In a narrow 124-119 victory against Sacramento on Sunday, Bulls guard Lonzo Ball suited up for his first start since January 14, 2022.
Per Kyle Williams of The Chicago Sun-Times, a grateful Ball was happy for the opportunity to start once again.
“[I’m] thankful for everybody that stuck with me, appreciative of the organization for riding with me the whole way and just seeing it all come full circle,” Ball said.
After that 2022 bout, the UCLA alum underwent three surgeries to repair a meniscus issue in his knee, and missed the next two-and-a-half seasons. This season, Ball had previously only played under a minutes restriction off the bench.
Across 26 minutes of action on Sunday as a starter, Ball notched 15 points and three dimes. Starter Coby White was sidelined with a neck injury.
“Whatever you need from him, he’s always ready to play,’’ Bulls head coach Billy Donovan said of Ball.
There’s more out of the Windy City:
- Bulls sixth man guard Ayo Dosunmu, who if healthy would have started over Ball, has been on the shelf with a calf injury since December 23. Per Williams, he continues to rehab the ailment and inch closer towards an on-court return. ‘‘We’ve gotten a really good response from the ramp-up,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘There’s a few more days they want to continue on that, just to see how he responds. With some of the hurdles we’ve wanted him to cross, he’s responded pretty well.’’
- Kings swingman DeMar DeRozan reflected on the end of his three-year Bulls run during his first game back in Chicago on Sunday, writes Chris Biderman of The Sacramento Bee. The six-time All-Star unpacked how things ended between him and the Bulls last summer, when he ultimately agreed to join Sacramento in a three-year, $73.9MM sign-and-trade. “Sometimes the way the business of basketball works, a lot of stuff becomes out of both sides’ control,” DeRozan said. “But with that, just got to appreciate the time that was spent there. I gave it my all, all three years.” With the victory Sunday, DeRozan’s Kings won their seventh straight game. Sacramento is now 7-1 under interim head coach Doug Christie.
- The next few weeks ahead of the February 6 NBA trade deadline could ultimately either make or break Bulls team president Arturas Karnisovas’ stint leading the front office, writes Julia Poe of The Chicago Tribune. At 18-21, Chicago currently occupies the No. 10 seed in the Eastern Conference, two games ahead of Philadelphia for the last play-in tournament spot. The team boasts several veteran players on tradable contracts and has a limited ceiling with its current roster. Poe notes that Karnisovas remaining relatively inactive at a critical transaction point once again would represent a potentially disastrous approach for Chicago. The Bulls haven’t made the playoffs in two years, and appear unlikely to break through this season. That said, they will not have their own draft pick this summer if it falls outside the top 10, so getting worse in a hurry might behoove them. Poe writes that the team hasn’t had significant talks about offloading former two-time All-Stars Zach LaVine and Nikola Vucevic, and is reportedly open to trading anyone on its roster. White and Dosunmu, two solid young players on reasonable deals, have surprisingly not received much trade interest yet, per Poe.