NEWSLETTER
When news broke at exactly 5:00 p.m. CT on Aug. 2, 2021, that the Chicago Bulls acquired Lonzo Ball in a sign-and-trade, it felt like a prayer had been answered.
The organization had been craving a long-term answer at point guard since they sent Derrick Rose to New York in 2016. Names like Rajon Rondo, Kris Dunn, and Tomas Satoransky were all gifted keys, but it didn’t take long for each to crash the car in their own painful fashion. Fast forward to a new front office, and Ball – the former No. 2-overall pick who finally started to come into his own as a member of the New Orleans Pelicans – found himself in the driver’s seat.
A pass-first talent who pushes the pace, defends multiple positions, and hits the 3-ball at a high rate, he felt like the perfect running mate for bucket-thirsty scorers like Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan. And he was.
The Bulls thrived with Ball at the helm from practically the moment the ball tipped off. A 17-point, 11-assist, and 10-rebound triple-double had fans flooding the United Center with drool during the home opener. Two games later he hit five 3s to help lift his squad over a pesky Toronto team. Then, his season high of 27 points came against Anthony Davis and the very team who drafted him, as the Bulls cruised to an 18-point victory over the Los Angeles Lakers.
Ball was the perfect point guard for a rejuvenated Bulls team. And this only became more evident for all the wrong reasons.
Ball played his last game of the season on Jan. 14. What was once expected to be just a six-to-eight week recovery timeline for a torn meniscus turned into an indefinite absence. The Bulls went on to officially rule Ball out for the remainder of the season on April 6 due to lingering discomfort in his knee. By the time the team finally made the announcement, the damage was basically done.
After Ball was put on the bench, the Bulls watched a 4th-ranked offense drop to 20th, per NBA Stats. The lack of his transition playmaking and 3-point shooting was immediately problematic. Not only did he help boost the Bulls’ overall efficiency with his 42.3 percent clip from behind the arc, but he created so many easy baskets by turning defense into offense. The Bulls held the 3rd-best effective field goal percentage in the league on Jan. 14, but it dropped to a league-average 15th over the rest of the season.
Defensively, Ball’s on/off differential in the opponent TOV% department finished at +3.1 percent, which ranked in the 96th percentile. We saw a similar effect in points allowed per 100 possession, where Ball’s on/off differential came in at -8.6, which also ranked in the 96th percentile, per Cleaning the Glass.
Now, are all of the Bulls’ second-half struggles due to Ball’s absence? Absolutely not. Several other players were struggling with injuries and the schedule increased in difficulty quite a lot. Still, that drop-off helps underscore how big of a two-way impact Ball had on this current roster, and it’s why the latest news is a gut punch mixed with a knuckle sandwich.
Ball – who is now expected to miss training camp and the start of the regular season – still hasn’t been given a timeline to return. He reportedly continues to experience pain in his knee during rehab, and it has put a Bulls team that made minimal moves this offseason in an extremely uncomfortable position.
While part of the reason for that discomfort has to do with the rest of the Eastern Conference upgrading their rosters this summer, the greater reason is that no one in Chicago can replicate what Ball does.
This team is designed to have Ball running point guard. Built around three offensive-minded All-Stars, he is both the waiter and the janitor. He feeds all mouths on one end before cleaning up mistakes on the other. Finding a player like that doesn’t sound particularly hard on the surface, but it is, especially one who is as good at it as Ball.
In other words, there is simply no replacing him. The Bulls will have to slide Ayo Dosunmu, Alex Caruso, or Goran Dragic in the starting point guard slot, and asking any of those three to do what Ball does would be setting them up to fail. Instead, all head coach Billy Donovan can do is ask them to … well … make do.
In a lot of ways, this is why I think someone like Dragic was signed in the first place. No one expects him to replace what Ball brings to the court, but they do expect him to play a smart and stable brand of basketball. Find open teammates, play hard on defense, and hit some open shots. What they ask of Dosunmu and Caruso should pretty much be the same. They all must focus on what they do well and don’t try to be something they are not.
I know that idea can sound pretty obvious, but we’ve all seen teams try to stuff round pegs through square holes (heck, look at the Coby White point guard experiment). The Bulls’ margin for error is already thin enough, and the last thing they want to do is head into this season believing they can play the same brand of basketball they did last season. They can’t – at least as long as Ball is on the bench.
