WASHINGTON – There sat Lonzo Ball pre-game in the visiting locker room of the Capital One Arena on Tuesday, still wearing street clothes as a majority of his teammates were putting game-night gear on.
The hope was he would be joining them once again in that ritual, in all likelihood Wednesday night in Orlando when the Bulls play the Magic.
According to coach Billy Donovan, Ball went through another series of workouts, including one-on-one contact to test the injured right wrist, and unless he wakes up in Florida with soreness, he should be a go.
“In terms of his workout and whatever medical has to do, as long as there’s no setbacks there’s a strong possibility he’ll play,” Donovan said. “He has been doing some contact one-on-one, some shooting, catching, shooting off the dribble, he’s doing all that stuff. It’s been how is he feeling coming out of those workouts? That’s been the problem previously because when we had him doing stuff, he was having soreness afterward. That’s why it backed up.”
Ball, who was sidelined for over 2 ½ years as he recovered from three left knee surgeries, played in three of the first four games to start the 2024-25 campaign, but in that Oct. 28 game in Memphis, he fell backwards and injured the wrist in the first half.
Tests showed that if he continued to try and play through it he could be facing season-ending surgery, so he was shut down, missing the last 15 games.
Unfortunate because even with a strict minute restriction of 15-16 minutes, he was very productive off the bench, finishing with a plus in the plus/minus category in every appearance, including the plus-16 against the Grizzlies.
For a guy that’s in the final year of his deal and trying to re-establish his career moving forward, the timing of the wrist injury couldn’t have been worse.
“In talking to medical we’ll have to probably go back to where it was at the start of the year where it’s probably going to be 15-16 minutes, four-minute stints at a time,” Donovan said. “There is a strong possibility that if he can build up, maybe 20-22 (minutes), but he understands he’ll never get back to 35-minute nights.”
Back-to-backs will also remain out of the picture for the time being as well.
“He will be playing with some tape around his wrist,” Donovan said. “There’s some getting used to shooting the ball and doing those things, and I wouldn’t say he’s completely pain-free, but he’s a lot, lot better in terms of it being manageable. But I was impressed where he was physically.”
No progress
Patrick Williams (left foot) was still only taking free throws and doing some light shooting, but Donovan was hoping that the team could start ramping up activity after the weekend.
The forward has missed the last four games since being shutdown because of the pain in the same foot he had season-ending surgery on last year.
Tests showed that Williams was dealing with inflammation in the foot, and they just need to make sure they can calm that down.
Mr. First Half
Veteran center Nikola Vucevic came into the game with the Wizards tied for the lead in first-half scoring with Zach LaVine (11.7 points per game).
He did little to hurt that, again setting the tone for the Bulls on Tuesday with his team-high 11 points in the first 24 minutes.