Chicago Bulls: 3 worst players on ‘The Last Dance’ team

3. Joe Kleine, Center

The 6-foot-11 and 255 pound former Arkansas Razorbacks center and first round pick of the Sacramento Kings in the 1985 NBA Draft Joe Kleine didn’t contribute a whole lot to the Bulls title run during the 1997-98 regular season. And this season was the only that Kleine would be suiting up in a Bulls uniform for during his roughly 15-year long NBA career.

Kleine played in 46 games for the Bulls during the 1997-98 regular season, and didn’t play in a single game during their playoff run. He averaged 2.0 points per game, 1.7 rebounds, 0.7 assists, and 0.1 blocks, while shooting 36.8 percent from the field. Kleine didn’t contribute much at all, despite coming off the bench with a really good supporting cast.

But the Bulls were really starting to get thin in their frontcourt rotation beyond the starting five later on in the 1990’s. Bringing Kleine into the mix was a good example of how dire the circumstances were getting. Although Kleine didn’t get enough credit for how good of a facilitator he was (11.2 percent assist rate with the Bulls) and he was a decent rebounder (11 percent rebounding rate).

Granted any center that registers a true shooting percentage of 40.8 isn’t doing all they can to provide a lot of value on the offensive end of the floor off the bench. Kleine also registered a box plus/minus rating of -6.5, just .016 win shares per 48 minutes, -0.5 value over replacement player rating, and a 5.5 player efficiency rating during his 1997-98 run with the Bulls.