Bulls draft Lauri Markkanen

[DuckIII]

The key in today's NBA is giving max contracts only to players that can win you a championship. Look at Boston, they are going to have Horford, Hayward, and IT on max deals. They will never win a championship with those 3 as the big contracts. Bulls need to hit on a couple draft picks and then go after a big free agent. Our best case scenario is Dunn, Lavine, Porter, Lauri, Anthony Davis
starting 5

Exactly....not paying unproven 12min per game role players (Felicio) 8mil per year to be a backup.

That contract is meaningless. There is a cap floor, and by the time the Bulls will be an attractive destination for a major free agent he will be expiring. And $8 million isn't jack in today's NBA.

[BobanSmash]

If you are crazy enough here is a link for the full game with Russian commentary

Watch on YouTube

If I can find proper stats from the game, then I will post the times that Lauri played so if you decide to watch you could go straight to the parts with him playing but I haven't found them yet at least

1st quarter: in 5:32 time left played rest of the quarter
2nd quarter: started, subbed out 5:41 remaining, back in 2:11 remaining and played till end of half
3rd quarter: in 7:06 remaining, subbed out 1:50 remaining
4th quarter: in 08:52 remaining, subbed out 1:59 remaining

Only full stats that I could find were in russian so there might be mistakes

[Foliohattu]

Lauri´s boxscore from the finnish stats:

24 min / 17p / 9rb (5orb/4drb) / 1ast / 4f / 1to. Shooting 0/3 from 3, 6/14 from the field and 5/5 from the line.

[DuckIII]

Thanks to all of you for all the updates and data.

[Jcool0]

Read on Twitter

[MC3]

Russia threated him like he is Dirk lol Only one double teamed when he tried post up guy. And I like him going for offensive put backs. To bad he lacks elite lenght to put them in like a boss. So often they misfire. He wont get longer, but he can put up work in gym to jump higher.

[BobanSmash]

Russia threated him like he is Dirk lol Only one double teamed when he tried post up guy. And I like him going for offensive put backs. To bad he lacks elite lenght to put them in like boss. So often they misfire. He wont get longer, but he can put up work in gym to jump higher.

Even if he is young he is the number one offensive weapon on that team since Koponen is out at the moment (the best player and starting point guard of finnish national team) so opponent can and will focus on stopping him, Salin's three point shooting is also a big threat for opponents but he is not an one on one player and will get his shots within the sets and transitions anyway.

Finland missing their starting PG should be taken into consideration when judging Lauri's performance, Finnish national team without Koponen is like NBA team playing with D-league PG at the moment, Rannikko used to be top level European PG but he is 36 years old and way past his prime, he has been of the NT for couple of years but is now filling in because of the injury situation.

Good first game from Lauri

[Louri]

Lauri had 18/6 in just 15 minutes vs Israel.

5/7 2p, 2/2 3p, 2/3 Ft

Pretty good first practice games with FIN national team for Lauri. We will see much more at the end of this month in Eurobasket. He will be GOAT in that competition.

[Jcool0]

Read on Twitter

[bledredwine]

Read on Twitter

Oh man, I hope he does that in-game esp in clutch situations!

[Stratmaster]

Read on Twitter

Oh man, I hope he does that in-game esp in clutch situations!

Well, if Grant and Wade are distributing he may have to. #prayfordunn

[Nikola]

After Nikola, I feel like the value of foreign players who play for their countries in the summer should be lowered come draft time.

[MC3]

Watch on YouTube

his highlights against russia. there wont be highlights against israel because it wasnt televised

[PaKii94]

What I like about this guy is he's scrawny still with a bigger frame. He definitely has potential to put on some muscle. I am hesitant to say that for Dougie and Valentine

[sco]

his highlights against russia. there wont be highlight against israel because it wasnt televised

Seemed slower than I thought, but like his touch around the rim - even a little english on the lay-ups.

[GimmeDat]

Play at 0:35 looked pretty athletic.

[sco]

Play at 0:35 looked pretty athletic.

looked again...feel a little better

[coldfish]

The key in today's NBA is giving max contracts only to players that can win you a championship. Look at Boston, they are going to have Horford, Hayward, and IT on max deals. They will never win a championship with those 3 as the big contracts. Bulls need to hit on a couple draft picks and then go after a big free agent. Our best case scenario is Dunn, Lavine, Porter, Lauri, Anthony Davis
starting 5

Exactly....not paying unproven 12min per game role players (Felicio) 8mil per year to be a backup.

That contract is meaningless. There is a cap floor, and by the time the Bulls will be an attractive destination for a major free agent he will be expiring. And $8 million isn't jack in today's NBA.

You don't have to meet the cap floor until the end of the season. Hinkie would minimize the salary and let teams sell bad contracts into it over the course of the season for the cost of first round picks. Given that capspace is again tight, any organization in that position could demand a premium.

If the Bulls were to be open to that, Felicio's contract would matter. I suspect that they aren't, given that first round picks would end up costing Jerry millions of dollars.

[TheSuzerain]

You actually don't have to meet the cap floor at all

[Proven_Winner]

Might just be me but damn I'm glad lauri doesn't go up like a **** when he's in the paint. I personally hate big guys going for layups at the rim only to inevitably get blocked or just miss. Also lauri hasn't played in the NBA yet but just looking. At his college and even these games he's playing now he doesn't look lost. He just looks laser focused and at least looks like he knows where he needs to be.