The evolution of the Bulls’ Patrick Williams
Bulls forward Patrick Williams is currently putting together his best stretch of games since he came into the league, but just stay away from asking him about it.
Charles Rex Arbogast/AP
Patrick Williams remains an enigma.
One that currently brings a smile to the face of his Bulls organization rather than leaving them pulling out tufts of hair from their own heads, but still an enigma.
The hope throughout the locker room? Williams has got it … finally.
Fingers crossed.
“Pat’s been really good the last couple of games,” teammate Nikola Vucevic said. “You can tell he’s more confident, more aggressive. He’s not overthinking. He’s just using his instincts and playing well for us on both ends of the floor.
“We’re a different team when he’s doing that.”
That they are, evident by the fact that the Bulls will enter Monday’s game in Milwaukee winners of four straight, and playing to an identity that coach Billy Donovan was hoping to see from way back in training camp.
Their No. 4 overall pick from the 2020 draft was a big reason why.
The first 16 games of the season? Williams averaged 6.1 points and 3.7 rebounds per game, while shooting 33% from the field and 27.7% from three-point range. The Bulls were a 5-11 team.
Since then, Williams was averaging 14.3 points per game, as well as 5.3 rebounds, 1.3 steals and 1.1 blocks, while shooting 58% from the field and 45.8% from three-point range.
But throw the numbers out of the window, and just watch Williams play. The eye test shows he’s a different guy lately. A guy that is starting to understand what he can do and what he can be.
“I think he’s started to realize just how good and how talented he really is, and when he plays with force he’s so strong, so athletic, so physical that he’s hard to guard, especially when he’s getting downhill, when he’s crashing the glass,” guard Coby White said of Williams. “And he’s only scratching the surface.”
So what exactly has clicked for the forward?
That’s never an easy question to answer, especially for Williams. He’s flashed like this before — although never in as many consecutive games — been asked about it each time, sometimes sounding spot on with his self-assessment and other times leaving everyone scratching their heads with his reply.
His latest explanation was somewhere in between the two, stressing a “next-play mentality.”
“I don’t really hear the outside noise … none of it really,” Williams said. “Not that I even try and tune it out or anything, but most of it is on social media. I don’t really like social media, never been a real big social media guy, so I don’t really see much of it. What I know is you can never compare your journey to someone else’s. I mean I came to the Bulls and we were trying to win right off the rip, so development was never a priority. We were trying to win, and that’s 100 percent of what I wanted to do. It was just a matter of coming around. It always comes around.”
It would be nice if it actually kicked its feet up and stayed for a while this time.
That’s what Donovan is pushing for as he continued trying to keep Williams playing aggressively on both ends of the floor. The best way for Donovan to do that is keep showing him what it looks like on film.
“I don’t think he feels anyone has to direct him or talk to him about it,” Donovan said. “The energy in the motor has to come from him. He always says it’s there, sometimes he’s mentioned that he can overthink things, which at times takes away his aggressiveness, but it’s good to see how consistently he’s playing. Never mind the scoring, but just the way he’s been playing and attacking.”