There’s a version of Patrick Williams that can single-handedly elevate an NBA team from good to great.
Or, at the least, from decent to good. From a loss to a win. The Chicago Bulls saw that effect in full force in the fourth quarter of Friday’s surprising victory over the Milwaukee Bucks, their only win of the season entering Monday night’s game in Memphis.
Williams had taken only four shots through three quarters Friday, scoring three points in a meager offensive performance as he funneled most of his energy into slowing Giannis Antetokounmpo as much as possible.
But Williams resuscitated the Bulls offense in the final quarter, driving to the rim and sinking a deep 3-pointer to deliver a final jolt in a 133-122 win.
That 11-minute stretch showed how Williams can affect the game on both ends of the court. And the sudden offensive surge flipped the switch for his teammates, activating a crucial part of the new-look Bulls offense.
“When he’s creating for us, when he’s taking his shots, it changes our team completely,” center Nikola Vučević said. “He obviously has to get comfortable within the offense and he missed a lot of time last year as well, so just getting his feet under himself. But, man, when he plays like this, our team is completely different.”
The Bulls have seen these sporadic flashes for the better part of four years. Williams is the most efficient 3-point shooter on the roster and hands down the best defender in the starting lineup.
But his perceived meekness — on and off the ball — has been a source of frustration for Bulls fans, his soaring potential offset by an inability to deploy his skills with consistent aggressiveness.
Entering the 2024-25 season, coach Billy Donovan knew he had to be patient again. Williams was heavily limited this summer after missing the end of last season to undergo foot surgery. He played his first five-on-five minutes in September and was held out of significant parts of training camp.
But after signing a five-year, $90 million contract extension in June, this is the year for Williams to define himself more concretely — both on the Bulls and in the NBA at large.
“I’ve talked to him a lot about this— he has to create an identity for himself,” Donovan said.
Since the Bulls drafted him with the No. 4 pick in 2020, Williams’ physicality always has jumped off the page. At 6-foot-7 and 215 pounds, he’s both athletically explosive and almost deceptively lengthy with the ability to switch defensively onto practically any position.
But despite his imposing frame, Williams doesn’t play bully ball. He prefers finesse over physicality, hunting floaters rather than dunks. There’s a reason former teammate DeMar DeRozan challenged Williams to get called for a charge last season — Williams still doesn’t like to seek out bodies.
And this disparity between expectations based on his body and his actual physical presence on the court is at the center of the frustration that has followed Williams since his rookie year.
Williams still doesn’t have the balance to haul a defender along on a drive from the perimeter to the rim. A savvy defender can bump him off his center of gravity pretty quickly, which leads to the ball getting dribbled off his foot or picked up too early. And despite his physical profile, Williams sees the bulk of his offensive identity flowing through the midrange.
“I’ve always shot a good percentage from there,” Williams told the Tribune. “That’s where I kind of feel the most comfortable.”
Williams always has preferred to sit back from the restricted area rather than forcing finishes from close range. This season he hopes to capitalize on the higher volume of drives to the rim by teammates such as Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu to float off as a kick-out option. As a result of this spacing, his offensive rebounds (1.7 per game) lag behind fellow bigs Vučević and Jalen Smith.
Donovan wants Williams to understand his gifts — but he also wants Williams to push himself to play beyond them. Too often, Donovan believes Williams is eager to delay and take extra dribbles that lead to difficult contested shots in the final seconds of a possession.
“He’s athletic enough and gifted enough — that’s (his) gift,” Donovan said. “That’s a late clock gift. There are some guys, late clock, you put the ball in their hands, they can’t get a shot off.
“He can get a shot off late in the clock. So that’s great — but he’s got to get the right shots off from 24 seconds down to seven.”
Williams also struggles to routinely take a high volume of shots. He averages 8.7 attempts per game, the fewest of any starter. An important piece of Williams’ identity on the court always has been efficient decision-making that leads to assists, offensive rebounds and high-quality shots.
But Donovan thinks the low volume of attempts also comes from a risk aversion created by poor decision-making at the point of attack, which leads Williams to bail on plays. That could worsen as the Bulls emphasize a fast-paced style this season in an effort to create more defensive rotation and scrambled close-outs from their opponents.
The faster pace often has left Williams behind early this season. Some of his lagging might be due to conditioning after a summer of injury rehab. But Donovan fears the fifth-year forward still is struggling to assert himself into plays with authority, playing a reactive style rather than pushing for proactiveness.
“He’s got to put himself in more possessions,” Donovan said. “There are times where the ball is coming down the floor and Coby may have it or Ayo could have it. He’s got to get out and get up ahead of the ball so we can throw it to him. When you’re trailing the play all the time, you can’t get in the play.”
Last season was framed as a crucial year for Williams heading into his first summer of free agency. Locking down a five-year deal should give a player confidence he has proved himself in the greater scheme of a team’s plans. But the pressure never quite has let up for Williams — and this year’s recalibration to focus on the long term will only heighten those stakes.
Can Williams keep up with the changing times in Chicago? The answer will be pivotal to the future of the young core driving the next generation of Bulls basketball.
