Three takeaways from Caleb Wilson’s first NBA regular season game

Quite a few Carolina fans by now heard about former Tar Heel Caleb Wilson’s first NBA regular season game with the Chicago Bulls. The talented forward finished his outing against the Toronto Raptors with 16 points, four rebounds, three steals, a block, and nine (!!!) turnovers. The detail that made everyone’s jaw drop is that he finished with a franchise-record -45 plus/minus, which as one could imagine triggered a lot of conversation.

I got to watch Wilson’s first game as a Bull, and my honest take is that his debut was indeed pretty bad, but the plus/minus is a bit misleading. So, let’s discuss three takeaways from Caleb Wilson’s official “welcome to the NBA” game.

Advertisement

Wilson’s teammates had an equal hand in his tragic plus/minus

Before we even touch anything that is specifically focused on Wilson, let’s talk about how his teammates helped make his plus/minus ended up as bad as it was. Bulls starting point guard Josh Giddey had an awful night on the floor, and it’s honestly not even really worth getting into his numbers. Giddey at times had tunnel vision on the floor, had some really goofy turnovers, and it was all made worse by the fact that he only made one of his 10 field goals. It shouldn’t be much of a secret that Wilson needs a good point guard by his side as he acclimates to the NBA, but he did not get that Wednesday night.

Zooming out, the entire team shot terribly from the field, and even worse from three. The Bulls were 4-36 from deep, which was one of the worst three-point shooting performances I’ve seen in a while. To be fair, it was less of a shot quality issue and more of an issue of just not being able to make shots. Wilson also got some quality looks from deep, but he just couldn’t get them to drop. When the whole team is shooting this poorly, it isn’t shocking that Wilson’s plus/minus was ugly, especially since he led the team in minutes with 32. That is all important context when assessing such a tragic game.

Wilson’s body at times moved faster than his mind

Something that we all saw during NBA Summer League at times was Wilson’s body deciding to execute something without really…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/three-takeaways-caleb-wilson-first-150000350.html

Author :

Publish date : 2026-10-23 15:00:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.