We are just over one month away from the 2024-2025 Chicago Bulls Media Day held every year before training camp starts. Two topics of discussion leading up to this years media day are sure to be whether or not Zach LaVine will be traded and and the long-expected return of Lonzo Ball who has missed two and half seasons.
According to Bleacher Report, Lonzo Ball hit the court in a 5-on-5 during a workout last week. In their article they quoted (and provided video) his response when asked by TMZ what fans can expect from him this season. His response was, “[Fans can expect] me back on the court. That’s all I want to do.” and based on the video of him playing on the court in that scrimmage it did look like he is about to job the court again.
As I write this there have been multiple articles floating around on social media today including this one in the last few hours from Sports Illustrated discussing comments made by Nikola Vucevic where he said that the Bulls failures the last three seasons were a result of Ball’s injury. While there is definitely a ton of truth to the comments he made to the media in the last few days as a fan I still blame Bulls Vice President of Basketball Operations Artūras Karnišovas and General Manager Marc Eversley for not finding a way to put a better team together for the 2023-2024 season after the Bulls were knocked out of the playoffs following the play-in games in 2022-2023.
We always hear sayings like, “Give credit where credit is due.” While they deserve a lot of credit for putting a somewhat competitive team on the court the last two seasons I do not think they are getting enough of the blame for sitting around waiting to see if Ball would make it back. 2024-2025 is the last year of Lonzo’s contract and at this point if he does not return they have already went full-force into a rebuild when they drafted home-town product Matas Buzelis back in June.
Many fans are very upset with them for not getting draft picks as part of the sign-and-trade sending DeMar DeRozan to the Sacramento Kings as well as in the trade of Alex Caruso to the Oklahoma City Thunder. However, many reporters and analysts said before and after the trades that the Bulls would have never been able to get draft picks in either of those trades because it was widely known around the league that LaVine, who has on year left on his astronomical contract, wants out of Chicago but he ended the season injured. It was also widely known there was no way both him and DeRozan would be returning for the 2024-2025 season and no one wants to take on his contract thanks to his injury history.
Here’s the thing folks: Whether or not Ball returns LaVine will likely be traded before the February 8th trade deadline to complete the course correction Artūras Karnišovas and Marc Eversley started when the summer began.
With that… stay tuned to my other off-season wrap up posts leading up to the 2024-2025 preseason. I will be writing about other teams I watch closely in those posts including but not limited to the Miami Heat, Los Angeles, Lakers, Golden State Warriors, and Denver Nuggets.
If you cannot play with them, then root for them.