Devon Dotson's G-League debut
Trying to figure out why he hasn't played when the Bulls are bereft of point guards
Devon Dotson made his debut for the Canton Charge on Thursday, and I plunked down the $6 for ESPN+ to watch the game. He had a decent outing, scoring 16 on 7-of-13 shooting and passing the ball pretty well to teammates that blew a bunch of shots.
Readers may be wondering why I have now written about Dotson, the 17th man on the Bulls roster, twice and other players like Zach LaVine or Lauri Markkanen zero times.
Well, we already kind of know a lot about those guys. Dotson is the only real mystery on this team. From my first watch of him, I suspected that he might be pretty good. Add this up with many well-respected draft folks calling him a potential sleeper in this class, and I wanted to see for myself.
Dotson was a good scorer at Kansas thanks to his quick first step, and this was apparent in his G-League game. He was guarded by the heady veteran David Stockton (yes, John Stockton’s son), and basically torched him for most of the game.
Dotson definitely has NBA quickness, and his playmaking is also at an NBA-caliber level. So why isn’t he already playing minutes for the Bulls?
The answer is in his 3-pointer. When Stockton started going under screens, Dotson was reluctant to let it fly. When he got the ball on wide open catch-and-shoots, you could see why.
Dotson’s release is slow, his form is not consistent, and the ball kind of flies all over the place. Despite being a respectable 2-for-6 in this game from 3, his shaky misses showed that teams are going to leave him open.
If Dotson can get that 3-pointer down by reworking his form and speeding up his release, then I really like him as a quality point guard option. The other parts of his game are pretty nice.
Along with the playmaking, Dotson is not bad defensively. He did get beat by Stockton twice and second round pick Tyrell Terry once on drives to the basket, but he had quick hands and made decent rotations. He wasn’t afraid to get in there and get a little scrappy. This rebound as the smallest guy on the court impressed the hell out of me.
Dotson did get pulverized on a couple of screens, which I also noticed in his Bulls appearance. And like that appearance, he got stuffed at the rim on one of his drives and had jump shooters going over his outstretched arms for swishes.
Small guards have to be exceptional in order to succeed, and that’s why Dotson’s shooting is going to be essential for him to make it at the next level. For now, he’s still an interesting prospect to me. But I won’t start to get truly excited until he shows that he can shoot at least in the low 30’s on 3’s over a decent amount of attempts in the G-League.
Stephen - It's early but what do you think his ceiling would be if he figured out his jump shot? Are we talking eventual Arch replacement or Sato replacement? I'm assuming you don't see him as an eventual starter but that would be exciting if so!
Thanks for the writeup about Dotson. I think Dotson can help the Bulls