The Chicago Bulls, when healthy, were one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference in the 2021-22 season. Their trio of Lonzo Ball, Zach LaVine, and DeMar DeRozan were terrorizing opponents and they had the Bulls succeeding at a high level.
Then a slew of injuries hit Ball, LaVine, and Patrick Williams and Chicago slumped to the No. 6 seed in the East and fell in five games to the Milwaukee Bucks in Round 1.
As the Bulls move forward, they do have some questions to answer in terms of their roster, but per ESPN’s Brian Windhorst on “The Hoop Collective” podcast, one question that seems answered is the status of Williams who was limited to 17 games in his second season.
Windhorst, talking to Tim Bontemps, on Williams:
They put a lot into Patrick Williams they believe a lot in him. Bontemps, you talked about two-way wings, they think that that’s type of guy who can be a core player for them. They think you know, ‘okay, we don’t have Franz Wagner, but we have Patrick Williams.’
Williams averaged 9.0 points and 4.1 rebounds in his second NBA season and he shot 51.7% from deep on 1.7 attempts per game. If he does come out and perform on both ends of the floor in the 2022-23 season, then Chicago’s chances to succeed go up in a huge way.
