Lauri Markkanen Discussion Thread: PT 2

[samwana]

On O, Lauri's biggest problem by far is that he tends to revert back to Boylen-ball and chuck semi-contested 3s almost EVERY time he sees daylight certain games, like last night. Why? Because it's an easy shot for him to take that doesn't require him to try or work hard on O. He usually does that after he doesn't see the ball and/or is frustrated. It's a tendency his next team will have to beat out of him.

He got a couple of very nice pin downs where he got his guy right underneath the hoop, didn't get the ball in either case and then just gave up even trying the rest of the game. I'm sure in his head there's an excuse, but it's just lazy, sloppy ball both from him and from his teammates. You have to keep trying and if they still don't pass you the ball when you've got a clean attempt from 3 feet, you need to get in their ear... forcefully. I don't think he has it in him. Not at 23 or however old he is. Maybe he'll be that one day, but it won't be on the Bulls.

I've been saying for 2 years now that Lauri needs a sports psychologist much more so than he needs an Icelandic "strongest-man-in-the-world" type coach to make him pump iron. I can tell that on probably 90% of his on-court possessions, he starts in the weakside corner. The problem is, for 80% of these, that's where he stays put. If I'm him, I'd be like--"screw the scheme; screw that's what the coach tells me; that's what Mr. Egghead told me to do last year. It was a shyte idea back then, it's a shyte idea now. I'm breaking the O to get myself going and I'll keep breaking it until he takes me out. Our O is shyte anyways with me sitting in the corner."

Anyways, probably best that he and the Bulls part ways.

It's been a shyte franchise for some time now, and it will probably be one going forward. And he, for as good as he looked as a rook and soph, has flamed out here, whether out of his making or not. Just a waste of talent from the Bulls, but at this point, it's a closed chapter. Onto the next great hope... oh wait, we don't have one right now.

I like Lauri chucking semi-open 3's. The way I see it, either he's an elite 3pt shooter or he's nobody you want as your starting PF. It's not that he can't do other things well, but so do many, many other PF's - but he is elite on top of those things, he'd be a keeper IMO. Otherwise, the likely outcome is that you end-up overpaying.

If you look at who defends Lauri, most of the time opponents hide a small guy on him, because he can't get passed someone who bodies him up a little. It's strange to see such a big guy fade against small guys that much.

I'd love to see what he would be able to do with a real pg though. He's never had that in his career with us. Well probably get to see that on another team though.

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[bullsnewdynasty]

It's almost as if getting a new coach doesn't matter. It never did. So hopefully we can end those excuses going forward for other players.

He's just a thoroughly mediocre NBA player who clearly doesn't work very hard.

[edededtut]

If you look at who defends Lauri, most of the time opponents hide a small guy on him, because he can't get passed someone who bodies him up a little.

a novel way to blame Lauri for the ineptitude of the players (not really) trying to give an entry pass.

[sami71]

He's just a thoroughly mediocre NBA player who clearly doesn't work very hard.

Lauri has some skills and he has size and he used to be somewhat agile for that size. But on the flip side of the coin are some massive flaws that were, in fact, pointed out in his draft thread. Many people myself included hoped that he would work his ass off on those issues and become a very good player - sort of what Jari Kurri was for us Finns in hockey. I don't think it was completely unfounded seeing as he was known as a very hard worker. As it turns out he didn't really work on any of those flaws, neither did we ever see that well advertized new move many years ago - or anything new really. He turned from being a hard worker to something else. I know why, but when I point it out I get shouted at. I don't think he is mediocre, I think he is odd. Some skills but some flaws that are completely out of place in the NBA.

I had never followed NBA closely before Lauri, so for that I am forever grateful to him. But that and disappointment are pretty much all there is left. I just hope we get something useful for him.

[MikeDC]

It's almost as if getting a new coach doesn't matter. It never did. So hopefully we can end those excuses going forward for other players.

He's just a thoroughly mediocre NBA player who clearly doesn't work very hard.

You know there can be more than one problem, right?

Like, your car has a flat tire and no brakes. It's almost as if getting a new brakes doesn't matter. It never did. You replaced those brakes and your car can barely get down the street. Your rim came flying off. People are honking at you. Not one person has complimented you on your new brakes! Nobody pats you on the back for no longer careening through intersections!

L'enfer c'est les autres.

[dougthonus]

It's almost as if getting a new coach doesn't matter. It never did. So hopefully we can end those excuses going forward for other players.

He's just a thoroughly mediocre NBA player who clearly doesn't work very hard.

You know there can be more than one problem, right?

Like, your car has a flat tire and no brakes. It's almost as if getting a new brakes doesn't matter. It never did. You replaced those brakes and your car can barely get down the street. Your rim came flying off. People are honking at you. Not one person has complimented you on your new brakes! Nobody pats you on the back for no longer careening through intersections!

Not sure I understand your comment in the context.

To use your analogy, this is more like someone pointing out you have a flat tire, you saying, no I don't. I just need to fix the breaks. Then fixing them, and someone still pointing out the tire is flat.

The context is:
The players are at fault for their own lack of performance and coaching can no longer be used as an excuse for lack of player performance because the coach is a quality NBA coach.

If you are just saying that replacing Boylen was still a good move, sure I think everyone agrees with that even the original author. I didn't take this post to mean Boylen = Donovan if that's what you are arguing. I took it to mean that Boylen wasn't a valid excuse for why Lauri wasn't playing well, and he wasn't. That is either on Lauri for not doing his best or for the rest of us for having irrational hopes for the guy.

[MikeDC]

It's almost as if getting a new coach doesn't matter. It never did. So hopefully we can end those excuses going forward for other players.

He's just a thoroughly mediocre NBA player who clearly doesn't work very hard.

You know there can be more than one problem, right?

Like, your car has a flat tire and no brakes. It's almost as if getting a new brakes doesn't matter. It never did. You replaced those brakes and your car can barely get down the street. Your rim came flying off. People are honking at you. Not one person has complimented you on your new brakes! Nobody pats you on the back for no longer careening through intersections!

Not sure I understand your comment in the context.

To use your analogy, this is more like someone pointing out you have a flat tire, you saying, no I don't. I just need to fix the breaks. Then fixing them, and someone still pointing out the tire is flat.

The context is:
The players are at fault for their own lack of performance and coaching can no longer be used as an excuse for lack of player performance because the coach is a quality NBA coach.

The “context” you’re providing begs a lot of questions. I’m pointing out that “the players are at fault” is missing the obvious point that there are lots of faults. Players, coaches, management.

The answer isn’t one of these. It’s all of these. And if you drill into them, there’s a lot more complexity to each.

Coaching can absolutely still be used as an excuse. Replacing Boylen with Donovan fixed some of the coaching problems. It’s debatable if it fixed enough of them, and definitely not enough to overcome poor individual play and atrocious team construction.

[dougthonus]

The “context” you’re providing begs a lot of questions. I’m pointing out that “the players are at fault” is missing the obvious point that there are lots of faults. Players, coaches, management.

You are changing the context of the original poster, whom was talking about an individual players poor performance, not the team's poor performance. Sure I agree when looking at the team as a whole there are many problems.

When looking at the individual player Lauri Markkanen in the Lauri Markkanen thread, I don't think coaching is a valid excuse as to why he is not playing well, nor do I think other meaningful excuses exist that are external to Lauri himself. The answer to this particular question around Lauri is that Lauri simply did not live up to fan expectations and likely those expectations were irrationally inflated and that reasonable different circumstances would not allow Lauri to live up to them.

[Leslie Forman]

I can't believe there are still so many excuses for this guy. He is the exact same player he was at Arizona. The last four years really has just been a whole lot of:

[MikeDC]

The “context” you’re providing begs a lot of questions. I’m pointing out that “the players are at fault” is missing the obvious point that there are lots of faults. Players, coaches, management.

You are changing the context of the original poster, whom was talking about an individual players poor performance, not the team's poor performance. Sure I agree when looking at the team as a whole there are many problems.

When looking at the individual player Lauri Markkanen in the Lauri Markkanen thread, I don't think coaching is a valid excuse as to why he is not playing well, nor do I think other meaningful excuses exist that are external to Lauri himself. The answer to this particular question around Lauri is that Lauri simply did not live up to fan expectations and likely those expectations were irrationally inflated and that reasonable different circumstances would not allow Lauri to live up to them.

No, limiting it toe context of an individual player doesn't change things one bit. I'm not even a fan of Lauri's game, at all, but it's completely reasonable to think that if we had a PG who could consistently make entry passes and a coach who favored allowing guys to set up in mid-range, you'd get better results out of Lauri.

Again, the answer to poor performance is to fix all of the above. The reason for poor performance can be any of the above. Changing from one bad fit to another doesn't answer any sort of question.

[BullChit]

I've always lived under the belief that if you have a car that keeps breaking down over and over at the same intersection year on year it's likely that you have yourself a lemon.

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[dougthonus]

No, limiting it toe context of an individual player doesn't change things one bit. I'm not even a fan of Lauri's game, at all, but it's completely reasonable to think that if we had a PG who could consistently make entry passes and a coach who favored allowing guys to set up in mid-range, you'd get better results out of Lauri.

We have a coach that allows plenty of mid range shots, and Sato is probably a typical caliber PG in terms of making passes. Yes, if we had Chris Paul a lot of players would look better, but they wouldn't be better.

Again, the answer to poor performance is to fix all of the above. The reason for poor performance can be any of the above. Changing from one bad fit to another doesn't answer any sort of question.

By this philosophy that it is so complex to judge anything, we might as well say we can't be sure Boylen wasn't the next Phil Jackson, situation was too complex to judge.

Just like it's pretty clear for a variety of reasons, that despite a crap situation, Boylen was also lousy, it is also clear for many reasons that even in a non-perfect situation (but a wide variety of situations from being the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd option) Lauri is also no more than average and is not the special player fans hoped for at one point.

[chefo]

Are people really complaining about his play post benching? Or pre-benching? Or just in general?

Right now, it doesn't matter if Lauri's playing like a mixture of Steph Curry and AD, he's not getting more than 20 min, period. Hyperbole, I know, but he had games where he scored 16-18 points on like 8 shots, played D well, boarded well... and he still can't get on the court for more than 20 min. It's pretty obvious his minutes, touches, and FG attempts have about nothing to do with how well he has played or not. Hell, Donovan straight up said as much.

He's played good D the last 15 games. Not just passable like Thad, not bad like Vuc--he's actually played good D the vast majority of games. He's boarded decently lately as well. Yeah, he's had an occasional stinker game thrown in here and there, but he played well before benching and has been decent since, given his greatly diminished opportunities. He's been a very high quality bench player since demotion... which makes sense, because he was a good starter before he got benched.

Can't believe people are gloating that we blew another high lottery pick, and a very talented one at that. I get some posters here don't like him, but him not working out, no matter what the reasons, is a huge effin' downer in my book. How many 20-year old sophs as good as him have we had on our team the last decade? Crickets...

To botch his career ever since just speaks to how disjointed and bush-league the Bulls have been for a while.

Hope AK and Donovan can turn it around by next year. Lauri is by far their biggest failure this year, IMO.

[sco]

Are people really complaining about his play post benching? Or pre-benching? Or just in general?

Right now, it doesn't matter if Lauri's playing like a mixture of Steph Curry and AD, he's not getting more than 20 min, period. Hyperbole, I know, but he had games where he scored 16-18 points on like 8 shots, played D well, boarded well... and he still can't get on the court for more than 20 min. It's pretty obvious his minutes, touches, and FG attempts have about nothing to do with how well he has played or not. Hell, Donovan straight up said as much.

He's played good D the last 15 games. Not just passable like Thad, not bad like Vuc--he's actually played good D the vast majority of games. He's boarded decently lately as well. Yeah, he's had an occasional stinker game thrown in here and there, but he played well before benching and has been decent since, given his greatly diminished opportunities. He's been a very high quality bench player since demotion... which makes sense, because he was a good starter before he got benched.

Can't believe people are gloating that we blew another high lottery pick, and a very talented one at that. I get some posters here don't like him, but him not working out, no matter what the reasons, is a huge effin' downer in my book. How many 20-year old sophs as good as him have we had on our team the last decade? Crickets...

To botch his career ever since just speaks to how disjointed and bush-league the Bulls have been for a while.

Hope AK and Donovan can turn it around by next year. Lauri is by far their biggest failure this year, IMO.

Lauri is a good 3rd option SF. Problem is that he wants to be a 1st option PF...bigger problem is that he wants to be paid like one.

I still think our best option may be to match any non-crazy offer for him, and try to salvage him or at least his trade value.

[Neonblazer]

Are people really complaining about his play post benching? Or pre-benching? Or just in general?

Right now, it doesn't matter if Lauri's playing like a mixture of Steph Curry and AD, he's not getting more than 20 min, period. Hyperbole, I know, but he had games where he scored 16-18 points on like 8 shots, played D well, boarded well... and he still can't get on the court for more than 20 min. It's pretty obvious his minutes, touches, and FG attempts have about nothing to do with how well he has played or not. Hell, Donovan straight up said as much.

He's played good D the last 15 games. Not just passable like Thad, not bad like Vuc--he's actually played good D the vast majority of games. He's boarded decently lately as well. Yeah, he's had an occasional stinker game thrown in here and there, but he played well before benching and has been decent since, given his greatly diminished opportunities. He's been a very high quality bench player since demotion... which makes sense, because he was a good starter before he got benched.

Can't believe people are gloating that we blew another high lottery pick, and a very talented one at that. I get some posters here don't like him, but him not working out, no matter what the reasons, is a huge effin' downer in my book. How many 20-year old sophs as good as him have we had on our team the last decade? Crickets...

To botch his career ever since just speaks to how disjointed and bush-league the Bulls have been for a while.

Hope AK and Donovan can turn it around by next year. Lauri is by far their biggest failure this year, IMO.

There was a small talk about Lauri in the last Bulls talk and it pretty much summed it up by Bulls just simply wanting something other than Lauri on the spot. And the forward pairing currently seems to indicate its Theis and Pwill. Its just not as much as Lauri being bad as it is expecting Pwill to better in the future. Cant compare Lauri and Theis because their playstyle is so much different. Lauri is more something between 3-4 and Theis is 4-5 and Pwill also is somewhere between the 3-4.

But I have said it before, AK didn't want to sign Lauri on expensive contract because all this was pretty much set in stone at the 2020 draft night. That was the moment Bulls decided to move on from Lauri. AK tried to lowball Lauri in to a cheap contract so it would make him better trade asset. We never actually heard what they wanted Lauri to be this year. All we just heard was "he is looking as good as we expected him to be".

[E-DC]

There was a small talk about Lauri in the last Bulls talk and it pretty much summed it up by Bulls just simply wanting something other than Lauri on the spot. And the forward pairing currently seems to indicate its Theis and Pwill. Its just not as much as Lauri being bad as it is expecting Pwill to better in the future. Cant compare Lauri and Theis because their playstyle is so much different. Lauri is more something between 3-4 and Theis is 4-5 and Pwill also is somewhere between the 3-4.

But I have said it before, AK didn't want to sign Lauri on expensive contract because all this was pretty much set in stone at the 2020 draft night. That was the moment Bulls decided to move on from Lauri. AK tried to lowball Lauri in to a cheap contract so it would make him better trade asset. We never actually heard what they wanted Lauri to be this year. All we just heard was "he is looking as good as we expected him to be".

[/quote]
At this stage, I'm thinking your assessment is probably correct. It never mattered how well Lauri played or that he improved in just about every facet of his game. As we all know, more often than not, it's like being in a twilight zone trying to figure out why the Bulls make the decisions they do, but the answer turns out to be the simplest one. They never wanted him. They had made up their minds before the season even started and it didn't matter if the variables changed, they were 100% emotionally invested in their opinion of Lauri.

Throughout the early part of the season Lauri showed flashes of strong defense (locking down Julius Randle back in February was beautiful) and over the past month he seems to be putting it altogether. Add this to a 3-pt shooting big, who is money around the basket and you have yourself a player. Hopefully for us Bulls fan, AK has something else up his sleeve, and is willing to change his mind going forward when new variables enter the equation.

One positive take away from all of this, I've definitely learned that doing data analysis regarding Bulls players is probably a waste of time and better spent else where

[DuckIII]

Lauri has played much, much improved defense the last couple of weeks.

[Pentele]

Lauri has played much, much improved defense the last couple of weeks.

Yes. That is one reason it is hard to understand all "Lauri has mailed it in", "Lauri is still the same player he was in his first year" etc. comments (the much improved efficiency is another main reason). He has clearly improved in many respects, and he is still young enough to continue improving. But that will likely happen somewhere else. I hope that the Bulls still can somehow benefit from that even if it is for the best for Lauri and the Bulls to sever their ties soon.

[dougthonus]

Are people really complaining about his play post benching? Or pre-benching? Or just in general?

Probably just in general.

Right now, it doesn't matter if Lauri's playing like a mixture of Steph Curry and AD, he's not getting more than 20 min, period. Hyperbole, I know, but he had games where he scored 16-18 points on like 8 shots, played D well, boarded well... and he still can't get on the court for more than 20 min. It's pretty obvious his minutes, touches, and FG attempts have about nothing to do with how well he has played or not. Hell, Donovan straight up said as much.

In 19 games since his minutes have been lowered, he has scored 16 points twice, and 18 points once and never more than that. So yeah, if _any_ player gets hot roughly once in six games, their minutes probably aren't going to be adjusted a whole lot.

Can't believe people are gloating that we blew another high lottery pick

Not sure anyone is gloating or excited about the fact that Lauri didn't work out better. There are people happy to move on though, because they don't see it working out. That is different from being excited it didn't work. It is excited to move past an something they felt was going to fail rather than sticking with it even longer.

and a very talented one at that.

What do you mean by very talented? Like rotation player talented? Sure, but that's not like some big win. He's not star level talented by traditional measures (doesn't create his own shot much, not a great defender, ball handler, passer, superior athlete, good but not elite shooter).

I get some posters here don't like him, but him not working out, no matter what the reasons, is a huge effin' downer in my book. How many 20-year old sophs as good as him have we had on our team the last decade? Crickets...

How many players have we had as good as Lauri in general in the last decade? Probably 15+. The fact that he showed a lot of promise in his sophomore year, but it turned out to be a flash in the pan and not an upward trend isn't really relevant. He's in his fourth year now.

How many players in their fourth year do people go back and say "but look how good he was as a sophomore"?

To botch his career ever since just speaks to how disjointed and bush-league the Bulls have been for a while.

This assumes that Lauri has talent that vastly exceeds what he has done. I don't think that's a good assumption. He's a fine player, and when he goes to some other team on his new contract, then if he plays up to that deal and isn't sitting there with "he might be a star" expectations and instead is playing with "can be a valuable role player expectations" then the fans of that team will feel better about him. He probably won't be a major talking point for that team either way, just like people don't get into particularly heated debates about Satoransky.

Probably people here wouldn't argue about him so much except there is a very wide gap in how good people feel Lauri is with some people still thinking he's a star that has been unfairly hindered by his situation and others thinking he's worthless (and obviously everywhere in between).

My off the cuff view is I cannot think of another player in my head where the team worked harder to make a guy lacking traditional star level talent into a star than the Bulls did with Lauri. Post trade deadline, they clearly gave up on Lauri and said "forget it, he's not coming back, we don't need to prioritize him" but his first 3.5 years here were all about attempting to make Lauri succeed.

Hope AK and Donovan can turn it around by next year. Lauri is by far their biggest failure this year, IMO.

To the extent he's a failure, Lauri is Lauri's own biggest failure. I don't actually view Lauri as a failure though. As noted, to me, he's a guy who's a valuable role player, but the brief expectations for more than that were simply never reasonable. He's probably about the caliber player you would typically get at his pick. A good, but not great player, that will go on to be a problem at contract time.

[DuckIII]

Lauri has played much, much improved defense the last couple of weeks.

Yes. That is one reason it is hard to understand all "Lauri has mailed it in", "Lauri is still the same player he was in his first year" etc. comments (the much improved efficiency is another main reason). He has clearly improved in many respects, and he is still young enough to continue improving. But that will likely happen somewhere else. I hope that the Bulls still can somehow benefit from that even if it is for the best for Lauri and the Bulls to sever their ties soon.

I’m probably the wrong person to comment, but I thought Lauri’s defense both on ball and off ball was reasonably solid his first two years in the league. After that, including this year until recently, it totally tanked out. No idea why. I don’t think his defense has improved. I think it went back to what it used to be, which is decent and perfectly adequate.

I also don’t see the argument for how he’s improved in numerous other ways. His shooting is clearly up this year, which is of course a good thing. But when I look at the rest of his production I still see a player who is worse this year (and last) than he was his first two years.