On his podcast, the WAE show (Twitter video link), Bulls guard Lonzo ball said he plans to play in two of the final three preseason games. As Julia Poe of The Chicago Tribune notes (via Twitter), that means Ball expects to make his preseason debut next Monday in Milwaukee or Wednesday against Minnesota.

It’s been a long road back for Ball, who has missed the past two and a half seasons due to a knee injury that required three surgeries. The former No. 2 overall pick will be a free agent next summer as he is on an expiring $21.4 million contract.

Here are a few more comments from Chicago:

• Former NBA MVP Derrick Roos announced his retirement as a player last month. On Friday, the Bulls announced they will have a “Derrick Rose Night” against the Knicks on January 4. However, according to Poe of The Chicago Tribune, the team will not remove its No. 1 jersey during the halftime ceremony. Still, as Poe notes, no player has worn that jersey number since Rose left the Bulls in 2016, so it’s possible the Chicago native could see his jersey hanging in the rafters of the United Center in the future.
• The Bulls’ starting lineup — Josh Giddey, Coby White, Zach LaVine, Patrick Williams And Nikola Vucevic – doesn’t inspire much confidence on the defensive end. Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times suggests that one solution might be to take LaVine off the market early in favor of Ayo Dosunmusomething the Bulls have done in recent seasons DeMar DeRozan. Dosunmu would provide an offensive defense to work with the other four starters, and dizzying LaVine’s minutes could allow him to serve as the primary scorer on the reserves, Cowley noted.
• Head coach Billy Donovan According to Cowley, LaVine appears to have fully recovered from a foot injury that limited him to 25 games last season. “I think he has practiced very well” said Donovan. “I don’t think I could say that in recent years, and I don’t think it was necessarily because he didn’t want to practice properly. I think he came out of injury a lot. When I saw him in September and part of August I felt like this is about as good as I’ve seen him physically in a few years.”