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This season felt like a red-shirt year for the Bulls’ 12th overall draft pick Noa Essengue anyway.
Now, who knows when the rookie will even be a contributor? Two years from now? Three?
It won’t be in the 2025-26 campaign, as the forward, his representation, and the Bulls’ medical staff opted to have a season-ending shoulder surgery to fix an on-going issue that wasn’t going to get any better.
“He’s going to be done for the year,” coach Billy Donovan surprisingly announced during his pre-game media season on Wednesday. “He has to have shoulder surgery, and they will do that sometime in the near future, make plans to do that.