Very few contracts have aged as poorly as the Chicago Bulls' extension with Patrick Williams in the 2024 offseason. After four underwhelming seasons in Chicago, the Bulls still gave Williams a five-year extension worth $90 million, including a player option for the fifth year. For any Bulls fans who watched the former Florida standout in his first four years in the NBA, this was a major mistake.
Two years after it was signed, it looks even worse. Unfortunately, the Bulls are stuck with Williams going forward, as the 24-year-old may have the worst contract in the entire league.
Patrick Williams is unfortunately not going anywhere
When the Bulls fired Arturas Karnisovas and hired Bryson Graham as the new lead decision-maker, the fanbase rejoiced. Hopefully, chasing a Play-In spot and being stuck in mediocrity would come to an end.
While it's impossible to imagine the new front office being worse than the Karnisovas regime, some changes will take a long time. The previous administration set the Bulls back so significantly that Graham needs time to clean up the mess.
One of the biggest messes to clean is the Patrick Williams situation. He is under contract for two more seasons for $18 million each and he has a player option for another $18 million for the 2028-29 season.
If Williams were an unrestricted free agent this summer, he probably would have only gotten a minimum deal. He was a net negative for the Bulls last year, with career-worst shooting splits across the board of 37.2/34.7/72.0. Chicago had a whopping -12.3 net rating with him on the court, per Cleaning the Glass, the worst on the team among players who played the full season with the Bulls.
This makes him one of the most overpaid players in the league. It also makes him essentially untradeable.
The Bulls would need to give up additional assets to offload Williams' contract. Given where they are as a franchise, this makes no sense. Since the Bulls aren't trying to contend any time soon, they need to be in asset accumulation mode. No bad contract is worth them losing future assets.
So, Williams almost certainly has to be in the rotation next season. The hope would be that he couldn't play any worse than he did last season. If he can revive his trade value a little bit, perhaps by getting closer to shooting 40% from three again, he could potentially be tradeable next offseason.
That has to be considered unlikely. So, Williams' tenure in Chicago may extend a few more years, much to the chagrin of the fanbase.
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