Lauri Markkanen Discussion Thread

[sco]

The 4th quartile PF's in NBA make 13 mio/year or less. Bulls offered Lauri 11 mio/year, so they seem to agree with that view. Any 4th quartile PF can be replaced by a MLE veteran without there being a huge difference (be it for better or worse), as they too are 4th quartile players. The 4th quartile players are the bench players after all; better players than anywhere else in the basketball world, but in NBA relegated to the bench.

3rd quartile PF's in NBA earn from 14 to 20 mio/year. They can be replaced by MLE veterans (at least for a match or two), but there will be a noticeable difference, and game-tactics have to adjusted accordingly. The third quartile PF's are in starting five in bad teams, and bench players with reasonable minutes in a good team.

Lauri "stans" before the season thought he is in the third quartile, Lauri's agent asked for 20 mio/year, and that seems to be what many people closely following him thought would be what he is worth. I for one thought so, I have to admit, based on how he has played in NBA so far. Ie definitively a starter caliber player in Bulls, but not so necessarily in a better NBA team.

Lauri haters here however demand Lauri to play on all-star level to deserve a 3rd quartile pay. That seems to me quite unfair. Lauri is not an all-star, that is quite obvious, and as such it is ridiculous for the haters to require him to play as AD or gtfo.

I don't know if you misunderstand what a quartile is, but:
https://www.spotrac.com/nba/contracts/power-forward/

But there are 90 players on this list, if we call the first quartile of PFs the top 22 highest paid players then every player making 13M and up is in the 1st quartile of PFs. The fourth quarter median salary is the minimum. The 3rd quartile is around 4M. No one is suggesting Lauri should be paid in the 3rd or 4th quartile of PFs.

Also, Bulls and Lauri were reportedly off by 4M, I was speaking to KC Johnson, and he suspected (but did not know for sure) that they were at 16/20 in final numbers.

I know when I reference the quartiles term, I'm talking about among starters.

If he's saying it the same way, I think he's generally right, with the top quartile being allstars/near allstars, the second quartile guys being "good but not great", third quartile "ok with upside" and the forth quartile being "ok with holes in their game". It gets tough on the pay because some guys who were great, got old or injured and some of the best guys are rookie deals.

My POV coming into this season is that Lauri was a 4th quartile starting PF, and as such, without major improvement, deserves MLE pay (and AK seemed to offer around there). This season, he's shown improvement, to 3rd quartile, putting him in the #16-23rd best starting PF. Where I disagree with Swuul is that if Lauri is a 3rd (or 4th quartile) starting PF, I would rather trade him for even a 2nd round pick than resign him to a multi-year deal for $14M+ per year because there are just better ways to spend that $.

[dougthonus]

I know when I reference the quartiles term, I'm talking about among starters.

If he's saying it the same way, I think he's generally right, with the top quartile being allstars/near allstars, the second quartile guys being "good but not great", third quartile "ok with upside" and the forth quartile being "ok with holes in their game". It gets tough on the pay because some guys who were great, got old or injured and some of the best guys are rookie deals.

My POV coming into this season is that Lauri was a 4th quartile starting PF, and as such, without major improvement, deserves MLE pay (and AK seemed to offer around there). This season, he's shown improvement, to 3rd quartile, putting him in the #16-23rd best starting PF. Where I disagree with Swuul is that if Lauri is a 3rd (or 4th quartile) starting PF, I would rather trade him for even a 2nd round pick than resign him to a multi-year deal for $14M+ per year because there are just better ways to spend that $.

If we assume quartiles of starters than 20M+ is the top 2 quartiles, there is no one in the 3rd quartile making that much money.

Prior to this season, I would put Lauri as high 4th / low 3rd quartile among starters. It's too early for me to say he's moved up any. He had a few good games and looked like maybe a 2nd quartile guy, but now after a couple dud games, he's back down as closer to a 3rd quartile guy.

Either way, quartiles is a hilariously bad way to describe things, because Lauri is an individual with specific strengths and weaknesses that we can discuss directly and exactly not by making generalizations of the averages of quartiles.

An interesting discussion for me when thinking of how much a guy is worse:
What is the highest paid player in the league that:
1: You think your guy is better than
2: You would still want that player on their contract

You probably don't want to pay your guy more than that number.

[sco]

I know when I reference the quartiles term, I'm talking about among starters.

If he's saying it the same way, I think he's generally right, with the top quartile being allstars/near allstars, the second quartile guys being "good but not great", third quartile "ok with upside" and the forth quartile being "ok with holes in their game". It gets tough on the pay because some guys who were great, got old or injured and some of the best guys are rookie deals.

My POV coming into this season is that Lauri was a 4th quartile starting PF, and as such, without major improvement, deserves MLE pay (and AK seemed to offer around there). This season, he's shown improvement, to 3rd quartile, putting him in the #16-23rd best starting PF. Where I disagree with Swuul is that if Lauri is a 3rd (or 4th quartile) starting PF, I would rather trade him for even a 2nd round pick than resign him to a multi-year deal for $14M+ per year because there are just better ways to spend that $.

If we assume quartiles of starters than 20M+ is the top 2 quartiles, there is no one in the 3rd quartile making that much money.

Prior to this season, I would put Lauri as high 4th / low 3rd quartile among starters. It's too early for me to say he's moved up any. He had a few good games and looked like maybe a 2nd quartile guy, but now after a couple dud games, he's back down as closer to a 3rd quartile guy.

Either way, quartiles is a hilariously bad way to describe things, because Lauri is an individual with specific strengths and weaknesses that we can discuss directly and exactly not by making generalizations of the averages of quartiles.

An interesting discussion for me when thinking of how much a guy is worse:
What is the highest paid player in the league that:
1: You think your guy is better than
2: You would still want that player on their contract

You probably don't want to pay your guy more than that number.

I look at it a little differently regarding Lauri, specifically. If we let him walk, we'll have room for 2 MAX players (or nearly). The opportunity cost of keeping him vs. a vet min/MLE is a MAX guy (either FA or via trade). I really want to add 2 really good players in the offseason, and keeping a non-great Lauri gets in the way of that. If Lauri blossomed into a near-allstar, I'd feel like we already had one of them, and I'd be happy to keep him for $20M+.

[dougthonus]

I look at it a little differently regarding Lauri, specifically. If we let him walk, we'll have room for 2 MAX players (or nearly). The opportunity cost of keeping him vs. a vet min/MLE is a MAX guy (either FA or via trade). I really want to add 2 really good players in the offseason, and keeping a non-great Lauri gets in the way of that. If Lauri blossomed into a near-allstar, I'd feel like we already had one of them, and I'd be happy to keep him for $20M+.

Yeah, there's no one this summer to add anyway which might factor in the decision. In the end, to me, its really just about how good Lauri becomes.

[sco]

I look at it a little differently regarding Lauri, specifically. If we let him walk, we'll have room for 2 MAX players (or nearly). The opportunity cost of keeping him vs. a vet min/MLE is a MAX guy (either FA or via trade). I really want to add 2 really good players in the offseason, and keeping a non-great Lauri gets in the way of that. If Lauri blossomed into a near-allstar, I'd feel like we already had one of them, and I'd be happy to keep him for $20M+.

Yeah, there's no one this summer to add anyway which might factor in the decision. In the end, to me, its really just about how good Lauri becomes.

Yeah, but trading is the way I'd use it this summer, either for a star or for a bad contract to get a great guy on a rookie deal.

[MisterRoy]

I look at it a little differently regarding Lauri, specifically. If we let him walk, we'll have room for 2 MAX players (or nearly). The opportunity cost of keeping him vs. a vet min/MLE is a MAX guy (either FA or via trade). I really want to add 2 really good players in the offseason, and keeping a non-great Lauri gets in the way of that. If Lauri blossomed into a near-allstar, I'd feel like we already had one of them, and I'd be happy to keep him for $20M+.

Yeah, there's no one this summer to add anyway which might factor in the decision. In the end, to me, its really just about how good Lauri becomes.

Yeah, but trading is the way I'd use it this summer, either for a star or for a bad contract to get a great guy on a rookie deal.

Trading gets bird rights. We can use them to keep the players we want while using FA to add depth.


Sent from somewhere you've never been.

[dougthonus]

Yeah, but trading is the way I'd use it this summer, either for a star or for a bad contract to get a great guy on a rookie deal.

I would probably prefer to trade Lauri, because I think his particular strengths are a lot less valuable than his numbers, but I'm just not sure a trade will be available that has any real value. Like say you can trade Lauri for the 15th pick in the draft. Very low probability that pick is as good as Lauri. I'd still probably make that trade because I expect his contract to be out of the range I want to pay though.

[sco]

Yeah, but trading is the way I'd use it this summer, either for a star or for a bad contract to get a great guy on a rookie deal.

I would probably prefer to trade Lauri, because I think his particular strengths are a lot less valuable than his numbers, but I'm just not sure a trade will be available that has any real value. Like say you can trade Lauri for the 15th pick in the draft. Very low probability that pick is as good as Lauri. I'd still probably make that trade because I expect his contract to be out of the range I want to pay though.

I think our best bet is to try for some young guy buried on a deep young roster like NAW or Nunn or Culver - as part of a package with Otto to get a good vet from a bad team like Detroit or Houston.

[PaKii94]

Smh just when I start telling for Lauri again he puts up a clunker of a game lol. His touch has been off again coming back from the time off. He's only at 30% 3pt in the 4 games back.

The hope was he turned a corner with consistency but looks like it's still there. That's definitely something that needs to be improved if he wants to be a valued player.

At least he's still attacking the rim I guess. Hopefully we see a bounce back next game.

[dougthonus]

Smh just when I start telling for Lauri again he puts up a clunker of a game lol. His touch has been off again coming back from the time off. He's only at 30% 3pt in the 4 games back.

The hope was he turned a corner with consistency but looks like it's still there. That's definitely something that needs to be improved if he wants to be a valued player.

At least he's still attacking the rim I guess. Hopefully we see a bounce back next game.

HIs overall efficiency is still up considerably over his career. Even after a couple clunkers, he's still at a career high from 3. I mean its just too early to focus on numbers like these IMO. You need 30-40 games to feel comfortable a guy isn't in a hot/cold streak. Look at Nikola Mirotic before we traded him, it was a pretty long hot streak he was on and he never played that way again in his career.

My general concerns with Lauri are still there, but even with some poor play coming back from contact tracing, he still overall looks like a much better player / fit in this offense than he did last year.

[PaKii94]

Smh just when I start telling for Lauri again he puts up a clunker of a game lol. His touch has been off again coming back from the time off. He's only at 30% 3pt in the 4 games back.

The hope was he turned a corner with consistency but looks like it's still there. That's definitely something that needs to be improved if he wants to be a valued player.

At least he's still attacking the rim I guess. Hopefully we see a bounce back next game.

HIs overall efficiency is still up considerably over his career. Even after a couple clunkers, he's still at a career high from 3. I mean its just too early to focus on numbers like these IMO. You need 30-40 games to feel comfortable a guy isn't in a hot/cold streak. Look at Nikola Mirotic before we traded him, it was a pretty long hot streak he was on and he never played that way again in his career.

My general concerns with Lauri are still there, but even with some poor play coming back from contact tracing, he still overall looks like a much better player / fit in this offense than he did last year.

Yeah I guess. He's looked improved but imo again not THAT substantially from last December. Just a bit more volume, a bit more involved.

My biggest concern right now with Lauri is when he has a bad game/is off, his whole game is off. You can see it on both ends pretty easily. Usually for players when they are off, it's just shots aren't falling. The rest of the game is like the normal standards.

For Lauri, It's not just shots aren't falling. The shot starts looking way off. His finesse finishes at the rim start becoming clunkers. His ball handling starts looking shaky. His rim protection goes from just enough/average to hopelessly swinging his arms for blocks. Everything looks rushed/forced/difficult.

The two reasons behind it that I could come up with are
A) the fatigue/heart rate stuff he encountered earlier is lingering in the background and if so then it's dangerous relying on Lauri then.

B) it's a mental thing. I'm hoping it's this since it's an overall effect on the game. It seems like all our players have been poorly mentally managed. WCJ, Coby, Lavine all regress when they are faced with pressure and Lauri seems to be like that too.

[HomoSapien]

Although Lauri's technically playing better statistically, I can't help but feel that he's less impactful than he was during his first two seasons. He just feels like a liability out there. Weak on the glass, unable to use his height in a positive way on defense, unable to score in the post, his mobility and athleticism are almost a non-factor when attacking the rim, and that driving runner move just isn't that reliable and also often results in a turnover. He just seems much softer than before. Where's the guy that used to dunk like Tom Chambers, was consistent on the glass, and was a surprisingly solid post defender?

This free-agent crop isn't great, but I'm incredibly fearful that we will really regret investing long-term in Lauri. Guys like Oladipo, Lowry, Conley, Collins, Derozan, and Drummond aren't the sexiest of names but I'd sure feel better about our team if we were able to get two of those guys rather one + Lauri.

Edit: He kind of reminds me of Keith Van Horn, and I don't just mean stylistically. During his first two seasons, KVH was incredibly promising and was routinely mentioned in the same breath as Duncan and KG. KVH was able to achieve that on talent and potential alone, but didn't love the game and remained okay as a role player, but was never someone you'd want to invest a ton of money.

[PaKii94]

Although Lauri's technically playing better statistically, I can't help but feel that he's less impactful than he was during his first two seasons. He just feels like a liability out there. Weak on the glass, unable to use his height in a positive way on defense, unable to score in the post, his mobility and athleticism are almost a non-factor when attacking the rim, and that driving runner move just isn't that reliable and also often results in a turnover. He just seems much softer than before. Where's the guy that used to dunk like Tom Chambers, was consistent on the glass, and was a surprisingly solid post defender?

This free-agent crop isn't great, but I'm incredibly fearful that we will really regret investing long-term in Lauri. Guys like Oladipo, Lowry, Conley, Collins, Derozan, and Drummond aren't the sexiest of names but I'd sure feel better about our team if we were able to get two of those guys rather one + Lauri.

Edit: He kind of reminds me of Keith Van Horn, and I don't just mean stylistically. During his first two seasons, KVH was incredibly promising and was routinely mentioned in the same breath as Duncan and KG. KVH was able to achieve that on talent and potential alone, but didn't love the game and remained okay as a role player, but was never someone you'd want to invest a ton of money.

Sadly I agree. The numbers have gone up but I don't feel the same impact from him that I did from his rookie season (and kind of soph season). His rookie season he was pretty fearless and playing free. He was always trying to dunk on people and wasn't hesitant in shooting his shot. I guess that's the duality of Lauri. Even without direct impact he's putting up good counting stats. What's Lauri's numbers if it actually starts clicking for him and he becomes more impactful? I guess that's the hope.

The only thing that irks me about your post is you putting Collins in the same category as the other players. We complain that Lauri is dependent on others getting him setup... Collins is 10x worse. He looks good next to a really good playmaker in Young. He would look worse than Lauri on our team. and I think vice versa too (Lauri would look a lot better next to trae at PG than Coby/Lavine)

[dougthonus]

Sadly I agree. The numbers have gone up but I don't feel the same impact from him that I did from his rookie season (and kind of soph season). His rookie season he was pretty fearless and playing free. He was always trying to dunk on people and wasn't hesitant in shooting his shot. I guess that's the duality of Lauri. Even without direct impact he's putting up good counting stats. What's Lauri's numbers if it actually starts clicking for him and he becomes more impactful? I guess that's the hope.

The only thing that irks me about your post is you putting Collins in the same category as the other players. We complain that Lauri is dependent on others getting him setup... Collins is 10x worse. He looks good next to a really good playmaker in Young. He would look worse than Lauri on our team. and I think vice versa too (Lauri would look a lot better next to trae at PG than Coby/Lavine)

I generally agree that he doesn't strike me as a super high impact player, but I didn't think he was in his early couple years either.

It's weird for me to see you jump off the bandwagon so quickly, especially since definitely feels better than last year. I mean, you are now agreeing with me, but its super early.

[DroseReturnChi]

Smh just when I start telling for Lauri again he puts up a clunker of a game lol. His touch has been off again coming back from the time off. He's only at 30% 3pt in the 4 games back.

The hope was he turned a corner with consistency but looks like it's still there. That's definitely something that needs to be improved if he wants to be a valued player.

At least he's still attacking the rim I guess. Hopefully we see a bounce back next game.

9 games in, thats just likely his seasonal average. Theres no reason to fret over one bad game when everyone was playing garbage and expecting him to maintain 700 ts was stupid.
Even if he avgs as of now 19/7 thats close to a max with his efficiency. Either way, AK lost his bet.

[PaKii94]

Sadly I agree. The numbers have gone up but I don't feel the same impact from him that I did from his rookie season (and kind of soph season). His rookie season he was pretty fearless and playing free. He was always trying to dunk on people and wasn't hesitant in shooting his shot. I guess that's the duality of Lauri. Even without direct impact he's putting up good counting stats. What's Lauri's numbers if it actually starts clicking for him and he becomes more impactful? I guess that's the hope.

The only thing that irks me about your post is you putting Collins in the same category as the other players. We complain that Lauri is dependent on others getting him setup... Collins is 10x worse. He looks good next to a really good playmaker in Young. He would look worse than Lauri on our team. and I think vice versa too (Lauri would look a lot better next to trae at PG than Coby/Lavine)

I generally agree that he doesn't strike me as a super high impact player, but I didn't think he was in his early couple years either.

It's weird for me to see you jump off the bandwagon so quickly, especially since definitely feels better than last year. I mean, you are now agreeing with me, but its super early.

haha I am not jumping off the bandwagon just yet. But I can acknowledge the bad with the good. My defense of Lauri over the past few months wasn't to claim he is a superstar player but to counter the hot takes that he's a trash player based off of last year's performance.

My argument was that his BASELINE is better than his overall career averages and better than last year. I think we are seeing that it indeed is better.

But now the difference is if you start looking at it from my POV.

From your POV, the baseline was reset to last year's averages so this year is definitely an improvement "feels better than last year".

From my POV, we are back to the baseline of what we SHOULD be expecting from him. Then you add expectations of general improvement from a young player and he should be exceeding that baseline. Unfortunately, the recent play has been disappointing.

Before the covid break, he was indeed exceeding my expectations, he was play making more, doing some PnR ballhandling action, he was attacking the rim every time he was touching it, the shot was on point, defense was decent and the movement was pretty fluid.

Unfortunately, after the break everything seems a bit off (starting with his 3 point shot looking pretty poor again). The stats are okay but he seems off by the eye test. I can't really blame it on injury, that calf injury didn't seem too serious. So that only leads me to the mental makeup.

Lauri just doesn't have the alpha mentality. and with this team he isn't really forced out of his comfort zone to confront it. He's more than willing to relegate himself into a team player playing on the perimeter as a spacer. I want him to demand the ball during mismatches. A part of this is forgiven given Coby's incompetent PG play but he should force himself onto the game. Force the issue not sit on the backburner.

It is still early in the season so Lauri has more than enough time to prove me wrong. Hopefully it's just a blip on the season a true "cold streak". A good step forward from him in my eyes (and you could look at statistics for) is if he goes back up to a 40% average from 3 and 5 fta per game overall for the season.



----

I will add competent playmaking from the guards would help alleviate a lot of the struggles though.

[MrSparkle]

I will say that rookie Lauri ‘looked’ better than current Lauri. Not just impact-wise, but health/morale/esoterically. He had a confident run in FIBA, and he had a low-pressure situation to come in and play on a tank job with Portis/Niko having their moment. Once those two came back, in was a 3-man punch of stretch bigs all shooting pretty hot.

It’s absolutely the case that Wendell, Zach and Coby are terrible fits for him. Put him on the Pelicans or Jazz and I think he has a T. Chandler (to NOH) ‘perception’-change. We have a backcourt that doesn’t lock down the perimeter, and centers who don’t own the paint. But with more athletic scoring forwards and bruisers, he can do what he does with little-to-no pressure.

His niche is spot-up shooting, PnR with a really skilled triplet-threat PG (CP3), and microwave scorer against mediocre benches and B-teams. There’s a role for such a guy, but he’s in line to be our #2 (pay and age-wise) and he ain’t that. It’s that simple. He’s a 5th-6th guy. It’d be Pacers-esque to pick him up eventually and join their 9-man prime-age discards squad. He gets massacred by every star big - he’s not in their league. But as a piece of a playoff rotation? Sure why not.

Personally I like his potential in NOP, MIA or MIL (obviously would be funny if he rejoined Bobby - fact is, Giannis needs shooters). If against the current state of things, we move away from Zach, Wendell and Coby.. I can see some sense in retaining Lauri, but it really doesn’t make sense when you consider salaries and potential.

[PaKii94]

I will say that rookie Lauri ‘looked’ better than current Lauri. Not just impact-wise, but health/morale/esoterically. He had a confident run in FIBA, and he had a low-pressure situation to come in and play on a tank job with Portis/Niko having their moment. Once those two came back, in was a 3-man punch of stretch bigs all shooting pretty hot.

It’s absolutely the case that Wendell, Zach and Coby are terrible fits for him. Put him on the Pelicans or Jazz and I think he has a T. Chandler (to NOH) ‘perception’-change. We have a backcourt that doesn’t lock down the perimeter, and centers who don’t own the paint. But with more athletic scoring forwards and bruisers, he can do what he does with little-to-no pressure.

His niche is spot-up shooting, PnR with a really skilled triplet-threat PG (CP3), and microwave scorer against mediocre benches and B-teams. There’s a role for such a guy, but he’s in line to be our #2 (pay and age-wise) and he ain’t that. It’s that simple. He’s a 5th-6th guy. It’d be Pacers-esque to pick him up eventually and join their 9-man prime-age discards squad. He gets massacred by every star big. He’s not in their league.

Personally, I like his potential in NOP, MIA or MIL (obviously would be funny if he rejoined Bobby - fact is, Giannis needs shooters).

Yeah eye test wise rookie Lauri was a baller. He seemed timid/hesitant since the elbow injury at the beginning of his sophomore season and it's progressively gotten worse since then.

If we are truly trying to maximize Lauri we would need a competent playmaker to get him the ball, a front court that at least a net neutral in defense, and a bruiser at C. It's pretty much the worst situation for him. If we are going to move on from him this offseason I really really want to see him to go miami. I think he would be the perfect fit between Jimmy & Bam (and then I could root for 2 of my favorite players on the same team )

[RedBulls23]

Will be interesting to see how long Lauri maintains his 60%+ TS.

As a 3 point shooter he's the same he's been in the past few seasons (31.3% on open 3s, and 37.8% on wide open 3s), but the reason he has been so efficient is that he's at 76% from 0-3 feet and 54% from 3-10 feet. Both of which are about 10% higher than his career best.

I imagine he will have some kind of regression on those shots, and it will take his efficiency below 60%. Though maybe he off-sets that by improving his open and wide open 3s.

[PaKii94]

Will be interesting to see how long Lauri maintains his 60%+ TS.

As a 3 point shooter he's the same he's been in the past few seasons (31.3% on open 3s, and 37.8% on wide open 3s), but the reason he has been so efficient is that he's at 76% from 0-3 feet and 54% from 3-10 feet. Both of which are about 10% higher than his career best.

I imagine he will have some kind of regression on those shots, and it will take his efficiency below 60%. Though maybe he off-sets that by improving his open and wide open 3s.

The hope would be the 3 point shot recovers. He's been horrid the last few games. It's again a tale of two sets and it's not been shots not falling. It's the shot overall looks bad:

first 4 games:
open- 67%
wide open- 40%

last 4 games (after coming back):
open- 11%
wide open- 36%

He's somehow IMPROVED at finishing at the rim between then and is being less assisted....I definitely think it's the danger of small sample sets:
shots within 10 ft:
first 4 games- 55.6%,
last 4 games- 67.9%

Like I said hopefully it's a cold streak.