It's certainly not a good thing that the Chicago Bulls will be without Nic Claxton for at least the next two weeks after he tweaked his hamstring in training camp. For a team that's trying to develop chemistry early on, missing a key piece of the starting lineup is almost never a positive development.
The Bulls, plain and simple, need Claxton to perform at a high level this season. He's not going to be a primary offensive option for them, but he has enough depth to his game to serve as an additional facilitator and scorer in transition, and there's still certainly some defensive upside there—although it seemed like his effort on that end of the floor waned over his final couple of seasons with the Brooklyn Nets.
More importantly, though, Chicago doesn't currently have any truly reliable options at center beyond Claxton.
But we always knew that injury and availability issues were a risk with Claxton. Now that he's out for at least Chicago's first couple preseason games, the Bulls have a chance to truly test the waters when it comes to the rest of their pieces at the center position.
The Bulls need to sort out how they're going to handle the center position when Nic Claxton is unavailable
In terms of pure games played, Claxton's track record is actually pretty solid. Over the past three seasons, he appeared in 69, 70, and 71 games with Brooklyn, and he's largely been able to maintain a clean bill of health as he's advanced into this stage of his career.
But he also hasn't averaged more than 30 minutes per game at any point in his career, putting him more closely on par with centers like Jalen Duren and Nikola Vucevic in terms of expected workload . That leaves at least 18 minutes per game that Tiago Splitter is going to need to account for, and unless the Bulls want to go pure small-ball during that time, they're going to need to truly evaluate their options.
Zach Collins is returning from a season-ending toe injury, and he carries some defensive concerns that could make his minutes less effective than they theoretically should be. He also isn't a real threat away from the basket, having shot just 33.4% from beyond the arc over the course of his career. He should be Chicago's primary backup center, but he's going to need to flash some more consistency before it's safe to feel confident in his ability to hold down that full 18 minutes.
Jalen Smith is still best suited as a floor-spacing, small ball center rather than a true, minutes-eating big man. He can certainly play some minutes at the five spot (and Chicago will likely need him to), but that's probably not their ideal look for the duration of the regular season.
Tobe Awaka, for his part, simply doesn't have the size to play there at the NBA level until he's able to develop his defensive skill set. He's a more than capable rebounder and a strong interior scorer, but everything else in his game is currently lacking. It's unclear whether he'll be ready to take on a rotational role at any point during his rookie campaign.
The point is, Splitter and the rest of the Bulls coaching staff have options here to work with, and they should have a true starting center available when Claxton returns to full strength. But identifying alternative looks is going to be one of the major challenges of this season, and we'll get an advance glimpse of that as Chicago enters the preseason on Wednesday night against the Phoenix Suns.
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