Chicago Bulls: Should Luke Kornet get more minutes than Gafford?

One of the more underrated storylines to come about for the Chicago Bulls and first-year head coach Billy Donovan over the course of the last few weeks is the distribution of minutes in the frontcourt rotation between two big men. Coming off the bench, the Bulls have two very different style bigs between Luke Kornet and Daniel Gafford that can take on the roles of backing up the likes of fourth-year power forward Lauri Markkanen and third-year center Wendell Carter Jr.

Starting off the year was Gafford getting the bulk of the minutes in the backup center spot ahead of Kornet. But as the season has moved along, the fit between Donovan’s scheme and Gafford’s skill set didn’t look too smooth.

While the counting stats and overall advanced metrics for Gafford don’t look too shabby in his second year in the NBA, his situational usage in key spots has definitely declined. His minutes are actually down for this season compared to last, despite having four more starts already. Gafford is averaging roughly 13 minutes on the floor per game this season, compared to about 14 during his rookie campaign.

Meanwhile, the playing time for Kornet as a whole this season is way down, as are the total number of games he’s played in total. Kornet hasn’t even reached a double-digit number of games played this season. That is due to a combination of an injury bug and just his spot far down in the frontcourt rotation at the outset of this season.

Kornet is also only averaging around eight minutes on the floor per game, in his nine games played.

So all of this begs the question, is it worth Donovan giving more playing time to Kornet or Gafford in the near future?

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According to a report from Darnell Mayberry of The Athletic, Donovan’s goal of having more floor spacing from his frontcourt did favor giving more minutes to Kornet over Gafford of late. Given Kornet’s at least semi-efficient ability throughout his career to space the floor, while being able to do a decent job protecting the rim, he’s the obvious option for Donovan.

Kornet’s numbers per 36 minutes aren’t looking too shabby of late. For the season in total, he’s averaged 10 points per 36 minutes, 7.5 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 1.0 steals, and a whopping 3.0 blocks. Averaging roughly one block per dozen minutes on the floor is very efficient for the role that Kornet is trying to fill for the Bulls off the bench.

Granted, Gafford is actually looking better in his per 36 minutes numbers in this regard. Gafford has averaged 13.1 points per 36 minutes, 8.2 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 1.2 steals, and 3.3 blocks.

The main advantage that Gafford will give the Bulls over Kornet is with his thunderous finishing ability around the rim, and his slightly better rebounding. The problem with Gafford is that he is still largely developing his game outside of being a rim protecting and rim running center. He doesn’t have much of any offensive range away from the rim, and he often finds himself in foul trouble early.

At least Kornet can run the pick-and-roll effectively, and be a threat to score outside of the paint. He might not have the same powerful finishing ability around the rim as Gafford, or rebound the ball quite as effectively, but he does give Donovan what he’s looking for in this new scheme.

My own opinion on the matter would mostly favor Kornet to help space the floor, as long as he’s shooting well from deep, given what Donovan wants to scheme up. But when the Bulls are having trouble hitting the glass and finishing around the rim, Gafford should be able to get that job done more effectively than Kornet.

Hopefully the Bulls are able to stay healthy enough in the frontcourt rotation to be able to figure out where Gafford and Kornet fit in the mix among players coming off the bench. But Donovan has a mostly healthy frontcourt rotation at the moment, outside of Markkanen’s shoulder injury.

Next up for Donovan and the Bulls is a meeting with the Denver Nuggets at home on March 1, after their Feb. 28 road meeting with the Toronto Raptors was postponed due to COVID-19 related issues.