Chicago Bulls guard Lonzo Ball, who has not played in an NBA game since January 2022, spoke Friday of his way back from knee issues over the past two years and said part of the recovery involved undergoing a meniscus transplant from a donor.
Speaking on his podcast, ” The WAE Show,” Ball said his issues dated to the first time he tore his meniscus in 2018, when he was a member of the Los Angeles Lakers. After suffering recurring injuries to his left knee, Ball said he eventually had no more cartilage left in it and needed a transplant meniscus procedure performed last year. It was done at the same time he had a cartilage transplant
performed in the same knee
“There was no more meniscus left, and bone on bone was rubbing,” Ball said. “The cartilage was gone and the bone was messed up, so I had to get a new meniscus from a donor. I had to get a bone allograft, and I had to get some new cartilage put in as well
After spending more than a year seeing specialists trying to properly identify the issue in his knee, Ball underwent cartilage transplant surgery in March 2023, a third surgery on his left knee in the span of a year. Ball and the Bulls said at the time that they believed this surgery would give him the best chance to return to the court again and ruled him out of this most recent season in June.
“We were trying to figure out what the problem was, so that was a wasted year,” Ball said on the podcast.
