Poor Patrick Williams can’t catch a break. He had a bad preseason ankle injury and then was dealing with a shoulder strain before this happened.
Flagrant by Mitchell Robinson causes Patrick Williams to miss the rest of the season 🤬 pic.twitter.com/ZprVoD11q6
— Jon Mohler (@jmohler21) October 29, 2021
It wasn’t pretty and ultimately the news came out that P Dubs will likely miss the remainder of the season with a perilunate dislocation. There’s a small chance he can make it back for the playoffs, but I would wager that even if he could play at that point the Bulls won’t want to muck around with the rotation.
So it’s a huge bummer for the Bulls and even more for Patrick Williams who was looking to make some strides this season and help the Bulls overcome the mediocre hump on their way to being a solid playoff team. The Paw wasn’t playing particularly well to start the season, but he’s just 20 years old. Missing out on a whole season of development sucks for him on an individual level.
As a team, I think they’ll be fine. They were playing two wings with DeMar DeRozan and Patrick Williams in an attempt to become super switchable. Any of the guys on the floor not named Zach LaVine or Nikola Vucevic can guard 1-5, and LaVine has shown his defensive ball-hawking chops from the Olympics already this season. Missing Patrick Williams isn’t going to change that defensive mentality, which is popular across the league.
Who’s going to step into a larger role and how will it affect your fantasy team? On the surface, there isn’t a whole lot to like here from a fantasy perspective. Patrick Williams was sitting at just a 9.6% usage rate on the season, which was down even from last year’s 14.9%. To make matters worse, the Bulls suddenly find themselves extremely thin at the power forward position with options that aren’t a “one-size-fits-all” answer like P Dubs was supposed to be.
For example, I’m writing this article before the Jazz game, but I would bet my bottom dollar that Alize Johnson and Tony Bradley see some extra run against Rudy Gobert down low. However, people somehow overlook that the Jazz play Royce O’Neale and some combination of Bojan Bogdanovic and Joe Ingles at the power forward position these days. Those guys are all perimeter-oriented and that’s just the direction the NBA has gone these days, so the Bulls can still play two wings or even four guards like they have at times this season.
If your league somehow has Alex Caruso sitting on the wire out there (47% rostered in Yahoo! leagues) then please do yourself the courtesy of going out and getting him. He’s been stupendous in the early season for the Bulls, who have been missing his on-ball defensive grit and leadership from the sixth man spot for a long, long time.
But that’s stuff other people are out there telling you all over Twitter already. So instead, I’m going to advocate for another guy that I think is worth a flier: Javonte Green. Consider the following. In all three preseason games that Patrick Williams missed, Green slid into the starting lineup and stood out as a true hustle player that fit rather well next to the starters. In those three games, he averaged 7.3 ppg, 6 rpg, 0.7 apg, 1.7 spg, and 2 bpg on 64/100/100 shooting splits. Very small sample size and the shooting will have some obvious regression, but if you extrapolate that out to 25 minutes it comes to 10.7 ppg, 8.8 rpg, 1 apg, 2.5 spg, and 2.9 bpg. The stocks won’t be near that high, but he definitely can get you 2-3 a game with a smattering of other stats. He’s the first guy off the bench to replace P Will, which makes him the most logical player to slide into the starting lineup.
Here are his career per-36 numbers: 11.9 ppg, 6.3 rpg, 1.7 apg, 1.9 spg, and 0.6 bpg on 52/32/73 shooting splits. The stocks are the biggest takeaway here, but the percentages stand out as well, and he has trended towards 80% or better from the free-throw line and 35% or better from the three-point line since joining the Bulls. According to Basketball Monster, he’s currently a 14th-round value in per-game value on the season and a 13th-round value in total value in just 15 minutes per game off the bench. According to his per-36 numbers, he is a 7th-round value.
So what does this mean? If you’re in a 16-team league, I’d certainly go out and gobble him up. He’s only rostered in 2% of fantasy leagues at the moment on Yahoo! so he’s certainly available in your league. In 12-team leagues, I think you can just add him to your watchlist and come back and thank me when you’re first to scoop him up in 1-2 weeks. He might see his minutes fluctuate, which dampens the appeal, but he’s probably worth a flier if your waiver wire is thin and you have dead weight. I think he makes more sense in roto leagues as he should help your percentages while providing defensive stats, which every team needs.
It turns out that I’m the only fantasy guy that’s on Green at the moment, so if you’re not comfortable picking him up or don’t believe me, take your time. Add him to your watchlist. The only thing you shouldn’t do is drop someone promising for any Bulls players not named Alex Caruso, and even then it’s iffy. The absolute worst thing you could do is take a flier on Derrick Jones Jr.
Derrick Jones Jr. has played exactly 2 minutes this season. Javonte Green started 3 preseason games with p will out and looked fantastic. Please take note, fantasy players. DJJ might get minutes but I'd rather take a flier on javonte. If Caruso is available, go change that now.
— Keith Cork (@EthosKeith) October 29, 2021
