Bulls coach Billy Donovan said the medical staff doesn\u2019t anticipate that Simons will require surgery. Instead, the Bulls plan to keep him sidelined until his pain diminishes, at which point he would be cleared to play again. He wore a soft brace while sitting on the bench during Tuesday\u2019s loss to the Charlotte Hornets<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Bulls haven\u2019t set a timeline for Simons\u2019 return, although Donovan hopes he will need a similarly short break to his training camp hiatus of 10 to 14 days at the most. But there\u2019s always the risk of further aggravation to the injury, which could result in additional periods of rest. With less than seven weeks left in the regular season, runways can shorten quickly if an injury flares up again.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything to do (regarding surgery),\u201d Donovan said. \u201cMaybe at the end of the year, if it\u2019s still causing a problem. We haven\u2019t even talked about that yet. I don\u2019t even know if surgery is an option or not.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, what we\u2019re doing is trying to let it calm down. \u2026 But if he gets hit again, he\u2019s probably going to have to do the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n The Bulls have an injury problem. It starts with a lack of bodies. Zach Collins is out for the season after undergoing surgery on his sprained toe. Jalen Smith is day to day with calf tightness. Patrick Williams needs imaging for a sore quadriceps. The frontcourt, already decimated by the deadline trades, now is falling apart at the seams because of a lack of players.<\/p>\n But the availability issues stretch further. Half of the four guards the Bulls acquired at the deadline have been unable to play consistently since the All-Star break because of injuries incurred with their former teams. In addition to Simons, Jaden Ivey is sidelined with knee soreness<\/a> that flared up earlier in the season, causing him to miss several games with the Detroit Pistons.<\/p>\n Neither player was acquired in a rush. The Bulls traded for both Simons and Ivey on Feb. 3, nearly 48 hours before the deadline. Both joined the Bulls for shootaround the morning of the deadline with at least five hours left to spare, and the medical team cleared Ivey to play that night.<\/p>\n In that context, it\u2019s unclear how the Bulls weren\u2019t able to identify an injury concern with either player \u2014 particularly Ivey, who should have raised an immediate red flag for the medical team due to his well-documented struggles to come back from a grisly leg injury suffered last season.<\/p>\n Having multiple players sidelined isn\u2019t all bad for the Bulls, who are riding a 10-game losing streak as they plummet down the standings<\/a> and into a better draft lottery slot. But teams typically receive a bit of a bump for taking on beat-up players in a trade, as evidenced in the exchange of second-round draft picks with the Hornets that was amended because of Coby White\u2019s calf injury<\/a>.<\/p>\n Did the Bulls miss out on two opportunities to boost a trade proposal? Or is this latest string of injuries simply bad luck? Regardless of the answer, the Bulls will have limited opportunities to test out Simons and Ivey as potential members of their future roster before the season ends April 12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the second time in less than a week, the Chicago Bulls must navigate the resurgence of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3771],"tags":[4329,7,920,919,329,3824,1018,6,249,2828],"class_list":{"0":"post-624865","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-bulls","8":"tag-anfernee-simons","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-bulls","11":"tag-chicago","12":"tag-chicago-bulls","13":"tag-chicagobulls","14":"tag-jaden-ivey","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-nba-draft-lottery","17":"tag-nba-trade-deadline"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116133708080556340","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Injured](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1772059625_661_CTC-L-bulls-pistons017.jpg\")
Injured Bulls guard Jaden Ivey, center, meets with his former teammates after a loss to the Pistons on Feb. 21, 2026, at the United Center. (Chris Sweda\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n