
Chicago Bulls Guard Lonzo Ball Will Miss Upcoming NBA Season After Recent Surgery
A third surgery has continued to sideline Chicago Bulls player, Lonzo Ball. He is slated to miss the entire upcoming NBA season due to a recent operation.
According to ESPN, after having surgery performed on his left knee, Ball feels, although he will miss the 2023-24 NBA season, that he will be back “on track” with returning to be a full-time player again.
The guard appeared on a fellow NBA player’s podcast, “From the Point by Trae Young” on Monday. He spoke about the latest surgery which took place earlier this year in March. It has been almost two years since Ball appeared on the basketball court for a regular season game. The last game he played occurred last year on Jan. 14, 2022. Two previous surgeries have not corrected the issue he is having with his knee.
“When I first got hurt, we didn’t really know what it was, Ball said to Young. “I was seeing all type 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 do the best I can and live with the results.”
Although the team has stuck by him through his injury, he expressed remorse that he hasn’t been able to produce in the way that was anticipated of him.
“It’s going to be a big what-if,” Ball said. “I feel bad, just for the [Bulls’] GMs 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 because I felt like we had a chance and never got to see what it was.”
Ball came into the NBA when the Los Angeles Lakers drafted him as the No. 2 overall pick in 2017. He was traded to the New Orleans Pelicans in 2019, where he played for two years before a sign-and-trade deal sent him to his current team, the Chicago Bulls. He averaged 13 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 5.1 assists in 35 games until his injury.
Lonzo is the oldest of the Ball brothers playing professional basketball. LiAngelo is in the NBA G League, and the youngest, LaMelo, plays for the Charlotte Hornets.