ball, who hasn’t played in an NBA game since January 2022, can only wonder how things would have turned out differently for the Chicago Bulls had he not gotten hurt. The Bulls were sitting at No. 1 in the Eastern Conference when Ball first went down with a knee injury during the 2021-22 season, and then they failed to make it out of the first round of the playoffs just a few months later.
“It’s going to be a big what if,” Ball said on the 'From the Point by Trae Young' podcast on Monday. “For me, I feel bad just for [president of basketball operations Artūras Karnišovas] because I feel like they made the perfect team around me. I felt like that was the most I’ve ever been involved in an organization, and I finally got the perfect team that I felt like could fit my game and play my way and really just do what I wanted to do.
“That injury, I’m still going through it right now, but that one messed me up early just because I felt like we had a chance and never got to see what it was.”
Ball first signed a four-year, $80 million deal with the Bulls in 2021. He looked great in Chicago early on, too. He averaged 13 points, 5.4 rebounds and 5.1 assists in 35 games during the 2021-22 season, and led the Bulls to the top of the Eastern Conference standings.
Yet, Ball went down with a meniscus injury, and his last game was on Jan. 14, 2022. Since then, he’s undergone three different surgeries. His most recent one, a cartilage transplant, was in March. The rehab process, especially early on, was grueling. He reportedly couldn’t even run or jump after his second surgery.
Karnišovas said during the NBA Draft earlier this year the team didn’t expect Ball to play at all during the 2023-24 season. If that is indeed the case and Ball doesn’t play again until the start of the 2024-25 season, he will have missed about 33 months.
While the string of injuries has been incredibly disappointing, and the Bulls failed to make it out of the play-in tournament last season without him, Ball is finally hopeful.
“When I first got hurt, we didn’t really know what it was,” Ball said. “I was seeing all types of different doctors and stuff. I was just kind of going up and down. That was really hard for me because I just didn’t know what the next day was going to be like.
“At least now, I got the surgery. We got a plan moving forward. We’ve been on plan. I’m on track. Hopefully, everything works out. I just leave it up to God and just do the best I can and live with the results.”
