Central Notes: Strus, Ivey, Bulls, Rollins

Cavaliers wing Max Strus still isn’t ready to make his season debut following offseason foot surgery, but recent imaging on his foot has shown “progressive healing” and he has advanced to participating in individual on-court workouts, the team announced on Tuesday in a press release.

According to the Cavs, Strus will go through a “structured ramp-up program” that will include controlled team activities and practices at both the NBA and G League level.

There are now just five-and-a-half weeks left in the regular season, so while head coach Kenny Atkinson said recently that he still expects Strus to return before the postseason, time is running out for the 29-year-old to make an impact on the 2025/26 Cavaliers.

We have more from around the Central:

• Bulls guard Jaden Ivey won’t travel with the team on its five-game road trip that begins on Thursday in Phoenix and runs through next Friday in L.A., but it doesn’t as if the club has seriously considered shutting him down for the rest of the season, writes Brian Sandalow of The Chicago Sun-Times. Head coach Billy Donovan added that forward Patrick Williams (quad) and big man Jalen Smith (calf) both have a chance to play during the upcoming trip.
• These Bulls, who have lost 12 of its last 13 games, seems as far away from contention as any version of the team in recent years, but Josh Giddey remains hopeful that it won’t take long for the front office to rebuild a roster capable of contending, per Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times. “When I was in Oklahoma, we went from the worst team in the league to the best team in the league in 24 months,” Giddey said. “We did it pretty quickly. A lot of rebuilds don’t necessarily happen that fast. Obviously, with the people and personnel we had it got sped up pretty quickly. Over those three years, we built a lot of really good habits, winning habits.” Cowley notes that replicating what the Thunder did is “completely unrealistic” for the Bulls, but suggests there’s no reason why the team needs to spend the next several years deep in lottery territory.
• Bucks guard Ryan Rollins spoke to Marc J. Spears of Andscape about turning things around after a challenging start to his NBA career, which included being cut by Washington in January 2024 at around the same time he was charged with seven counts of petit larceny for shoplifting. Now in his fourth NBA season, Rollins has emerged as a candidate for Most Improved Player by averaging 16.8 points, 5.4 assists, 4.6 rebounds, and 1.5 steals per game on .466/.411/.761 shooting this season. “I always knew I was this good,” he said. “I just needed the opportunity and needed a coach to trust me to be able to let me work through my mistakes and grow. I always knew my capabilities.”