Getty Images Lonzo Ball
The NBA offseason is crawling along now that free agency has slowed down and Summer League has ended. Teams now are waiting to see what happens with possible trade situations involving Kevin Durant and Donovan Mitchell.
Meanwhile, it seems like the Chicago Bulls are content with their current roster as they aren’t expected to be a destination for Durant or Mitchell. The Bulls achieved their goal of continuity this offseason as they were able to re-sign Zach LaVine and keep the core together.
The Bulls did add Dalen Terry through the draft and veterans Andre Drummond and Goran Dragic on inexpensive contracts. While it appears that the roster is set in Chicago, the team still has some questions that need to be answered.
Promising Update
The biggest question for the Bulls this offseason has been surrounding the health of Lonzo Ball’s knee. Ball injured his knee in January and it caused him to miss the rest of the season.
The Bulls point guard tried to return in March but couldn’t ramp his rehab up enough to return. Ball’s injury was part of a laundry list of injuries that caused the team to falter down the stretch.
Before Ball’s injury, the Bulls were 27-13 and in first place in the Eastern Conference. After the injury, the Bulls stumbled to 46-36 and finished in sixth place in the conference.
Since the season ended Ball has been back home in Los Angeles rehabbing with the Bulls keeping an eye on his progress. On Monday David Kaplan said on his ESPN 1000 radio show “Kap+JHood” that he had spoken with Lonzo’s dad LaVar Ball about his rehab.
LaVar sounds positive that Lonzo is going to be ready to go for the start of the season which is different than what the Bulls seemed to suggest recently.
“He’s progressing. That’s as much as I can say. He’s getting better. Probably not at the speed that we would like. But he’s getting better,” Bulls president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas said. “Hopefully, he’s going to be ready for training camp. That’s just our hopes.”
Karnisova’s comments on Ball’s progress came a couple of weeks ago during Summer League so it’s possible that Ball has progressed more in that time. The Bulls certainly hope that LaVar is right and that Lonzo will be ready to go for training camp.
Other Roster Questions
While the Bulls did make a couple of additions this offseason, the team didn’t address some of their biggest needs. One of the Bulls’ biggest weaknesses last season was their lack of rim protection.
While did add some size with Drummond, he’s not much of a shot blocker at this point of his career. The Bulls also didn’t have much three-point shooting last season and didn’t really add any during the offseason.
The Bulls are hopeful that if they can stay healthy they’ll be able to replicate the early season success from this past season. If they can’t the team could look to make some moves to try and get themselves in contention.