Chicago Bulls: Does the team need to draft a playmaker?

Among many other issues, the Chicago Bulls struggled with the creative aspect of offense this year. Could drafting a young guard fix that?

As one should expect from a team that scored 3.7 fewer points per 100 possessions relative to the league average this season, the Chicago Bulls’ offense provided few reasons for praise.

Outside of the usual Zach LaVine empty-calorie scoring outburst, the club often resembled a horse trying to gallop out of quicksand when it comes to putting the ball through the hoop. Offenses this bad typically require the runtime of The Last Dance to dissect all of its problems, but for the Bulls, their playmaking — or lack of playmaking, to be more precise — is a good place to start the conversation.

Chicago ranked near the bottom or somewhere in the middle in just about every available creation metric available: 22nd in assists per 100 possessions, 20th in secondary assists per game, and 15th in potential assists per game.

Those underwhelming truths are what you get when you combine poor shooting (24th in 3-point field goal percentage, 24th in catch-and-shoot 3’s, and 22nd in wide-open 3’s) with spotty-at-best decision making (26th in assist-to-turnover ratio). It also doesn’t help when your best and most ball-dominant offensive player makes miscues like this:

Or this:

Of course, LaVine isn’t the only culprit. Rookie point guard Coby White also found little success as a passer — particularly due to his affinity for pull-ups. Combo guard Tomas Satoransky — the team’s highest-profile signee during the 2019 offseason — wasn’t much of a steadier hand thanks to his turnovers (team-high 17.7 giveaway percentage). And Kris Dunn — who’s set for restricted free agency this offseason — can barely manufacture offense for himself, let alone anyone else (-3.7 Box Plus/Minus this season).

This leaves the Bulls with two options: look for upgrades in the 2020 free agency class or in the 2020 NBA Draft. Frankly, both avenues lead to somewhat underwhelming destinations, but for the historically frugal Bulls, a few of the incoming rookie guards could work out a little better for them.

As it stands, the Bulls have the seventh-best odds to receive the number one overall pick — and a 32 percent chance to at least secure a top-four pick — which gives them a good chance to land at least one of the top three floor generals in this pool: Iowa State’s Tyrese Haliburton and international standouts Killian Hayes and LaMelo Ball.

All three possess a chess-like approach to playing the position that all of the Bulls’ incumbent ball handlers lack. Ball, who spent 2019 putting together a Rookie of the Year season with the National Basketball League’s Illawarra Hawks, earned his spot atop most draft boards with a second-nature understanding of pick-and-roll situations and passing angles that are reminiscent of his brother, Lonzo.

Looking through Hayes’ highlights will gift you with a similar barrage of sharp passes to open teammates.

You’ll see more of the same with Haliburton, though the new regime might hesitate to take him given the team’s odd affinity with Iowa State (*cough* Tim Floyd and Fred Hoiberg *cough*).

Even without knowing how well any of these guards will adjust to the pro game, they all look like clear improvements over what White, Dunn, and Satoransky offered offensively last year. Sure, Ball, Hayes, and Haliburton — you can include shoot-first guard Cole Anthony if you like — have their flaws.

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There are horror movies that are less frightening than Ball’s shooting percentages in Australia (45.9 true shooting percentage) and that Lonzo-esque trait may spook people. Hayes had similar accuracy issues playing in Germany. Haliburton is the most consistent of the group, but his awkward shooting form makes him more of a threat as a floor spacer than it does as an off-the-dribble scorer. And their respective free throw attempt rates indicate that none of them attack the rim as much as they should (except for Anthony).

All of these prospects are under 20 years old, so they have plenty of time to correct this, but after seeing how this Chicago Bulls offense operated with their current batch of guards whose lack of scoring punch keeps them from pressuring opposing defenses, any apprehension to these guards in a listless draft isn’t unwarranted.

It does, however, sound like the more favorable alternative than, say, giving Fred VanVleet a big contract or turning to one of the other also-ran guards in free agency. Taking a rookie guard to run the offense would free the team up to add another shooter to the team and, if all goes right, ease the burden on everyone else, particularly LaVine, White, and Lauri Markkanen.

Obviously, this all depends on where the Chicago Bulls end up drafting and who’s available when it’s their turn to pick. But if any of these young guards are on the board when the time comes, they should consider drafting one of them.

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