Bulls’ Billy Donovan confirms possible Patrick Williams early return

It wasn’t just hope for the Bulls coach, as Donovan confirmed a Sun-Times report that Williams was progressing ahead of schedule from wrist surgery and could see some regular-season action on his current timetable. Donovan also said that the timetables haven’t changed for Lonzo Ball, Alex Caruso or Derrick Jones Jr.

Coach Billy Donovan was feeling pretty confident on Sunday that the Bulls would be adding a starting power forward in time for what he hopes will be a deep playoff run.

It just might not be before Thursday’s trade deadline, and it likely won’t be coming from outside the organization.

As the Sun-Times reported last week, there was growing momentum that injured second-year forward Patrick Williams (left wrist surgery) was progressing quicker than expected, and could even get back in time to get some regular season games under his belt.

Donovan confirmed that.

“I think there’s a possibility, absolutely,’’ Donovan said of a Williams return. “I feel pretty good about the way he’s progressing from what I heard. What that exact date would be? I think there’s a very strong possibility if he continues to progress that he’ll be back before the season ends.

“There may be an opportunity if everything kind of falls right, I don’t know maybe 10 or 12 or 14 games left in the year, maybe we could have our whole team back.’’

That would mean not only Williams, but Derrick Jones Jr. (finger), Lonzo Ball (knee surgery) and Alex Caruso (wrist surgery).

Wishful thinking from the coach, but also shared throughout the entire front office.

That’s just one of the underlying factors that make this week’s trade deadline tricky for the Bulls. They know they currently have holes that could lead to an early playoff exit, but they also know they have four players in the training room that go a long way in covering up the weaknesses.

The 6-foot-7, 215-pound Williams being the biggest, as far as the lack of size in the frontcourt.

Donovan again pointed out that his “Big Four’’ of DeMar DeRozan, Nikola Vucevic, Zach LaVine and Ball have only played 17 games together, so deciding if that sample size was enough, and then projecting Williams into it, were all being weighed.

“Yeah, just in my conversations with [executive vice president of basketball] Arturas [Karnisovas] and [general manager] Marc [Eversley], everybody really likes the group and likes the chemistry in the group,’’ Donovan said about the trade front. “When there’s stuff that’s going on that [Karnisovas] really needs to talk to me about, where there’s stuff that’s real, we end up having those conversations. That has not happened at all. I know that he and his staff have been in a lot, and they’re working, doing what they need to do, but it’s just allowed me to focus on our team.’’

The Bulls do have Tuesday off, so that was looking like the day that the front office could be pulling the entire coaching staff in for a trade deadline state of the union discussion.

Back attack

The back soreness and spasms were still enough of an issue for LaVine that he was ruled out of his second consecutive game.

The Bulls have a back-to-back, hosting the Suns Monday night, but Donovan wasn’t going to speculate on the All-Star guard being available for that one.

“I think he’s worked pretty hard on just getting treated,’’ Donovan said. I don’t know about [Monday]. I think a lot of it is going to depend. He got treatment [Saturday], and again [Sunday morning]. But I just don’t really have an update on how close he is.’’

Coby White also missed his second-consecutive game, dealing with groin soreness. He did go through a pregame warm-up, but it was determined that he needed more time.

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