A 2020 NBA re-draft would not go Patrick Williams’ way these days.

Not with a class that’s not only proven to have more depth than originally expected, but one that has already flashed some star power on playoff-bound teams.

Anthony Edwards has proven to be a legit No. 1 overall pick for the Timberwolves, the jury is still out on James Wiseman at two because of injuries, LaMelo Ball has turned the Hornets around going No. 3, and then fourth overall sits Williams.

More tease than franchise changer.

For now.

Especially when the likes of Isaac Okoro (5th overall), Tyrese Haliburton (12th overall), Saddiq Bey (19th overall), Precious Achiuwa (20th overall), Tyrese Maxey (21st overall) and Desmond Bane (30th overall) have been doing what they’ve been doing this season.

There’s no knowing if Bane would be “Bane!” with the Bulls, and he was never considered to be a top five pick. But imagine having a shooter like that, as well as a willing defender? There’s a reason Memphis is sitting in second place in the Western Conference and has a 19-2 record when MVP-candidate Ja Morant doesn’t play.

The Bulls, however, don’t have the luxury of playing the what-if game.

They have to do everything they can to turn Williams’ elite raw talent into something that translates on the court. Maybe, just maybe, that happened on Thursday.

It’s easy to lose sight of what the second-year power forward did in the overtime win over the Los Angeles Clippers, especially when DeMar DeRozan dropped 50. DeRozan sure didn’t.

While Williams was talking with the media in the postgame, waiting in the wings was DeRozan, who kept yelling “Big three pointer … we don’t win the game without it!” in Williams’ direction.

The veteran wasn’t wrong.

With the Clippers trailing by just one in the overtime and 58 seconds left, Williams let his trademark rainbow-arc shot go from deep in the corner, as his three felt like a dagger for the visiting team. DeRozan finished the OT with 10 points, but Williams had five, and more importantly was in the game at closing time.

Not bad for a guy that without prompting admitted to being late for the morning shootaround and getting fined for it.

“I’m not sure if you guys know, but I was also late to shootaround this morning,” Williams told the media. “I had missed some of the film session. I felt like I let the guys down.”

His excuse?

“Just being 20 [years old],” Williams said.

Obviously, not his only 20-year-old moment of the day, as DeRozan was shocked that Williams pulled back the curtain on his tardiness to the public. Locker room business is like the first two rules of “Fight Club” – it is not to be discussed to the outside world.

“Damn, who said that?Hesaid that?” a surprised DeRozan said, after he was asked about Williams showing up late. “I gotta tell him not to say that to the media. He’s tripping.”

In just his seventh game back from wrist surgery, Williams will earn a pass as long as he continues playing with the aggressiveness he did against the Clippers. The problem is he’s been here before, saying all the right things about looking for his shot and trying to impact the game. It’s time for action, not words.

“The guys challenged me,” Williams said of his halftime adjustment. “From the top, Coach Billy challenged me to be aggressive when I get the ball because they were trapping DeMar and Zach [LaVine]. They showed trust in me so I had to show trust in those situations. I wanted to pretty much answer the challenge and step up to the plate.”

That sounded like a No. 4 overall pick … finally.

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TAMPA, Fla. –Just as he expected all along, Brandon Hagel spent Thursday night in the same Tampa hotel as the Blackhawks.

But until two weeks ago, he never would’ve believed this caveat: he did so as a member of the Lightning, getting ready to face the Hawks in his seventh game for his new team.

As evidenced by his hotel-room living situation –although he “can’t complain about living 10 feet from the water” — Hagel is still adjusting to the city of Tampa and the Lightning. He’s still trying to find his niche and likely will be trying for the rest of the regular season, which the NHL’s two-time defending champions basically consider an experimental preseason for what comes next.

As his whirlwind March turns to April, however, the 23-year-old former Hawks forward is looking forward to what this unexpected new chapter of his career will bring.

“It’s really exciting,” Hagel told the Sun-Times on Thursday. “There’s 16 games left, and this is [about] figuring out how this team plays and figuring out my role and how I’m going to really help these guys down the road.

“Obviously my role in Chicago was probably a little bit more than it will be here. But [when] you look at the players on this team, it’s incredible. These guys have done so much in the past two years. I need to find a specific role where I’ll help this team win, and that’s all I want to do.”

Back on March 18, of course, his thoughts weren’t so put together.

He was “literally about to walk out the door” of Fifth Third Arena after practice that Friday, ready for the Hawks’ flight to Minnesota, when he was pulled up to general manager Kyle Davidson’s office.

“I went up and they had the [trade] conversation with me, but they couldn’t tell me where,” he said. “My mind was going pretty crazy. I was texting a lot of people saying, ‘I got traded, but I have no idea where.’ [It wasn’t until] a couple hours later I found out where I was going.”

Craziest of all was that the Hawks’ return for him –two first-round picks and two rookie forwards in Taylor Raddysh (who already looks like a savvy addition) and Boris Katchouk — exactly matched Hagel’s tongue-in-cheek assessment of his trade value after his Feb. 25 hat trick.

“That was a joke,” he said, laughing. “I didn’t actually think I was going to get traded for two first-rounders and two prospects. But here we are. That’s what happened.”

He actually didn’t think, despite the rumors, he was going to be traded at all.

“That’s kind of why I was joking around with [the media] a little bit,” he said. “But I was able to keep that positive mindset going to a team that has won back-to-back Stanley Cups. Everyone’s dream is to play in the playoffs and try to win a Stanley Cup, so getting that opportunity, I can’t be more thankful. And with them giving that much up for me, there’s no place I’d rather be.”

Friday’s game day will provide Hagel a welcome, if weird, opportunity to debrief with many of his former Hawks teammates.

He was only able to say goodbye to a few on March 18, since most had already left for the airport, so he hoped to make up for that with some hotel hallway run-ins and postgame chats. In between, he’ll have “no friends” on the ice –even former roommate MacKenzie Entwistle “is probably going to get a big body out there,” he said.

Friday will also provide Hagel another opportunity to start settling into a new rhythm.

He was glad he got his first goal with the Lightning out of the way quickly, scoring shorthanded against the Bruins last week, but that is his only point through six games.

His playing time has dropped from 17:28 per game with the Hawks to 12:09 so far with the Lightning, primarily on the third line with Ross Colton and fellow trade addition Nick Paul. The Lightning have been cumulatively outscored 4-1 during his even-strength ice time, and his shooting frequency has declined from 10.9 attempts (per 60 minutes) to 6.6.

Lightning coach Jon Cooper has nonetheless urged patience, telling him stories of deadline additions in previous years –such as, famously, Blake Coleman and Barclay Goodrow last spring –finding their strides and making huge impacts come the playoffs.

“They’re not going to just throw me in there to the wolves,” Hagel said. “They’re going to take some time with me, and I appreciate that. I appreciate them trusting me, and I trust the process. … I don’t want to just jump in and take someone’s opportunity. It’s one of those things where you have to earn it.”

And he has certainly proven adeptness at earning things.

“I’ve gone through it my entire career,” he added. “So it’s nothing new for me, starting from the bottom and working your way up. That’s what I’ve been known to do. So it’s just another day.”

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CHICAGO — When Chicago Bulls forward DeMar DeRozan returned to the locker room on Thursday night — having just willed the Bulls to a 135-130 overtime victory over the LA Clippers with a season-high 50 points — his teammate, Zach LaVine, sat and waited to present him with the game ball.

However, as DeRozan went to retrieve his prize, the rest of the team went into a frenzy, mobbing him and dousing him with water bottles in celebration of another clutch performance.

DeRozan scored 17 points in the fourth quarter and added 10 more in overtime to lead the Bulls to a 16-point second half comeback over the Clippers. It was his second career 50-point game and first since Jan. 1, 2018.

“The win is more meaningful,” DeRozan said after the game. “I wanted to win this game badly. You see how tight the [playoff] race is. Every single game is extremely important and we have no more room to be dropping any more games. That’s just my mentality.”

A win Thursday looked unlikely for the Bulls as the fourth quarter winded down. They trailed by three points with 7.2 seconds remaining when DeRozan got fouled by Clippers guard Terrance Mann away from the play on an inbounds pass, setting him up for a free throw that made it a two-point game.

The Bulls put the ball in DeRozan’s hands again for the final play and he got fouled by Paul George on a 3-point attempt. He knocked down the first two free throws but missed the third, sending the game into overtime.

DeRozan finished 17 of 26 from the field, 2 of 2 from 3 and 14 of 15 from the free throw line on Thursday with six assists and five rebounds.

“DeMar is unbelievable. After the game he said ‘sorry for missing the free throw,'” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said. “We wouldn’t have been in OT if it wasn’t for the things he did.”

The Bulls certainly needed DeRozan’s performance to lead them to victory and to keep pace in a crowded Eastern Conference playoff picture.

Chicago is just 7-11 since the All-Star break, but has won three of the past four games to stop its free fall in the standings. The Bulls are currently No. 5 in the conference, a 1/2 game ahead of the Raptors for the No. 6 seed and three games ahead of the Cavaliers to avoid the play-in tournament.

The Bulls’ next three games — Miami, Milwaukee and Boston — are against teams ahead of them in the conference.

“No matter who we play now, it’s going to be this type of physicality, atmosphere, aggression, being desperate to win, competing,” DeRozan said. “You’re going to get everybody’s best blow. You can’t run from anything. As a competitor, I always want to play the best of the best.”

DeRozan is in the middle of a career year in his first season in Chicago, but his production in March had slipped compared to the rest of the season. He had been averaging 25.8 points on 53.5% true-shooting this month entering Thursday’s game, a 10 point drop in both categories compared to his 34.2 points on 63% true-shooting in February.

DeRozan became the sixth player in Bulls history to score 50 points in a game, and first since LaVine did so in April 2021.

DeRozan also capped off one of the most prolific individual scoring months in NBA history. There were nine 50-point games in March, as many as there were from October to February this season combined, according to research by ESPN Stats & Information.

“That guy for us is special,” Donovan said. “He really is. I give him a lot of credit… the fact that he can mentally focus in and lock in on what he wants to get done and how he plays. Even just seeing him at the end of regulation, miss that free throw, he was bothered.

“Some of those guys they’re wired in a way that they have an unbelievable level of focus and concentration. And whether things slow down for them or their concentration is heightened, it’s pretty amazing to see him do.”

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There were moments for the Bulls.

Then again, there have been moments for this team for weeks. Just too many nights where there wasn’t enough of them. Finally, that changed on Thursday.

In one of the more head-shaking games of the season for the Bulls – and this time not a head shake of disappointment – they not only overcame an 11-point deficit with just under five minutes left to send the game to overtime, but then beat the Clippers 135-130 in the extra stanza.

Of course the star of the game was DeMar DeRozan, with the veteran putting a season-high 50 up, as well as recording his 27th game of the season with 30-points or more. Only Michael Jordan had more in a season for the Bulls.

“Heart, hard work, not giving up on nothing,” DeRozan said of the win. “We needed a moment like that … all of us. This is the best time of the year when everything matters. I just wanted to win this damn game badly, especially with how close things are in the East.

“I always tell these guys that as long as we got time on the clock we’ve got a chance.”

And oh those moments that gave them that “chance.”

The Patrick Williams cram with 7:36 left in the game to get the United Center fans to their feet and the home team to within five points of Los Angeles.

DeRozan again doing all he could to play hero, getting the left-handed hoop-and-foul with 2:55 remaining to pull his team to within four, and then hitting a clutch mid-range to cut it to three just over a minute later.

The veteran wasn’t done, either. He seldom is in the fourth.

Two more free throws with 1:05 left, and DeRozan pulled the Bulls to within three. Even Zach LaVine got into the action, with a put-back layup with 16.9 seconds left to make it a one-point deficit.

Two Paul George free throws with 11.8 left gave the Bulls a chance, and after a DeRozan slam it was the free throw game again, this time as Robert Covington made both.

Then craziness ensued.

With just seven seconds left and the Bulls looking for the game-tying inbounds play, Terance Mann was called for the rare away-from-the-ball foul, giving the Bulls a free throw and the ball. DeRozan made the free throw, and then on the possession was fouled by George on a three-point attempt. He made the first two, missing the third, and sending the game into overtime.

“It felt like a bomb went off in my head,” DeRozan said of the miss.

It was in that overtime that the Bulls finally put the nail in the coffin, and the wealth was spread around a bit.

Nikola Vucevic started the extra stanza off with a basket inside, Williams had another dunk and then a huge three-pointer, and of course DeRozan, who had 10 in the OT.

“That guy for us is special. He really is,” coach Billy Donovan said. “The fact that mentally, DeMar can focus in and lock in on what he wants to get done … some of those guys are just wired in a way in which they have an unbelievable amount of focus and concentration.”

With the win the Bulls (45-32) now find themselves still holding firm on that No. 5 seed in the Eastern Conference with just five games left.

“Those are the games we work for,” Williams said. “The blowouts are cool, but the down-to-the-wire games are the ones that mean the most.”

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