The Chicago Bulls drafted Patrick Williams with the No. 4 overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft because of his potential, not his polish. Williams came off the bench all year in his one-and-done season at Florida State while putting up pedestrian numbers, but he had all the physical tools teams look for out of a modern wing. The youngest American born player in the NBA as a rookie, Williams started all 71 games as a 19-year-old in his first season, and continued to show flashes that he could be the type of two-way forward every good team needs.
Now in year five of his career, things have never really clicked for Williams. He’s averaged between 9.0 and 10.2 points per game in every season of his career, with about 4.5 rebounds and 1.5 assists. As the Bulls have perennially underachieved, Williams has become the avatar of the team’s struggles in some ways. Despite never really filling up the box score, Chicago still saw enough in their young forward to give him a five-year, $90 million extension this summer.
Williams is not bad player, but he’s the type of athlete who leaves you wanting more. At 6’8 with a strong 215-pound frame, a good shooting stroke, and solid defensive instincts, Williams feels like he should be better than he is. The overly passive and generally underwhelming nature of his game shows up in particular when he gets a wide open dunk.
Williams is missing dunks at an astounding rate. He’s missed 7-of-9 dunk attempts this year, according to data on NBA.com. The numbers follow a trend throughout his career that Williams just can’t convert an open dunk, and it might actually be worse than it seems. Here’s a compilation of every dunk attempt for Williams this season. Behold all these misses.
Williams finally put down a dunk in the Bulls’ 12th game of the season against the New York Knicks last week. His head coach Billy Donovan had a hilarious quote about it after the game, saying he almost called a timeout to celebrate with the team after Williams finally dunked.
Billy Donovan (joking) about the aggressiveness from Patrick Williams tonight: “I was very, very excited. I almost called a time out and had a celebration on the bench — he made a dunk.”
— Julia Poe (@byjuliapoe) November 14, 2024
Missing dunks is nothing new for Williams. He’s been doing it his whole career.
Bulls beat reporter Drew Stevens of The Bigs dove into the numbers and saw Williams is only a 63 percent shooter on dunks for his career. This is an astonishingly bad number.
To wit:
Patrick Williams has missed four of his six dunk attempts this season and is 118-for-186 on that particular shot type for his career. https://t.co/wQfzQ7kzh2
— Drew Stevens (@Drew_H_Stevens) November 18, 2024
A Patrick Williams dunk attempt is a worse bet than a Giannis Antetokounmpo free throw. How is that even possible? The tracking data from this season doesn’t even include a wide open miss Williams had on Sunday in Chicago’s loss to the Rockets.
Maybe this isn’t technically a missed dunk, but it sure should have been a made dunk:
Williams was noted for having huge hands during the pre-draft process. He’s made plenty of athletic plays through his career, like this driving dunk against the Cavs in the preseason, and this huge block on Deandre Ayton a few years ago.
Here’s a photo of Williams’ missed dunk against the Pistons on Monday night. This should be two points. Somehow, it wasn’t.
NBAE via Getty Images
How is someone this big and this athletic so bad at dunking? It just continues to play into the idea that Williams should be better than he is. Once thought to be the high-upside lottery ticket who could bring Chicago out of mediocrity, it’s becoming clear that Williams is just a bit underwhelming as a player in so many ways.
