The clock is ticking on the short tenures of Anfernee Simons and Jaden Ivey in Chicago.
Neither guard had much time to make a first impression on the Bulls after the February trade deadline. Ivey played 115 total minutes over four games before starting to suffer knee soreness that forced him into an unexpected injury shutdown. Simons made it two games longer before he began to feel discomfort from a wrist fracture suffered in the preseason with Boston.
Now, both players could be weeks from a full-season shutdown. The Bulls announced Monday that Ivey will need one more week before reevaluation and Simons will need 10 more days before he can be reassessed. The team is positive about both players’ ability to return; at the same time, they face a rapidly unrealistic timeline.
Only 27 days are left in the regular season — and unless the Bulls pull off a miracle, they won’t play any games after their regular season finale in Dallas on April 12, as they currently sit more than six games back from the cutoff line for the play-in tournament.
If Ivey or Simons is cleared for full contact in the next two weeks, they will still require multiple days to ramp up to game-ready fitness. For Ivey, this means 11 games at most. For Simons — whose reevaluation will take place while the Bulls are on the road for a four-game swing — the most optimistic outlook is seven games on the court.
Still, coach Billy Donovan says it’s important to the Bulls to attempt to bring both players back into the fold before the season ends.
Chicago Bulls guard Anfernee Simons sits on the sideline with Bulls staff members Isiah Price, left, and Micah Burno, right, before a game against the Los Angeles Clippers on Friday, March 13, 2026, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Ryan Sun)
“All these guys are pretty competitive,” Donovan said. “They want to play. … Everybody right now is pushing towards trying to help these guys get back to play. That’s where we’re at right now. If something changes in a couple weeks — you get so far to the end of the season where there’s not very many games left — that may change. But the hope is if you’ve got 10 or 12 games left and those guys can possibly play, then they’d want to play.”
An added tension for the Bulls stems from the lost opportunity to assess two potential free agents. Simons will be an unrestricted free agent this summer after playing out the final season of a four-year, $100 million deal signed with the Portland Trail Blazers in 2022. Ivey will be a restricted free agent, which the Bulls originally hoped to use to their advantage to gain an inside track on a young player with potential.
Although he didn’t play much with the Bulls, Simons has logged a seven-year portfolio of work in the NBA at this point in his career, which means the front office feels relatively comfortable in their ability to assess his value and potential fit in Chicago. But Ivey is more of a mystery.
The guard is still feeling the effects of a broken leg suffered on the first day of 2025 with the Pistons. His knee soreness stemmed from a lack of strength in the recovered leg, a common symptom in athletes undergoing major year-long recovery processes.
While he was sidelined, Ivey was focused on rebuilding strength to balance out his legs. Donovan said the guard is now pain-free and close to a return to the court. But it’s still unclear whether that short window of conditioning will be enough to bring Ivey back to his former level of explosiveness — and even more unproven whether he’ll ever regain the pop that defined his early years in Detroit.
“The season ends and he’s got a complete runway of the summer of training and strengthening and doing those things,” Donovan said. “I don’t think there’s any question, everybody feels very confident he could get back to where he was athletically. Can he quite get there between now and the end of the season? I don’t know. But we believe he would be much, much better off.”
The race has officially begun for both players and the medical team. In the meantime, Bulls leadership must decide whether two weeks of assessment for either guard is worth a hard push at the end of a season focused on must-lose stakes for draft lottery standings.