Patrick Williams is having his worst year

[dougthonus]

Of course he’s not. He has no motor and has not added anything to his game since his rookie year.

He has the body to do with Giddey is doing TJ het to the hoop and draw FTs but he doesn’t have the brain or the heart.

Maybe he doesn't have the brain and heart, that's hard to say because you don't know what is in his head. What he definitely doesn't have is the ball handling skills or first step, and so if I was going to guess as to the problem and can point to specific physical, objective traits that he lacks or point to subjective traits that I guess about, I'd first point to the objective ones. I do question his basketball brain though, I've said it a lot of times, he seems like it takes him a bit too long to understand what to do on the court, like he over thinks or just is a bit slow / less natural at it.

[DASMACKDOWN]

To me this year, he has been more cringey bad rather than quiet bad like in years past.

In years past, it was more he is just quiet out there. Mostly cardio, always the same 10/4 and decent 3pt shooter and defender.

This year, just about everything is worse but notably the shooting is way worse.

Pat has an 8.8 PER which you might see for a rookie that is learning the game. Not for a 5th year player.

[RSP83]

I think we've all passed the point where we see him as a former #4 pick who will live up to his 18 million/year contract.

He will never live up to that contract ever. All I'm asking for Pat is just play like the 3&D role player that he was in college or his rookie year. But even that is not happening. He's just a waste of cap space right now. I can't wait to see his contract expires.

Billy is doing the right thing, Pat should fight for Julian's and Dalen's minutes. It's crazy how far ahead both seems compared to Pat in their development.

[Hangtime84]

I think we've all passed the point where we see him as a former #4 pick who will live up to his 18 million/year contract.

He will never live up to that contract ever. All I'm asking for Pat is just play like the 3&D role player that he was in college or his rookie year. But even that is not happening. He's just a waste of cap space right now. I can't wait to see his contract expires.

Billy is doing the right thing, Pat should fight for Julian's and Dalen's minutes. It's crazy how far ahead both seems compared to Pat in their development.

They weren’t gifted anything. Julian might be the better player

[rosenthall]

I will say that Pat looks much more at home coming off the bench in the 8th man role. It's like it's where he always belonged. He was always that guy, he was just miscast into the role of starter his first 4 years here.

I think I always felt that way about him, but like someone said above, his inadequacy was hard to observe because he was usually just invisible. But he was never able to make big plays, never presented a mismatch, never came up with 50/50 balls, etc. He just hid in the background.

But when I see him playing in the bench lineups it really clicks that this is always who he was.

[kodo]

He's Marvin Williams which is what people said during the draft.
Marvin Williams had a 15 year career and averaged almost identical to Pat's #s, 10 ppg 5 rpg. Good 3P accuracy, 36%. He jogged up & down the court, hit those wide open corner 3s when a teammate did something to draw a double. Jogged back down. Total career earnings of $124M. It's a good life to be picked top 5.

[Ice Man]

I will say that Pat looks much more at home coming off the bench in the 8th man role.

That may be, but he's not translating that into production. His starter/reserve splits are almost identical.

Also, truth is that he's not really this team's 8th man. He only hs the role because we had him as a starter, so when he moves to 8th man we feel that is a "reasonable" decision. A s the psychologists say, we anchored our expectation and then adjusted. But on merit alone, he doesn't belong in the playoff rotation.

[rosenthall]

He's Marvin Williams which is what people said during the draft.
Marvin Williams had a 15 year career and averaged almost identical to Pat's #s, 10 ppg 5 rpg. Good 3P accuracy, 36%. He jogged up & down the court, hit those wide open corner 3s when a teammate did something to draw a double. Jogged back down. Total career earnings of $124M. It's a good life to be picked top 5.

At this point Marvin Williams seems like the absolute best outcome for Pat. Their player profiles are similar, but Marvin is significantly better than Pat no matter how you slice it. Right now I would say the chances of Pat being as good as him are exceedingly slim.

At the same age he started every game and played 30+ minutes for a team that won 47 games and made it to the second round of the playoffs. He was a role player, but one that could play his game for really good teams. He was a big minute starter for 5 different playoff teams. He also got signed to 3 deals after his rookie contract that were above MLE, so his value was continually re-proven to the league.

Marvin's career was along the lines of Nic Batum, Thad Young, or Joe Smith. Non-stars, but able to play important roles for good teams for 10+ years.

[SalmonsSuperfan]

He's Marvin Williams which is what people said during the draft.
Marvin Williams had a 15 year career and averaged almost identical to Pat's #s, 10 ppg 5 rpg. Good 3P accuracy, 36%. He jogged up & down the court, hit those wide open corner 3s when a teammate did something to draw a double. Jogged back down. Total career earnings of $124M. It's a good life to be picked top 5.

I think this is a pretty good comparison based on their statistics, but like the other poster said, Marvin was just clearly "eye test" better. There's another post in here about only analyzing the "objective" (quantifiable I think) traits of Pat's game. But I'm not sure you can quantify the extent to which one has his head up his ass. He's just never in the right place, he looks lost and like the game has sped up for him since his rookie year. One might think that reflects on his BBIQ and motor; ie brain and heart. he might be a super brainy and thoughtful dude, it just definitely doesn't show at his job where they're paying him $220,000 per night he works.

You could probably measure players' locations and assess whether or not they're standing, moving in such a way that helps produce a basket. I don't think fans have access to that kind of spatial data but I'm pretty sure it's collected at all NBA arenas now, and for the last several years.

[MGB8]

The thing is, he has flashed before. A bit of handle, a solid if not great first step. Great body control and strength. Pretty good explosion. And a decent all around skill set. Every once in a while you would see it, along with the D.

But he is an objectively worse player this season than he was AS A ROOKIE!! As in his stats are all declined or at par, minus a small bump in assists. 2pt % down. 3 pt % down. FTA down. RB down.

When does that ever happen that a guy doesn’t only not improve, but actually get a little worse, from year 1 to end of year 5?

[coldfish]

He's Marvin Williams which is what people said during the draft.
Marvin Williams had a 15 year career and averaged almost identical to Pat's #s, 10 ppg 5 rpg. Good 3P accuracy, 36%. He jogged up & down the court, hit those wide open corner 3s when a teammate did something to draw a double. Jogged back down. Total career earnings of $124M. It's a good life to be picked top 5.

I think this is a pretty good comparison based on their statistics, but like the other poster said, Marvin was just clearly "eye test" better. There's another post in here about only analyzing the "objective" (quantifiable I think) traits of Pat's game. But I'm not sure you can quantify the extent to which one has his head up his ass. He's just never in the right place, he looks lost and like the game has sped up for him since his rookie year. One might think that reflects on his BBIQ and motor; ie brain and heart. he might be a super brainy and thoughtful dude, it just definitely doesn't show at his job where they're paying him $220,000 per night he works.

You could probably measure players' locations and assess whether or not they're standing, moving in such a way that helps produce a basket. I don't think fans have access to that kind of spatial data but I'm pretty sure it's collected at all NBA arenas now, and for the last several years.

+1.
- At this point I question if the Bulls have a functional analytics department because any analysis on Paw that included movement and advanced data would just be a series of red flags and flashing red lights. The Bulls seemed to have given him that contract purely on emotions.
- Given that most if not all teams have this analytics, its going to be damn near impossible to dump Patrick unless its a part of a bigger deal. GM's are going to get the numbers on him and run away screaming.

Side note: I know the movement analysis thing has been done in soccer for years. It has to have found its way to basketball.

[GoBlue72391]

The thing is, he has flashed before. A bit of handle, a solid if not great first step. Great body control and strength. Pretty good explosion. And a decent all around skill set. Every once in a while you would see it, along with the D.

But he is an objectively worse player this season than he was AS A ROOKIE!! As in his stats are all declined or at par, minus a small bump in assists. 2pt % down. 3 pt % down. FTA down. RB down.

When does that ever happen that a guy doesn’t only not improve, but actually get a little worse, from year 1 to end of year 5?

I think he has virtually nonexistent body control. He's extremely stiff and non-fluid. Less so as a rookie, but was still lacking in those areas back then too.

He had some explosion as a rookie. It was limited, but it was there. He has next to none now, though.

And I agree, he's much worse than he was as a rookie. Not just in production and statistical output, but he's less skilled and less athletic than he was as a rook.

[SalmonsSuperfan]

He's Marvin Williams which is what people said during the draft.
Marvin Williams had a 15 year career and averaged almost identical to Pat's #s, 10 ppg 5 rpg. Good 3P accuracy, 36%. He jogged up & down the court, hit those wide open corner 3s when a teammate did something to draw a double. Jogged back down. Total career earnings of $124M. It's a good life to be picked top 5.

I think this is a pretty good comparison based on their statistics, but like the other poster said, Marvin was just clearly "eye test" better. There's another post in here about only analyzing the "objective" (quantifiable I think) traits of Pat's game. But I'm not sure you can quantify the extent to which one has his head up his ass. He's just never in the right place, he looks lost and like the game has sped up for him since his rookie year. One might think that reflects on his BBIQ and motor; ie brain and heart. he might be a super brainy and thoughtful dude, it just definitely doesn't show at his job where they're paying him $220,000 per night he works.

You could probably measure players' locations and assess whether or not they're standing, moving in such a way that helps produce a basket. I don't think fans have access to that kind of spatial data but I'm pretty sure it's collected at all NBA arenas now, and for the last several years.

+1.
- At this point I question if the Bulls have a functional analytics department because any analysis on Paw that included movement and advanced data would just be a series of red flags and flashing red lights. The Bulls seemed to have given him that contract purely on emotions.
- Given that most if not all teams have this analytics, its going to be damn near impossible to dump Patrick unless its a part of a bigger deal. GM's are going to get the numbers on him and run away screaming.

Side note: I know the movement analysis thing has been done in soccer for years. It has to have found its way to basketball.

Good point. I think it’s huge in soccer and ought to be even bigger in basketball just based on how many possessions there are; it’s a great, giant data set. And in basketball, the box scores tell less of the story than they do in, say, baseball, the only other sport I pay attention to. This might be true of football, has to be true of hockey.

I wish we had access to it. There are a bunch of geography/space-related statistics I would want to apply and see if there’s anything meaningful. Just need a huge list of x,y coordinates which assuredly exists.

Do the bulls do nothing with this? I sort of doubt it. I think they must, it’s one low-paid employee. I think they have to be doing it, but the investment in Paw is just nonsensical.

[NecessaryEvil]

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[GoBlue72391]

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No, he should not play. Terry and Phillips make more of an impact than he does. We should tighten up our rotation to our best 8 guys, and Pat does not make the cut.

[WindyCityBorn]

I think he needs to lose about 20 lbs this off-season and it would make a huge difference. Let him play SF like he wants. He doesn’t rebound like a big anyway.

[Mk0]

I think he needs to lose about 20 lbs this off-season and it would make a huge difference. Let him play SF like he wants. He doesn’t rebound like a big anyway.

Been saying it all year. The guy put on weight to play PF and it made him slower and killed his lift. He already couldn't box out, but now he doesn't have the speed to worm around guys for boards.

* His lateral quickness was never great but it was fine. Now it isn't.

** This is also probably why his jumper is hitting the front of the rim all the time. He never had a lot of lift on his jumper but it is short more often than it is long.

*** And we know it is probably why he beefed like 7 straight dunks to start the season.

[WesPeace]

Thats should be the goal.. I've been saying it for a while too, lose 15-20lbs, go back to leaner faster more fluid rookie body and start playing him at SF. He isnt PF at all, doesnt rebound, doesnt block.. he should be pure 3 & D guy.

[Dez]

Weight isn't the issue, lack of motor and handle are what kill his game.

[Ebo21]

Why do we keep sweating him? Think back to that 2020 draft and tell me who in it after #4 was worth the pick given the roster construction at the time.

Halliburton and Avdija possibly Vassell are the only other picks that possibly would’ve made sense at the time but I feel like drafting PAW was the swing that if you hit on it you’re set for the next roster wave which was life after Lavine/DDR which we are in now.

For all the flack and criticism he takes on this board he’s still probably top 6 in that draft and was drafted at #4 which when you look at it isn't that bad.