Lonzo Ball Recovery tracking thread update p76 - Lonzo Has Started Sprinting!

[Bulliever2020]

Hell no. And I would place a very large wager on that. The real over/under should be do we see him on the court before 2023.

[Ballerkingn23]

No

[dougthonus]

Im fine if we implement some sort of load management like they do with kawhi. Maybe no back2backs and the occassional coach's decision holiday if he starts to feel sore, anywhere. Gotta get this guy to the playoffs healthy.

Absolutely do you need to do this early on at a minimum. Maybe next season you can re-evaluate.

[dougthonus]

Some people require a YouTube video of him running and jumping and even then some will say it was faked. He's likely not training in Chicago so at whatever site his is at they aren't leaking anything. There's no advantage for his people to say anything, he's not looking fora new contract, he doesn't want to be traded, he doesn't want a different role on the team nor want to force anybody else out. All that matters is how he feels and showing up when camp opens and they don't need to promote that.

You are WAY off base here. Reasons to show Lonzo is killing it, if such a video could be produced:
1: Lonzo is still looking for endorsements presumably. Likely not going to get any while there is a damaged goods reputation on his head.
2: The Bulls, if they have doubts about him, will make contingency plans that will give Lonzo a lesser role if healthy.
3: It creates negative publicity for Lonzo himself
4: It creates a negative cloud around the team.

Neither Lonzo nor the Bulls have any tactical or practical reason to keep this a secret.

[IamSam]

No, I do not expect Lonzo Ball to be available to start the season. I'm squinting a bit trying to focus on the silver lining that may exist.


1). We will get a chance to see how much guys like Ayo and Coby may have improved since we last saw them.

2). We will get a chance to see how much a guy like Goran Dragic has left in the tank.

3). Dalen Terry may get a bit more run than he would if Lonzo was healthy so we may get a chance to see how he looks to start his first NBA season.

Unfortunately for me, I'd trade all of that for a chance to start (and hopefully finish) the season anything close to the way we started last season, and I just don't see that without Lonzo being that 4th member of the Big Three.

[dougthonus]

The comments generally have been "positive", but the lack of specificity in the positive comments makes me think there is still a pretty huge risk here.

No where in the comments does it update on any particular activities he's doing. It doesn't say "he's running" or "he's playing 5 on 5" or "he has no limitations" or anything even close to that. Last time he tried to ramp up his stuff he had set backs and had to go back to resting.

If he isn't fully ramped up, even if he's just doing a bit of stuff now, there's no reason to feel confident he won't have another set back like before. No one has given an example of any specific gates he cleared. If there were comments like "he's been running for a month pain free" then I'd feel pretty good about him getting through the rest of the stuff he had to, but given the whole injury is a "try it and see if it's okay now" type of thing. Given that, it's certainly possible he will be fine and fully recovered, but there's not much reason to feel confident either way, which I guess is represented in the 50/50 results of the poll.

[MikeDC]

I think he definitely will be limited to around 30 minutes per game and maybe no back to backs. Just as precaution for first half of the season even if he fully healthy. We have the guard depth to not push him too hard and still win.

I agree, but I guess it depends on what the real deal is with his knee. If REALLY is "just the bone bruise" and it's fully healed, I might feel differently - does anyone know if a bone bruise is a chronic condition? If they just want to be cautious with his meniscus, I get that too.

I don’t think it’s chronic. It can just take forever to heal as we have seen with him and Kendrick Nunn. They said only removed a very small portion of his meniscus, but this is second time he has had the surgery so hopefully he still has enough left that it won’t be a chronic issue with knee pain.

When a guy has had three problems with the same knee, that seems the definition of a "chronic issue"

And there's a straight line of causality between losing knee cartilage and suffering a bone bruise. The meniscus is the shock absorbing cartilage around the knee. Lacking that puts more stress on bone, which is how you get bone bruises.

[2weekswithpay]

Read on Twitter

Some good news hopefully.

[madvillian]

Read on Twitter

Some good news hopefully.

I think he'll be ready. Question is how he'll be feeling after he ramps up activity to full. But, gotta walk before you run.

[Red8911]

Doesn’t matter if he returns for the season opener, he’s still going to get hurt with something else as he always does. I just hope this time it will be better timing.

[WindyCityBorn]

Doesn’t matter if he returns for the season opener, he’s still going to get hurt with something else as he always does. I just hope this time it will be better timing.

We just need the lighten the load on him. No more than 30 minutes a night barring overtime and maybe rest on some back to back. We have the depth at guard to play it safe with him. I will be optimistic and say he plays 70 games in the regular season and is healthy for the postseason.

[WindyCityBorn]

I agree, but I guess it depends on what the real deal is with his knee. If REALLY is "just the bone bruise" and it's fully healed, I might feel differently - does anyone know if a bone bruise is a chronic condition? If they just want to be cautious with his meniscus, I get that too.

I don’t think it’s chronic. It can just take forever to heal as we have seen with him and Kendrick Nunn. They said only removed a very small portion of his meniscus, but this is second time he has had the surgery so hopefully he still has enough left that it won’t be a chronic issue with knee pain.

When a guy has had three problems with the same knee, that seems the definition of a "chronic issue"

And there's a straight line of causality between losing knee cartilage and suffering a bone bruise. The meniscus is the shock absorbing cartilage around the knee. Lacking that puts more stress on bone, which is how you get bone bruises.

Lot athletes have have meniscus surgery and it rarely if ever leads to them being out for a year with bone bruises. This is absolutely an outlier/anomaly. His injuries are definitely a concern, but I’m not particularly concerned about this one being a recurring one.

[WindyCityBorn]

Read on Twitter

Some good news hopefully.

That’s really good news.

[kulaz3000]

Whether he is ready or not to start the season, when he eventually is, we need to put him on strict minutes restrictions all season long. I'd probably restrict him like 28 minutes per game all season long, and provided he remains healthy all season, ramp him up in the playoffs only. With Dragic, and Ayo, we simply don't need to play him heavy minutes, win or lose.

[The Force.]

Whether he is ready or not to start the season, when he eventually is, we need to put him on strict minutes restrictions all season long. I'd probably restrict him like 28 minutes per game all season long, and provided he remains healthy all season, ramp him up in the playoffs only. With Dragic, and Ayo, we simply don't need to play him heavy minutes, win or lose.

Pretty much.


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[sco]

Whether he is ready or not to start the season, when he eventually is, we need to put him on strict minutes restrictions all season long. I'd probably restrict him like 28 minutes per game all season long, and provided he remains healthy all season, ramp him up in the playoffs only. With Dragic, and Ayo, we simply don't need to play him heavy minutes, win or lose.

I agree, but I think about other guys who have minutes restrictions and their style of play and body types are different than Zo. Zo's "risk" seems to be his defense vs. running and jumping. The one thing I can think of that might help more is playing him less on forwards (esp. PF's).

[Ctownbulls]

Hell no. And I would place a very large wager on that. The real over/under should be do we see him on the court before 2023.

How much?

[MikeDC]

I don’t think it’s chronic. It can just take forever to heal as we have seen with him and Kendrick Nunn. They said only removed a very small portion of his meniscus, but this is second time he has had the surgery so hopefully he still has enough left that it won’t be a chronic issue with knee pain.

When a guy has had three problems with the same knee, that seems the definition of a "chronic issue"

And there's a straight line of causality between losing knee cartilage and suffering a bone bruise. The meniscus is the shock absorbing cartilage around the knee. Lacking that puts more stress on bone, which is how you get bone bruises.

Lot athletes have have meniscus surgery and it rarely if ever leads to them being out for a year with bone bruises. This is absolutely an outlier/anomaly. His injuries are definitely a concern, but I’m not particularly concerned about this one being a recurring one.

Statistics is not always obvious. Going from, say, a 1% chance of something occurring to a 3% chance is still a meaningful increase. But the real question isn't "how often does cartilage removal lead to bone stress". We know know there's bone stress. So the real question is whether the bone bruise will get better and whether not having the cartilage improves or hurts the chances of it getting better.

What's the probability that a guy makes a full recovery from a bone bruise? Well, it depends on a bunch of stuff, sure. But I think it's a likely that
1. The longer you go without recovering lowers the probability you will.
2. Having less cartilage adjacent to the bone you bruised makes recovery more difficult.

[sco]

When a guy has had three problems with the same knee, that seems the definition of a "chronic issue"

And there's a straight line of causality between losing knee cartilage and suffering a bone bruise. The meniscus is the shock absorbing cartilage around the knee. Lacking that puts more stress on bone, which is how you get bone bruises.

Lot athletes have have meniscus surgery and it rarely if ever leads to them being out for a year with bone bruises. This is absolutely an outlier/anomaly. His injuries are definitely a concern, but I’m not particularly concerned about this one being a recurring one.

Statistics is not always obvious. Going from, say, a 1% chance of something occurring to a 3% chance is still a meaningful increase. But the real question isn't "how often does cartilage removal lead to bone stress". We know know there's bone stress. So the real question is whether the bone bruise will get better and whether not having the cartilage improves or hurts the chances of it getting better.

What's the probability that a guy makes a full recovery from a bone bruise? Well, it depends on a bunch of stuff, sure. But I think it's a likely that
1. The longer you go without recovering lowers the probability you will.
2. Having less cartilage adjacent to the bone you bruised makes recovery more difficult.

No need to make personal attacks, and this is especially true with a well thought out, honest response -doug

[IamSam]

Read on Twitter

Some good news hopefully.

That’s really good news.

If this news is true, it really does seem to me that some video footage of Lonzo doing anything that looks like he might be good to go would be very timely.