Chicago Bulls: Daniel Gafford needs far more minutes in Carter’s absence

It appears like Wendell Carter Jr. will miss some significant time with an ankle injury. Time that the Chicago Bulls should use to develop Daniel Gafford.

16 minutes is all Chicago Bulls head coach Jim Boylen could offer Daniel Gafford in the team’s first game since Wendell Carter Jr. came down with an ankle injury against the Dallas Mavericks.

16 minutes is all Boylen could give a player who’s averaging four blocks per 36 minutes, a rate higher than that of elite rim protectors like Rudy Gobert and Andre Drummond this season. A player who just one game prior shot a perfect 6-of-6 and pulled down eight rebounds in nearly 25 minutes.

To an outsider, someone who doesn’t know the Bulls this season, that might seem like an aberration. A downright mystery that likely had something to do with game pacing, or exploiting a matchup.

Nope. It was just Jim Boylen being Jim Boylen.

There really seems to be no logical reason behind Boylen’s decision to underutilize the team’s only healthy center receiving consistent minutes, instead starting Thaddeus Young for a season high 34 minutes.

Young’s played well recently, of course, but he hardly has the upside of Gafford. If somehow the Bulls didn’t know what they had in the 14 season veteran, they should now more than 30 games into the season. He’s clearly not the answer for the Bulls woes, long-term or short-term for that matter.

There’s also little reason to play Young in hopes of showcasing him for any rumored trades down the road. Teams interested in Young will either make an offer worth taking or not. Running him out there with full starter minutes isn’t going to prove anything to anyone at this point in Young’s career.

With that being the case, then why couldn’t the Bulls have given some of his minutes in their recent game against the New Orleans Pelicans to the up-and-coming Gafford?

Gafford showed little sign of any lingering effects from going down awkwardly himself against the Mavericks. Sure, he wasn’t likely to be as adept at scoring as Young was, but how should we expect him to grow when he’s hardly on the court?

It’s clear that Gafford could be a valuable asset for the Bulls. He has that aforementioned knack for swatting the ball down, and also appears to be a tenacious rebounder and rim-rocker when he gets close to the hoop.

You don’t oftentimes find those qualities in a first year player coming out of the second round, yet the Bulls have and now they’re squandering them through a combination of low minutes and an inconsistent ability to put the ball in his hands.

That’s something the Bulls must change going forward, especially considering that Shams Charania of The Athletic recently reported that Carter Jr. will likely miss some time in the coming weeks with a high ankle sprain.

In that time, the Bulls should better try to take account of their assets, and determine exactly how well their up-and-coming players can perform.

It’s not time to let any grandiose ideas of making the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference blind the team from developing its younger talent in lieu of playing proven veterans. As hard as it is to believe, the Bulls should still essentially be in rebuild mode, continuously trying to pull the best out of their young stars.

That means giving Gafford a consistent diet of 25 minute games while Carter Jr. is out to see what he’s made of. It also means testing Lauri Markkanen at center once again, just to see if the aggressiveness he’s shown flashes of this season can be unlocked consistently at a new position.

Those are the kinds of decisions the Bulls need to make now that they’re without one of the major pieces of their young team for a presumably extended stretch of time.

It’s just unclear if they have the coach in place willing to make those calls.