In all honesty, I'm ready for NBA trade deadline season to be over. Pontificating about Zach Lavine's future isn't interesting to me anymore, though I recognize the topic heavily impacts the Chicago Bulls' future direction. For what it's worth, I previously outlined my fundamental opinions on what the Bulls' trade-deadline strategy should incorporate.
Allow me to offer a palate cleanser from the LaVine trade machine banter to talk about a more compelling Bulls subplot developing this season: Ayo Dosunmu rebounding (pun intended) from a rough sophomore campaign.
True Shooting
When perusing Dosunmu's advanced stats, you'll see his true shooting percentage was a solid 59.6% during his rookie season followed by a regression to 56.7% during the 2022-23 slate. For context, the NBA league average true shooting percentage for shooting guards was 55.4%, according to StatMuse.
Forty-five games into the 2023-24 campaign, Dosunmu has delivered a true shooting percentage of 58.0%. His resurgence has been a welcome sight for a Bulls offense from which the front office desired improvement.
So where exactly is Dosunmu's improved shooting coming from on the floor? Three spots: the restricted area, left corner three-pointers, and above-the-break three-point attempts. So far this season, the Illinois product is shooting 63.8% on 116 restricted area field-goal attempts while shooting 39.1% on 87% left corner and above-the-break attempts respectively, per NBA.com.
Dosunmu is giving the Bulls an ideal shot diet for the modern NBA by emphasizing the majority of his shots at the rim or the three-point line.
Offensive Rebounding
Through 45 games this season, Dosunmu's offensive rebounding percentage sits at 2.7%. While that number isn't league-leading in impact, it's an incremental improvement over his 2.2% mark during the 2022-23 season.
Ultimately, this point is more of an eye-test appreciation for the effort Dosunmu has put into crashing the glass and extending offensive possessions this season.
Goals for Continued Development
Dosunmu has already established a well-regarded defensive reputation in his first three NBA seasons. Bulls fans are now witnessing the emergence of Dosunmu finding reliable three-point shooting spots on the floor. My player development goal for Dosunmu through the rest of this season is to see him grow into a bona fide 3&D guard-forward, a player profile that is highly coveted in today's NBA.
On the "3" side of that archetype, the goal for Dosunmu is to simply sustain his three-point efficiency for the rest of the season. On the "D" side of the equation, I'd like to see his defense draw more wing assignments to challenge his ability to guard up to larger-sized players.
For context, 64.1% of Dosunmu's defensive matchups are against guards while 32.2% of his matchups are against forwards this season. His defense against guards is already formidable as he holds them to a 40.2 field-goal percentage. The 2023-24 league average field-goal percentage for shooting guards is 45.0, per StatMuse.
With more wing defensive assignments, can Dosunmu find a way to hold forwards to field-goal percentage under 50? Through 45 games this season, that mark is at 53%. It's also worth noting as a comparison that Alex Caruso held forwards to a field-goal percentage of 45.5 through his first 40 games in 2023-24.
To be clear, I don't expect Dosunmu to take on 6-foot-8 wings as his primary defensive assignment. But growing his defensive versatility by the end of the season would be a great player-development win for him and the Bulls. When considering how frequently the Bulls' defense prefers to employ "switching" as its coverage strategy, it'd be great to have Dosunmu as a reliable defender on the ball or tagging a roller in a pick-in-roll scenario.
Let me (@mobanks10) and Bulls On Tap know what you think about how Ayo Dosunmu's season is progressing on X!
More must-reads: