Bulls sign No. 4 overall pick Patrick Williams to rookie deal

Bulls rookies Patrick Williams and Devon Dotson have inked their new deals with the club, per the NBA’s official transactions log. Unless the No. 4 pick out of FSU accepts a deal worth less than the maximum allowable 120 percent of the rookie scale, Williams will earn $7,068,360 in his rookie year and $32.1M over the first four years of his NBA career. A full list of anticipated rookie scale salary figures is viewable here.

The 6-foot-8 Williams is viewed as an athletic, defensive-oriented forward with room to grow on offense as a long-distance shooting threat. His physical attributes (he has a 7-foot wingspan) and tantalizing upside saw him vault into the lottery conversation relatively late this season. Williams will compete with incumbent starter Lauri Markkanen for minutes at power forward, Williams’s most natural positional fit. Ahead of the draft, Jonathan Tjarks of The Ringer hailed the ascendant Williams as potentially being one of the biggest steals this year.

As was previously reported, Dotson signed a two-way deal with Chicago. The 6-foot-2 point guard, who went undrafted this year, will join the team in training camp and compete for a roster slot, but as a two-way player he could log significant time for Chicago’s G League affiliate, the Windy City Bulls in Hoffman Estates.

For Kansas last season, Dotson averaged 18.1 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 4.0 assists with 2.1 streals. Dotson was John Hollinger of The Athletic‘s highest-rated undrafted player, and was actually listed at No. 15 overall in Hollinger’s predraft rankings. Williams, meanwhile, was No. 14. Dotson’s biggest assets are his scoring and his speed. At the NBA Draft combine earlier in November, he recorded the second-fastest three-quarter-court sprint of the past 10 years at 3.02 seconds, per CJ Moore of The Athletic. 2019 lottery pick Coby White and veteran Tomas Satoransky currently net the lion’s share of minutes at the point for the Bulls.