Patrick Williams is having his worst year

[coldfish]

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/willipa01.html

There are some metrics that aren't the worst he has had but most of the big ones point to him having his worst year.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/CHI/2025/on-off/

His net rating is -11.0 which is really bad. The Bulls are +2.1 with him on the bench, which is a slightly above average team. With him on the floor its at -8.9 which would put them as one of the worst teams in the league. He looks fatter, slower and less athletic than in the past.

Did he just get paid and is now mailing it in? Is there some injury?

It looks to me from what I have seen that AKME has dictated that Patrick must play. His minutes don't make any sense, purely based on contribution. Torrey Craig is clearly much better. I would argue that Matas is better too but that's more debatable. Ball is better. This could devolve into an AKME thread but a lot of the negative impact here can be redirected to them. He was a bad pick that they doubled down on by resigning and now tripled down by dictating minutes.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/draft/NBA_2020.html

Last comment: Despite getting unbelievable amounts of entitlement minutes, Patrick is 29th in his class in VORP. 28th in BPM. A money throwing poop at the draft board could have picked better that year.

[kodo]

He is supposed to be a 2-way player, but I don't see our team locking opponents down when he's out there. Should show up on +/- by now, like it does with Caruso or Lonzo.

Defensive ratings this year:
Vuc/Smith: 114/113 (centers are always impactful)
Josh Giddey: 114
Buzelis: 114
Patrick: 117
Coby: 118
Zach: 118
Ayo: 118

I assume Billy has him start for defense, but all the Patrick-is-a-great-defender narrative seems more a theory or assumption, I'm having a hard time finding us actually stopping opponents when he plays.

[coldfish]

He is supposed to be a 2-way player, but I don't see our team locking opponents down when he's out there. Should show up on +/- by now, like it does with Caruso or Lonzo.

Defensive ratings this year:
Vuc/Smith: 114/113 (centers are always impactful)
Josh Giddey: 114
Buzelis: 114
Patrick: 117
Coby: 118
Zach: 118
Ayo: 118

I assume Billy has him start for defense, but all the Patrick-is-a-great-defender narrative seems more a theory or assumption, I'm having a hard time finding us actually stopping opponents when he plays.

Buzelis having the better D rating matches the eye test. Patrick really sucks off ball whereas Matas isn't bad at it. On ball, Patrick is stronger and its impact is noticeable but Matas has quicker feet.

Blocks aren't the end all be all of defense, but it does speak to hustle, movement and just plain hops
Patrick 2.1% block rate
Matas 5.6% (leads team)

[dougthonus]

He looks fatter, slower and less athletic than in the past.

Did he just get paid and is now mailing it in? Is there some injury?

I don't mean this as a defense of Pat, but I had noted in the off-season, he basically couldn't go hard on any lower body work out (read, he couldn't do any cardio at all) for like 6-7 months due to the foot injury, and it was likely he was going to come in out of shape, which as you noted, sure as hell looks true.

Beyond that, he had no time to work on his game at all. He wasn't even 100% at the start of camp.

So it's not surprising even in the slightest that he looks awful to me this year, I predicted that would be the case regardless, and it sure looks like it has been.

Will Pat get better in the future? Who knows. I think he's got other problems than the above too (ie, he's just really slow at perceiving what is going on and takes too long to process, and he simply never was nearly as athletic as people thought he was, and has a low skill level that has never improved), but fundamentally, you'd expect he can get back into much better shape if he can end the season healthy and at least get back to the previous level of mediocrity.

[MisterRoy]

I traded him on 2K. Just sayin…

[2weekswithpay]

I don't want to make excuses for Pat but it's hard to believe that the foot injury hasn't affected him. Players don't forget how to dunk at 23 years old. He used to average 2 dunks every 3 games, right now he has 4 dunks in 32 games. I don't think he's mailing it in either. He tries to be aggressive, but he can't make any 2pt shots and will turn the ball over if he forces things because his handles are bad.

[League Circles]

We gotta dump him and Giddey before it's too late. They're mirages at best.

[DuckIII]

The biggest concern is he appears to be getting worse as the season goes along. In the past, Pat would predictably play like ass to start the season, start looking better, start looking quite a bit better, and then get hurt.

This year he started, as usual, like ass, started to look a little bit better (but not a lot better), got hurt, came back, looked a little better livelier again for a bit, and then fell off a cliff and looks horrible.

I can only conclude one of two things: (a) the foot is a very real issue; or (b) the mental part of it is never going to click and he's basically a lost cause that you now just hope can earn his contract.

Brutal season. He looks awful.

[League Circles]

5 **** year deal for this guy. Smfh. And I felt that way in real time DESPITE being one of his biggest believers (which is still not a huge believer lol).

[League Circles]

I'd straight up just give up Giddey or Ayo to get out of his deal. Meaning I'd trade Patrick and either Giddey or Ayo for absolute garbage expiring contracts, whoever those are.

[MrSparkle]

Eh what’s new.

Through thick and thin!

We’ve got a nice 2029 plan going.

[Evil_Headband]

Will fans view his contract like Felicio's soon?

[ImSlower]

We've had some players over the years on this roster I didn't like - especially brief rentals. Never liked Jabari Parker before, didn't like him whatsoever that year he was here, that was that. As a teen I hated Bill Wennington for basically no reason at all, looking back.

Pat Williams, I believe, is single handedly my least favorite Bull of all time. Full stop. I can't think of someone that's routinely pissed me off for an entire career.

He hits the trifecta of looking terrible by subjective eye test, traditional counting stats, and advanced metrics. And unfortunately other teams know that too and he'd be a negative asset in any trade. Who knows, though, maybe some other GM has seen the six or eight games in his entire goddamn career that he's looked like a valuable starter.

[Guru]

He will be fine. It will be a steal of a contract.

[Mindcrime]

January in 9 games: 6.6/2.6/2.3 on 31.8/28.6/70.0

[dougthonus]

I can only conclude one of two things: (a) the foot is a very real issue; or (b) the mental part of it is never going to click and he's basically a lost cause that you now just hope can earn his contract.

I think both of these things are true in parts.

I don't think the mental part will ever click. I think he's just too slow of a processor, but I don't think the mental part has to fully click for him to have value to a team.

I do think the foot is a very real issue, to some extent, his physical conditioning at this moment is still just very poor relative to what it was in the past, and whether the foot is still an issue preventing that from improving or whether he's fallen into some bad habits is another question. You'd kind of expect playing so much basketball that he'd have played his way back into shape right now, but he still doesn't seem to have gotten into as good of shape as you'd expect.

That could be due to him simply having pain, and thus he just isn't as explosive because he's just too tentative mentally, even if it is all subconscious, and thus he's just a half step slower than he could be. Maybe he really needs more time off, maybe he needs to lose a little weight, who knows.

Either way, I think relative to most people, I'm now a Pat optimist. Not so much that my opinion has shifted, but most opinions were higher than mine, and now they've shifted way lower. My opinion on Pat has gone down some, but not as big as most people. I think he needs to slim down again, regain some athleticism, and then he can get back to being a good open 3 point shooter and man defender. With a healthy off-season, those things feel practical to me.

[fleet]

He has never done anything to make me feel like he hasn’t already peaked his stats. Things that stay the same tend to stay the same. Objects at rest tend to stay at rest. If he had any life in his bones, he would have had a chance. He has shown me who he is, and Maya Angelou does not have to tell me to believe him.

[fleet]

5 **** year deal for this guy. Smfh. And I felt that way in real time DESPITE being one of his biggest believers (which is still not a huge believer lol).

Some people were saying to pay the market value. Some people were saying to not pay anything. That kid is not a winner.

[coldfish]

IMO, at some point he is going to look better for a stretch. As Duck noted, that's kind of his pattern. When he does, I hope the team doesn't think he has turned some corner. Its just a continuation of the pattern.

Basically, they should pump and dump.

[fleet]

Pump and dump.