Lauri:' I can make the comeback'

[Jiipee84]

He has like double the stat average of Bertans and that guy just got massively overpaid. I'm afraid Lauri either gets that kind of money or leaves. Either way I'm sad.

Why you should be afraid of that how much Lauri gets paid ?
And if Lauri really leaves he leaves it's his choice.

Don't get me wrong but somehow i have a feeling Lauri will leave from Chicago at some point anyways.
When it happens i don't know it may well be next trade deadline or next off season
or that year when Lauri is UFA but lets mother time show that.

[GoBlue72391]

Didn't Lauri say that he was changing his shot to make it quicker? I think it was on a Finnish podcast or something. Has anyone noticed a change in his shot lately? That could help explain his slow start. I feel like he used to get more arc on his 3's and it seems more straight-line this season.

I've noticed that when he misses, his release/follow through is awkward and frantic looking. His hands look like a fluttering bird when this happens and it's been happening too frequently so far.

When his release/follow through is straight, tight, and smooth he usually makes them. Maybe he's rushing his shot or shooting before he's fully ready.

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[AshyLarrysDiaper]

Lauri’s shot has always looked a bit flat to me. When people say he has a beautiful stroke I never quite know what they mean.

[PaKii94]

That's the Lauri that is utilized more. Still not enough though. He should be fed shots. I really like him running the pick and roll. It usually ends in a positive outcome. Maybe Lauri can be the play maker and Lavine /coby shoot from the wings

[MrSparkle]

Lauri’s shot has always looked a bit flat to me. When people say he has a beautiful stroke I never quite know what they mean.

He is a good shooter but he doesn't have the Bertans/Korver touch, that's for sure. I agree it's a bit flat.

[FranchisePlayer]

Suddenly this thread became very quiet after Markkanen had a good game.

[Louri]

Suddenly this thread became very quiet after Markkanen had a good game.

It's so quiet that I will post this just to make some beef to this thread.

[SzczerbiakFan]

laurie ‘legend’ has potential to become the biggest bull since u know who...

didn’t give up on the lad yet

[coldfish]

Lauri is streaky. One hot shooting game means virtually nothing.

I see two positives:
- I have probably seen him help more this preseason than in his first 3 years combined. Given that Lavine is also doing it, I'm guessing this is a point of emphasis for coaching. Kudos to the coaches but mostly to the players.
- Lauri is driving. He still doesn't pass but this is better than the stand around the arc Lauri from last year. I don't think that people like Boylen understand that by driving, you force defenders to think about multiple things and it opens up your whole game.

As a last note, there are lots of people asking for Lauri to shoot more. That's borderline insane. He took 17 shots in 26 minutes for a guy without a large repertoire of shot creating moves. Wanting a streaky guy like this to get fed even more is asking for the team to lose a lot of basketball games.

[TallDude]

I agree but he must shoot or he get cold like last ”season”. But only if he get good looks. I like Lauri to go closer to basket more. Not only 3 pointers. 40% was pretty ok today. In Finnish media Lairi said this level he can keep hole season. We will see but then he would be 25/8 player. Near to allstar. Well it was only one game but i did see a lot of ”old” and healthy Lauri.

[FranchisePlayer]

Suddenly this thread became very quiet after Markkanen had a good game.

It's so quiet that I will post this just to make some beef to this thread.

Cheers! At least here will be some memorable quotes to share later on, dare I say asinine.

Some people still haven't got the faintest idea of The Finnisher's ceiling. Too bad Boylen screwed him up and another baby doesn't exactly help to focus on basketball but once he gets rid of the bad habits and advice he followed and everything settles down, his presence on the court will be mighty. Not to mention his numbers.

[Dez]

I agree but he must shoot or he get cold like last ”season”. But only if he get good looks. I like Lauri to go closer to basket more. Not only 3 pointers. 40% was pretty ok today. In Finnish media Lairi said this level he can keep hole season. We will see but then he would be 25/8 player. Near to allstar. Well it was only one game but i did see a lot of ”old” and healthy Lauri.

Dude he can't sustain 40% from 3, hasn't got near it in his career so far there's no reason to believe he could.

Also he took 17 shots for his 22 points and that required him to shoot way above his career average from deep.

Good on him for looking alive but he's still going to need to be better.

[ZOMG]

I agree but he must shoot or he get cold like last ”season”. But only if he get good looks. I like Lauri to go closer to basket more. Not only 3 pointers. 40% was pretty ok today. In Finnish media Lairi said this level he can keep hole season. We will see but then he would be 25/8 player. Near to allstar. Well it was only one game but i did see a lot of ”old” and healthy Lauri.

Dude he can't sustain 40% from 3, hasn't got near it in his career so far there's no reason to believe he could.

Also he took 17 shots for his 22 points and that required him to shoot way above his career average from deep.

Good on him for looking alive but he's still going to need to be better.

17 shots should be about the norm for him.

[sco]

I refuse to believe that Lauri could remotely sustain last nights all around effort without seeing it in the regular season against a team that has any kind of paint defense. OKC's paint protection may be the worst in the NBA. Felicio could do what Lauri did last night in the paint. It is like his game explosion against Charlotte last season that we never saw again.

What is going to help Lauri is the fact that he goes from being our second option guy who needs to be force fed, to one of 4 guys on the floor that teams need to be aware of, but can't load-up on. That seems to force teams to keep their bigs guarding Lauri, which is buying him some perimeter space to work with either to shoot or get momentum on his drive.

[Robin Jones]

I agree but he must shoot or he get cold like last ”season”. But only if he get good looks. I like Lauri to go closer to basket more. Not only 3 pointers. 40% was pretty ok today. In Finnish media Lairi said this level he can keep hole season. We will see but then he would be 25/8 player. Near to allstar. Well it was only one game but i did see a lot of ”old” and healthy Lauri.

It's a one game, yeah, but he was not very 'hot' in this one. Pretty normal shooting game. Being hot he would have scored 30 points.

What was good, as many have mentioned, he has been active in these games. Not just standing on the 3 point line, but actively moving, driving to the basket.

Last season his stats were 15/7,5. This with many different injuries and Boylen forcing him to stand on the 3 p line. If he stays healthy and remains active, there is no reason why he should not become a 22+/9+ guy, even 25+/10 guy. He has all the elements.

Shooting percentage from 36% to 38%, and a bit better defence, of which Donovan can help Lauri a lot, and he would become a borderline all-star. This would exceed the expectations for a 7th pick.

Not sure to happen, but not impossible either. I just don't understand why people put so little value on health of the players when evaluating them. Being 90% in NBA means that your performance will suffer significantly.

So naturally key to all this is that Lauri needs to stay healthy.

[ZOMG]

I refuse to believe that Lauri could remotely sustain last nights all around effort without seeing it in the regular season against a team that has any kind of paint defense. OKC's paint protection may be the worst in the NBA. Felicio could do what Lauri did last night in the paint. It is like his game explosion against Charlotte last season that we never saw again.

What is going to help Lauri is the fact that he goes from being our second option guy who needs to be force fed, to one of 4 guys on the floor that teams need to be aware of, but can't load-up on. That seems to force teams to keep their bigs guarding Lauri, which is buying him some perimeter space to work with either to shoot or get momentum on his drive.

You're selling Donovan's offense short. Lauri himself said after the 2nd OKC game that comparing last year's offense to this one is like night and day. He said he's actually getting down screens now (I know, it sounds bizarre and ridiculous that an NBA team wouldn't run down screens for one of its best shooters, a mobile 7 footer... but here we are) and staying on the move.

Last night, it helped that Coby pretty much took himself out of the game right off the bat and was so out of sync that he didn't even try pounding the ball much of the time. That left more space for natural ball movement.

[FriedRise]

I wanna see more of the 4/5 pick and roll with Lauri and Wendell. With 3 other guys on the floor who can shoot (Coby, Zach, Otto), that should be an easy bucket every time for Lauri.

[Stratmaster]

Lauri's not going to shoot 20% from 3 all year. He'll have a stretch where he hits 48% over 10 games on 8/game and this board will be thinking NBA finals the way Zach and Coby are flame-throwing currently. He's getting decent looks and from different sets than last year. But yeah, he looks rusty as hell. You can tell by how off his FT were. BTW, I don't think he has his legs underneath him in game shape just yet. He'll get there. 80%+ FT shooters will get back to norm quickly enough.

I am actually much more impressed with his D the last couple of games. He's no Gobert, but he's been challenging shots a lot more than he has in the past and I actually saw him do 3-4 perfect rotations when he was the C tonight. Last year he could go for a week without having as many good defensive plays.

Zach shoots three much better than Lauri despite a lot his being much difficult ie not wide open. Coby is virtually money when is left open in addition the high degree of difficulty shoots too. Struggling to shoot 35 percent from 3 when all your attempts are wide open is not impressive. That is basically what we are hoping for from Wendell Carter....

This. If Lauri shoots 35% from 3, the rest of his game is going to need to explode to make him anything more than a bench player.

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[Stratmaster]

I mean, hopefully he can hit them more in the 38-40% range, but 36% is good enough when he's contributing in all the other areas and playing more minutes at the 5. He shot less than 35% from 3 during the whole FebruLauri phenomenon. That's a very pedestrian percentage, yet he still averaged 26 and 12 for a month. When he dropped 35 and 17 in the season opener last season, he shot only 1 of 7 from 3.

Obviously that's on the extreme end and we shouldn't expect that him from him consistently, but I think 18-21 PPG is a perfectly realistic expectation. He doesn't need to be Bertans from 3 if he's doing everything else right.

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If we get an efficient 18 ppg out of Lauri that is almost best scenario at this point for me. He should firmly behind Zach and Coby in the offensive pecking order. Maybe even Patrick Williams by the time the season is over.

If we use Lauri as our 3rd or 4th option then we're pretty much guaranteed to have a repeat of last year. Might as well not even play him if that's the case, because an uninvolved Lauri is basically a useless player. Zach and Coby can get their shots whenever they want and they don't need plays ran for them to score.

Whether he's a cornerstone or merely a trade deadline dump, intentionally using Lauri as an afterthought like last year hurts us as a team. Run plays for him and get him involved in the offense. It's sink or swim time. Either it works out and he's a long term piece or we're at least able to pump up his trade value before the deadline. Using him as our 3rd or 4th option accomplishes neither of those things.

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Ihave never understood the idea that playing a poor performing player more, or giving him more shots, will increase trade value. NBA GMs, coaches, and staffs aren't stupid. They don't just look at the numbers, say "he average 18 ppg let's get him", without looking at the circumstances around those points.

Forcing the ball to Lauri and him failing to the point where you want to move him isn't going to help his trade value.

Limited efficient scoring might make someone consider whether he is being underused and worth taking a chance on.

He averages almost 16 shots per 36 minutes in his career. That compares to 19 for Zach (with the Bulls) and 17 for Coby last season. And some call Coby and Zach checkers. How many more shots should Lauri be taking?

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[ZOMG]

Lauri's not going to shoot 20% from 3 all year. He'll have a stretch where he hits 48% over 10 games on 8/game and this board will be thinking NBA finals the way Zach and Coby are flame-throwing currently. He's getting decent looks and from different sets than last year. But yeah, he looks rusty as hell. You can tell by how off his FT were. BTW, I don't think he has his legs underneath him in game shape just yet. He'll get there. 80%+ FT shooters will get back to norm quickly enough.

I am actually much more impressed with his D the last couple of games. He's no Gobert, but he's been challenging shots a lot more than he has in the past and I actually saw him do 3-4 perfect rotations when he was the C tonight. Last year he could go for a week without having as many good defensive plays.

Zach shoots three much better than Lauri despite a lot his being much difficult ie not wide open. Coby is virtually money when is left open in addition the high degree of difficulty shoots too. Struggling to shoot 35 percent from 3 when all your attempts are wide open is not impressive. That is basically what we are hoping for from Wendell Carter....

This. If Lauri shoots 35% from 3, the rest of his game is going to need to explode to make him anything more than a bench player.

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Let's just see what percentage Coby shoots when the real games start. So far he's 35% for his career. You get no style points. A three is a three.

If the Bulls play offense like they did in the 2nd OKC game (and they should), Lauri won't be the problem. He doesn't have to shoot 40% from the perimeter to be "useful" in that setting.

Coby and Wendell, though... they REALLY don't bring anything to the table if they can't score. Carter's D has fallen off a cliff and Coby can't distribute any more than he can guard anyone.

I'd put Sato in the starting lineup without a second thought. It's a damn shame Vonleh is gone. He would've given us everything Wendell does defensively, plus some ballhandling and shooting.