Hutchison Already First Fly to Drop
This offseason, the Bulls addressed every position except small forward, which means Otto Porter Jr. and Chandler Hutchison are their guys there. As luck would have it, that would become a problem with training still a few weeks away. Many Bulls fans focused on Thursday’s Bears opener had their afternoon disrupted with disturbing news about the second-year wing out of Boise State.
Bulls Twitter was quick to respond, including our own Ryan Borja. A month ago, he wrote a piece about the Bulls not doing anything about their wing depth this summer. Specifically, he asked if it was a mistake. With the Hutchison news, he doubled down.
Our own Delane Mclurkin weighed in, too.
And yes, I had to say something, too.
When the Bulls traded for Porter, he probably didn’t anticipate ending the first week of September with the thought that he might have to carry a bigger load than he already was asked to. Now, he’s looking at staying on the court longer than the 32.8 minutes a game he averaged over his 15 Bulls contests last year. Sure, other players in the rotation could slide over from their natural positions, but you can only rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic for so long. Sooner or later, your system is out of whack, which leads to undesirable consequences.
That leads to the point of how desperately the Bulls need to stay healthy this year. Hutchison merely is one player who had trouble doing that in 2018–19. Lauri Markkanen, Zach LaVine, Wendell Carter Jr. and Kris Dunn all missed significant time, and Denzel Valentine sat the whole season. If we get a repeat of that, we’re looking at another season of 20 to 30 wins, which isn’t so ideal anymore with the new draft lottery in place.
In the third year of this rebuild, assuming it’s still a rebuild, we need to start seeing progress. Never mind that the NBA just became wide open with the crazy offseason we just experienced. The Bulls sat out of the biggest moves that changed the shape of the league, so we have to assume it won’t be any easier for them. And putting a lot of faith in a pair of small forwards, one that appears to be injury-prone, is a risky proposition, and the Bulls have had a lot of those in recent years.
The question now is will the Bulls do anything to address that wing depth? The remaining free agents at small forward include Lance Thomas, Jonathon Simmons, Sam Dekker, an aging Luol Deng, an aging Thabo Sefolosha and a bunch of young players who have made a minimal impact on the league. But with 19 players already on the roster, someone probably will have to go to make it happen, and the Bulls aren’t an organization that will admit a mistake so early, no matter what it is. Such is the operation of a Jerry Reinsdorf product that has player personnel decisions made by Gar Forman and John Paxson.
Hutchison’s setback represents a lot of things that have gone wrong with the Bulls and the frustrations of a fan base still waiting for its next championship contender. With not even a playoff berth a sure thing, the Bulls need all the luck they can get. This is a step backwards, and since it’s happened in the first week of September, we can only hope it won’t affect Hutchison’s ability to contribute when the team reconvenes soon. But this is the Bulls, and travesty is sure to follow them these days.
