Are back-to-back games with double-digit points enough to get outside pressure off of Chicago Bulls forward Patrick Williams? No. But it would seem to be a good sign after the third-year man averaged just 5.3 points and 2.3 rebounds over his first four games of the season.
He has bounced back nicely with back-to-back 10-points efforts against the Indiana Pacers and San Antonio Spurs.
But both performances came without two-time All-Star Zach LaVine in the lineup.
With that in mind, perhaps the Bulls – coming off of a disappointing loss on the road to the supposedly tanking Spurs – would be inclined to take advantage of Williams’ minor outburst on the trade market. There are both basketball and financial reasons to do so and the Bulls could be looking to solidify their standing in the East.
Williams for Vanderbilt?
This idea for a Williams swap comes from Bleacher Report and Grant Hughes who openly puts it under the header of “panic trade”. But he also says the Bulls could be wise to move on from Williams sooner rather than later before it’s “too late”.
Bulls Get:
- Jarred Vanderbilt
Jazz Get:
- Patrick Williams
“Chicago would sacrifice one of its only future assets by dealing Williams, but that’d be on-brand for a club that gave up Wendell Carter Jr. and two future firsts for Nikola Vucevic and dispensed with flexibility by executing a sign-and-trade for DeMar DeRozan a year before maxing out Zach LaVine. The Bulls are clearly in win-now mode and have been for a while.”
Past dealings have been slammed and/or left the Bulls with few assets with which to improve their team amid an Eastern Conference that underwent plenty of change overall this offseason.
The Bulls pushed for continuity this summer and it has shown in many ways.
Williams has not exactly been one of them despite much of the offseason chatter regarding this team centering around his ascension into a starting-level forward. Through six games, Williams has matched his defensive rating from his rookie season.
But his offensive rating is a career-low despite his outburst over the last two games.
“Vando, who’s only 23, already does many of the things the Bulls hope Williams someday will. He’s a relentlessly energetic force, a dominant rebounder, and one of the most disruptive defenders in the league. His 100th percentile ranking in steal rate at his position looks too good to be true until you note Vanderbilt rated in the 95th percentile last year and the 97th in 2020-21. He is a pure chaos engine.”
In many ways, Hughes’ description of Jarred Vanderbilt, whom teammate Mike Conley said is a “maniac” who is “all over the place”, is the polar opposite of who Williams is.
Vanderbilt – averaging 8.7 points, 9.3 rebounds, and 2.0 assists this season – is nowhere near the capable shooter that Williams is. But on a Bulls team headlined by LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, and Nikola Vucevic defensive disruption from the other positions is mandatory.
Williams Not Finishing
“On one hand, the Bulls’ patience with Patrick Williams is easy to justify,” Hughes writes. “The No. 4 pick in the 2020 draft shows flashes of defensive upside all the time, and at 21, he’s far from fully formed. On the other, Williams’ role is already shrinking this season, and his continued presence in the starting five is more an act of faith than a meritocratic reward.”
To Hughes’ point, Williams’ playing time fell in each of the three games following the season opener before rising against Indiana and exploding against San Antonio. Again, though, each of the last two games came with the Bulls shorthanded.
As it stands, Williams is not being trusted to close out games and has not played in the fourth quarter of either of the last two games.
That puts the Bulls in an interesting position as Williams approaches extension eligibility.
What will it take to help Patrick Williams reach the next level?
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“What should the Bulls expect Williams to become? We’re talking about a 21-year-old player in his third season averaging 6.2 points in 19.4 minutes per game. Across the last 20 years, there have been 32 other players matching those age/experience/production criteria, and Gerald Wallace (remember him?) was the only one who made a single All-Star Game in his career. Few ever became regular starters.”
Working With Williams
During the preseason, Bulls head coach Billy Donovan experimented with Javonte Green and Derrick Jones Jr. in the starting lineup, bringing Williams off of the bench.
If Williams’ passiveness returns when LaVine does – presumably against the Philadelphia 76ers in the second leg of this back-to-back – perhaps Donovan returns to that preseason experiment to keep Williams productive.
For now, Williams seems to be responding to Donovan’s latest attempts at molding him.
And, whether one agrees or not, his draft pedigree will hold a lot of weight for this front office as the first pick of their tenure.
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Proposed Patrick Williams Trade Sends Bulls $13M ‘Maniac’ Big Man