NEWSLETTER
While Coby White’s breakout has stolen the show, Ayo Dosunmu growth deserves its own standing ovation.
The third-year guard has thrived with his increased opportunity this season. Season-ending injuries to Zach LaVine and Patrick Williams only opened the door further for someone to step up in the scoring department, and Dosunmu has been that someone. Over the last 21 games, Dosunmu has averaged 15.9 points with 4.1 assists and 1.1 steals. Even more impressive, he’s done it on 53.9 percent shooting from the field and 46.6 percent shooting from downtown. That’s some elite efficiency!
Indeed, a lot of this efficiency is derived from the 24-year-old’s shot selection. Cleaning the Glass has 38 percent of Dosunmu’s field goal attempts coming at the rim, which ranks inside the league’s 90th percentile. He also takes 23 percent of his 3-point attempts from the corner, which happens to sit in the 91st percentile. Coaches love nothing more than layups and corner 3s, and Dosunmu continues to play like someone who understands just that.
Of course, targeting these areas on the floor is only the first step. Dosunmu still has to be able to consistently get to his spots and capitalize, and this is where we’ve really seen the growth. Not only does he now do a much better job reading the floor in transition and positioning himself for catch-and-shoot opportunities (see below), but his driving ability has taken a massive leap.
Ayo Dosunmu as a Driver
An above average players on the fastbreak since entering the league, we’re now seeing Dosunmu do a much better job channeling his speed and length in the halfcourt. His screen navigation has become better, but I’ve been particularly encouraged by his dribble-drive ability off the quick assist. Countless times over the past few weeks we’ve seen Dosunmu immediately break toward the rim the moment he catches the ball. And it’s helped him catch several defenders sleeping.
You can see some of what I’m talking about in the clips I recently shared on X:
I have to give NBA University a shoutout for encouraging me to look into this further – Dosunmu ranks FOURTH in field goal percentage (59.4) among all players who register at least 6.0 drivers per game, per NBA Stats. The only players who rank ahead of the Bulls’ youngster are Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic, and Chet Holmgren, respectively.
If you go up and down that list of drivers, it’s one impressive name after another. The top 20 are practically all clear-cut starters in this league, and I think that speaks to the player Dosunmu is starting to become.
Anyway, there is a lot more we can get to, but we also talked A LOT about Ayo Dosunmu’s development as an all-around scorer just last week! So for the sake of not repeating myself, I’ll encourage you to go read that post for an even deeper look at the guard’s significant improvement this season.
