Chicago Bulls

On a night that saw both DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine struggle from the field, shooting a combined 6-of-27, the Chicago Bulls needed someone to pick up the slack.

Enter Patrick Williams.

The young Bulls forward put up his second straight strong performance after a rough start to the season, pacing the team with 16 points, five rebounds and two blocks in Wednesday's 106-88 win over the 3-5 Charlotte Hornets.

Javonte Green (17 points, eight rebounds) and Goran Dragić (16 points) added solid performances off the bench, spoiling a big game from Charlotte's Kelly Oubre Jr. (24 points).

But the night belonged to Williams, and NBA Twitter took notice:

Williams looked lost out on the court in the team's first four games, averaging 5.3 points per game in those contests. But he's looked like a different player since, especially in Tuesday's 108-99 win over the Brooklyn Nets that saw him put up 12 points, seven rebounds and two blocks.

It was the sort of production that head coach Billy Donovan believes is regularly attainable for Williams.

"He has to make a decision that this is the kind of player that I want to be, that I know I can be," he told reporters after the game. "It's not like we're putting him in a box and saying, 'Hey, your job is to play defense and pass the ball to people.' He has to take advantage of his opportunities. And I thought [Tuesday] it came from within."

It appeared to come from within on Wednesday as well, on a night when the Bulls really needed their role players to step up. It's a promising sign for the 5-4 Bulls, who will be a much scarier team if Williams has found another gear.

Chicago Bulls point guard Lonzo Ball has not played in a game since January, and it will likely be awhile before he returns.

Per Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium, the 24-year-old is expected to miss "at least a few months" but there is "confidence" he will be able to play during the 2022-23 season after he had surgery on his left knee Wednesday.

Ball told reporters on Tuesday that he was still unable to run or jump without feeling pain in his left knee. He spent the summer rehabbing from a torn meniscus in Los Angeles and seeking opinions from multiple specialists, and he opted to undergo another procedure.

"There was a point where we would warm up and stuff, and I would go through certain days and it would be fine," he said. "Then whenever I got to real basketball activities, I just couldn't do it. Unfortunately, this is what's at hand and has to be dealt with. We feel like surgery, again, is the best option."

The Bulls acquired Ball in a sign-and-trade prior to the 2021-22 season. He immediately found a groove as the team's starting point guard, averaging 13.0 points, 5.4 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 1.8 steals while shooting a career-best 42.3 percent from beyond the arc. However, his knee injury limited him to just 35 games, the fewest in his five-year career.

The 2017 No. 2 overall pick had high expectations coming out of UCLA, and he has developed into a solid player when healthy. He previously underwent surgery on his left knee in 2018 while with the Los Angeles Lakers. He also spent two seasons with the New Orleans Pelicans, averaging a career-high 14.6 points in 2020-21.

While Ball is out, the Bulls have options they can deploy at point guard. Chicago signed veteran Goran Dragic this offseason, and Ayo Dosunmu and Coby White will likely see more action. Alex Caruso could see some minutes as the primary ball-handler as well.

After much was made about Kyler Murray's video game habits during the NFL offseason, Chicago Bulls star DeMar DeRozan said most NBA players aren't watching games during the season, either.

Appearing on The Old Man and The Three podcast (starts at 44:45 mark), DeRozan said he's noticed over the past five or six years that there's "not even a lot of guys who watch basketball" in the league now.

"Most of the guys would play video games," he explained. "They would go home, play video games. I remember, one of my coaches, Dwane Casey, we had film one day. We was playing the Boston Celtics, and he asked one of the players—cause the night before, Boston had played, too—and he asked one of the players, 'What color jersey did Boston wear last night?' And the player didn't know. He didn't know."

DeRozan noted he takes it personally when players don't watch games because he needs to "watch every single game" to get a better understanding of tendencies from opposing teams.

There is perhaps a generational divide happening in some sports right now. It's not like video games are a new phenomenon, but the extent to which they play a significant role in an athlete's life could be increasing.

Murray's situation with the Arizona Cardinals became a major talking point after he signed a contract extension in July.

The Cardinals originally included a clause in the deal that mandated Murray does four hours of independent film study each week during the season.

Discussion around the clause got to a point that some online sleuths went back over the course of Murray's career to track how he performed on weekends when Activision offered double experience weekends for Call of Duty.

Murray called an impromptu press conference on July 28 to discuss the situation.

"To think that I can accomplish everything that I’ve accomplished in my career and not be a student of the game and not have that passion and not take this serious, it’s almost…it’s disrespectful and it’s almost a joke,” Murray told reporters.

The Cardinals ultimately eliminated the study clause from Murray's contract because of the firestorm it caused.

In July 2019, Tyler Erzberger of ESPN.com wrote a story about some of the biggest stars in the NBA discussing their love of video games. A lot of the players who spoke to Erzberger were 25 or younger at the time, including Ben Simmons and Lonzo Ball.

Giannis Antetokounmpo told Erzberger he cut back on his gaming after entering the NBA.

DeRozan is certainly within his rights to feel like players could spend time focusing their attention on learning what opposing teams are doing to be better prepared for games. But there's nothing wrong with taking a break on off days to give your mind a rest by turning on the PS5 or Xbox.

Chicago Bulls All-Star guard DeMar DeRozan said that a lowball contract offer prior to the 2021-22 season motivated him to perform at a high level during his first season in Chicago.

Appearing on Thursday's The Old Man and The Three podcast with former NBA guard JJ Redick (beginning at the 25-minute mark), DeRozan said it "pissed me off" when a team offered him the veteran's minimum last offseason:

DeRozan noted that he has a "personal vendetta" against a "handful" of NBA teams because of the offer and suggested that drove him to play his best when he faced those teams.

While DeRozan didn't mention which team or teams offered him the vet minimum, his best outing of the season was a 50-point performance against the Los Angeles Clippers, plus he had 40-point games against the Philadelphia 76ers, Milwaukee Bucks, Orlando Magic and San Antonio Spurs.

The 33-year-old veteran added that he went by the mantra, "Revenge is best served cold," from the movie The Godfather and made that his mentality throughout the 2021-22 season.

That worked out well for DeRozan, as he averaged a career-high 27.9 points per game and was named an All-Star for the first time since the 2017-18 season when he was in his final year with the Toronto Raptors.

While DeRozan was never named an All-Star during his three-year stint with San Antonio after getting traded out of Toronto, he remained a productive player.

In 206 games for the Spurs, DeRozan averaged 21.6 points, 6.2 assists, 5.3 rebounds and 1.0 steal, while shooting 50.1 percent from the field, all of which bested his career numbers with the Raptors.

Given those stats, it is somewhat surprising that a team would try to sign DeRozan for the veteran's minimum. That offer was clearly nowhere close to getting it done, as he inked a three-year, $85 million contract with the Bulls as part of a sign-and-trade deal.

Last season was undoubtedly one of the best of DeRozan's 13-year NBA career, as he also averaged 5.2 rebounds and 4.9 assists in 76 games while shooting 50.4 percent from the floor and a career-best 35.2 percent from three.

The 6'6", 220-pound wing played a huge role in helping the Bulls go 46-36 and reach the playoffs for the first time since the 2016-17 season.

Chicago dealt with some key injuries and was eliminated in the first round by the Bucks, but it is poised to be a contender in the Eastern Conference again this season.

If DeRozan can keep a chip on his shoulder and get big-time supporting contributions from Zach LaVine, Nikola Vucevic and Co., the Bulls have a chance to be among the best teams in the East.

Chicago Bulls star DeMar DeRozan is no stranger to discussing his mental health and some of the challenges he faces as a professional basketball player.

During a discussion with JJ Redick for The Old Man & The Three podcast, he said he may not experience true happiness until he walks away from the NBA.

"I don't think I could truly be happy until I retire," he said. "And I say that because of what you just said. Because there's so much internal pressure to want to be great every single day. Every single day of like, 'I got to go back to the gym. I didn't do enough. I didn't this. I didn't this. Should I take the day off? No, no, no. I'mma just push through it.

"You carry that so much to where you can't really fully be happy until you walk away from it."

This is far from the first time DeRozan has discussed mental health.

In 2018, he tweeted, "This depression get the best of me," a lyric from the Kevin Gates song "Tomorrow," and prompted a wide-ranging interview with Doug Smith of the Toronto Star in which he delved further into his mindset.

"It's one of them things that no matter how indestructible we look like we are, we're all human at the end of the day," he said. "We all got feelings … all of that. Sometimes … it gets the best of you, where times everything in the whole world's on top of you."

He told Smith that he strives to treat everyone with the same level of respect regardless of their position in life or occupation because "we're all human at the end of the day."

DeRozan also discussed his mental health earlier this year on the Draymond Green Show with the Golden State Warriors star (h/t Ryan Taylor of NBC Sports Chicago) and talked about spending days in bed during free agency and dealing with depression after his father died in 2021.

The NBA has taken strides with regard to mental health in recent years with players such as DeRozan, Kevin Love and others discussing some of their struggles.

The NBA Mind Health program says its "mission is to engage, educate, and serve the NBA community and to position mental health as an essential element of wellness & excellence—both on and off the court."

DeRozan's latest comments come as he prepares to start his second season with the Bulls.

Playing in a major market like Chicago for an organization that has a history of success that includes six championships and one of the most iconic eras in sports when Michael Jordan was leading the way comes with its own set of pressures, especially for the team's go-to player on the floor.

He thrived last season in that situation from a basketball standpoint, making the fifth All-Star Game of his career while averaging a career-best 27.9 points per game.

The 2022-23 NBA season hasn't even started yet, and the Chicago Bulls could already be facing a tremendous blow.

Head coach Billy Donovan was asked if he has to prepare for Lonzo Ball to potentially miss the entire campaign and told reporters, "I think you have to."

Ball is set to undergo surgery on his knee and spoke to reporters Tuesday, saying: "I still can't play basketball. I can't run or jump."

Notably, the point guard also said even though he plans to take his time with the rehab that missing the entire season is "not in my mind right now. That would be the worst-case scenario."

Jamal Collier of ESPN noted Ball attempted to rehab his knee and sought out multiple opinions during the offseason with the hope he could avoid what will be the third surgery of his career. Yet he still feels pain with everyday movements such as walking up stairs, so he will have arthroscopic knee surgery on Wednesday.

"From my understanding they're going in there to see what it is," Ball said. "Because it's not necessarily showing up on the MRI, but it's clear that there's something there that's not right. So they're going to go in, look at it, and whatever needs to be done is going to be done."

Last season was Ball's first with the Bulls, and he appeared in just 35 games and underwent arthroscopic surgery on his knee.

His last game was Jan. 14, and the team ended any hopes of a return in the playoffs when it announced it shut him down in April because he "continues to experience pain with high-level physical activity."

Chicago fell in the Eastern Conference standings without his presence on the floor and ended up losing in the first round to the Milwaukee Bucks as the No. 6 seed as a result.

Ball averaged 13.0 points, 5.4 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 1.8 steals per game while shooting 42.3 percent from deep prior to the injury.

The Bulls have some depth in the backcourt with Coby White, Alex Caruso, Goran Dragić, Ayo Dosunmu and rookie Dalen Terry. Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan can also lead the offensive efforts from the wing.

Still, their ceiling is much higher when Ball is on the floor.