Few players represent the old Bulls regime more fittingly than Chandler Hutchison.
As matter of fact, the onetime Boise State standout could be the poster boy of the final days of the Gar Forman Era, considering everything surrounding the drafting of Hutchison had the general manager’s fingerprints on it.
From the underhanded business of Hutchison shutting down his draft workouts early to the rest of the league because the Bulls promised him they would select him in the first round and didn’t want other teams to get a better look, to the idea that Forman was somehow out-smarting the system, much like he initially felt he did when he extended Cristiano Felicio for four years, $32 million after seeing a small sample size of the big man at the NBA level.
Within the unwritten rules of the business of basketball? Maybe. But still, it often reeked of an ideology that Forman felt he was somehow smarter than the average bear.
An ideology that this failing rebuild has proven to be far from the truth.
That’s not to say that Hutchison was a bust as the No. 22 overall pick from the 2018 draft. The jury is still out on that. The problem was the Bulls once again falling in love with a prospect who had glaring weaknesses.
Making the pick look even worse? Yes, no doubt that Hutchison’s character is high, but the pain tolerance is seemingly very low.
Through his first two seasons, he’s played in just 72 games, sidelined the rest of the time with a bad foot, a hamstring issue, and the latest, a shoulder that required season-ending surgery.
Even when the 6-foot-7 forward did play, there were signs that he could be a defensive-minded wing someday, but the outside shooting issues that concerned scouts from his college days were alive and well.
Sitting on the board after Hutchison?
How about Devonte Graham and Landry Shamet, and an area that was a bigger need at the time, point guards Jalen Brunson and Aaron Holiday.
And while Forman is now gone — a casualty of the Arturas Karnisovas takeover — what to do with Hutchison remains.
In the world of current coach Jim Boylen, Hutchison seemed to be destined to become a starter at the three next season, with veteran Otto Porter Jr. coming off the bench. A look around the league, however, especially at that small forward spot, and any roster that is rolling Hutchison out there against the likes of Kawhi Leonard, LeBron James, Jimmy Butler, Khris Middleton and DeMar DeRozan is a roster that needs a serious look in the mirror.
That’s why the Bulls were knee-deep in scouting Heat small forward Derrick Jones Jr. before the front office restructure became official.
The Situation: The small forward spot is just too valuable to hand to a guy from an unproven college program, and more importantly, a guy that just isn’t reliable to dress from game to game. Hutchison is an end of the bench fixture on a good team, and would have to have a massive turnaround in work ethic and toughness to start proving otherwise.
The Bulls do have time to let him develop, but after two seasons, if this was the player that Forman went so far out of the way to hide leading up to the ’18 draft, it’s clear that Forman was again reaching.
The Resolution: Because of Hutchison’s shoulder surgery and an uncertainty with the league allowing player access during the summer in the wake of the coronavirus, it’s tough to see how much better the forward can get this offseason. The Bulls have no choice but to hope.
Bold Prediction: Hutchison will continue to battle with staying healthy, and will no longer be a Bull by the 2021 season.
