Exposing Bulls' Biggest Concerns and Weaknesses to Open 2023-24 NBA Season
The Chicago Bulls are broken beyond repair.
That, more than anything, has emerged as the early theme defining their 2023-24 NBA season. This is supposed to be a win-now core—Chicago's front office has certainly handled it as such—and yet it has all of five wins to show for its first 19 trips to the hardwood.
Even if you were understandably skeptical of this core, things weren't supposed to be this bad. While there are way more issues than we can reasonably cover here, let's delve into three of the greatest concerns swirling around the Windy City.
Patrick Williams Isn't a Building Block
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If no other positives came together for the Bulls this season, they needed Patrick Williams to establish himself as a cornerstone talent. That at least could have cushioned the blow if (when?) they ever had to dismantle their veteran core and start over.
Hopes have been perpetually high for the No. 4 pick of the 2020 draft, and his lack of significant progress over the past few seasons really hadn't quieted them. Just this past August, DeMar DeRozan dropped a Kawhi Leonard comparison on the young swingman.
The deeper Williams gets into his career, though, the more irrational and irresponsible those comparisons seem. Virtually his entire stat sheet has plummeted to personal-worst levels, and he might be farther away from figuring things out than ever.
He's 22 years old, so he technically still has some time on his side, but this is also his fourth NBA go-round, so he should be flashing some progress by now. Instead, all-encompassing categories like win shares per 48 minutes (.025, 19th-fewest) and box plus/minus (minus-2.9, 28th-worst) regard him as a bottom-30 player in this league, per Basketball-Reference.
The Lack of a Connector Is Glaring
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Replacing a player like Lonzo Ball—who may never again—isn't easy, but if Chicago was going to compete with this core, that was the biggest puzzle to solve.
This roster has some talent, but it needed someone to tie everything together the way Ball once did. His dogged defense, passing proficiency and catch-and-shoot ability made him perfect in this role, and the rest of this group rallied around him. The last time he played (Jan. 14, 2022), Chicago sat atop the Eastern Conference standings.
It's basically been a free-fall ever since, and a glaring lack of connectivity might be most to blame. The Bulls don't have a single player averaging even five assists per game. They are dead last in assist percentage (55.8), per NBA.com. A league-worst 7.7 percentage of their passes have resulted in assists.
Coby White isn't much of a ball-mover, and Jevon Carter isn't much of an offensive contributor. The point guard position has been a massive disappointment.
They've Yet to Embrace Reality
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It almost feels cliched to say the Bulls need to tear down this roster. That's how long the subject has been around.
When Chicago first built this core around Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Vučević, there was immediate skepticism. The Bulls maybe had a chance to be kinda good, but championship contention never seemed a legitimate possibility.
As Chicago has moved further down the standings, the external calls for a demolition have grown louder. So far, the Bulls have continued to move forward with this club. A LaVine trade feels increasingly likely, but the roster restructuring may not go much beyond that. While K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago labeled a LaVine trade "the main organizational focal point for now," he also noted the team may want "to see what the roster looks like post-LaVine trade" before letting anyone else go.
Ditching LaVine—who won't bring back a bunch given all the money he's owed—is obviously an essential step of any rebuild, but it can't be the only action this front office takes. The Bulls have zero untouchables on the roster and should recognize such as the league shifts into trade season.
