Six weeks after being traded, Ayo Dosunmu is still making headlines for the Chicago Bulls.
With Minnesota Timberwolves’ star Anthony Edwards out, Dosunmu slotted into the starting lineup in Tuesday’s win against the Phoenix Suns and scored 17 points, including a handful of midrange shots. After the game, he explained the difference between how the Wolves and Bulls view shots in that part of the floor: “In Chicago, midrange shots was really prohibited. It was threes and layups. No midrange shots unless it’s the end of the shot clock,” he told Wolves’ reporters.
This ignited some Twitter wrath in Chicago. Already frothy with angst due to the utter aimlessness of the organization, Bulls fans have placed blame on Donovan for the lack of results over his tenure. They’ve taken issue with his player development tactics, which crescendoed earlier this season when Matas Buzelis explained his “welcome to the NBA” moment as coming in the film room, where Billy Donovan told him to, “take that s— and throw it out in the trash.”
Does Donovan hate midrange shots? Is he really prohibiting Bulls players from taking them? Is that rigid philosophy hampering the development of the one true bright spot on the Bulls roster?
“I’m not opposed to the midrange. If I was opposed to the midrange, I would have been telling DeMar (DeRozan) not to take them. You’ve got to play to the player strengths. I’m a believer in that,” Donovan said.
“The first part of the shot clock you certainly want to try and get something downhill to the basket, and generally what happens is when the ball gets into the paint and the ball gets sprayed out that’s when the threes are going to go up,” he said. “Most of the time the midrange stuff is coming off iso situations. It’s late clock, a guy is stuck with the ball, and at that time you’ve got to manufacture and generate shots.”
Funny enough, the Bulls were top-five in the league in terms of percentage of total shots taken in the midrange, and top-two in long midrange shots (shots between 14 feet and the three-point line). Since DeRozan’s departure, the Bulls have completely flipped their shot profile, reducing those attempts more than any other team in the league while amping up their three-point volume into the top-ten.
In short, Donovan views midrange shots as the last resort. For good reason. Beyond three is greater than two, the value component is influenced by the rate at which someone makes those shots and for the players on the team, these are simply not high-value looks.
“You’re looking at the efficiency part of your team, collectively, offensively,” Donovan said. “Clearly the transition stuff, at the rim, the free throw line and corner threes are going to be your most valued shots. And when you’re playing against teams that are fighting for those margins, you get caught taking a bunch of mid range shots, it’s hard, over a long period of time of 82 games to be really efficient. You may have a game you shoot it well, but the numbers say there’s only a handful of guys in the league that really outshoot whatever the true shooting percentage of an NBA shot guys in the mid range.”
Take Dosunmu, who in his 45 games with the Bulls this season shot 61 percent at the rim, 38 percent on midrange shots and 45 percent on threes. By taking a midrange shot, Dosunmu is costing the team nearly one point for every two shots he takes instead of a three or shot at the rim. That’s the difference between the percent someone convert shots and efficiency or value of it. And that doesn’t even factor in the addition of foul, which primarily take place on shots around the basket.
Simply put, a Dosunmu midrange attempt is not a good shot for the team on a possession-t0-possession basis. He may get hot from game-to-game, but the loss in production will accumulate over the course of the season. That’s why Wolves coach Chris Finch told reporters his “pupil is failing class.”
“It’s all about efficiency,” Donovan said. “We have a responsibility as coaches to explain to those guys the efficiency part, just for their careers. Because you could have a guys taking all these sorts of shots, and they shoot 35 percent on them, how is that helping them? How is that helping the team?”
For a team like the Bulls fighting tooth and nail for margins to overcome their talent deficit, each one of those shots is costly.
Beyond three > two, there’s the element of whether the team has guys that can actually get those shots off at a high level. Isolation players typically produce midrange shots and the Bulls just don’t have those guys after losing DeRozan and LaVine. That’s why they’re last in the league in that play type, but it’s also why Donovan leaned into it when he had DeRozan and even before that in Oklahoma City when he had Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Chris Paul.
As for the Bulls, Buzelis specifically has been at the center of these discussions. So far in his career, he has not taken midrange shots, but after a conversation with Donovan following the trade deadline, they have taken off the training wheels and opened him up to more creation opportunity. While he shouldn’t be taking contested, one-legged Dirk fades, if he can create space while driving and pull up, all the power to him.
“I think Matas is at a stage where he can learn how to do some of that,” Donovan said. “But a lot of times, I think for him, he has relied on his length to create separation, and those shots are hard to make when you’re doing that over and over.”
“I thought he did the same thing in the midrange, but he kind of took an extra dribble and found a way to get to the backboard and got some layups,” Donovan said. “But he’s got to get fouled more. That would be the next iteration for him, is those elite players you’re talking about; Shai (Gilgeous-Alexander), Durant, those guys live at the free throw line.”
Everything in basketball comes with a tradeoff, and that context matters to Donovan. For every midrange shot a team takes, they aren’t taking a shot at the rim, they aren’t generating a foul or whipping sprayout passes to the perimeter that lead to open threes. In the grand scheme of a long NBA season, those are the shots every team and every player are prioritizing. That’s not to say the midrange isn’t important, it’s just not the top option for anyone.
At the end of a shot clock and in the playoffs, the equation might change. Rather than driving efficient looks, they may need a high percentage shot, in which case the midrange may be the best option. That’s a ways off for the Bulls, but as they build up from where they are, they need Buzelis to develop that so he is ready for the moment when it comes.
“There’s a nuance to that, where you can be effective,” he said. “But I try to give our guys as much freedom as possible, but we have a responsibility to each other when they’re out there playing to generate good shots.
