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Patrick Williams saw his 2023-24 season get cut short by a season-ending fracture in his left foot, requiring surgery in the process. Nevertheless, the Chicago Bulls remain high on Williams and see him as a long-term piece amid the franchise's pivot to a rebuild, signing him to a five-year, $90 million deal with the expectation that he'll be fully healthy by the time the 2024-25 season rolls around.
However, now that training camp is nearly upon us, Williams has suffered a setback in his injury recovery that will be a point of concern among members of the Bulls franchise. Per Darnell Mayberry of The Athletic, Williams experienced discomfort in his foot which required “additional rest” in recent weeks amid the team's minicamp in Miami.
The good news is that the concern surrounding Williams is more of a short-term one, as the Bulls are hoping that the additional rest would do the 23-year-old forward a world of good. But there is still good reason to be worried over Williams' long-term health.
He last played for the Bulls in January, and he said back in July that he had been progressing well in his recovery (“the bone had healed and he was running and jumping without pain or swelling”, wrote Mayberry). It's not a good sign whatsoever that two months later and there is once again lingering uncertainty surrounding the well-being of his foot.
Drafted with the fourth overall pick of the 2020 NBA Draft, it's safe to say that Williams is yet to live up to his draft position. This is not to say that he is a bust, as he has been a solid, if unspectacular, two-way piece for the Bulls over the past four seasons.
But for Williams' career to truly take off, he will need a clean bill of health. It remains to be seen if he could step up for the Bulls in the first year of a true rebuild, as availability is the best ability.
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Breakout opportunity is there for Patrick Williams in a Bulls rebuild
For the past four seasons, Patrick Williams mostly faded into the background for the Bulls. The Bulls did not need him to be a go-to-guy, nor did he ever show that he was ready to take on a bigger offensive role. Williams seemed to be stuck in a chicken-or-egg situation. Did he not develop quickly because of his place in the team's offensive hierarchy? Or did he not seize a bigger role due to him not developing quickly enough?
It's difficult to pinpoint what Williams does best. He doesn't have the most advanced handles, nor does he shoot the ball from deep at such a high level of efficiency and volume. Williams has shown that he can be very disruptive defensively and he has good size and length for a wing player, but he has yet to put his tools together on a consistent basis.
But now that DeMar DeRozan is gone and Zach LaVine seems to be on his way out of the team, the opportunity is there for Williams to break out, provided, of course, that he is healthy for next season. He needs to find a new level of motor, however, to make things work. There are times when he fades to the background often; he needs to be more proactive in making things happen, as the Bulls will need one of their young players to pop if they were to build a contending team in the not-so-distant future.
