The Bulls now have single-digit games remaining in the regular season. Come playoff-time, the matchups are unpredictable. They’re currently in place to play the fourth-seed Boston Celtics. If they drop Saturday’s game against the Cleveland Cavaliers, they’ll play the 76ers, who have beaten the Bulls four times this season without retaliation.
To make matters more daunting, it looks like Lonzo Ball will be sidelined for the rest of the season. The rehabilitation on his partially torn meniscus from January is hampered. He cannot run for the next 10 days.
The Bulls should expect the worst with Ball’s injury and assume that he won’t be able to play anytime soon. Nevertheless, even if he is healthy, it’ll take time for him to acclimate to game speed.
Without the high IQ, fast-break-running and defensive mogul in Ball, who’s next to step into the spotlight?
The answer is simple – Ayo Dosunmu.
The Bulls asked rookie Ayo Dosunmu to be a lot more than they anticipated him to be for this season, yet he has come through.
The Bulls took the rookie in the second round of last year’s NBA draft out of the University of Illinois. He’s already showing every NBA team the mistake they made by letting him slip.
At bare level, he’s averaging 8.5 points, 3.3 assists and 2.8 rebounds per game on 27.1 minutes per game. He played in 68 games and started in 32 of them this year.
Per the eye test, he can do everything that Ball can do to a lesser degree. He can defend, shoot, facilitate and run in transition. The Bulls need an X-factor with dominant, non-scoring primary skills. Dosunmu checks off plenty of those boxes.
Donsunmu’s defensive stats are just as appalling as Ball’s. He is maintaining a positive defensive box plus/minus, which is impressive, considering he is tasked with some of the toughest matchups every night. For example, he kept Cade Cunningham to 10 points earlier in the season.
His efficiency has been outstanding for a rookie. His assist/turnover ratio is 2.53, he’s shooting nearly 40 percent from three-point land and his true shooting percentage is a hair under 60 percent.
One thing that is satisfying with Dosunmu’s game is that he’s adding elements. He took pages from DeMar DeRozan’s book by adding midrange spots to his game. Piling that on with the catch-and-shoot player he’s become and he has multiple offensive weapons.
Another part of Dosunmu’s game that emulates Ball is his passing. Dosunmu has an underrated attribution of passing the ball. He is a pass-first guard, naturally, as a rookie surrounded by numerous top-tier scorers in DeRozan, Zach LaVine and Nikola Vucevic.
It helps the team greatly, similar to when Ball is on the floor. He creates for the others around him and he’s credible in doing so because of how well he can score too. Defenders respect his ability to score, so his game becomes unpredictable and opens opportunities for others.
Piggybacking on Dosunmu’s ability to pass is his hustle. He gets up and down the floor with purpose. According to NBA.com statistics, Dosunmu plays in transition more than any other Bull, at 27.4 percent. That ranks 12th in the NBA too.
In transition, Dosunmu is lethal. He scores 1.18 points per possession and ranks in the 60th percentile for scoring in that arena. Better than any other category for Dosunmu.
Continuing on his hustle, Dosunmu constitutes it on both ends of the floor. He plays like a true bench player scrapping for any type of playing time.
Looking at the video above encapsulates Dosunmu as a player. It demonstrates his proprietary skillset. He first gets a hand on the ball and concentrates on the deflection. After saving it from out of bounds, he heaves the ball up to Tristan Thompson, like Ball would do if he had a full-court opening.
Thompson gets stuck without an open lane to the basket, Donsumu stays in the play and finds the ball. After a quick dribble-drive, he penetrates and finds DeRozan for a bucket.
That’s hustle. That’s determination. That is Dosunmu.
His presence will be vital to giving the Bulls a chance in the playoffs.
The Bulls’ 0-16 record against the top three teams in each conference is unsupportive of their argument for going deep in the playoffs. They’ve fallen to a 3-10 record in their last 13 games, dropping their latest to the New Orleans Pelicans by 17 points.
Dosunmu will be tasked with becoming a bigger factor of the Bulls’ lineup than he likely anticipated in the playoffs. But, his ubiquitous, electric play-style is what will keep the Bulls mixing with the top teams in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
