Chicago Bulls: When healthy, Denzel Valentine deserves a bigger role

Chicago Bulls wing Denzel Valentine has struggled with injuries, but when healthy, he deserves a bigger role than he’s been getting.

Denzel Valentine hasn’t played since February 2 due to a hamstring injury, but prior to that, he was playing really good basketball for the Chicago Bulls. He just wasn’t getting enough run.

Some of the good Valentine brings to the team is obvious. He can shoot the three-ball and he makes weird, old-man style floaters. Those things jump off the screen. Valentine’s true brilliance, though, lies in the subtlety of his game. It’s the things that don’t show up in the box score.

Valentine is the best passer on the Bulls, and it’s not even close. He’s leaps and bounds above the next guy (maybe Wendell Carter Jr., maybe Tomas Satoransky). Valentine doesn’t put up gaudy assist numbers, but his passing ability is legitimately elite.

For a team that’s in the bottom half of the league in nearly every passing metric, the Bulls need a guy like Valentine on the floor as much as possible. Yes, he loves to shoot, but he’s the best extra-pass maker on Chicago’s roster. He’s always more than willing to pass up a good look for himself to get a great look for a teammate. That’s an invaluable basketball trait to possess — especially in the NBA.

The best part of Denzel’s game outside of his passing? His feel. He never gets sped up. He always plays at his own speed. Check out how he navigates this screen:

The patience he shows while ignoring a Thaddeus Young screen and then slithering into a Daniel Gafford screen is awesome.

It isn’t just the eye test that Valentine is crushing, though. The numbers back up how important he is to the Bulls’ success. FiveThirtyEight has a metric they introduced this season called “RAPTOR.” It’s a fairly complex metric, but to put it in incredibly simple terms, it’s a plus-minus statistic that measures how important a player is to his team while he’s on the court. (You can read more about RAPTOR here.)

Out of all the Bulls who have played a minimum of 350 minutes this season, Valentine leads the team in RAPTOR, and it’s not even close. His total RAPTOR is +3.3 and the next closest is Kris Dunn at +2.4. Zach LaVine is fifth at -0.1, and Lauri Markkanen is 11th at -3.2 (yikes!).

Valentine’s season-high minutes total came on December 14 when he played 26 minutes in a win against the Los Angeles Clippers. It’s inexcusable that Jim Boylen hasn’t given him a larger role on the team. What is there to lose at this point?

When Valentine is healthy and ready to play, he should be getting some serious minutes for the rest of the season. There’s no reason to keep him planted on the bench while the Bulls’ offense operates like a fourth-grade YMCA team.

Unfortunately, I don’t trust Boylen to give Valentine the opportunity he deserves.