After more than 1,000 days since he last stepped on an NBA court, after three knee surgeries and countless hours of rehab, Lonzo Ball is ready to make his comeback.
Ball is scheduled to play for the Bulls in their final two exhibition games, starting Wednesday night against Minnesota, astory broken by ESPN’s Shams Charania and confirmed by multiple other Bulls writers. It also agrees with what Ball recently said in a podcastsuggesting that he would play in a couple of Bulls preseason games before the season.
Ball last played in a game on January 14, 2002, and since then has undergone three knee surgeries, the most recent of which in March 2023 was a cartilage replacement, where doctors grow cartilage outside the body and place it in the knee. The recovery was good enough that Ball played full contact 5-on-5 throughout the Bulls training camp.
Ball will make $21.4 million this season in the final year of his contract. Back in 2021-22, he was the glue that would bring together an otherwise ill-suited Chicago roster. Ball can stay healthy, but his role on this team will be different and limited, with Josh Giddey and Coby White as the primary ball handlers and shot creators and Ball in more of a supporting role.
Regardless of the role, seeing him back on the court would be one of the best stories of the NBA season, a triumph of determination.
