Williams has had yet another position change, as well as a jersey number switch, yet he hasn’t blinked once throughout all the changes over the last week.
He may have a new number on the back of his jersey and a new position in the starting lineup, but the reality of it all for Patrick Williams is nothing has changed for the Bulls rookie.
“The people I guard are pretty much the same,’’ Williams said on Wednesday, when discussing the move to small forward from the four spot in the wake of the trade deadline moves. “Even when I was a four, I was guarding some threes and some twos, so nothing really changes. In our offense, coach [Billy Donovan] does a really good job of making sure the wing positions are pretty much interchangeable.’’
In his first game with the new-look roster, Williams admittedly was just trying to find in his way in that loss to the Spurs. The entire team was. He took seven shots, finishing with just six points. In the game against Golden State on Monday, however, the rook was much more aggressive, finishing with 14 points on 13 attempts. The most attempts he’s taken since Mar. 14, when he scored his career-high 23 against Toronto.
Life with an All-Star center like the Bulls now have in Nikola Vucevic is welcomed with open arms, but also a work in progress.
“It just opens up driving lanes not only for me but for the rest of guys,’’ Williams said of Vucevic’s presence. “He’s a three-point threat. And then also whenever we just need a bucket or need someone to get to the free-throw line, we can throw it down to him in the paint and let him go to work and play off him.
“And in the locker room, he’s a really good guy from what I know and what I can see now. He definitely fits our culture here. We’re all still figuring it out but having a guy who can do everything on the court to pass, shoot threes, to getting dirty in the post, he can do it all. He just makes it easier for us.’’
And Williams made life easier for him, handing over his No. 9 jersey and switching to No.44.
“Undisclosed,’’ Williams said of the amount Vucevic paid him for the switch. “I was going to give it to him for free. Even when I told him I was going to give it to him for free, he was like, ‘Nah, I just want to make sure you’re taken care of.’ That’s just the type of guy he is and speaks to the character that he has.’’
No reaction
Donovan had basically no reaction to a Chandler Hutchison Tweet in which the former Bulls forward wrote, “One man’s trash ….. #DCfamily.’’
Hutchison, who battled with injuries since he was picked 22nd overall in the 2018 draft and then sat for “personal reasons’’ most of this season, was traded to the Wizards last week, and had 18 in his first game with them. That’s when the Tweet came out. He followed that performance up with a 1-for-6 for five points a night later.
“Obviously he was, I think, working through things on his own,’’ Donovan said of Hutchison. “I made several comments about really appreciating his honesty and his strength in what he was doing. But I always felt like Chandler and I had a good relationship, so I don’t know necessarily who maybe the tweet was directed at or was it just an organizational thing? I’m not quite sure. But anyway, it’s hard for me to comment on it because I just don’t know the context of which he was talking about.’’
from Chicago Sun-Times - All https://ift.tt/3fzFDrQ
No comments:
Post a Comment