The Bulls have made a point to mention — frequently — how second-year big man Wendell Carter Jr., an undersized center, muscled up this offseason.
Carter was 255 pounds as a rookie but was sitting at 270 at the start of training camp, keeping his body fat at 6 percent.
“I just think he’s filling out,” coach Jim Boylen said. “Did we consciously put pounds on him? He’s just a big dude. He’s proportioned. He’s 6 percent body fat. I mean, I never heard of that for a guy like that. ‘Dream’ was like that.”
He was referring to Hall of Famer Hakeem “The Dream” Olajuwon, whom Boylen spent time with years ago when he was an assistant with the Rockets.
Now, if the Bulls can just get Carter to play like Olajuwon. They’d take 6 percent of that at this point.
“I didn’t have a chance to coach Hakeem at 19 and 20, but I think [Carter’s] combination of his intelligence, his feet, his instincts [and] his physical presence, I think, gives him, with experience, the ability to do some of those things — the ability to impact the game at both ends,’’ Boylen said. “He can catch the ball in the pocket and make a decision. That’s usually not a skill for a young guy. He can rim-protect. He can do the straight up at the rim. He’ll adapt, and he’ll grow.
“But I think people underestimate how smart he is. I think that’s a really big thing. He knows what we’re doing. He’s an intelligent young guy. And I’ve said this before — he embraces contact and collision. If you can do that, man, you can do anything in this world.”
For now the mission for Carter, 20, is simple: Play defense in the middle and stay healthy. The latter remains an issue.
Thumb surgery forced him to miss the second half of last season after he had played in just 44 games. He then had offseason surgery for what has been described as a sports hernia that had affected him since he was 15. During his first four days of camp this week, he sprained his left ankle and bruised his tailbone, forcing him to miss practice Friday.
Health isn’t the only hump he’s working to get over. The Bulls list Carter at 6-10 — but that’s perhaps if he’s wearing shoes with extra padding. A handful of times last season, he stood out as undersized while true 7-foot centers overwhelmed him physically. The team considers him the starting center, but Carter claims to be a power forward.
“But I come here and I want to win,” he said. “You can list me as a center — you can list me at whatever y’all want to. I know my game, and I am going to come in and do what I have to do to help the team.”
The hope is that his intelligence and added muscle will be equalizers against the NBA’s giants, and then the offense will come. Those are big ifs at this point, but the Bulls are counting on them.
“We don’t really talk about him being a center,” Boylen said. “I talk about him being a dominant player at the defensive end and an evolving player at the offensive end. That’s kind of how we talk about it.
“Remember now, he only played 44 games [as a rookie]. So he’s still a work in progress.”
