Things seemed to be going well for Patrick Williams this season until he appeared on the injury report on Monday. According to Bulls head coach Billy Donovan, that’s when the pain seemed to start, and it sounds like it quickly got worse.
“Obviously, he went on the injury report as questionable with the foot (Monday), and then I think in the game he mentioned that he was feeling it more at halftime, and after the game is when he really started to feel some … I don’t want to say significant pain but a lot more pain than he was feeling beforehand,” Billy Donovan said Wednesday, according to a report from The Chicago Tribune. “When it felt like the pain was escalating, we wanted to get the imaging done just to see what’s going on. He’s got inflammation around that area, they want to figure out why, but it’s going to be at least a week or so to let that calm down and then there’s got to be a plan going forward of how to handle it.”
Donovan noted there that it will be at least a week before Williams can return, but there has been a lot of speculation that it might end up being longer than that.
The Bulls are hoping to see Williams make progress within the next week and then they should have a better idea of how serious this is.
“(The next week) will hopefully be when we start to see progress from him,” Donovan said. “I do think he’ll do more ball-handling, do more shooting, but for him to be really ramped up where we can see, it’s probably going to be (another week).”
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So far this season, Patrick Williams has played in 15 games and he is averaging 9.9 PPG. He is also averaging 2.3 APG and 5.0 RPG.
In the next week, the Bulls have four games that Williams will likely miss as they are taking on the Atlanta Hawks (NBA Cup), Memphis Grizzlies, Washington Wizards (NBA Cup) and the Orlando Magic. It sounds like the first game Williams could be back for is next Friday’s matchup at home against the Boston Celtics (NBA Cup).
