Ice-cold players for the Chicago Bulls of late: Alize Johnson
Each of the Bulls’ players that made this list are on here for separate reasons specifically. But each hasn’t contributed much positive value to any winning efforts for the Bulls of late, with one pretty notable exception.
Nonetheless, the first player up on this list is one that saw his playing time really decline in the last dozen games or so. Former Brooklyn Nets and Indiana Pacers power forward Alize Johnson has essentially been replaced in the frontcourt by the former Portland Trail Blazers and Miami Heat forward Derrick Jones Jr. while Vucevic has missed time due to the league’s health and safety protocol.
Johnson was getting minutes at the four and the five for the Bulls in the second and third unit during the preseason, and early on in the regular season. He got roughly a dozen minutes of playing time in four of the first five games of the regular season. And then he didn’t play in the next five. Since then, the only game where he played in a double-digit number of minutes off the bench was in the crushing 26-point loss to the Golden State Warriors back on Nov.
In three of his last four games, Johnson was a net-negative on the floor for the Bulls. And he’s posted a negative game score (which is clearly not what you want) in half of his last four outings.
So far this season, Johnson has averaged just 2.3 points per game, 2.4 rebounds, 0.5 assists, 0.3 steals, and no blocks. And he’s down to just under eight minutes per game when he actually does get minutes off the bench. We’re talking a big man that’s played in a dozen of the Bulls’ 18 games this season, despite not having any injuries come up that we know of.
I was honestly a big fan of the Bulls signing Johnson in the latter stages of the offseason. He’s an insanely efficient rebounder and a fierce on-ball defender. But his lack of versatility on offense and proneness to untimely turnovers has cost this team more often than not. As a result, Johnson has lost playing time since the start of the regular season. And he really wasn’t efficient in his last three or four outings for the Bulls in the last week.