Patrick Williams hadn’t felt butterflies before a basketball game in years. But after nearly five months off the court, the Chicago Bulls power forward expected those jitters to accompany his return from wrist surgery.
Williams didn’t know when this moment would arrive. His return this season was never guaranteed after he dislocated his left wrist and tore ligaments in the fifth game of the season.
Through surgery and an extensive recovery — which ended after four months and two weeks with Monday’s game against the Toronto Raptors at the United Center — Williams said his greatest challenge was sustaining a conviction that he would make it back this season.
“We were always optimistic, (but) I didn’t really know,” Williams said. “Surgery is different for everybody. The thought is always at the back of your head like, ‘Maybe my season’s over.’ The thought’s always there, but you’ve just got to talk yourself out of it.”
Williams admitted it would’ve been easy to get lost in his injury, especially as a 20-year-old still carving out his place in the league. The monotony of a lengthy rehabilitation wore on Williams, giving way to hopelessness and frustration.
So Williams found something else to get lost in — his team.
“You’re going to have bad days, you’re going to have good days — but if it was a bad day, I (leaned) on them, on their energy,” Williams said. “It’s easy to focus on yourself and kind of feel down, feel bad, but when you’re around your teammates in the locker room, you kind of get lost in the battle, get lost in the fight, get lost in the energy that they bring.”
Coach Billy Donovan called Williams for regular check-ins. Donovan’s wife, Christine, brought Williams homemade Christmas cookies and Oreo-stuffed brownies to cheer him up during the early months of his injury. The team included him in every dinner and movie night, keeping Williams and fellow injured players such as Lonzo Ball from drifting too far from the group.
As soon as he was cleared for travel after surgery, Williams went to almost every road game. He missed a few one-day trips, then stayed in Chicago more frequently in the final weeks of his recovery to focus on conditioning.
But whenever he could, Williams surrounded himself with teammates to keep from falling into the mental trap of isolation that many players succumb to while recovering from an injury.
“It’s tough because you don’t have the team around you to get lost in,” Williams said. “You’re just in an apartment or in the gym, just thinking about yourself because nobody else is here. I’m not a guy that likes to be around myself all the time.”
The final month of the season is the hardest time to reintegrate a player from injury. Donovan noted that challenge when Alex Caruso returned from his wrist injury last week.
The stakes are higher. Teams are on edge. Each game could decide something — a playoff seed, a postseason arc, a spot in the cramped Eastern Conference standings.
These aren’t games that invite forgiveness for errors, which players returning from injury are bound to commit. But Williams welcomes the pressure.
“Every possession matters. Every rebound matters. Every steal matters. Everything matters,” Williams said. “So coming in at this time, I love it honestly just because it’s a challenge. It’s a challenge for us. It’s a challenge for me. It’s a challenge for our team. And we’ll see what we’re made of.”
Williams is eager to dive in, but he also knows his limitations. After nearly five months without playing a game, he lost the stamina required to return to his starting role. The team medical staff will monitor his wrist carefully during his first minutes back, but the main concern is preventing him from becoming overworked after months without game conditioning, which can’t be replicated through workouts.
Donovan knows the physicality and playmaking Williams can bring to the lineup when he’s fully healthy. But he’ll be an unknown variable until his conditioning matches that of his teammates.
“This now becomes really challenging,” Donovan said. “Because you’re certainly not going to expect him to be where he was right when training camp started. He certainly helps our team, he makes our team better, but there will probably be some growing pains of him finding a rhythm.”
Donovan will bring Williams off the bench for his first games back — a plan Williams accepts and also hopes to change as quickly as possible.
He already is aching to win back his starting role, in which Javonte Green established himself as a reliable substitute the past four months. But Williams emphasized his first priority is to help the team, even if that means playing restricted minutes off the bench.
“When you’re playing, you have 100 different wishes,” Williams said. “‘I wish I could have made this shot. I wish I could have did this better. I wish I could have did that better.’ But when you’re out, you just have one wish — and that’s to play again.”
Williams could brush off this season as a loss. He played only five games before the injury and likely will spend the final 12 games of the regular season coming off the bench.
But Williams doesn’t see it that way. He dedicated those months off the court to the film room, where he challenged himself to grow “10 times smarter, 10 times better” through studying the game each day. And there’s time left in the postseason, where Williams believes his impact will be most acutely felt.
No matter what his role looks like to end this season, Williams is determined to make sure the injury is remembered only as a small setback.
“I plan on being in this league for a long time,” Williams said. “My second year isn’t a normal second year. My first year wasn’t a normal first year. (I’m) just rolling with the punches. I’ll be here for a while. I’ll have a chance to prove myself and show what I can do.”
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