There finally seems to be a timetable for a Patrick Williams return.

It comes with a proceed with caution warning.

According to Bulls coach Billy Donovan, Williams (left foot) will likely miss the Sunday game with the 76ers, but the team then has four days before Charlotte comes to town on Friday, and that will tell them a lot about where the forward is in his rehab with all the scheduled practice days.

“The hope is he’d be out there for all that and really start to ramp him up in the competitive stuff because we’ll have time to do more five-on-five and that stuff,” Donovan said. “He hasn’t had any setbacks or anything else. He’s still progressing. It’s just the ramp up. Certainly, coming out of that four-day stretch, the Charlotte game would be the game they would look to target.”

Williams hasn’t played since Nov. 18, missing the last nine games. The concern with the injury was it was the same foot that he had season-ending surgery on last year. He has met with specialists, however, and it was determined that he just needed to rest and get the inflammation under control.

The unfortunate part of this latest setback for Williams was the timing, because the former No. 4 overall pick was actually starting to play his best basketball as a Bull, seemingly carving out his own role.

That’s why Donovan was asked if he felt like Williams could pick up where he left off before the foot started to act up again.

“My biggest concern with him, and it’s not just him, I think it’s any player dealing with a lower extremity injury – the fatigue, the conditioning and where he’s at in that,” Donovan said. “Now he’s done everything you could imagine to try and keep his condition up. When we were trying to get everything quieted down with Patrick and his foot, that’s what I get concerned with.

“When he’s been ticking that way (up), it’s when he’s really well conditioned. When he has time where he’s out … I think that’s why they feel like the ramp up is so important. I feel like he was playing aggressive and finding spots to post up more, picking spots in transition, ducking in when he felt like he had a mismatch, things that were encouraging. I think he understands, I do.”

Last man standing

With the Blackhawks firing Luke Richardson on Thursday, Billy Donovan is still the longest-tenured coach in the city and it’s not really close.

Richardson’s dismissal marked the eighth time in just over a year that a Chicago professional sports team has shown a head coach/manager the door.

“I think from Day 1 it’s been really a good relationship with ownership, with the front office,” Donovan said, when that was pointed out to him. “I think the communication piece is really important.

“You hate to see any situation where there’s decisions like that being made. It’s hard for me to say what’s the problem, the reasons, why, but it’s challenging all the way through. It’s a highly competitive business, it’s a result-oriented business. I get all that stuff. The one thing I’ve tried to do is to communicate well, try to be as straight up and honest as I can, try to help as much as I can. I’m obviously grateful for the opportunity and the tenure.”

Masked Matas

Rookie Matas Buzelis caught a friendly fire elbow from teammate Zach LaVine in the win over the Spurs on Thursday, and while tests showed the nose wasn’t broken, there was a lot of discomfort.

Matas opted to play in the back-to-back against Indiana but wore a protective black mask.