Starting point guard Lonzo Ball of the Chicago Bulls is expected to miss the 2023-24 season to focus on knee rehab, according to the team's chief basketball executive Arturas Karnisovas.

"If [Ball] comes back, it would be great," Karnisovas said. "But we're just going to treat this offseason and getting ready for the season [like] he's not going to be back next season."

Ball joined the Bulls in August 2021 via a sign-and-trade deal and agreed to a four-year, $85 million contract. He only played 35 games in the following 2021-22 season before experiencing recurring discomfort during participation in basketball activities and missing the rest of the campaign. He hasn't made any appearance for the team since then.

Ball underwent a third surgery in 14 months on his right knee to address chronic soreness in March. His absence cost the Bulls a tall orchestrator who can score 13 points, 5.4 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 3.1 triples at 42.3 percent per game and a solid defender who can switch to guard three positions. They were never able to find a good replacement for him and performed poorly since then, losing in the Eastern Conference first-round playoffs in the 2021-22 season and failing to make the playoffs last season.

Ball has the player option for the 2024-25 campaign. Karnisovas said they will focus on searching for a point guard and shooting in free agency this summer, which menses sense because they shot and made the fewest 3-pointers among all 30 teams in the NBA last season. The team averaged 24.5 assists per game, ranking only 20th.

"We'll meet up as a group and we'll decide what we're going to do. There's a lot of work to do. We have to get better," Karnisovas said.

"A lot of work" may include dealing with the trade rumors related to the Bulls' core combination of Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Vuceivc. LaVine had a poor-performing 2022-23 season after signing that five-year, $215 million deal with the team, and he is not happy with the current situation. DeRozan was the Bulls' offensive spine last season, but he is one year away from becoming an unrestricted free agent. His sharp isolation ability in the middle range makes him attractive to teams that are one key scorer away from becoming a title contender. Meanwhile, DeRozan, 33, is motivated to go for a ring, but his chances of getting one in Chicago is slim at best.

Vucevic will become an unrestricted free agent this summer. He has been criticized for being not aggressive enough on the offensive end and being too slow on the defensive end for years, but his size, power, skills and shooting ability should earn him a spot in a competitive team.

Fairly speaking, LaVine, DeRozan and Vucevic are all star caliber players, but their combination didn't work in the Bulls, which have too many flaws on both ends of the court. The team had big goals when they assembled the three, but the two years of failures should teach the Bulls a lesson, that maybe it's time to move on.