If you take a nice, long look at this year’s Chicago Bulls, you may not see all that much.
At 30–36, they’re fighting for their lives to merely finish in ninth or 10th place, so they can qualify for the league’s play-in round. Despite having three players—DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine and Nikola Vučević—who’ve been All-Stars multiple times in just the past few years, the team ranks seventh worst in the NBA in offense this season. And with a month to play, the wildly inconsistent club has failed to log a four-game winning streak this season, despite possessing the talent to dominate Denver on the road Wednesday and take down Milwaukee and Boston at other points throughout the campaign. Few teams have been as confounding as the Bulls.
But as odd as it might sound, the absence of Lonzo Ball—who hasn’t been on the court in almost 14 months due to knee issues—really does seem like the difference-maker between the Bulls being a fringe play-in team and being a contender in the loaded Eastern Conference. And that’s a harsh reality when considering Thursday’s brutal report: that Ball will likely need a third operation on the troubled knee that’s already held him out of action since January 2022.
