SACRAMENTO – Billy Donovan isn’t viewing Patrick Williams as a savior.
The Bulls coach feels like Williams can be a solid defender and bring some physicality to the frontcourt when he gets the nod from medical, but there’s also a reality to the left wrist injury. Specifically, the timing of it. Williams was limited in training camp with a bum ankle, and then when he did return, the second-year forward lasted just five games before suffering the injury against the Knicks.
So for all this time to go by, and then to drop Williams into the last few weeks of the regular season and the fire of the playoffs expecting him to be a difference maker? That’s just not realistic for Donovan.
“I think adding Patrick helps our team, but for a guy that’s missed five months and the first day he comes back, just to unload him into the starting lineup, I don’t know if that would be the best thing for our team and I don’t think that would be fair for Patrick,” Donovan said on Monday. “I do think that he is going to need some time to get his legs under him, to get his rhythm back, to find some kind of routine, and I think as a starter to come back and put him in that position, I think would be a big ask for him.
“Now I do think for his size, defense, rebounding, I do think he can play an important role for our team, but I do think for the second unit right now that’s probably what I would be looking for.”
Donovan and his staff have met and discussed how they should best use Williams, and while very little is definite, the coach was leaning toward initially bringing him off the bench.
Javonte Green has a done a great job working with that starting group, and there’s too many unknowns with Williams.
First and foremost, when they’ll even get him back.
He did get scanned last week and it had positive results, but there’s a strengthening issue that Williams was still working through in limited contact.
“He’s progressing, but the biggest challenge for him right now is just getting to a position and place where I think the doctors feel comfortable that if his hand is in a position and he takes a fall or gets his hand jerked back, that he’s going to be OK,” Donovan said. “I think the doctors want him to get to a specific point and a specific date in March where they feel pretty comfortable that it’s five months or whatever the date was. They’re pretty hardened on that, like getting to that number they’ll feel pretty confident that he’s healed.”
Ball screen
Point guard Lonzo Ball just hit the six-week mark in his left knee surgery. The original diagnosis was six-to-eight weeks, and it’s starting to feel like the latter.
While Ball hasn’t had any setbacks, he was still dealing with pain from the bone bruise – which was the original diagnosis before he also had the meniscus repaired.
That discomfort has slowed his return, leaving the Bulls with no clear timetable for a more detailed return.
“Now he’s running, he’s doing some lateral work, but he’s not doing it full speed,” Donovan said. “The feeling is the healing of that is going to be really, really critical as far as getting into that full speed running vertically and moving horizontally, that’s where we got to get him to. It’s probably been a little bit slower because of what he’s dealing with.”