Chicago Bulls: Otto Porter ‘ramping up’ his work in practice

Unfortunately, rampant injury issues tends to be a storyline that Chicago Bulls have become all too familiar with of late. Over the course of the last four or five years, the Bulls have usually become one of the more injured teams in the NBA. A good portion of the Bulls current core has players that are especially injury prone.

That list of injury prone players in the Bulls core includes the likes of fourth-year power forward Lauri Markkanen, third-year center Wendell Carter Jr., and veteran small forward Otto Porter Jr. All three of those Bulls forwards/big men has experienced at least one major injury problem so far this season.

And the latter of those three Bulls players is still trying to work his way back from a back injury that has plagued him for a while now. OPJ has only played in one game this month for first-year head coach Billy Donovan and the Bulls, which came in a Feb. 1 win over the upstart New York Knicks.

Chicago Bulls injury update with OPJ

A report from the Twitter timeline of K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago on the evening of Feb. 26 shows that OPJ could still miss a few more weeks at the very least for the Bulls. Donovan reportedly stated that OPJ “has ramped up his physical activity level” in his individual workouts of late. But he also apparently hasn’t rejoined the entire squad for team practice or contact drills as of yet.

OPJ might not be back for the Bulls at least until after the All-Star Break.

This year, the All-Star Break is set to span between March 5-10. And both Markkanen and OPJ look to be out for the Bulls until at least the team’s first game back from the All-Star Break.

OPJ certainly helps to boost the depth on the wing for the Bulls. In the 16 games he has played in so far this season (six of which he’s started in), he averaged 11.6 points per game, 6.3 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 0.6 steals, and 0.2 blocks. And he’s shot 44.4 percent from the field, 40.0 percent from beyond the arc, and 83.3 percent from the free-throw line.

The Bulls are pretty short on depth on the wing at the moment. Both OPJ and third-year small forward Chandler Hutchison have missed a lot of time of late due to various issues. Hutch has missed time due to personal reasons, and OPJ dealing with this aforementioned nagging back injury.

The good news for the Bulls is that they’ve done pretty well of late in the absence of players like Hutch, Markkanen, and OPJ. They carry a three-game winning streak and a record of 15-16 into a home meeting the United Center with the Phoenix Suns on Feb. 26.