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By Alex Kirschenbaum
Contributing Entertainment Writer
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After spending two-and-a-half seasons languishing on the bench, Chicago Bulls point guard Lonzo Ball may really, truly, make his first return to the hardwood since suffering a fateful left knee injury on Jan. 14, 2022.
Ball had inked a four-year, $80 million sign-and-trade deal to join Chicago from the New Orleans Pelicans the previous summer. Equipped with the two-pronged lockdown perimeter defense of Ball and eventual two-time All-Defensive Team guard Alex Caruso, and accented with the scoring finesse of then-All-Stars DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine, Chicago had galloped off to an impressively hot start in 2021-22 before Ball went down, hovering at or near the top of the Eastern Conference.
But the Bulls have never been the same without the UCLA product. Chicago sank to the East's No. 6 seed that year and was quickly disposed of by the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the playoffs. The team didn't make the playoffs in either of the subsequent two full seasons, as Ball rehabilitated from three surgeries.
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Most recently, he underwent a March 2023 cartilage transplant, and this one seems to have taken.
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Per Julia Poe of The Chicago Tribune, the former 3-and-D point guard partook in a first two-hour team intra-team scrimmage, with referees in attendance, at full speed and with full contact. Poe notes that Ball's tenure in the scrimmage was, however, "limited significantly." But he was optimistic about what he showed nevertheless.
"Today was probably my best day," Ball reflected. "It's getting better each time."
Ball seems unlikely to ever be quite the same player athletically again, but it feels like a small miracle that the 26-year-old is on the cusp of returning to the court consistently at all.
"I just play the game a lot smarter," Ball noted of how he's adjusted his game. "That's really what I have to focus on — just keeping my IQ to be ahead of things."
Chicago seems unlikely to start Ball, and Poe cautions that he is not going to suit up for starter-level minutes even as a backup. But the team does expect that he will play.
That in itself is quite the victory. Poe reveals that Ball would be the first professional athlete, in any sport, to return to action following a knee cartilage transplant.
Even if Ball is not the same athlete, Bulls head coach Billy Donovan praised his still-impressive court vision as an essential attribute.
"He can take a situation that looks three on three and just by a pass to a certain area of the floor, can make it three-on-two, just out of feel," Billy Donovan noted. "That's the one thing I think for him that will never go away. He's just such a high-IQ player and knows the game so well. The way he plays, he makes people around him better."
Chicago has not officially stated how it wants to handle Ball in its preseason games. Per Poe, the Bulls want Ball to suit up during the first game of their regular season, on Oct. 23 against Ball's last team, the Pelicans.
Read more: After Missing Two-And-A-Half Seasons, NBA Star Guard Nearing Comeback
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