Three Things NBA Preview: Chicago Bulls

Photo by Rich Storry/Getty Images

As I detailed a couple weeks back, I’m re-appropriating the Three Things I Noticed on League Pass format to preview the upcoming season. Instead of three things I noticed, it’ll be something more along the lines of three things I’m looking forward to, interested in, or want to see. Or something like that.

I am feeling better after my bout with COVID, so we’re getting back to it this week. As previously mentioned, the new schedule for those posts will be as follows (with links for completed posts):

• Atlantic Division (BOS, BKN, NYK, PHI, TOR)

• Sept. 16-20: Central Division (CHI, CLE, DET, IND, MIL)

• Sept. 23-27: Southeast Division (ATL, CHA, MIA, ORL, WAS)

• Sept. 30-Oct. 4: Pacific Division (GSW, LAC, LAL, PHX, SAC)

• Oct. 7-11: Northwest Division (DEN, MIN, OKC, POR, UTA)

• Oct. 14-18: Southwest Division (DAL, HOU, MEM, NOP, SAS)

So without further ado, let’s get to the Chicago Bulls.

Where are we going?

Once it became clear that the Bulls were going to let DeMar DeRozan leave in free agency, they should have pivoted as hard as possible into rebuild mode. Instead, they are half-assing two things instead of whole-assing one thing.

Maybe it just wasn’t possible to deal Zach LaVine at anything but a massive loss. Maybe there was no way to dump Lonzo Ball’s contract. (Okay, there was definitely no way to do that.) But why is Nikola Vucevic still on this team? Why did they sign Jalen Smith before doing the DeRozan deal? Why wouldn’t they just take Harrison Barnes in said deal so they could be the ones getting real assets back, instead of the Spurs? Why didn’t they find a way to deal someone, anyone, who could allow them to do that while staying below the apparently-illegal-to-cross-even-for-five-seconds luxury tax line?

If you’re trying to pivot toward a youth movement, why kick it off with a deal for Josh Giddey, who is in the final year of his rookie contract and needs to be paid? Do you really want to be paying 40-ish percent of the cap to Giddey and Patrick Williams (more on him next)? This team makes me so angry.

Patrick Williams, enigma wrapped in a mystery

Let’s put aside for a second the fact that Williams went to Florida State and is therefore terrible no matter what he actually does on the basketball court. What is this guy as an NBA player?

He’s a good defender. Is he a lockdown perimeter guy? He’s a solid outside shooter. Is he a knockdown catch-and-shoot guy? (He’s over 40% from deep for his career but on very low volume; and he has been afforded an average of 7.89 feet between himself and the closest defender at the time of his shot — 17th-most out of 242 players with at least 500 attempts since Williams entered the league, according to Second Spectrum. Basically, teams straight up let him shoot. Oh, and two of the players ahead of him are on the Bulls, while one — Vucevic — is right behind him in 18th. Excellent team construction, folks.) Can he do anything else with the ball in his hands? Is he ever going to grab a rebound? Like, ever?

We’re four years in and we don’t really know what Williams is. He hasn’t even played 6,000 total minutes yet. For perspective, LaMelo Ball has played 58 combined games in the last two seasons, and Williams has only played 32 more minutes than Ball in their respective careers. Williams has yet to post a usage rate about 16%, and his free-throw rates have only declined since his rookie season. Can we get some more information on this guy, please?

Coby White, for real?

In his first four seasons, White was a sub-rotation level player. Very suddenly, once LaVine went down with an injury at the end of last November, White morphed into a really, really good offensive player: 20.8 points, 5.1 rebounds, 5.5 assists per game on 46-37-84 shooting percentages.

How real is this? Are we concerned that he had stretches in February (39% from the field, 35% from deep) and April (25% from deep) where the shot abandoned him? After the All-Star break, White was at 41% from the field and 32% from three overall. That's... concerning! And a lot like what he was in his first four seasons. Basically, how much stock should we really be putting in an incredibly encouraging stretch that, while awesome, lasted bout 35 games? Why should we think that stretch is more real than the other 313 games he's played in his career?

The good news is White should have a lot of room to explore the studio space on this team, so we should get a pretty good idea of whether or not that 35-game stretch represents what he really is now. The bad news is that might not actually be good news.