Patrick Williams’ game compared to former Hornets forward Marvin Williams

Patrick Williams’ game has been compared to former Hornets forward Marvin Williams.

© David Banks-USA TODAY Sports

The NBA season is young, and with thirteen games in, the Chicago Bulls have a 6-7 record. But in order to climb in the standings in the competitive Eastern Conference, one of the keys for the Bulls is to have Patrick Williams play at his best. Williams has been more aggressive in recent games; he is not passing up shots, and he’s playing solid defense on most nights.

Williams’ career trajectory

Many NBA players make a leap in their third year. There’s no specific definition for a leap that a player experiences, but some breakouts could even lead to All-Star consideration.

In the offseason, Zach Lowe of ESPN named Williams the most important young X-factor in the NBA.

“A major short-term leap from Williams is Chicago's best and maybe only avenue of contending in the DeMar DeRozan/Zach LaVine/Nikola Vucevic era. Williams holds the keys to their next era given the Bulls dealt three first-round picks and Wendell Carter Jr. for DeRozan and Vucevic,” Lowe wrote.

ESPN’s Tim Bontemps appeared on ‘The Lowe Post’ podcast and told Lowe that Williams reminds him of former Hornets forward Marvin Williams.

“You know who he reminds me of,” Bontemps said. “It’s Marvin Williams... I think he’s Marvin Williams, who, like for a long time was a very solid rotation forward. Could play the 3 and the 4, decent defender, became a pretty good shooter. He looked the part. Was another very high pick – very young, raw, toolsy forward, became a very solid long-term pro but wasn’t a star, wasn’t close to a star, was just fine.”

The Hawks took Williams with the No. 2 pick in the 2005 NBA Draft, and he played 15 years in the league. Williams averaged 10.2 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 1.3 assists in 28.1 minutes over 1,072 career games with the Hawks, Jazz, Hornets, and Bucks.

Williams’ peak was short, and it happened early in his career. He never appeared in an NBA All-Star game, but he averaged 14 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 1.7 assists in 34.3 minutes over 205 games from 2007 to 2009.

Williams is playing better

Williams had a slow start to the season, but he’s averaging 10.8 points, 5.7 rebounds, 1,8 blocks, and 1.2 assists in 28.7 minutes over his last six games, shooting 45.8 percent from the field. He had seven points, four rebounds and four blocks on 3-of-7 from the field on Wednesday’s 115-111 home loss against the Pelicans.

“I thought he did a really good job in the first half. I thought in the second half he could have been a little bit better,” Bulls head coach Billy Donovan said of Williams.

“We were bringing double-teams to Zion, he spun out of them a couple of times, and he kind of got around Patrick and maybe he could have held him up a little bit more so he could have got help there. But overall I thought he competed and did some good things.”

Ultimately, it was an active defensive outing for Williams, but Zion Williamson’s outburst early in the fourth quarter led to Donovan going with Alex Caruso in his place in the clutch moments when the game was on the line.