They were fair questions for Ayo Dosunmu to ask.
Before undergoing season-ending surgery on Wednesday, the Bulls guard went on a fact-finding mission.
It made sense, considering he had never suffered a major basketball injury or had surgery, and just so happened to have two teammates in the locker room with him that recently underwent shoulder surgeries.
Both Kevin Huerter and Coby White have had shoulder surgeries, and with very different results.
Huerter had season-ending surgery in March of 2024, missing the rest of the year, but back in time for this season. He hasn’t exactly shot the ball like he wanted to, but didn’t blame the shoulder injury on that.
Then there’s White, who didn’t have the surgery until June 2021 in the offseason, missed 18 of the first 27 games of the 2021-22 campaign trying to get it right, and admittedly struggled to do that most of the season.
Dosunmu’s return window is four-to-six months, so he definitely has a better runway to land compared to White, but it’s a fair question to ask with 20 games left in the Bulls’ regular season.
One of several questions to ask:
Does the Dosunmu surgery affect his future?
Maybe not his necessarily but there is a butterfly effect in play here.
There was a real scenario in play in which the Bulls would look to trade either White or Dosunmu, hoping to lighten the load in a crowded backcourt and undoubtedly placing a Josh Giddey extension as a higher priority.
White and Dosunmu are both expiring deals after the 2025-26 season, so that’s why it was expected to come in play.
With Dosunmu sidelined, it makes it more likely that White could be easier to move and could also get them more in return.
Do the Bulls make the play-in game in the Eastern Conference?
Yes, and go ahead and write it down in pencil for now. The pen could come shortly.
The concern surrounding the Bulls at the start of the season was executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas was too stubborn to play the tank game, despite most of the teams in the conference that were sitting in the same talent zip code willing to.
Now here we are.
The Bulls had a chance to improve their draft odds two weeks ago, but blew the 76ers out in Philadelphia and then came back to beat the Raptors in overtime last week. Two teams trailing the Bulls in the standings.
Look, winning games is a learned skill, and if both the victories would have happened because rookie Matas Buzelis played hero and was an assassin down the stretch to lead the way, they become great wins that should be embraced.
That’s not what happened.
Now, the Bulls do have the sixth-toughest schedule in the East, but it’s become pretty apparent that Philadelphia and Brooklyn aren’t interested in moving up. If there is a team to watch it’s Toronto, who has the easiest remaining schedule in the NBA, but still trailed the Bulls by four games.
Is there a Plan B beyond Nikola Vucevic?
Zach Collins is sure starting to look like one.
While Vucevic has been sidelined with a calf injury, Collins has started five games and proven to be capable if the Bulls do trade Vucevic this summer.
He’s not Vucevic but he’s solid, evident by his numbers. Collins has averaged 18.2 points and 10.4 rebounds in those starts, and the Bulls were a plus-33 with Collins on the floor.
Collins, who was acquired in the three-team Zach LaVine trade, still has $18 million coming next season, and has 20 games left to secure his place.