NEWSLETTER
After a one-year hiatus, the NBA Summer League is back! The event will be held in Las Vegas from August 8-17th, and the NBA officially released the schedule for all 30 teams on Wednesday afternoon.
Each organization will play four games before the two teams with the best records head to a championship game. If teams are tied, the NBA will look at either which squad won the head-to-head matchup or which squad has a better point differential. More information on possible tiebreakers can be found here. The teams who do not make the championship game will then compete in one more contest to ensure each team plays a total of five games.
Here is a look at the Bulls schedule:
8/9 – Bulls vs. Pelicans at 2:00 p.m. CT on ESPN 2
8/10 – Bulls vs. San Antonio at 7:00 p.m. CT on NBATV
8/12 – Bulls vs. Minnesota at 3:00 p.m. CT on NBATV
8/15 – Bulls vs. Memphis at 9:00 p.m. CT on NBATV
Game 5 is TBD
Bulls fans are surely going to want to keep a close eye on this year’s summer league roster. While we’re not sure of everyone who will make the trip to Las Vegas just yet, we do know that 2020 No. 4-overall pick Patrick Williams will participate. The sophomore made it clear at his end of season press conference that he will take the court:
“This is my first season so everything was pretty much new, but now I kind of have a gist for what the NBA is about and how we play here,” Williams told the media members in his end-of-season press conference. “Just being able to have that in my mind and have that experience going into the summer is going to be huge for me, and also for this team. But I will be playing Summer League. I will be there just to have that experience. This last summer I didn’t get a chance to play in Summer League, so I think this is just going to be a really good experience for me.
Additionally, according to NBC Sports Chicago’s K.C. Johnson, Bulls fans will get to see sophomore Devon Dotson in action. The undrafted free agent signing from the last offseason played for Chicago on a two-way contract this season. Whether or not Doston will hold a roster spot next season is TBD, but perhaps part of that decision-making process will be evaluating his performance at Summer League.
Also reportedly on the roster is former Windy City Bulls player Simi Shittu, per HoopsHype’s Michael Scotto. Shittu played 13 games for the Westchester Knicks of the G-League in 2020-21. He averaged 14.5 points and 10.1 rebounds over that span with a 55.6 percent clip from the field. Shittu also joined the Bulls for last summer’s training camp and did participate in a couple of preseason games. During the 2019-20 season, Shittu played 40 games for the Windy City Bulls, averaging 12.3 points and 6.5 rebounds.
Shittu is a player we’ve written about before, and if he is on the Bulls’ summer league roster, I have to believe he has a shot to finally earn a two-way contract with the franchise this season. A one-and-done player out of Vanderbilt who went undrafted in the 2019 draft, Shittu is just 21-years-old with the skillset to eventually be a solid rotation player in the NBA. The Bulls could very well be in a position where they need frontcourt depth this season, and Shittu might be a worthwhile gamble. The guy has always played hard, and he possesses the type of two-way potential this front office seems to covet.
