The Chicago Bulls are running 5-Out without shooting 3's

When Billy Donovan joined the Chicago Bulls last season he ran some 5-Out offensive action but overall the roster was not built to run 5-Out until the trade for Vucevic occurred. Then the Chicago Bulls brought in Lonzo Ball, Caruso, Demar Derozan in the offseason and gave Billy Donovan guards with the tools to add to Lavine, Vucevic, and Patrick Williams to run a flexible 5-Out offense like most of the modern teams are adapting for their base offense. Here is the catch: they are last in the NBA when it comes to 3 point frequency - they don’t shoot 3’s.

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Note: All of the stats referenced are from Cleaningtheglass.com & Synergy unless otherwise noted or referenced. There also have been some issues with videos and gifs not showing up correctly - please check the website version for best viewing.

Spacing

Since I did an in-depth breakdown of NBA spacing and how teams might teach and space the floor, I won’t spend too much time on this for the Bulls.

Post Breakdown: 5-Out Offensive Spacing

5-Out spacing is simple for them as they use Vucevic as a floor-spacing 5 that can pick and pop, spot up and also attack out of the 5-Out spacing on drives or for back down into post-ups.

The Bulls also “invert” the offense or when guards back down (also referred to as “Barkleys” in this breakdown) they have the big space the floor to the 3-point line so if any help comes they have 4 spaced 3 point threats but also attacking off the bounce when the defense is recovering.

Vucevic this year has been below average to start from a shooting aspect with the Bulls, ranking in the 25th percentile of pick and pop bigs - but overall he has typically ranged in the 70th percentile for pick and pop as well as attacking off the catch in spot-up opportunities. When you look at his cleaning the glass numbers, we can see that his 3-point shooting over the past 4 years has been in the 34-40% range, and this year he is only shooting 27% so far. If he shows more of what we expect from a pick and pop and 3 point shooting threat, the Bulls’ offensive spacing will become even more difficult to guard, even though his shooting is not lethal right now, the threat of the pick and pop still opens up the rim for the Bulls guards.

5-Out

To get a feel for the Bulls 5-Out offense here is an initial edit of their 5-Out flow and actions.