Shams: Patrick Williams to sign 5/90 deal

[DuckIII]

Mind-boggling game activated

And it was so easy to see coming, too. He's been doing this same song and dance of playing poorly for 10 games then good for 5 games then back to playing like crap then flashing again for 5 years now.

I predicted accurately. I don’t predict him to play bad for the next 10 games.

2 out of 10 confirmed.

[DASMACKDOWN]

And it was so easy to see coming, too. He's been doing this same song and dance of playing poorly for 10 games then good for 5 games then back to playing like crap then flashing again for 5 years now.

I predicted accurately. I don’t predict him to play bad for the next 10 games.

2 out of 10 confirmed.

I swear its his missed dunk attempts that is his biggest set backs right now. Its now happened 7 times this season but this is the first time he got directly called out for it. So I think its going to hit him differently now.

Its yips at this point. Something completely unexplainable. He has the biggest hands in the world but losses it going up. He is right under neath the basket with no one there and still cant rise up to finish it. It doesn't make any sense.

None of this was the case in his first 2 years. He was dunking in traffic, catching lobs and finishing on fast breaks. He certainly finished with authority under the basket.

Whatever is going on, Dude needs to sort it out.

[sco]

I predicted accurately. I don’t predict him to play bad for the next 10 games.

2 out of 10 confirmed.

I swear its his missed dunk attempts that is his biggest set backs right now. Its now happened 7 times this season but this is the first time he got directly called out for it. So I think its going to hit him differently now.

Its yips at this point. Something completely unexplainable. He has the biggest hands in the world but losses it going up. He is right under neath the basket with no one there and still cant rise up to finish it. It doesn't make any sense.

None of this was the case in his first 2 years. He was dunking in traffic, catching lobs and finishing on fast breaks. He certainly finished with authority under the basket.

Whatever is going on, Dude needs to sort it out.

I think his problems at the rim are a combination of his bad hands (similar to his dribbling problems) where he just loses control of the ball and the fact that he is slow (allowing defenders to recover and defend). Regardless, he is a good jump shooter...he came into the league with a good push shot that I never see anymore. He should be told to play to his strengths and not worry about the dunks.

[DuckIII]

I predicted accurately. I don’t predict him to play bad for the next 10 games.

2 out of 10 confirmed.

I swear its his missed dunk attempts that is his biggest set backs right now. Its now happened 7 times this season but this is the first time he got directly called out for it. So I think its going to hit him differently now.

Its yips at this point. Something completely unexplainable. He has the biggest hands in the world but losses it going up. He is right under neath the basket with no one there and still cant rise up to finish it. It doesn't make any sense.

None of this was the case in his first 2 years. He was dunking in traffic, catching lobs and finishing on fast breaks. He certainly finished with authority under the basket.

Whatever is going on, Dude needs to sort it out.

It’s so weird. He also missed a wide open bunny lay in after a very nice drive and Luka-slow-fake. That takes it to a 12/5/2 game with excellent defense. Just by making 2 gimmes.

He actually didn’t have a bad game. But I’m giving him “normal Bulls fan” treatment today and downgrading it to bad just on the embarrassment factor alone.

[dougthonus]

I predicted accurately. I don’t predict him to play bad for the next 10 games.

2 out of 10 confirmed.

I swear its his missed dunk attempts that is his biggest set backs right now. Its now happened 7 times this season but this is the first time he got directly called out for it. So I think its going to hit him differently now.

Its yips at this point. Something completely unexplainable. He has the biggest hands in the world but losses it going up. He is right under neath the basket with no one there and still cant rise up to finish it. It doesn't make any sense.

None of this was the case in his first 2 years. He was dunking in traffic, catching lobs and finishing on fast breaks. He certainly finished with authority under the basket.

Whatever is going on, Dude needs to sort it out.

0-3ft FG%/attempts for Pat for his career:
67% (153 attempts)
71% (only 28 attempts)
64% (175 attempts)
57% (95 attempts)
50% (30 attempts)

He was certainly well down last year on a decent number of attempts, likely due to the very poor start (which seems similar this year) and mentally feels like he started improving later.

If I were to make a logical guess, it would be that Pat looks like he is carrying more weight this year and a lot of it doesn't look like good weight, likely due to a very long lay off on the foot recovery. He is likely operating below his muscle memory / mental memory on how explosive he is, and he's getting a few inches less lift than he expects and that could be causing him some issues.

As he rounds into better athletic condition now that he can fully train and regains some of that athleticism/burst and also makes mental adjustments to present capabilities, we are likely to see him stable out.

Granted, just a shot in the dark, but feels like a reasonable explanation that fits the reality of what he has gone through.

[DASMACKDOWN]

It’s so weird. He also missed a wide open bunny lay in after a very nice drive and Luka-slow-fake. That takes it to a 12/5/2 game with excellent defense. Just by making 2 gimmes.

He actually didn’t have a bad game. But I’m giving him “normal Bulls fan” treatment today and downgrading it to bad just on the embarrassment factor alone.

I agree. That turned it for me the moment he missed that open dunk. Its far more egregious than any missed shot because well, he has made a habit of it.

I am so badly rooting for the guy. I am not expecting a star production. I just want a high level role player. He easily is the teams best overall defender and it mostly goes unnoticed when talking about Pat.

But man for a guy with his tool set, its just frustrating to watch.

Its triggering flashbacks of my frustrating watching Eddy Curry not being able to rebound.

[dougthonus]

He actually didn’t have a bad game. But I’m giving him “normal Bulls fan” treatment today and downgrading it to bad just on the embarrassment factor alone.

I don't know:
3/10, 8 points
5 boards (2 offensive)
2 assists
0 steals / blocks
3 turnovers

I don't know that it takes a pessimistic view to call that a bad game.

[MrSparkle]

Pat is such a mechanical player. It really doesn’t seem like he eats, drinks and sleeps basketball. Pretty sure he leaves the game at work.

Personally I was kind of bummed when I read how Pat was shocked at the intensity of Demar’s 5am workouts… that Demar pulled him into- woke and picked him up. A guy at the end of his prime is dragging a 21yo expiring RFA #4 pick (looking for 9-figure extension) for a summer workout? Wtf?

My theory is Pat had a pandemic “i can do this” moment, where something clicked, the day to day wasn’t there so he worked on a lot of things in his game. Blessed with a 6’8 NBA ready body and athleticism, he rocketed up that board. I got duped into thinking we got the right guy. But we got E.Curry 2.0. He is an extremely unremarkable NBA player.

When everything’s just right and he’s putting up 3Ps and defending, he is a very solid roleplayer. I don't know - maybe he'll realize at some point in his contract that 9.9 PPG ain't it. BTW his PER is a career low right now, and he's roughly averaging the same minutes (and stat line) since his rookie season exactly 4 years ago. Literally zero improvement in the numbers.

[Chi town]

I predicted accurately. I don’t predict him to play bad for the next 10 games.

2 out of 10 confirmed.

I swear its his missed dunk attempts that is his biggest set backs right now. Its now happened 7 times this season but this is the first time he got directly called out for it. So I think its going to hit him differently now.

Its yips at this point. Something completely unexplainable. He has the biggest hands in the world but losses it going up. He is right under neath the basket with no one there and still cant rise up to finish it. It doesn't make any sense.

None of this was the case in his first 2 years. He was dunking in traffic, catching lobs and finishing on fast breaks. He certainly finished with authority under the basket.

Whatever is going on, Dude needs to sort it out.

Fully agree.

Who called him out? Referring to Billy from Knicks game?

[Chi town]

2 out of 10 confirmed.

I swear its his missed dunk attempts that is his biggest set backs right now. Its now happened 7 times this season but this is the first time he got directly called out for it. So I think its going to hit him differently now.

Its yips at this point. Something completely unexplainable. He has the biggest hands in the world but losses it going up. He is right under neath the basket with no one there and still cant rise up to finish it. It doesn't make any sense.

None of this was the case in his first 2 years. He was dunking in traffic, catching lobs and finishing on fast breaks. He certainly finished with authority under the basket.

Whatever is going on, Dude needs to sort it out.

I think his problems at the rim are a combination of his bad hands (similar to his dribbling problems) where he just loses control of the ball and the fact that he is slow (allowing defenders to recover and defend). Regardless, he is a good jump shooter...he came into the league with a good push shot that I never see anymore. He should be told to play to his strengths and not worry about the dunks.

We haven’t seen that push shot once this year and it used to be his go to shot.

[GoBlue72391]

Pat is such a mechanical player. It really doesn’t seem like he eats, drinks and sleeps basketball. Pretty sure he leaves the game at work.

Personally I was kind of bummed when I read how Pat was shocked at the intensity of Demar’s 5am workouts… that Demar pulled him into- woke and picked him up. A guy at the end of his prime is dragging a 21yo expiring RFA #4 pick (looking for 9-figure extension) for a summer workout? Wtf?

My theory is Pat had a pandemic “i can do this” moment, where something clicked, the day to day wasn’t there so he worked on a lot of things in his game. Blessed with a 6’8 NBA ready body and athleticism, he rocketed up that board. I got duped into thinking we got the right guy. But we got E.Curry 2.0. He is an extremely unremarkable NBA player.

When everything’s just right and he’s putting up 3Ps and defending, he is a very solid roleplayer. I don't know - maybe he'll realize at some point in his contract that 9.9 PPG ain't it. BTW his PER is a career low right now, and he's roughly averaging the same minutes (and stat line) since his rookie season exactly 4 years ago. Literally zero improvement in the numbers.

It's not just zero improvement in the numbers, it's zero improvement in his observable game. His offense is worse than it was as a rookie, even if you assume his percentages will revert to career norms.

He hasn't added anything to his game whatsoever and he's actually lost a few things. He used to have a pretty reliable pull-up mid and a one-handed floater, and unless my memory fails me he was at least an acceptable finisher at the rim early on in his career. Now when he scores on anything other than a catch-and-shoot 3 it's kind of shocking and surprising.

[GoBlue72391]

I predicted accurately. I don’t predict him to play bad for the next 10 games.

2 out of 10 confirmed.

I swear its his missed dunk attempts that is his biggest set backs right now. Its now happened 7 times this season but this is the first time he got directly called out for it. So I think its going to hit him differently now.

Its yips at this point. Something completely unexplainable. He has the biggest hands in the world but losses it going up. He is right under neath the basket with no one there and still cant rise up to finish it. It doesn't make any sense.

None of this was the case in his first 2 years. He was dunking in traffic, catching lobs and finishing on fast breaks. He certainly finished with authority under the basket.

Whatever is going on, Dude needs to sort it out.

Dude must eat an entire bag of extra butter popcorn as his pre-game snack, because nothing else makes sense as to why a player with hands as big as his routinely loses his grip on the ball on dunks.

[GoBlue72391]

Mind-boggling game activated

And it was so easy to see coming, too. He's been doing this same song and dance of playing poorly for 10 games then good for 5 games then back to playing like crap then flashing again for 5 years now.

I predicted accurately. I don’t predict him to play bad for the next 10 games.

I wasn't predicting 10 straight bad games from here on out, I was referring to his habit of starting the first 10 or so games of the season at horrific levels only to go back up to pretty solid levels then revert back to bad levels before flashing again for a few games, etc. This is what, the 3rd year in a row where he got off to a horrible start to the season?

We're past the sub-G League level start of the season and we're past the the mini-streak where he plays well. It looks like we're back in a bad streak, but we'll see. I feel like his seasons are mostly peaks and valleys that just alternate between horrible and solid-to-pretty good.

EDIT:

I looked at the numbers and these are his PPG/TS% in the month of October over the past three years. I probably could have extended it to from start of the season to mid-November, but this paints a pretty clear picture of his bad starts to the season.

24-25: 7 ppg, 40 TS%

23-24: 5 ppg, 40 TS%

22-23: 7 ppg, 54 TS%

[GoBlue72391]

2 out of 10 confirmed.

I swear its his missed dunk attempts that is his biggest set backs right now. Its now happened 7 times this season but this is the first time he got directly called out for it. So I think its going to hit him differently now.

Its yips at this point. Something completely unexplainable. He has the biggest hands in the world but losses it going up. He is right under neath the basket with no one there and still cant rise up to finish it. It doesn't make any sense.

None of this was the case in his first 2 years. He was dunking in traffic, catching lobs and finishing on fast breaks. He certainly finished with authority under the basket.

Whatever is going on, Dude needs to sort it out.

0-3ft FG%/attempts for Pat for his career:
67% (153 attempts)
71% (only 28 attempts)
64% (175 attempts)
57% (95 attempts)
50% (30 attempts)

He was certainly well down last year on a decent number of attempts, likely due to the very poor start (which seems similar this year) and mentally feels like he started improving later.

If I were to make a logical guess, it would be that Pat looks like he is carrying more weight this year and a lot of it doesn't look like good weight, likely due to a very long lay off on the foot recovery. He is likely operating below his muscle memory / mental memory on how explosive he is, and he's getting a few inches less lift than he expects and that could be causing him some issues.

As he rounds into better athletic condition now that he can fully train and regains some of that athleticism/burst and also makes mental adjustments to present capabilities, we are likely to see him stable out.

Granted, just a shot in the dark, but feels like a reasonable explanation that fits the reality of what he has gone through.

That would make a lot of sense if his habit of blowing dunks started only this season, but this has been an ongoing thing since at least last season. So I don't know how we can blame his missed dunks on weight gain due to sitting out most of the offseason due to injury since it dates back to at least last season.

I do think him adding weight, and not necessarily good weight is a part of it and I even made a comment about that in the preseason, but I don't think it's the only reason or the main reason for the missed dunks.

[jordanwilliams6]

I'm still very curious to see where Pat ends up as a player when he is 26/27 years old.

We're practically begging for him to just be a competent player on offense. If we could score consistently like Cam Johnson at say 14-16 PPG at very good to elite efficiency then he's certainly worth his contract. The most frustrating thing is the missed bunnies at the rim and mind boggling turnovers on simple basketball moves.

It's also interesting to note that Pat is 23 years old. Someone like Cam Johnson was 23 in his rookie season.

[JohnnyKILLroy]

He just has zero dog in him. Absolutely zero. If he had any he’d be fine.

We’ve never had a player that I wished more than anything would have Gerald Wallace’s playing like your hairs on fire factor.

[Jcool0]

Pat is such a mechanical player. It really doesn’t seem like he eats, drinks and sleeps basketball. Pretty sure he leaves the game at work.

Personally I was kind of bummed when I read how Pat was shocked at the intensity of Demar’s 5am workouts… that Demar pulled him into- woke and picked him up. A guy at the end of his prime is dragging a 21yo expiring RFA #4 pick (looking for 9-figure extension) for a summer workout? Wtf?

My theory is Pat had a pandemic “i can do this” moment, where something clicked, the day to day wasn’t there so he worked on a lot of things in his game. Blessed with a 6’8 NBA ready body and athleticism, he rocketed up that board. I got duped into thinking we got the right guy. But we got E.Curry 2.0. He is an extremely unremarkable NBA player.

When everything’s just right and he’s putting up 3Ps and defending, he is a very solid roleplayer. I don't know - maybe he'll realize at some point in his contract that 9.9 PPG ain't it. BTW his PER is a career low right now, and he's roughly averaging the same minutes (and stat line) since his rookie season exactly 4 years ago. Literally zero improvement in the numbers.

Sometimes you know right away... Sometimes you get fooled. Anytime Eddy Curry is brought up i always remember being so confused why a guy who was 4" and 40lbs bigger then anyone he was going up against in HS was averaging 8 rebounds a game but all anyone saw was Shaq 2.0 so they just ignored what was starting them in the face.

[Chi town]

He just has zero dog in him. Absolutely zero. If he had any he’d be fine.

We’ve never had a player that I wished more than anything would have Gerald Wallace’s playing like your hairs on fire factor.

That tech he got was a puppy bark?

That made me LOL.

[dougthonus]

Read on Twitter

Not sure it's a big deal, but definitely not 0 concern, given the bone bruises can be tricky.

Could possibly explain some of his missed bunnies last game.

[Chi town]

Read on Twitter

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