It doesn’t take long or much for the outside to give up on you. The Chicago Bulls have tried to foster a culture and grow together through continuity but a significant part of that plan was third-year forward Patrick Williams.
Heading into the typically pivotal third year – a time in which many NBA players define themselves – Williams is as much of an enigma as ever.
He is still mixing in flashes of brilliance with forgettable moments where he is barely visible.
“Bulls drafted Patrick Williams fourth,” began Brian Windhorst on “The Hoop Collective” podcast on December 2. “This has been rough. He basically missed…80% of his second year because of injury….They invested a lot in him in being a starter this year and he has just been a very average player.”
Windhorst Reads Williams
Windhorst cited Williams’ averages – 9.2 points and 4.0 rebounds in a little over 25 minutes per game – as being low for a starter. Williams is shooting 43% on a career-high 3.0 attempts per contest.
A 12-game stretch in which Williams averaged 11.2 points on 63.8% true shooting with 5.2 boards, 1.4 blocks, and 1.2 assists is sandwiched by Williams going for 9.3 points on 35% shooting from the floor in his nine other appearances.
Windhorst also noted how the 6-foot-7 forward is not on the floor when it matters.
“There are plenty of times where he does not play the key minutes down the stretch of the game…Billy Donovan, at times, just hasn’t shown a whole lot of trust in him. And, look, when Arturas Karnisovas draft him at four, he picked over some guys because he thought this guy…could be a difference-making player.”
*Worst performing players in the league (adjusted for minutes played) so far this this season…
What stands out?
According to Windhorst, the Bulls saw Williams in the mold of Los Angeles Clippers star, Kawhi Leonard, which was a standard comparison in Williams’ first two seasons.
With Williams failing to launch, however, those comparisons have gone away.
“Patrick Williams has been a disappointment to Chicago,” said Windhorst matter-of-factly. “There’s no other way to put it. He’s a fine player but he’s not special and they thought they had a special player here.”
Windhorst’s guest, Tim Bontemps, took it a step further saying Williams was “below-average” when on the floor.
“It’s not much of a debate really,” Bontemps said in response to Windhorst’s assessment. “He hasn’t been what they needed him to be and really hasn’t been close to it. And you look at where their roster was at, this was the one swing piece they had to really take a leap forward with the group they put together and it does not look like it’s panning out that way.”
The conversation was a referendum on the best and worst picks of the 2020 NBA Draft.
Williams, to Bontemps’ point, currently has the second-worst net rating on the Bulls, ahead of only second-year guard Ayo Dosunmu, per Cleaning The Glass. The Bulls are plus-8.1 (88th percentile when Williams is on the bench and minus-8.3 (13th percentile) when he is on the floor.
Williams Still Confident
Windhorst and Co.’s scathing take is in opposition with what Williams had to say about himself after the Bulls’ loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder when he told NBC Sports Chicago’s Bulls insider K.C. Johnson that he had “figured it out”
Williams took it a step further in describing what kind of player he believes he can still become.
“I always felt I had what it took to be a really good player in this league,” Williams said expressing a different level of confidence with his words. “But now I’m starting to feel like I have what it takes to be a star and a superstar in this league. I’m kind of trying to take that role on and build on it day-by-day.”
Patrick Williams says ACCESS DENIED.
He has since had back-to-back single-digit scoring games shooting 1-for-12 from the floor. Even in his hot stretch, Williams was a net-neutral player with offensive and defensive ratings of 111.
That is certainly not superstar-level production.
Bulls Made Their Bed
The trickiest part of all for the Bulls is that Williams will be extension-eligible next summer and they still aren’t sure of what he is as a basketball player, at least not as sure as he is. But they also don’t have many other options outside of continuing to practice patience.
They are light on draft capital and attractive player assets. And, were they to trade Williams prematurely and he experienced a breakout similar to Lauri Markkanen of the Utah Jazz or Wendell Carter Jr. of the Orlando Magic (whose production relative to team success speaks volumes), the Bulls would be lambasted.
For now, they can only sit, wait, watch, and hope that Williams really does “figure it out”.
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