Bulls guard Lonzo Ball out at least 6 weeks due to knee surgery

The Chicago Bulls will be without Lonzo Ball for the foreseeable future.

Ball opted to have arthroscopic surgery on his left knee and will miss up to eight weeks recovering, the team said on Thursday.

Ball has missed Chicago’s last three games with what the team had said was a bone bruise. The surgery, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, was later determined to be needed after other treatments weren’t helping. The injury is “described as a slight meniscus tear.”

Ball underwent surgery in July 2018 for a meniscus tear in his left knee, too.

Ball has averaged 13 points, 5.4 rebounds and 5.1 assists in 35 games this season, his first in Chicago after spending the last two with the New Orleans Pelicans. The 24-year-old is in the first year of a four-year, $80 million deal. At best, given his six-week minimum absence, Ball could return sometime in early March.

The Bulls, who still hold a slight lead in the Eastern Conference, have lost five of their last seven. They did snap a four-game losing skid on Wednesday with a 117-104 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Chicago is set to kick off a three-game road trip on Friday in Milwaukee.