
When the season was happening in real time and all the random sh*t with this Bulls team unfolding, Lauri was made an afterthought and overall labeled ‘bad’. Fortunately, basketball is not a binary. There are a lot of things that go into “good” and “bad” basketball.
Lauri’s season can be broken down into 4 chunks: Beginning of the season (6 games), Oblique Injury (14 games), healthy Lauri (17 games), hopeless center Lauri (9 games), KO.
All the following stats are p36 unless otherwise noted.
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Beginning of the season (6 games)- 20.4p/10.9r/3a on 39.3/25, 52TS%, 105 ORTG, 25% USG
This period had a lot of trouble with it but I think the main problem plaguing the bulls was they were playing a new system. This is some of the “growth” pains teams go through. The defense wasn’t on a string (and our blitzing scheme is all or nothing pretty much). The offense was having trouble with new players getting integrated, WCJ was coming back from injury, OPJ being injured & Zach playing poorly as a high usage option.
For Lauri, it was literally just a case of him not hitting his jumpers. His assists/stocks were both up, fouls down. If he hit on his career average of 3s, he would have been at 23p/11r on 45/36, 58TS%. This would have been career highs in literally everything (3pm/points/assists/rebounds/stocks/FTA). Yes the onus is on him to hit his shots, but shooters do go through down patches… this was only 6 games.
Then the Oblique injury happened

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Oblique Injury (14 games)- 14.4p/7.5r/1.8a on 32/30, 48TS%, 92 ORTG, 20% USG
Unfortunately for the fans, we didn’t find out about the Oblique injury until 2 weeks after the fact. So for the casuals, it was Lauri HORRIBLE REGRESSION!!! However, Lauri injured himself right at the beginning of November (during the Detroit game), right when Lauri started looking “soft” & “passive” and hanging out on the perimeter. His hops were non existent and it was easily seen with blown layups and poor rim contesting. Here is a tweet about the injury:
A strained oblique is a pretty damaging injury. A healthy core is vital for all aspects of basketball: shot form, finishing, rebounding, contesting shots, etc. Lauri obviously wasn’t healthy. We now know of Lauri & Lavine’s bid to play all 82 games. He decided to remain on the floor as a spacing decoy for the team. I think this was also due to OPJ/Hutch/Kornet all being out (who would be his replacement). This damaged his rep a lot more than if he had just taken time off.
According to my amateur level doctor research, a grade 1 oblique strain (the mildest classification) takes on average about a month of recovery (without setbacks). Source: http://m.mlb.com/glossary/injuries/oblique-strain
This falls in line with how Lauri’s performance drastically improved in December, a month later.
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healthy Lauri (17 games)- 20.8p/7.3r/1.6a on 50/41, 64TS%, 120 ORTG, 21.8% USG
This is Lauri back in form. Unfortunately, by this point, the damage to the season was done. A hierarchy of Lavine/Coby/Everyone else was established. Lauri was relegated to spacer role. This was the most consistent Lauri has ever played.
I was clamoring for him to get more usage during this period (but he was being played limited minutes and was 4th in usage on the team at that point). Near the end of this period, Lauri WAS slowly getting more minutes and usage (and he was balling out).
Last 5 games in this period- 25.2ppg on 65% TS, 132 ORTG, 24% USG
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Hopeless Lauri playing center on a bum ankle (9 games)- 15.5p/6.7r/1.4a on 43/32, 55.3TS%, 104 ORTG, 19.7% USG
Unfortunately, right when Lauri was starting to rev up, 2 major incidents happened. 1) Lauri had a bad ankle sprain (see video below) and then WCJ had an even worse ankle sprain a game later
A healthy Lauri playing center is pretty much already a hopeless cause. He, imo, has good positional defense but he doesn’t have the mass/length of Cs for shot contest/deterent. He can block some shots from guards because of his length and timing but that’s dependent on his athleticism. So with a bum ankle, it was pretty much game over. No chance. The numbers back it up. The defense plummeted, and Lauri was back to passive/ spacer Lauri on the perimeter.
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KO- DNP (15 games)
Then we had this pelvis stress reaction. Lauri finally gets some rest.
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Overall takeaways?
So let’s summarize it.
Lauri’s season overall was bad/disappointing -> True
Lauri was bad -> Only partially.
I put it on him for not making the shots earlier on. I can’t fault him for trying to play through the oblique injury. I can’t fault him for not having higher usage when he was finally healthy. I can’t fault him for trying to play out of position at C on a bum ankle. I can’t fault him for having this stress reaction.
Discussing Lauri’s injury history and his trend towards becoming injury prone is a valid argument against him. If he can’t stay healthy, it doesn’t matter what he can do when healthy. However, I wouldn’t lump all the play together into “Lauri has regressed and can’t do sh*t anymore”.
Lauri the prospect is still there looking to break out. We just need to pray for his health. I am excited to see him back on the floor soon. Hopefully these freak injuries are behind him and we see the year 3 leap we were expecting at the beginning of the season.