Certainly, when the NBA announced its two All-Rookie Teams, the eyes of most (if not all) Chicago Bulls fans sought out the name of forward Patrick Williams. The teams’ two-way combo forward they selected with the fourth overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft. Well, he was among the names released via the Chicago Tribune’s K.C. Johnson.
But there was a problem. Williams wound up on the second team after receiving just two first-team votes.
In and of itself, being selected to any of the All-Rookie Teams is an honor. But that’s not really the issue here. The issue is that he was listed behind both Saddiq Bey and Jae’Sean Tate, landing him on the Second Team.
Chicago Bulls forward Patrick Williams deserved First-Team All-Rookie honors
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No slight to Tate, who led all rookies in steals. Nor to Bey, who led all rookies in three-pointers made. Both players also outscored Williams by at least two points per game.
For all of their talents, neither player so outdid Williams so as to justify their making the All-Rookie First Team over him. Lest we forget, the Bulls rook was the second-youngest player in the league this past season behind only Aleksej Pokusevski of the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Williams also played in the second-most and started the most games of any rookie this season.
His volume was nowhere close to Tate, let alone Bey’s, but he was more efficient from three-point range than either. Need more? Williams averaged slightly more rebounds and steals than Bey, more steals than Tate, and more blocks than both.
The rub is obviously that he just didn’t have the raw totals of the other two offensively because he played with Zach LaVine all year and Nikola Vucevic for a good chunk of it. Not to mention the Bulls were in the hunt for the postseason right up until the very end. Bey’s Detroit Pistons and Tate’s Houston Rockets have the worst two records in the entire NBA.
So Williams was getting scraps from his teammates (both LaVine and Vucevic finished in the top-10 in field goal attempts), was efficient in doing so, and has received some very lofty praise from the league’s top stars after taking on the assignment of guarding them.
All at just 19 years old!
In the 16 games Williams shot the ball 10 or more times, he shot 50 percent from the floor and 41.8 percent from deep. So the efficiency translates. It helped him earn a high grade for the season and should have helped him here.
Hopefully, the usually reserved Williams, who was spotted at Game 5 of the Bucks-Nets series with Head Coach Billy Donovan, uses this slight as fuel for the fire and comes back next year with a more consistent level of aggression. Because good things happen when he’s aggressive.