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Lonzo Ball confirms he'll miss the entire 2023-2024 season
Coming straight from the source—Lonzo Ball will be missing the 2023-2024 Chicago Bulls campaign. The talented yet oft-injured point guard admitted this during his recent appearance on Trae Young's "From the Point" podcast.
"Just taking it day by day, bro. I just had a really big surgery. Hopefully, the last one I ever have to get. It's a long process. I'm already out this whole next season," Ball said.
Uncertainty
Lonzo's road to recovery has been long and paved with uncertainty. The former UCLA star was playing his best basketball during the 2021-2022 season when disaster struck, and he injured his knee in a game against the Golden State Warriors. What followed were numerous surgeries and a long rehabilitation process that has led up to this point.
"When I first got hurt, we didn't really know what it was. I was seeing all type of different doctors and stuff. I was just kind of going up and down. That was really hard for me because I just didn't know what the next day was going to be like," Lonzo said.
After undergoing a cartilage transplant procedure back in March, the do-it-all guard says he and his team believes they are on the right track.
"I'm on track. Hopefully, everything works out. I just leave it up to God and do the best I can and live with the results."
Regrets
Before his injury, Ball played great basketball, averaging 13 points, 5.4 rebounds, 5.1 assists, and 1.8 steals per game. The Bulls followed his lead and stood atop the Eastern Conference, looking like a contender for the title. Since then, the Bulls have looked lost, never truly found the guard to push them to the heights they once reached.
"For me, I feel bad just for the GM because I feel like they made the perfect team around me. And I felt like that was the most I've ever been involved in an organization. And I finally got the perfect team to fit my game and play my way and really just do what I wanted to do," Ball said.
"That injury—I'm still going through it right now—that one messed me up early just because I felt like we really had a chance and never got to see what it was."
