Chicago Bulls: Jabari Parker starting to find his groove after rough start

2018-19 hasn’t been very kind to fans of the Chicago Bulls. After a cataclysmic start to the season due to a plethora of both on and off the court issues, it seems the Chicago Bulls are starting to turn the corner. Although still far from a perfect fit, Jabari Parker has been playing a lot better as of late.

Plagued with injuries to several key players and near horrendous defense in combination with fairly inconsistent offense, the 2018-19 Chicago Bulls sit at just 6-20 in the Eastern conference. A multitude of defensive lapses, second-chance opportunities for opponents and bad decision-making in the clutch characterized the beginning 24 (excluding the recent few games with Boylen at the helm) games of the season.

However, the recent win over the number one ranked defense in the league (Oklahoma City Thunder) under new head coach Jim Boylen proved to be one of the most exciting Bulls games in recent memory. While the young roster put up multiple 40 + point first quarters throughout the beginning portion of the season, it seemed as though they could never put together a complete effort across all four quarters and often blew significant leads against good teams.

Excluding the horrendous 56-point loss against the Boston Celtics, the recent two games against the Thunder and Indiana Pacers have shown a seriously different Chicago Bulls team in terms of effort, defensive effectiveness and high-level scoring. With Lauri Markkanen finally back into the rotation, Jim Boylen rallying competitive spirit and effort from players and continued offensive production from multiple pieces, the Bulls are looking to compete more often than not.

Arguably the most surprising factor thus far is just how well Jabari Parker has played over the last few weeks. While making the playoffs is still definitely a long shot and is out of the question for the most part, Parker’s play as of late has been helping the team a lot more than it’s been hurting it.

A rough start

Because there have been injuries to three key players (two of which play Jabari’s natural position), Parker has played with both the starting and bench units. With that said, however, he’s started 17 of 27 total games and has received an average of 31.5 minutes per contest, which is ample time to impact the team in a positive fashion.

Although he’s averaging 16.1 points and 7.3 rebounds per contest, he’s shooting just 28.6 percent from behind the 3-point line and his play to begin the season was fairly underwhelming.

Over the course of the first 10 games of the season, Parker averaged just 14.3 points, 6.1 rebounds and 1.8 assists in 29.6 minutes per contest. Furthermore, he made just 11 of his 34 3-point attempts and scored 20 or more points just once.

While these numbers aren’t atrocious by any means, Parker was signed for $20 million a year and has played only two games with Markkanen and four with Bobby Portis, meaning he’s had the ball in his hands a lot more than he will when both have returned.

Not to mention, without Kris Dunn, Portis and Markkanen, only three other players (Justin Holiday, Wendell Carter Jr. and Zach LaVine) averaged 10 or more points and only one averaged over 20. He’s had the opportunity to be a go-to scorer for a good portion of the season and didn’t really capitalize on it until recently.

Not only was he failing to perform offensively in the way he was expected to, but the defensive concerns many fans initially had in the offseason were magnified to a much greater extent than imagined.

In addition to him consistently dribbling into contested and long pull-up mid-range jumpers and throwing late passes or over-the-head lobs to Wendell Carter Jr., Parker gave seemingly no effort on the defensive end and had a multitude of tweet-worthy defensive lapses pretty much every night.

The hope was that the 23-year-old’s high-powered offensive potential would at least partially counteract his severe defensive issues. The beginning portion of the season didn’t show any sign of that whatsoever. Over the last few weeks, however, Parker has played much better basketball and seems to be finally finding his way.

Recent Success

While the team as a whole certainly still has a lot to work on defensively and in terms of chemistry, they’ve been playing much better over the last few games (once again excluding the embarrassment of the Celtics game) and Jabari Parker has been pretty effective over the last few weeks.

For the month of November (15 games), Parker averaged an improved 17.4 points, 7.7 rebounds and 2.6 assists in 34.2 minutes per contest while shooting 45.4 percent from the field. Furthermore, he recorded a double-double in four of those games as well as 15 or more points in 10 ( 20 or more in six of those 10) including a 27 point season-high against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

He shot under 40% in just four of the 15 games in November and managed to average over 19.6 points for the latter half of the month (eight games). Although he’s still got a ways to go, the pull-up mid-range jumpers are going in more often than not and he’s attacking the rim with force and a tight handle.

His 3-point percentage is still far below ideal, but Parker is becoming more comfortable in his role and it’s showing on the court. It’s also worth mentioning that he’s taken his recent benching in favor of the now returned Markkanen fairly well.

It’s hard to tell how the remainder of the season will play out, but Parker is definitely approaching where he needs to be if he wants any chance at resigning in Chicago. With that said, however, he’s got a lot more to prove and isn’t in a great spot just yet by any means.