Chicago Bulls: 3 players helping elevate Patrick Williams’ game

Thaddeus Young, F

About the only Bulls player that was better for them in the loss to the Hawks this weekend than Williams was the veteran forward Thaddeus Young. It was Young that registered a team-high 20 points on 10-of-13 shooting from the field. He also gave the Bulls seven rebounds, a team-high nine assists, and two steals.

There was a point in time in each of the past two seasons where it really felt like the Bulls were going to ship off Young in a trade. But keeping him around in the Windy City is helping a lot of the younger players on this team improve their game. Williams is definitely one of those seeing great benefit from playing with Young this season.

Of the seven Bulls players that gave Williams an average of at least one pass per game this season, Young is the only one that has him shooting better than 50.0 percent from the field and 60.0 percent from inside the three-point arc. Among all of the two-man combinations for Williams with the Bulls this season, Young is one of only two other players on this team that have a net rating in the positive.

The two-man combination of Young and Williams also has the net effective field goal percentage, three-point shooting percentage, rebounds, assists, turnovers, and blocks, all in the positive. That is not a coincidence since Young is incredibly smart with how he’s able to find Williams open with the ball, and how two solid defenders can work off of each other to give their opponents trouble.