It wasn’t a highlight.
It wasn’t even that memorable.
With 6:01 left in the first quarter of Wednesday’s preseason opener with the Suns, Caleb Wilson pivoted, spun, and hit a 20-foot mid-range shot for his first NBA basket.
A nice moment for the Bulls’ No. 4 overall pick, but Wilson wasn’t looking for nice. This is a movement as far as Wilson was concerned. An organizational shift in which he’s one of the foundation pieces that’s been assigned to turn the fortunes of the franchise around.
Not with nice moments, either. With highlights. With jaw-dropping, high-flying highlights that serve notice of his arrival. Yes, done within the framework of playing winning basketball – evident by the 124-117 win over Phoenix – but also not shying away from chasing down individual goals like NBA Rookie of the Year honors.
He reiterated that once again.
“Preseason might not count statistically or anything like that, but honestly we’re all visual and if you see something that you think is impressive, you’re going to gravitate towards it,” Wilson said. “My first impression for the league and myself and my team (started Wednesday).”
He did finally have some “visual” moments in the second quarter, first with a breakaway dunk and then with a smooth reverse layup that drew the foul. With a loaded rookie class, however – especially at the top – the campaign will need more umph to it than 15 points on 6-of-15 shooting (0-of-4 from three-point range).
Wilson was confident that there would be plenty more to come.
What he wanted to show against Phoenix, besides a few SportsCenter Top 10s, was his defensive side of the ball. An area he had been working on.
“I always felt like I could guard but the NBA is way more physical, a lot more communication, so I’ve been working on that,” Wilson said.
Call that a work in progress after Game 1 because there were some issues there.
That could be said about a lot of the Bulls players in the preseason debut.
The Bulls jumped out to a quick 18-13 lead with the starters, as Matas Buzelis, Norman Powell and Jalen Smith each came out hunting shots.
The problem was when coach Tiago Splitter had to go to the bench, once again pressing rookie Dailyn Swain into ball-handling duties with Tre Jones out with a sore hip. Swain didn’t get a lot of help but also didn’t help himself, struggling with ball-handling like he did back in Summer League.
Swain played just 3:23 of the first quarter and was a minus-10 in plus/minus with a turnover. He played another four-plus minutes in the second and had another turnover with three fouls.
The starters did come to the rescue after that. Powell put up 14 points in his 14 minutes of work and didn’t play in the second half, while Buzelis scored 10 of his 14 points in the first half.
As far as Wilson making that early impression, Splitter obviously had a different way of looking at it.
“He really is saying everything that goes through his mind,” the coach said of Wilson. “He’s being honest. He wants to be a great player, he wants to win Rookie of the Year, a lot of the things, but he also works for it.
“I don’t love those individual awards, let’s say. I think if you do the right thing he’s going to get there. Yes, he’s speaking all of those things but he still has a lot to do.”
That’s why Wilson gave himself what he thought was a fair grade for his first game.
“Probably a B,” Wilson said. “I made mistakes but that’s to be expected. Also knowing that most of the stuff I messed up on I can fix.”