All the top prospects will be off the board before the Chicago Bulls get to their first pick in the 2017 NBA draft, the no. 16 slot, but they’ll still have options. They might be looking at shooting guard, which has a few good options, including Donovan Mitchell.
There is an abundance of players that make you shrug when trying to feel out their future. There is an abundance of needs for the Bulls at most positions. There is also an abundance of poor-drafting front office personnel in Chicago.
Face it, they probably don’t have Dwyane Wade all that much longer, though it seems extremely likely that he’ll be back for the 2017-18 season. And they’ve also got Denzel Valentine, a player with something to offer, but the big question heading into his second year in the league will be what that something is and how does that compare to what they’ll need going forward.
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Presumably, the Bulls are at least two deep at the two guard and a couple of their potential point guard youngsters look like they might be better playing off ball, too. It’s good to acknowledge what the roster looks like before dreaming up a draft pick.
Donovan Mitchell
The leading candidate around the mid-first round must be Mitchell out of Louisville. He’s been picking up traction this week and other Bulls writers are already all in on him, like Vijay Vemu:
I'm all in on Donovan Mitchell to the Bulls. Dude is an insane athlete: https://t.co/8nU0pAjIIZ
— Super Bowl 52 MVP (@vj_v_) May 26, 2017
Ridiculous Upside also did a thorough breakdown of Mitchell’s abilities on both the offensive end of the floor and the defensive end of the floor, where they rate him rather high.
I’m sold. Let’s get this guy to the Bulls. Sure, he’s only got two years of college ball under his belt and doesn’t play for Iowa State, but sometimes good things happen to people who don’t deserve it.
He is a good shooter, what Chicago has been hoping to get in the draft dating back to Doug McDermott and earlier. They keep grabbing guys who are someone in that mediocre to forgettable range when you look at the results. Again, we can’t throw Valentine out yet, he’s entering just his second season. Still, it’s not like Mitchell couldn’t come in and at least match what the Bulls have been getting out of their bench guys, or even most of their starters. It’s just rough out there in Chicago right now.
Luke Kennard
I’ve got way less to go on with Kennard. I’m not sold on him and that scares me because it would seem that if I’m out on a guy, it might be someone that Gar Forman has already contacted with assurances of picking them if they’re available.
Kennard seems like the right kind of guy for Forman. Gar is probably still a little shaken that he had to trade McDermott so grabbing a guy like Kennard would certainly help keep the status quo intact. He averaged 19.5 points as a sophomore and shot 43.8 percent from 3-point range. Those are pretty, pretty, pretty good numbers for a college kid. The concern, as always, with a young player who can shoot well, is that he doesn’t do anything else well.
He’s got the shooting touch, but he’s considerably less athletic than Mitchell, who is also a vastly superior defender. I’m concerned that if it came down to these two guys for Forman, the pick would be Kennard, which doesn’t feel like the better option. It seems like all the people smarter than me are leaning Kennard for Chicago, which you can see in Michael Whitlow’s article.
I’ve got two more guys that I could see the Bulls liking, though hopefully they aren’t so foolish as to chase these guys this high in the draft and instead aim for them in the second round.
Sindarius Thornwell
Thornwell is definitely slated as a second-round pick, but he seems like the kind of guy Chicago absolutely loves to draft. He’s a guy who played four years in college, scored the ball at the rate of 21.7 points per game his senior season and was named the SEC Player of the Year.
He’s got all the box stats, but this seems more like a guy that will be there in a second round if the Bulls really want him. Then again, they traded Taj Gibson for Cameron Payne and gave up a whole grip of draft picks for the Doug McDermott experience so jumping on him is a scary possibility.
Josh Hart
Forman will be absolutely hyped on this guy. Hart was part of Villanova’s national championship team, a consensus All-American, and the Big East Player of the Year last season. Did I mention that Hart was a four-year guy, just like Thornwell?
He shot 40.4 percent on a career-high 5.1 attempts from 3-point range as a senior. He scores well, shoots well, and he checks off all the important Denzel-like boxes that Forman seems to use as an evaluation tool.
Also, there’s a very real possibility that Forman is a fan of horror movies, loves 30 Days of Night and thinks he is drafting Josh Hartnett.