Cameron Bairstow, PF/C
The rather poor use of second round draft picks by John Paxson and Gar Forman was put on display with the selection of the Australian 6-foot-9 and 250 pound power forward/center Cameron Bairstow back in 2014. GarPax and the Bulls selected Bairstow with the 49th overall pick in the second round of the 2014 NBA Draft.
Granted, while the Bulls didn’t really make good use of second round picks under the GarPax front office regime, those mostly don’t pan out anyway. I want to make that clear, and you have to give them credit for the selection of Daniel Gafford 38th overall in the second round of the 2019 NBA Draft.
Still, it’s hard to look back on a second round in the 2014 NBA Draft that featured selections of combo guard Jordan Clarkson, superstar big man Nikola Jokic, emerging star forward Jerami Grant, standout point guard Spencer Dinwiddie, and sharpshooting guard Joe Harris, among others, and be proud of the Bulls selection of Bairstow.
The Brisbane, Australia, native played in 36 regular season games over the course of two seasons with the Bulls (from 2014-2016). And he averaged 1.2 points per game, 1.0 rebounds, 0.2 assists, 0.1 steals, and 0.1 blocks, in those 36 career games played with the Bulls. Bairstow shot just 29.6 percent from the field, 20.0 percent from beyond the arc, and 84.6p percent from the free-throw line.
Just like they do for Lauvergne’s brief time with the Bulls, the advanced metrics tell the story of the problematic tenure of Bairstow in the Bulls frontcourt rotation. He registered a career box plus/minus rating of -8.1, -.021 win shares per 48 minutes, 36.8 true shooting percentage, and 5.0 player efficiency rating.