{"id":426885,"date":"2026-01-21T03:41:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T03:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/426885\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T03:41:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T03:41:11","slug":"bulls-star-josh-giddey-nears-return-after-11-game-absence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/426885\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulls star Josh Giddey nears return after 11-game absence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2013902\" class=\"wp-image-2013902 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GettyImages_Giddey.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\"  \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-2013902\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The 23-year-old Josh Giddey has not played since a loss to New Orleans on Dec. 31.<\/p>\n<p>CHICAGO (AP) \u2014 Guard Josh Giddey is just about ready to return to the Chicago Bulls\u2019 lineup after being sidelined the past three weeks because of a strained left hamstring, coach Billy Donovan said Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Donovan said prior to the game against the Los Angeles Clippers that Giddey could return at Minnesota on Thursday. The Australian missed his 11th game in a row.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFeels pretty good,\u201d Donovan said. \u201cI think it\u2019s just waiting to hear from the medical [staff] of what they want to do and how Josh feels. But everything that I\u2019ve gotten from Josh in medical is that there were no setbacks and he\u2019s doing well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Giddey has not played since a loss to New Orleans on Dec. 31. He walked off the court gingerly in the first minute of the second half in that game.<\/p>\n<p>Giddey has performed at an All-Star level in his second season in Chicago since a trade from Oklahoma City. He is averaging a team-high 19.2 points, 8.9 rebounds and 9 assists, and has seven triple-doubles.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know what the cutoff point is in terms of missed games and things like that, but before he got hurt, I think you could certainly make the argument he was playing at that level for strong consideration,\u201d Donovan said.<\/p>\n<p>The Bulls were ninth in the Eastern Conference at 20-22 entering Tuesday\u2019s game. Forward Patrick Williams sat out because of a sprained right ankle and is day to day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 23-year-old Josh Giddey has not played since a loss to New Orleans on Dec. 31. CHICAGO (AP)&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,8642,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-426885","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-josh-giddey","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}