Takeaways from the Chicago Bulls’ preseason blowout of the Bucks, including Caleb Wilson’s underwhelming night

For the first half of Wednesday’s 121-98 preseason beatdown of the Milwaukee Bucks, Caleb Wilson’s movements were accompanied by a discordant compilation of whistles.

The Chicago Bulls rookie just couldn’t find a way to stop the music. He scrambled out to the 3-point arc too eagerly and stepped on Ousmane Dieng’s foot. Whistle. He attempted to pivot around a defender on the low block only to step on the baseline. Whistle. He tried to clear space while driving to the basket by grabbing his defender’s jersey. Whistle.

The game is slowing down for Wilson. He’s learning on the fly. But this is also a lot to take in all at once. And nights like Wednesday capture the steep learning curve he will face throughout his debut season — regardless of opponent.

Wilson found his rhythm at times, as he often seems to do. He knocked down his first 3-pointer with seven seconds left in the first half. He crushed a two-handed slam off a lofty leap from well outside the restricted area in the third quarter.

But he finished with an underwhelming stat line of 10 points, four rebounds and three assists, shooting 1-for-5 from 3-point range against a Bucks team resting all of its starters. Another bump in the road during this tune-up period will be a valuable learning experience for the No. 4 draft pick.

Here are three other takeaways from the win.

1. The Bucks trotted out a secondary squad.

The Bucks used Wednesday’s game to test their depth. All five of their typical starters — Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kyle Kuzma, Myles Turner, Tyler Herro and Ryan Rollins — sat out the entire game.

This gave significant starting minutes to young players such as Dieng, Brayden Burries and former Illinois star Kasparas Jakučionis. The result was a somewhat sloppy, disjointed night of basketball. The teams combined to turn the ball over 15 times in the first quarter alone. The Bucks shot below 25% behind the arc and scored only 39 points in the first half.

It’s hard to rate a preseason performance when one team is rolling out its B-squad. The Bulls were missing plenty of their own players but still began the game with four of their five standard starters on the floor.

Jaylin Sellers made his preseason debut, scoring 10 points on 4-for-6 shooting. Rookie Dailyn Swain didn’t get into the rotation until the final minutes of the third quarter, scoring only four points in less than eight minutes.

2. The backup frontcourt is ready to start.

Bulls coach Tiago Splitter hoped to use these final two preseason games to test his preferred primary and secondary rotations for the regular season, but that wasn’t possible because of the absence of forwards Isaac Okoro and Tobe Awaka and centers Zach Collins and Nic Claxton.

This forced the Bulls to roll out yet another small-ball rotation, with Jalen Smith starting at center. Noa Essengue and Leonard Miller picked up more of the workload as secondary bigs. This will likely be the preferred plan until Claxton and Collins return from injury.

Smith and Miller look more than ready to step into those elevated roles for the time being. Smith knocked down 3 of 5 attempts from 3-point range. Miller scored 18 points, eagerly attacking mismatches, particularly when he could get a larger big on the move and drive downhill to the basket.

3. Why isn’t Josh Giddey shooting?

With only one preseason game left, the Bulls point guard still hasn’t fully defrosted his shot. Giddey didn’t take a shot in the first half, although he did earn a trip to the free-throw line on the first offensive possession. (Notably, he missed both free throws.)

Giddey looked off his own 3-point shot to make extra passes to teammates around the arc and cutting to the basket, limiting his attempts to drive to the rim. He finished with six points off four field-goal attempts in addition to nine assists in 22 minutes.

This is a familiar pattern for Giddey, who took only three shots against the Denver Nuggets, seven against the Memphis Grizzlies and six against the Phoenix Suns. He’s 7-for-20 in four preseason games — a significant drop in shooting volume from last season, when he averaged 17 points off 13.3 attempts per game.

It’s unclear whether Giddey’s preseason shooting pattern is a legitimate barometer for the upcoming season or simply a reflection of a reserved approach to these exhibition games. His role certainly will change in the new lineup alongside Wilson and Norman Powell.

But Giddey previously averaged double-digit attempts while playing alongside high-volume scorers such as Coby White, Zach LaVine and Nikola Vučević. If he truly is shifting into a pass-first approach, the Bulls will need to compensate with much more assertive offense from young players such as Wilson and Buzelis.