You’re probably still celebrating Friday night’s Bulls win over LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, but it’s time that we give some recognition the Windy City Bulls of the NBA D-League. Chicago has been keeping us perplexed with their up-and-down performances, which overshadows Windy City and their four-game win streak heading into a Saturday matchup with the Fort Wayne Mad Ants.
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The D-Bulls having been racking up the wins after a slow start. Currently 5-3, Windy City has been holding their own despite being a first-year team. A lot of that probably has to do with their ability to lean on players like Spencer Dinwiddie, who has NBA experience and spent both the Las Vegas Summer League and preseason training camp with the Chicago Bulls.
Everyone from little bloggers like myself to respectable names within the Bulls realm of basketball writing like Sean Highkin of The Athletic believed Dinwiddie was going to make the NBA roster. Since that didn’t happen, he’s still be getting good minutes with Windy City.
In fact, he’s looking downright great in the D-League. He’s shooting a 50/40/80 split through eight games, playing 37.2 minutes per contest. Excluding one-game stints by Jerian Grant and Cristiano Felicio, Dinwiddie is the main man and leader in minutes. He’s also leading the team with 20.1 points and 8.3 assists to go with two steals per game. In short, he might have missed the cut for Chicago, but he’s the leader at Hoffman Estates.
Windy City probably owes a lot of their success to Dinwiddie, but they’re also getting some big contributions from guard Aaron Thomas. After a modest start to the season, Thomas has played big minutes in each of the last two D-Bulls contests and responded by scoring 33 and 30, pushing his season scoring average to 18.6. Head coach Nate Loenser is getting great contributions from his backcourt and it’s helping the team pull out the wins.
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You may remember Thomas and Dinwiddie from our preseason write ups on both players, but there’s another name to consider, a recent addition to the team – R.J. Hunter. Hunter was released by the Boston Celtics, a first-round pick by Boston in the 2015 draft, he never quite developed the way they wanted him to and opted to cut the young man loose at the beginning of the 2016-17 season.
Hunter has played just three games with Windy City, but the Bulls are 3-0 in those games. It might be coincidence, but until they lose it’s okay to just roll with it. At a glance, there really aren’t any numbers that would back up the claim that Hunter is making a significant impact in a positive way for Windy City. He’s shooting a lot, nine 3-point attempts per game, but bricking an incredible 77.8 percent of those attempts. He still manages to get his points at 17.7 per game, but he’s relying on free throws – 5.3 free throws made per game – to get there.
The whole team seems to be launching shots at an incredible rate, so he’s not alone. Why it is notable here is that Hunter was touted as a remarkable shooter heading into the 2015 draft. It was seen as far-and-away his best skill. Maybe, after he’s had a few more games to settle in at Hoffman Estates, he’ll start to heat up from deep. Another statistic that I can’t make much of just from looking at it is the plus-minus numbers. Hunter leads all players that have played three or more games for Windy City with a plus-14. A question that we can’t answer right now: Is Hunter creating an advantage when he’s in the game or is he the benefactor of sharing lineups with players who are outperforming him?
Hopefully, Windy City will continue to perform at a high level, racking up the wins. More importantly, we hope that the winning is a sign that Loenser is developing a wave a talent that the Bulls can call on if there is a need.
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If you’re intrigued by the D-League, the Bulls, or just love watching free basketball, you can catch all the Windy City games live on Facebook for free. Throughout the year, we’ll continue to provide updates intermittently as we keep track of the D-League side for our favorite team and yours, the Chicago Bulls.