Chicago Bulls: Evaluating Wendell Carter Jr.’s rookie season

It appears that Chicago Bulls center Wendell Carter Jr.’s season has ended after 44 games. Here’s an evaluation of the rookie big man’s rookie year.

When the Chicago Bulls hit the NBA Summer League last summer, Wendell Carter Jr. was the talk of the summer. Blocking shots and scoring at will, the seventh overall pick in the 2018 NBA Draft may have been the biggest star, exciting Bulls fans and igniting talk of a potential Bulls playoff run in 2018-19.

The hype was so real that some fans even scoffed at win projections predicting that the rebuilding franchise with a young core and a flawed roster might not only miss the playoffs, but finish with less than 35 wins.

Even John Paxson, Chicago’s president of basketball operations, hoped last season’s tank job would be a one-time situation. Optimism for the new campaign was in the air.

Instead, the Bulls have slogged through another disastrous year full of injuries, chaos and bad basketball. Now, their prized rookie big man is out for the season and their train wreck season is completely off the rails.

Evaluating WCJ’s rookie season

For Carter, his season has come to a sudden end. After being the only player to start the first 44 games of the season for the Bulls, he now gets to sit on the sideline and observe, which might be to head coach Jim Boylen’s inexplicable delight.

In his 44 games, Carter had a typical rookie season. At times he appeared tentative and would pass up open looks at the basket, nervously looking for a teammate to take the shot.

Of course, the 19-year-old rookie had strong moments as well. He was a key contributor on both ends of the court.

Overall, he averaged 10.3 points and 7.0 rebounds per game while shooting 48.5 percent from the field, solid numbers for a rookie. His presence was felt at the defensive end, blocking 1.3 shots per game.

His Player Efficiency Rating (PER) was right around the league average at 15.4, with the league average being 15.0. Carter scored a career-high 28 points in 29 minutes Nov. 30 against the Detroit Pistons while taking a team-high 18 shots.

Goals for offseason and 2019-20

This has been a disastrous season for the Chicago Bulls on many fronts. It was supposed to be about development, Carter’s especially. As he recovers from his thumb surgery, Carter will soon turn to next season and ways he can develop into the strong foundation piece most expect.

One of the highest priorities for the young big man will be getting stronger. As a big man battling in the trenches, he will need to get stronger and his frame is ideal for adding muscle. His lack of muscle contributed to his propensity for foul trouble.

Another area of focus will be Carter’s shooting range. The former Duke product shot 18.8 percent (6-for-32) from long range this season. In this era of pace-and-space, teams with effective 3-point shooting big men are at a premium. Carter’s long range shooting isn’t necessarily what the Bulls will center their offense around, but his ability to knock down the outside shot will help open lanes for Zach LaVine, Lauri Markkanen and Kris Dunn.

Finally, for Wendell Carter Jr. to be a breakout star in his second season, he needs to be on the floor. Too many times in 2018-19 his foul trouble cost him minutes. Carter averaged 4.9 personal fouls per 36 minutes this season. Constantly being in foul trouble took away his aggressiveness defensively far too often.

With his season being cut short, Carter’s injury complicates any evaluation. If he indeed misses the rest of the season, he will have missed 38 games due to injury. That’s 38 games of growth potential, and most growth comes from experience, not sitting (despite what Boylen says). With his injury, Carter’s rookie season evaluation is incomplete.