Chicago Bulls Preseason Recap: The Fringe Players
Another glorious NBA season launches on Tuesday and the Chicago Bulls will open their 2016-17 campaign on Thursday against the Boston Celtics. While we’re entering the final countdown to the regular season, it’s time to take stock of the preseason.
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The Fringe. Not to be confused with the television show, Fringe, which lasted a full five seasons on Fox, each of which I thoroughly enjoyed. There are a few players here, but no one that was going to make a huge impact on the roster. Well, except for at least one guy.
Thomas Walkup
We did a couple of pieces on the status of Walkup, but now he has officially been cut loose by Chicago. But that isn’t the end of his story.
In terms of pure number of games played, Walkup beat guys like Tony Snell and fellow fringe guys J.J. Avila and D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera. However, he only averaged 1.6 minutes per contest. Again, this isn’t the end for Walkup.
Source: Thomas Walkup, who was waived by the Chicago #Bulls the other day, will play for their D-League team, the Windy City Bulls.
— Aaron Johnson (@AJohnsonNBA) October 22, 2016
He had a solid college career, including some great play in the 2016 NCAA Tournament and will be playing with the Windy City Bulls of the NBA Development League for the 2016-17 season, which is a great result for both sides. He’s made it much further than players like Las Vegas invite, Jack Cooley, who couldn’t get a camp invite and ended up in Germany which is rewarding in its own way. Paul Zipser did just join the Bulls from Germany after all.
J.J. Avila
Like Walkup, we ran a couple of profiles on Avila this year. Unfortunately, Avila occupied a position, power forward, where there was a serious battle for the starting position that featured three players who are much better than Avila.
On a team with less depth at the four, Avila might have seen more court time and had a better chance. He was never going to catch on with the Chicago Bulls, though it was a great opportunity for him to get seen, get his name out and work at the highest level while looking for a European or NBADL offer.
As of now, no news on his future.
D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera
Smith-Rivera saw less court time than either Avila or Walkup. Again, we covered this player in some detail during the preseason. He was standout guard at Georgetown, but was always facing a best-case scenario of landing in Windy City. At this point, even that hasn’t been confirmed and an unremarkable preseason leaves Smith-Rivera quite firmly on the fringe of professional basketball.
Spencer Dinwiddie
The cruel nature of partially guaranteed contracts reared its ugly head for Dinwiddie. During a stellar preseason, including a starting nod, Spencer averaged 6.6 points and 1.8 assists on 14.5 minutes per game. He played in a total of five games before receiving the ultimate blow – DNP – CD. It was a bit of a surprise, but also made the most sense given the other bewildering moves that Chicago made right around that time.
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Dinwiddie performed better than Rondo as a defender and scorer, but couldn’t match his IQ or elite passing ability. He is an all-around better player than Isaiah Canaan who thrived mostly because of lower levels of competition or when he played at the two instead of functioning as the point. Jerian Grant never came close to playing at Dinwiddie’s level and Michael Carter-Williams, the player acquisition that essentially sealed Dinwiddie’s fate, has better defensive abilities, but would be hard pressed to show any other type of superior ability.
But Dinwiddie was on a partially guaranteed deal. Grant or Canaan probably were better choices to cut, but Canaan shot his way into a spot and Grant has a guaranteed deal. Spencer might end up with an NBA deal somewhere, he should at least, but I would assume that he probably doesn’t want anything to do with Chicago, Windy City, or anything else Bulls related when you consider all of the ups and downs they put him through this summer.
While we know the future of Walkup, who will be with Windy City, the other players on the fringe have less certain futures. Avila may head back to Europe, Dinwiddie to another NBA team, and Smith-Rivera do a D-League affiliate.