Fresh off signing a four-year, $85 million deal with the Chicago Bulls, Lonzo Ball was living up to his lofty expectations in his first season with the team. Through the team’s first 40 games, Ball was the team’s jack of all trades, and he was a major reason the Bulls had a 27-13 record.
Then, disaster struck. Ball sustained a knee injury initially expected to keep the guard out six weeks. But he dealt with complications in his recovery, leading to at least two additional surgeries on his left knee. All told, the guard missed over 1,000 days — and two full seasons — before he returned to play for the Bulls during the 2024-25 NBA season.
After an injury of that nature, Ball’s performance wasn’t the same. He spoke about facing that reality, and revealed just how much his career was altered by that injury, during Tuesday’s episode of the “Ball in the Family” podcast, which featured Gilbert Arenas.
Deep into the podcast, Arenas asked Ball how he was doing physically. Ball admitted he needed to manage his knee, though said he could “play if I want to, but still got to deal with it every day.”
Ball said he played basketball the day before the podcast and that his knee was swollen. He said he would stretch, ice it and do yoga to help it recover.
Ball also explained how the injury affects his play on the court, saying there are certain stances he can take where the knee doesn’t bother him. Other times, though, he feels off balance and has lost the ability to stop himself abruptly while driving.
When asked how the injury impacted him mentally, Ball said he was grateful to play nine seasons in the NBA.
“I feel like I gave everything I had to hoop and I feel like everything I got in my life is because of hoop. So I’m grateful to even make it to the league and even be able to play for nine years. That’s how I look at it …
“Your game changes. You see where you’re supposed to be and you physically can’t get there. You gotta be comfortable with yourself, to be honest with you. I feel like, to be honest, I don’t think I ever got to my peak. And it’s like, damn, that s*** sucks, but at the same time, there’s a lot of people, like, that don’t have meals to eat type s***. That’s how I look at the world.
“So, it’s like, damn, I still got to make it up there and got to play and put the jersey on and do everything I wanted to do as a kid, so that was enough for me to be happy.”
A brief moment of silence followed that last comment from Ball before Arenas hopped back into the conversation.
If any of that sounded like an unofficial retirement from Ball, well, some did take it that way. Despite Ball never saying he has finished with basketball in that clip, some aggregators claimed the guard had retired from the NBA.
Ball quickly shot down those rumors, saying he was “still waiting for a call.”
It’s unclear whether that call will come. Ball averaged just 4.6 points in limited time with the Cavaliers last season and remained unsigned throughout essentially the entire offseason. At 28, he’s looking at a reality where he doesn’t suit up for an NBA team ever again.
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