Chicago Bulls: One area every starter can improve in 2018-2019

Point Guard Kris Dunn

Area of improvement: Shot selection

Kris Dunn is still young. He’s still raw. Coming out of Providence, he was the man. He didn’t come out of a program like Duke or Kentucky, for example. His adjustment period might just take a bit more time than others. Then again, not everyone coming from a lesser-known program takes a while to develop.

That said, Dunn should continue to blossom into a great perimeter defender. That’s his biggest strength. As a point guard, his biggest area to improve, though, isn’t on the defensive end; even though it was clear that’s the big step the front office wanted to see out of him.

The biggest area of improvement for Dunn can come with his shot selection. Watching him play last year, it occurred to me that when the Bulls didn’t have that “go-to” scorer established late in games, Dunn took it upon himself to be the guy. While I like the attitude, that’s not who is is — at least, he went about it the wrong way.

Dunn took a lot of bad shots. There’s no beating around the bush. Check out a few key field goal percentages for Dunn, in terms of distance away from the basket

• 10-to-16 feet from the basket: 26.9 percent
• 16-to-22 feet from the basket: 34.8 percent
• 3-point range: 28.8 percent

Now, in contrast, Dunn shot nearly 51 percent when he was three feet or less from the basket.

That’s interesting.

He’s athletic enough to get to the hoop. He’s actually pretty nimble going to the basket. When he gets there, he finishes more often than not. With other scorers on the team, he won’t have to do too much this season.

What he can do, if he chooses, is drive to the hoop and do one of (primarily) two things: He can either finish or kick it back out to an open man.

No more mid-range jumpers. Limit the amount of three balls. Stay in the comfort zone.