{"id":126556,"date":"2025-03-02T12:16:27","date_gmt":"2025-03-02T17:16:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=126556"},"modified":"2025-03-02T12:16:27","modified_gmt":"2025-03-02T17:16:27","slug":"ayo-dosunmu-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/02\/ayo-dosunmu-injury\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Bulls Lose Key Piece For Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Chicago Bulls are in the \u201crace\u201d for the final Play-In Tournament slot in the Eastern Conference. It certainly hasn\u2019t been much of a race though. as none of the teams chasing after it seem to have much interest in doing so. Right now, the Bulls are in that position despite a record of just 24-36. Unfortunately, <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/dosunay01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ayo Dosunmu<\/a>\u2019s shoulder injury won\u2019t allow him to help Chicago in reaching the tournament.<\/p>\n<h2>Chicago Bulls Lose Key Piece For Season<\/h2>\n<h3>Ayo Dosunmu\u2019s Shoulder Injury Will Require Season-Ending Surgery<\/h3>\n<p>The 38th overall pick in the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/12\/19\/2021-nba-draft-has-5-potential-first-time-all-stars\/\" target=\"_self\">2021 NBA Draft<\/a>, Dosunmu is now in his fourth season, all with Chicago. The 6-foot-5 shooting guard has been a part-time starter all four years, but his 2024-25 season will prematurely come to an end. The Bulls announced on their social media that Dosunmu will undergo season-ending surgery on his left shoulder.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Medical Update: After experiencing left shoulder instability and further evaluation from training and medical professionals, Ayo Dosunmu will undergo surgery and be out for the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n<p>Updates will be provided as appropriate. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/73JgzApS9W\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/73JgzApS9W<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/chicagobulls\/status\/1896216072745070741?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 2, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a tough break for Dosunmu and Chicago, as he has been an integral part of their team since his rookie year. The news is a bit surprising since he had returned to play in Chicago\u2019s game on Friday against the Toronto Raptors after missing three with left shoulder instability. The 25-year-old was wearing a shoulder sleeve in the Toronto game though.<\/p>\n<p>Dosunmu\u2019s season will end after 46 games which included 26 starts. He averaged career-highs across the board in points (12.3), rebounds (3.5), assists (4.5), and minutes (30.8). The fourth-year guard shot 49.2% from the field, 32.8% from three-point territory, and 78.5% from the free-throw line.<\/p>\n<p>This season was similar to his first three because he started 128 games while coming off the bench for 105 in those years. With <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/carusal01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alex Caruso<\/a> traded in the offseason, Dosunmu often took on the role of defending the opposition\u2019s best perimeter threat.<\/p>\n<h3>Chicago Still Likely Will Hold On To 10th Seed<\/h3>\n<p>The Bulls definitely saw their roster become weakened after they traded <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/l\/lavinza01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Zach LaVine<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/15\/coby-white-zach-lavine-trade\/\" target=\"_self\">to the Sacramento Kings<\/a> prior to the trade deadline. It has now become more depleted with the absence of Dosunmu.<\/p>\n<p>As mentioned, the Bulls are currently the 10th seed in the Eastern Conference. That puts them in the last position to earn a spot in the Play-In Tournament. There isn\u2019t much competition from the teams behind them.<\/p>\n<p>Chicago owns a 2.5-game lead over the 11th seed in the Eastern Conference, the Philadelphia 76ers. The 76ers had lost nine in a row prior to finally ending the skid with a victory over the Golden State Warriors on Saturday. Of course, Philadelphia will be without <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/e\/embiijo01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joel Embiid<\/a> as he was recently announced to be out for the rest of the season.<\/p>\n<p>The only other team that seems to be within striking distance of the Bulls is the Brooklyn Nets. Their 21-39 record puts them a half-game behind the 76ers, thus three games behind Chicago. Brooklyn has overachieved, at least compared to preseason expectations. They have now lost four in a row though, and a run to the 10th seed doesn\u2019t seem likely.<\/p>\n<p>So even with the unfortunate news about Dosunmu\u2019s season-ending injury, the Bulls still look like the clear-cut favorites to finish as the 10th seed, even if they don\u2019t necessarily want it.<\/p>\n<p>Photo credit: \u00a9 Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Chicago Bulls are in the \u201crace\u201d for the final Play-In Tournament slot in the Eastern Conference. It certainly hasn\u2019t been much of a race though. as none of the teams chasing after it seem to have much interest in doing so. Right now, the Bulls are in that position despite a record of just [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5060,"featured_media":126589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,8,62],"tags":[3967,4745],"class_list":["post-126556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-bulls","category-nba","tag-ayo-dosunmu","tag-nba-injuries"],"modified_by":"Kenny Kluska","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126556"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126590,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126556\/revisions\/126590"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}