(670 The Score) Bulls forward Otto Porter Jr. has hit a snag in his injury rehab.
An MRI on Tuesday revealed Porter has bone bruising in his left foot, the team announced. After continuing his current course of treatment, Porter will be reassessed two weeks from now. He has already been sidelined for the Bulls' past five games because of a strain in his left foot, which was revealed previously on an initial MRI. Porter hasn't played since Nov. 6.
On Saturday, coach Jim Boylen indicated the Bulls expect Porter's absence to be "weeks" and not "months."
"I don't think it's months," Boylen said. "I think it's weeks. He's working at it. He's trying. Again, this is a tough one. It's not a definitive thing."
Porter dealt with some nagging injuries in seasons past, including a shoulder strain that sidelined him for the final 11 games of last season. Porter also dealt with knee and neck ailments last season and had surgery on his left leg in April 2018 to address what the Wizards called compartment syndrome.
Wary of Porter's injury history and their lack of depth at wing, the Bulls met with him near the end of last season and again in training camp to formulate a plan for his workload. They settled on roughly a 30-minute limit for him and the possibility of him resting on one end of back-to-back sets. Porter was under or just over the 30-minute mark in each of his first nine games, and he did play in both ends of the Bulls' first two back-to-backs.
Porter had struggled quite a bit early, averaging 11.2 on 41.7 percent shooting in nine games. Second-year forward Chandler Hutchison has been starting in his place.
