It remains to be seen if All-Star guard Zach LaVine will don the Chicago Bulls’ jersey again as he remains in the center of trade talks with the trade deadline looming. As it is, he remains part of the Bulls franchise, and coach Billy Donovan recently provided an update on the status of the high-leaping two-guard, saying he’s on track to make a return in January.

Increased load
Donovan shared that LaVine has been doing a lot of straight-line running, and he hopes to progress to jumping and change-in-direction drills soon.

“He’s going to hopefully start to jump shooting, running, increase the speed,” Donovan shared.

“He’s actually running at a pretty good clip straight ahead, and then moving toward next week is when they would probably start some of that running, changing direction, kind of curve running to see how he responds.”

LaVine has not played since late November, when he got sidelined for a sore right foot. Since then, he has been diagnosed with an inflammation of the foot, which needs several weeks of rest followed by rehabilitation.

Steady progress
Donovan added that until the former UCLA star begins doing other types of drills, it’s hard to determine when he’ll be able to return to game action.

“Everything he’s done up to this time, he’s still projecting in a positive way. We’ll find out more when he starts doing start, stop, cutting, that kind of stuff,” Donovan shared.

“Whatever the schedule looks like, it may be with some player development guys, it might be a low-minute run, which we do sometimes after shootarounds or after practice for some guys that maybe didn’t absorb any minutes and need to stay in shape,” Donovan added.

“We have not talked about him going to Windy City (for G-League practices) or any discussions like that. Clearly, when he does pass all those tests, there’s going to be a period where they are going to want him to interact playing the game.”