The Chicago Bulls entered the early stages of a roster rebuild this summer, with Alex Caruso and DeMar DeRozan heading out the exit door. Zach LaVine’s future with the franchise is still debatable as the front office continues searching for potential trade partners.
Chicago’s roster never hit the heights many had hoped it would. According to Nikola Vucevic, who was speaking during an exclusive interview with Meridian Sport, Lonzo Ball’s injury derailed Chicago’s chances of success. Ball suffered a knee injury in January 2022 and missed the following two-and-a-half seasons.
“Since Lonzo Ball’s injury, we haven’t been able to achieve the results we could have. It disrupted us a lot,” Vucevic said. “When he played, we were at the top of the East for a while, which maybe wasn’t a realistic result, even though we were playing well, but with him, we would have fought for anything between third and sixth place in the end.”
Ball is expected to return to Chicago’s rotation in the upcoming season. However, after almost three years on the sidelines, there’s no guarantee he will be the same player or be able to make the same impact.
Furthermore, the Bulls are far from a contending-level team. As such, any role Ball plays could hinder Chicago’s chances of earning a decent draft pick next summer.
Nevertheless, Vucevic’s comments are fair. Chicago was built around Ball’s playmaking and defense. He was the metronome that made everything else tick. Once he was removed from that rotation for a prolonged period, Billy Donovan’s roster struggled to remain relevant.
Unfortunately for Chicago, the last few years will go down in the “what if” category, and the future holds a full-scale rebuild with some potentially tricky years. Nobody is to blame for how things played out, but it’s certainly a lesson for a front office that tried to leapfrog into playoff contention with a flurry of moves.
Still, it will be interesting to see how Ball’s return helps or hinders Chicago’s chances in the upcoming season, especially as he’s entering a contract year.
