Chicago Bulls: Did Chandler Hutchison underperform during Summer League?

The Chicago Bulls have had a promising summer thus far. However, did first-rounder Chandler Hutchison underperform in the NBA Summer League?

The NBA world was extremely hyped about the Chicago Bulls lottery pick Wendell Carter Jr. during Summer League. This makes perfect sense. Carter played at one of the most prestigious schools in the nation (Duke) and was the no.7 overall pick. He also absolutely balled out during Summer League proving that he might end up being one of the most NBA-ready bigs to come out of the 2018 NBA Draft.

One player that the NBA world seems to have forgotten about, however, is Chandler Hutchison.

This makes sense. Hutchison wasn’t a one-and-done player for a big-time basketball program. He played for 4 seasons at Boise State which isn’t exactly comparable to Duke in terms of basketball achievements, but hey, who am I to judge? Hutchison also had a relatively quiet Summer League which I don’t think many Bulls fans were expecting.

Before the draft, there were a lot of Chandler Hutchison-Kyle Kuzma comparisons among general NBA fans – not necessarily in terms of style of play, but more in terms of the impact that they had/could have on their teams despite being taken in the later part of the first round.

Hutchison didn’t make nearly the same noise as Kuzma did in their respective Summer League seasons, and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean Hutchison disappointed.

In 5 games for the Bulls this summer, Hutchison averaged 11.0 points, 7.0 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game on 40 percent shooting from the field. While those aren’t gaudy numbers by any means, they’re still pretty nice, especially considering it was only Summer League and this was his first look at NBA action.

The most concerning part of Hutchison’s Summer League season to me was that he simply looked uncomfortable at times. It looked like he was struggling to adjust. Fortunately, that started to go away as the Summer League games went on. He eventually started to look more like the guy that we saw in college.

When the Bulls drafted Hutchison, many Bulls fans thought he would have a chance at cracking the starting lineup in favor of Justin Holiday. Obviously, now that the Bulls signed Jabari Parker, it looks like both Hutchison and Holiday will be coming off the bench. That doesn’t mean that those guys won’t be important, though.

I’m guessing the Bulls will be interested in experimenting with a lot of small-ball lineups where Markkanen or Parker are playing the 5 which means they’ll need lots of wings out on the court to balance things out. This is the type of lineup where we could really see Hutchison thrive.

So, despite Hutchison not having an incredibly impressive Summer League like his fellow first-round draft pick, Wendell Carter Jr., I wouldn’t say that he underperformed at all. He played like exactly what he is – a 22nd overall pick with extreme two-way potential.