It was a moment that once again showed the character of Zach Collins.

The Bulls big man had recently found out that he was headed for toe surgery and his season would be over, and while he was lifting in the weightroom of the Advocate Center, ran into head coach Billy Donovan in the wake of that news.

What did he say to his coach? He apologized. On Sunday, he explained why.

“I just told him, ‘I’m sorry, man,’ “ Collins said, meeting with the media before his Tuesday surgery. “I thought I had a lot more to give him this year and unfortunately between the wrist and the toe, I just didn’t have a chance to show it. I thought I had a really good summer, I was really looking forward to helping the team. It’s been a frustrating year injury-wise as a whole for the team, but individually I knew I had more to give him and I felt like the team would have been in a better spot had I not gone through all these injuries. All of us kind of went through something this year.”

Not all of them were 6-foot-10 bigs that play with a physicality few on this roster do, however.

That’s why the Collins injury was so detrimental to what Donovan wanted from this team. All the talk in the summer and into fall camp was ramping up the physicality, and that took a huge blow when Collins first suffered a wrist injury, came back for 10 games to help the Bulls go 6-4, and then suffered the toe injury.

The hope was it would be a small setback, but it never improved.

“We tried to give it every chance we could to get it to heal, and there comes a certain point where you start messing with the outcome of the surgery if you wait too long. We’re at that point right now,” Collins said. “The toe just didn’t get to the point where we wanted it to. We’re at eight weeks now and we just had to kind of bite the bullet and make sure that maybe we can’t get back this year, but we can show everyone that the toe is fine and it’s not going to be a problem in the future.”

A very important next step for Collins, who will be an unrestricted free agent this summer. Donovan said on Saturday that if it was up to him Collins would be back, but that’s not a final Donovan call. Collins, however, made it very clear where he would want to play next year.

“I’d love to be back here,” Collins said. “I feel like I came here last year at a time where I was out of the lineup in San Antonio, and once I got here I was able to play a lot, got a lot of confidence back, got a lot of rhythm. I think the play style that we play here is just conducive to the success for myself and I fit in well. I would love to build on that. This is just a great spot for me.”

Simons says

Anfernee Simons missed the Knicks game with the left wrist injury suffered in Saturday’s loss, and there is no definitive timetable for his return.

He was scheduled to get imaging done on Monday and see a hand specialist, and Donovan was hoping for good news.

“He’s pretty sore right now,” Donovan said. “They just want to find out what’s going on in the hand.”

Minute men

Josh Giddey, Tre Jones and Jalen Smith will all remain on minutes restrictions as they recover from lower body injuries. According to Donovan, all three are supposed to stay below 24 minutes per game.