What I learned from Patrick Williams' first preseason game
The closer I watched his preseason debut, the more I liked him.
How much can you learn from a rookie’s first preseason game? Any sane individual would say not much. Luckily, my readers are generally as insane as I am. We are about to go deep into Patrick Williams's preseason debut, and I am going to explain why I am feeling excited about him after picking out some of his skills that don't show up in highlight reels.
If you want the cliffs notes version from Williams’ preseason Bulls debut, here it is. He played pretty well, showed some nifty touch on his jumpers and floaters, and didn’t make any egregious mistakes defensively. The Bulls twitter account put out a nice highlight of his makes.
That’s where any normal person would stop, but I am here to play tour guide to the deranged. Spot-shadowing Williams through his first 25 minutes against NBA competition, his high feel kept on jumping out at me.
Defense
There has been a lot written and said about Williams’ defensive potential without really diving into specifics. We’re about to change that.
Williams already showed a pretty good understanding of defensive spacing concepts. That is exceedingly rare for a player of his age, and I think he’s going to be a very good help defender because he knows where he is supposed to be and gets into help position early in possessions.
The most important rotation to make as a help defender is when you are playing as the low man. Your job is to protect the rim. When you do it wrong, as Lauri Markkanen did here, it usually ends in a dunk.
Williams already knows when he’s the low man, and he gets into the paint very early to stop drives or provide help.
That positional awareness is hard to see if you’re watching casually, but it’s why players like Markkanen and LaVine are big negatives defensively. Some guys never get it, and some guys like Williams come into the league picking up on it right away.
Another area where young players typically struggle is in over-helping one pass away. Williams is not an over-helper. He was very good at recognizing his responsibilities, stunting to create pressure, and also staying honest on his man.
The Rockets tried to cut behind him a couple of times, and he kept his head on a swivel each time. He pays attention defensively, and that’s a skill that’s hard to teach.
Williams was not a prolific rebounder at FSU and he only got three rebounds in his 25 minutes of play. But he is going to be one of those Robin Lopez type of players where his teams always rebound better with him on the floor.
Boxing out is unfortunately a rarity in the NBA. Williams is the exception -- When shots go up, he consistently turns around and finds a man to get a body on. He’s already one of the best box out guys on the Bulls.
Although it is way too small of a sample to put too much into, the Rockets rebounded 23 percent of their misses for this game but only 16 percent when Williams was on the floor. He's going to let teammates pick up the ball and prevent guys from getting in front of him.
On ball, Williams was pretty good defensively. He did get beat on one corner closeout, but he stayed in front of players much better than expected. His defense on John Wall was terrific. He was switched onto Wall three times (twice in transition), and stayed in front of him every time.
It's still way too early to say how Williams will be as a defender overall, but I think he's going to be solid as a help guy.
Offense
You’ve probably already seen Williams draining floaters and midrangers. He has great touch on those shots, and his free throws were pure as well.
I think Williams will be able to play successfully off the ball. His 3-point shot isn’t quite there yet, which is fine. He was not comfortable shooting above the break 3’s and would wait to attack closeouts rather than taking open shots against the Rockets. The one that he did take was almost an airball, and it’s clear that he has not yet adjusted to NBA distance. But his shot looks good enough that I am not worried in the slightest about him getting there eventually.
Williams also has a solid old-school dribble pull-up game into long 2’s, which is unusual in today’s era where everyone is side-stepping into 3’s. I’d like to see him work on that side-step shot down the line.
The other area where Williams is already very good is in his cutting. This goes back to the same principles that he showed defensively. He has great feel and high-level understanding of the spacing of the game already.
Cutting is definitely a skill. The timing and recognition of when to cut is something that a lot of guys never get. Williams already has it in his bag.
Williams showed this same awareness crashing the offensive glass. Corner crashes are becoming much more en-vogue in the NBA, where a wing player in the corner is left open to dive in for offensive rebounds. Williams knew when he was open to execute this maneuver and when to pull back.
Williams was hyped up by this new Bulls administration for his ball skills and the fact that he played point guard in high school. Billy Donovan did let him run a few uneventful pick-and-rolls that didn’t go anywhere. One stood out to me, where he actually made a pretty good pass to Tomas Satoransky for a 3. Unfortunately, Satoransky drifted to the corner, which is an automatic rotation at the NBA level, and the ball sailed out of bounds.
The important thing is that Williams recognized where the help was and who was open as a result. He should learn pretty quickly to throw that pass to the corner next time.
It’s easy to say that I’m reading way too much into 25 minutes of a rookie’s first preseason game, and on some level that is definitely correct. But the high feel is there. That is something that you can pick up quickly from a player, and it’s why I was not nearly as excited about last year’s Bulls pick, Coby White, who still has way below-average feel and doesn’t look to be improving much in that area.
I already feel very good about Williams’ basketball IQ. That is unfortunately a rarity on this roster. It also generally corresponds with winning basketball, which is why I am liking this pick a lot more than I did after only watching the college highlights that didn’t show the nuances of his game.
Ultimately, there are more important traits that determine how good a player becomes. But when you get an intersection of high feel and a toolsy prospect like Williams, you have a chance to be very good. I suspect that he’s going to be one of these guys whose contributions consistently go beyond what shows up in the raw box score, and that’s what the Bulls need right now.
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Hey Stephen, great work as usual. After this game are you more or less confident that he can play the 3? Should the Bulls be shopping Thad so P-Will can get as much playing time as possible at the 4?
Nice analysis as always Stephen, congrats!
A lot of people are throwing Kawhi-Lite comparisons and, as a 19 y/o, we can only hope for the best. Maybe he can get there eventually, and that's really exciting. With that said, I'm so happy with what I've seen so far. First off all, he looks very poised, under control all the time. His mid-range game and floaters ara a thing of beauty, something he can relies on as his 3-point shot is worked. On D he also knows what he's doing, not something we can say about 80% of this Bulls squad.
I think he is a prime Marvin Williams type from day one, and that's really good IMO. After all we're talking about a guy who's a long time veteran and always was reliable. PDub will only get better from here, and it's exciting. I'd start him from day one, let the kid develop playing a lot against the best.