Lauri Markkanen Thread: PG. 13 - KC: Bulls Extend QO to Lauri

[FranchisePlayer]

Any actual thoughts on the content of my post?

You were little over 99,9% right.

I disagree a bit with you guys. I'm not a Lauri fan, as you know, but I'm not a hater. I saw him go from a guy who was, IMO, a 4th quartile starter to a third quartile starting PF - mainly on improved defense. I don't want us to keep him. Here's why:

1) While being a decent 3pt shooter. He's not great. I think he's better in a basket facing role (like KD) but he's streaky, and lacks the ability to shoot over smaller defenders (unlike a KD), despite the fact that he isn't getting blocked. He'll also routinely miss open 3's.

2) He is also historically not very durable. I see that continuing.

3) He is inconsistent. He'll have a couple of great games, and then disappear for the next two. I think he lacks aggressiveness and his confidence waivers after a bad game.

4) But my biggest thing is that really hasn't added much to his game over his seasons here. I did see him add a drag-step, which was nice, but for a guy who logged the number of seasons and NBA minutes, he seems to be content with his game and being who he is in the NBA.

I look at the opportunity cost for those $ and minutes and would rather invest them on somebody else. That person may not end up being as good, but there's a chance he will become an elite player, and that's what I think we need.

We certainly can disagree.

But what grapped ZOMG's attention and mine too for that matter was the argument of "There will be a ton of cheap bigs we can pick up who could give us production comparable to lauri and theis and even thad."

You can always call a bluff when you see one.

Even if your every point from 1 to 4 would be true, and frankly, they are not, that argument would still be a hyperbole that doesn't reflect reality very well, if at all.

[kodo]

Is it possible that keeping Lauri, starting him at the 4, gives us both our best starting 5 and our best return on Lauri?

If Williams is the 3, you need someone who is either a better defender at the 4 (Theis) or contributes more than spot up shooting on offense at the 4. Because Williams starting was us basically playing 4 on 5.

Both your forward positions can't be "I'm just gonna stand here in the corner until someone spoon feeds me wide open jump shot" type players. Patrick & Williams are both pretty raw, young NBA players who don't have a wide skillset. Theis is no superstar but he does things, he screens & rolls, finishes alley oops, makes reads & can hit cutters, etc.. The 23/12/5/2 game vs Miami just showed a toolbox we haven't seen from Lauri, even at his best. When Lauri is having a good game he's on fire from 3 but nothing else.

[ZOMG]

It would be beyond hilarious if the Bulls ended up matching something like 17-20 mil (even to trade Lauri later, I don’t care) – just to see AK give the ”I always loved Lauri!” speech at the presser.

[Guru]

I guess my real point is, what if Lauri is actually the best/easiest of a bad group of options at 4?

[sco]

You were little over 99,9% right.

I disagree a bit with you guys. I'm not a Lauri fan, as you know, but I'm not a hater. I saw him go from a guy who was, IMO, a 4th quartile starter to a third quartile starting PF - mainly on improved defense. I don't want us to keep him. Here's why:

1) While being a decent 3pt shooter. He's not great. I think he's better in a basket facing role (like KD) but he's streaky, and lacks the ability to shoot over smaller defenders (unlike a KD), despite the fact that he isn't getting blocked. He'll also routinely miss open 3's.

2) He is also historically not very durable. I see that continuing.

3) He is inconsistent. He'll have a couple of great games, and then disappear for the next two. I think he lacks aggressiveness and his confidence waivers after a bad game.

4) But my biggest thing is that really hasn't added much to his game over his seasons here. I did see him add a drag-step, which was nice, but for a guy who logged the number of seasons and NBA minutes, he seems to be content with his game and being who he is in the NBA.

I look at the opportunity cost for those $ and minutes and would rather invest them on somebody else. That person may not end up being as good, but there's a chance he will become an elite player, and that's what I think we need.

We certainly can disagree.

But what grapped ZOMG's attention and mine too for that matter was the argument of "There will be a ton of cheap bigs we can pick up who could give us production comparable to lauri and theis and even thad."

You can always call a bluff when you see one.

Even if your every point from 1 to 4 would be true, and frankly, they are not, that argument would still be a hyperbole that doesn't reflect reality very well, if at all.

Which of my 4 points do you disagree with?

I didn't say there are a ton of cheap bigs who will give the same "production" as Lauri et al. I do think that there are plenty of cheap bigs who would be pretty good backup bigs though (see the cheap bigs thread). I think we could spend $16-$20M (ie the money Lauri wants) on guys like Bullock, Fournier, Burks or Oubre who would give us more for the money and move Pat to PF. I'd also would rather see a guy like Marko or Baxter get some minutes to see what they can do.

[ZOMG]

I guess my real point is, what if Lauri is actually the best/easiest of a bad group of options at 4?

Of course he is, but the Bulls not only burned that bridge, they dropped a nuke on the smoking remains.

[FranchisePlayer]

I guess my real point is, what if Lauri is actually the best/easiest of a bad group of options at 4?

That's a good point!

We have a thread focusing on who would be a cheap replacement for the Finnisher. Fundamentally, that question has a poor angle. It's founded on a proposition that you can build a good team around three high-end talents, let rest of the players be cheap stiffs.

People should focus on quality more.

[the ultimates]

The Bulls aren't some terrible three point shooting team or are desperate for it. You can replace his shooting for a lot less than 15-16 million a year.

[FranchisePlayer]

I disagree a bit with you guys. I'm not a Lauri fan, as you know, but I'm not a hater. I saw him go from a guy who was, IMO, a 4th quartile starter to a third quartile starting PF - mainly on improved defense. I don't want us to keep him. Here's why:

1) While being a decent 3pt shooter. He's not great. I think he's better in a basket facing role (like KD) but he's streaky, and lacks the ability to shoot over smaller defenders (unlike a KD), despite the fact that he isn't getting blocked. He'll also routinely miss open 3's.

2) He is also historically not very durable. I see that continuing.

3) He is inconsistent. He'll have a couple of great games, and then disappear for the next two. I think he lacks aggressiveness and his confidence waivers after a bad game.

4) But my biggest thing is that really hasn't added much to his game over his seasons here. I did see him add a drag-step, which was nice, but for a guy who logged the number of seasons and NBA minutes, he seems to be content with his game and being who he is in the NBA.

I look at the opportunity cost for those $ and minutes and would rather invest them on somebody else. That person may not end up being as good, but there's a chance he will become an elite player, and that's what I think we need.

We certainly can disagree.

But what grapped ZOMG's attention and mine too for that matter was the argument of "There will be a ton of cheap bigs we can pick up who could give us production comparable to lauri and theis and even thad."

You can always call a bluff when you see one.

Even if your every point from 1 to 4 would be true, and frankly, they are not, that argument would still be a hyperbole that doesn't reflect reality very well, if at all.

Which of my 4 points do you disagree with?

I didn't say there are a ton of cheap bigs who will give the same "production" as Lauri et al. I do think that there are plenty of cheap bigs who would be pretty good backup bigs though (see the cheap bigs thread). I think we could spend $16-$20M (ie the money Lauri wants) on guys like Bullock, Fournier, Burks or Oubre who would give us more for the money and move Pat to PF. I'd also would rather see a guy like Marko or Baxter get some minutes to see what they can do.

Number 2 for starters. Do check out last season's GP stats and see where Markkanen is among PF's and players from his draft. By your standards, the league is filled with "not very durable" players.

I didn't say it was your comment. It was the comment ZOMG and I responded to.

[CaPiTanAK]

It would be beyond hilarious if the Bulls ended up matching something like 17-20 mil (even to trade Lauri later, I don’t care) – just to see AK give the ”I always loved Lauri!” speech at the presser.

Nobody is giving 17-20 mil per year. That’s a guarantee.

At most, I could see some team giving him 13-15 mil a year on three year contract with a third year team option.

Lauri has tanked his stock and value due to him not being able to improve his overall skills and ability to perform on the court.

[FriedRise]

Read on Twitter

[chefo]

The reasons other teams want Lauri is because they're getting a player with a pretty high floor. It took the Bulls 4 years to teach him to play team D, but he finally got it last season. He finally started rotating and challenging shots, as opposed to being stuck in mud and trying to swat them away when he actually decided to move around some. He's always been a decent man-to-man defender, especially on the outside.

Bizarrely enough, last year's Lauri is about the best complement to a Zach / Vuc type duo because, he'll have a guy in his shirt the entire game, and he can finish at 70% in the paint, if you're too aggressive in your coverage. That intersection of skills is what makes him unique and not just another Bertans or whatever that Heat dude's name was.

Compare that to Theis, for example. He was given the WCJ / Dunn treatment, at least while he was with us. Nobody guarded him on O. He was the designated shooter, by the D, not by the O. His guy was either roaming or had a foot in the paint every possession, especially by teams that had any kind of discipline.

Theis is a good player (that I'd like to have back)... but he's a luxury for a very good team that needs quality, low-minute depth. He's nowhere near impactful enough on D for a team like the Bulls to give him major playing time as a starter while disregarding his limited ability to hurt the opponent on O. It's not like he's Capela or Isaac on D for the team to be able to close its eyes and pretend that having a (mostly) non-threat does not impact the rest of the guys on the floor.

I've written about this plenty, but scoring in bunches off-ball, at a very high efficiency, is a very rare and unique skill in the NBA. Lauri was at 21/7 per 36 at 63% TS / 60% EFG (or thereabouts) as a starter before he got to ride the pine... and he did that at HALF the touches Vuc gets a game. Let that sink in for a second.

There's only one ball, and that gets especially important once you have two super-high usage guys like Vuc and Zach playing 33+ minutes a game and getting 150 touches between them. Last year, 4 guys got most of the touches on O pre-trade and these were Coby (inefficient and TO prone as a PG), Thad (efficient and a good play-maker), WCJ (train-wreck) and Zach (super-efficient). Lauri was the second leading scorer on the team, despite getting 30(!) fewer touches per game than Coby, 15 fewer than Thad (despite playing more minutes) and fewer touches than both Sato and WCJ to boot. In essence, he was giving you second option scoring out of 4th/5th option touches. After his benching, his touches dropped to 8th/9th man level, and he still got you 17 or thereabouts per 36 on 60+ TS%.

To close up the argument--you've got a guy that can give you, at the very least, some super efficient scoring, while being a passable team defender as-is. If his momentum on D continues and he actually becomes a good team defender to go with being a good man defender, at the worst you're getting a very high quality 3&D player. If he can actually do better with high usage, you can actually get a high quality starter.

Just as a hypothetical--if he hadn't been benched and still got 30+ min and 40+ touches a game, and finished the year at 18/7 on 62% TS, what would the consensus market value for a guy like that be right now? We're talking about throwing the MLE at guys (that I like) like Bullock and Theis that can't get to double digits scoring-wise even with decent minutes. We're talking 20M+ per for effin' Lonzo, who got more touches per game than Zach. So how much would you throw at a player that gets Lauri's per 30 minute stat-line at top decile efficiency? A player that the second half of the season was arguably the best or second best 'big' defender on a top ten-ish defensive team?

Anyhow, I've said it before, but I'll repeat it again--on teams that don't have enough high end talent (and we don't), you don't let go of players that do something at an elite level (efficient scoring) for players that are barely above average in an area of current need (Theis on D). I'd rather pay Lauri 17 per than Theis 10 per, if I had to play them the same minutes. I'd also rather pay Lauri 17 per than Thad 14, simply because Thad can't play at a high level for more than 20 minutes per game and halfway through turns into a matador on D. It's the mediocre / fringe talent (Archi, Val, Shrek, etc.) that should be replaced by cheap substitutes, not the guy that can give you high teens most games just by being out on the floor for 30 minutes.

Not that it matters any, BTW. AK and Coach D made it rather obvious Lauri is not in the future plans and rather clumsily, I might add. I just hope they are more right than wrong because if Lauri goes to a team with a good distributor like Gafford did, he may make the current FO look like utter idiots, given how much more talented than Gaff he is.

[GoBlue72391]

The reasons other teams want Lauri is because they're getting a player with a pretty high floor. It took the Bulls 4 years to teach him to play team D, but he finally got it last season. He finally started rotating and challenging shots, as opposed to being stuck in mud and trying to swat them away when he actually decided to move around some. He's always been a decent man-to-man defender, especially on the outside.

Bizarrely enough, last year's Lauri is about the best complement to a Zach / Vuc type duo because, he'll have a guy in his shirt the entire game, and he can finish at 70% in the paint, if you're too aggressive in your coverage. That intersection of skills is what makes him unique and not just another Bertans or whatever that Heat dude's name was.

Compare that to Theis, for example. He was given the WCJ / Dunn treatment, at least while he was with us. Nobody guarded him on O. He was the designated shooter, by the D, not by the O. His guy was either roaming or had a foot in the paint every possession, especially by teams that had any kind of discipline.

Theis is a good player (that I'd like to have back)... but he's a luxury for a very good team that needs quality, low-minute depth. He's nowhere near impactful enough on D for a team like the Bulls to give him major playing time as a starter while disregarding his limited ability to hurt the opponent on O. It's not like he's Capela or Isaac on D for the team to be able to close its eyes and pretend that having a (mostly) non-threat does not impact the rest of the guys on the floor.

I've written about this plenty, but scoring in bunches off-ball, at a very high efficiency, is a very rare and unique skill in the NBA. Lauri was at 21/7 per 36 at 63% TS / 60% EFG (or thereabouts) as a starter before he got to ride the pine... and he did that at HALF the touches Vuc gets a game. Let that sink in for a second.

There's only one ball, and that gets especially important once you have two super-high usage guys like Vuc and Zach playing 33+ minutes a game and getting 150 touches between them. Last year, 4 guys got most of the touches on O pre-trade and these were Coby (inefficient and TO prone as a PG), Thad (efficient and a good play-maker), WCJ (train-wreck) and Zach (super-efficient). Lauri was the second leading scorer on the team, despite getting 30(!) fewer touches per game than Coby, 15 fewer than Thad (despite playing more minutes) and fewer touches than both Sato and WCJ to boot. In essence, he was giving you second option scoring out of 4th/5th option touches. After his benching, his touches dropped to 8th/9th man level, and he still got you 17 or thereabouts per 36 on 60+ TS%.

To close up the argument--you've got a guy that can give you, at the very least, some super efficient scoring, while being a passable team defender as-is. If his momentum on D continues and he actually becomes a good team defender to go with being a good man defender, at the worst you're getting a very high quality 3&D player. If he can actually do better with high usage, you can actually get a high quality starter.

Just as a hypothetical--if he hadn't been benched and still got 30+ min and 40+ touches a game, and finished the year at 18/7 on 62% TS, what would the consensus market value for a guy like that be right now? We're talking about throwing the MLE at guys (that I like) like Bullock and Theis that can't get to double digits scoring-wise even with decent minutes. We're talking 20M+ per for effin' Lonzo, who got more touches per game than Zach. So how much would you throw at a player that gets Lauri's per 30 minute stat-line at top decile efficiency? A player that the second half of the season was arguably the best or second best 'big' defender on a top ten-ish defensive team?

Anyhow, I've said it before, but I'll repeat it again--on teams that don't have enough high end talent (and we don't), you don't let go of players that do something at an elite level (efficient scoring) for players that are barely above average in an area of current need (Theis on D). I'd rather pay Lauri 17 per than Theis 10 per, if I had to play them the same minutes. I'd also rather pay Lauri 17 per than Thad 14, simply because Thad can't play at a high level for more than 20 minutes per game and halfway through turns into a matador on D. It's the mediocre / fringe talent (Archi, Val, Shrek, etc.) that should be replaced by cheap substitutes, not the guy that can give you high teens most games just by being out on the floor for 30 minutes.

Not that it matters any, BTW. AK and Coach D made it rather obvious Lauri is not in the future plans and rather clumsily, I might add. I just hope they are more right than wrong because if Lauri goes to a team with a good distributor like Gafford did, he may make the current FO look like utter idiots, given how much more talented than Gaff he is.

These are all good points, but the problem is you're pretty much just preaching to the choir. Everyone has already made up their mind on Lauri at this point and there's really nothing that can be said to change opinions on him one way or another. There's a small portion of us who think there's still something there and that his loss could come back to bite us, while the rest feel he's long overstayed his welcome in Chicago and want him gone regardless of anything else.

For those who are Lauri fans first and foremost and only Bulls fans because Lauri plays for the them, you should want Lauri to leave Chicago and go to a team like the Spurs. That's most assuredly the best situation for him, because if anyone can get him to reach his potential it's Pop.

[Jiipee84]

Lauri would benefit from going to the Spurs with Pop. There he would have a better chance to change his career around for the better. Spurs would have to give something back so maybe Rudy Gay or Poetl would be good. Murray would be the best to be the starting PG but that would have to include more players from the bulls.

Greg '' pope'' Popovich is not coaching Spurs forever.
When Pope retires Spurs will go rebuild and i'm 99,99% sure of that.
Lauri in Spurs won't happen tomorrow or even next week, next month, or next year and for sure not ever.
And why in the hell Poeltl should be come to Bulls if Poeltl leaves Spurs they have to find new starting C.

And as we know Lauri is liability in C because he's not rim protector.
So forget that ludicrous dream Lauri going to Spurs and Poeltl coming to Bulls.

[MrSparkle]

It was my hunch earlier and moves seems to be hinting that way; I think Bulls are gonna work over the cap and try to get s&t or value for every possible guy.. which is smarter than waiving and eating salary, shedding 3+ rotation players to sign a mediocre FA at top dollar.

This is what every good FO has routinely done the last 20 years, except GarPax.

What, you weren't a fan of the Dwayne Wade and Jabari Parker big signings? They were big you know.

I wouldn't say they were big signings. These were "no chance in hell of winning a ring" types of transitionary moves/gambles. But I do think they were safe/good gambles at the time, which ended up a little worse than expected. Wade was the 2nd best player until he got injured. It just turned out that the 13-17 GarPax Farm was one of the worst collections of young FRPs in modern basketball history. If there was a good coach and any talent on that 16/17 team, then Wade would've probably stuck around for that overpaid 2nd season and been happy mentoring and playing low minutes on a half-competitive Bulls. Instead GarPax realized he and Jimmy were the problem and triggered a dead-end buyout by leaving Wade on a rebuild island after the Jimmy trade.

Jabari was a high-risk gamble, but given the Bulls had cap to blow with tanking in mind, a 1y super offer for a RFA #2 pick sounded like a smart gamble to me. No regrets there either. (Also thought the Otto trade was a decent gamble that ended up much worse than anyone could've expected.)

[suursahuri]

Lauri has been training with one of the better Finnish trainers Jani Parkkinen for six weeks now. He said that it took only a couple of weeks to feel the difference in the way he moves and that he hasn't been able to dunk this way for last two years.

Confirms that the Bulls' strength and conditioning program wasn't the right fit for Lauri.

[Dez]

Lauri has been training with one of the better Finnish trainers Jani Parkkinen for six weeks now. He said that it took only a couple of weeks to feel the difference in the way he moves and that he hasn't been able to dunk this way for last two years.

Confirms that the Bulls' strength and conditioning program wasn't the right fit for Lauri.

What do you expect someone to say about a player he's training? "He's looking s*** and slow as f***".

That's the same fluff piece that gets put out about every player, don't be surprised if someone reports a player like Anthony Edwards shot up to 6'10 and grew wings.

[suursahuri]

Lauri has been training with one of the better Finnish trainers Jani Parkkinen for six weeks now. He said that it took only a couple of weeks to feel the difference in the way he moves and that he hasn't been able to dunk this way for last two years.

Confirms that the Bulls' strength and conditioning program wasn't the right fit for Lauri.

What do you expect someone to say about a player he's training? "He's looking s*** and slow as f***".

That's the same fluff piece that gets put out about every player, don't be surprised if someone reports a player like Anthony Edwards shot up to 6'10 and grew wings.

It was Lauri's quote. Also I never saw him compliment the Bulls' strength and conditioning program.

[Dez]

Lauri has been training with one of the better Finnish trainers Jani Parkkinen for six weeks now. He said that it took only a couple of weeks to feel the difference in the way he moves and that he hasn't been able to dunk this way for last two years.

Confirms that the Bulls' strength and conditioning program wasn't the right fit for Lauri.

What do you expect someone to say about a player he's training? "He's looking s*** and slow as f***".

That's the same fluff piece that gets put out about every player, don't be surprised if someone reports a player like Anthony Edwards shot up to 6'10 and grew wings.

It was Lauri's quote. Also I never saw him compliment the Bulls' strength and conditioning program.

Lauri is a RFA, he's also not going to say anything negative about himself.

It's really a nothing quote.

[ZOMG]

What do you expect someone to say about a player he's training? "He's looking s*** and slow as f***".

That's the same fluff piece that gets put out about every player, don't be surprised if someone reports a player like Anthony Edwards shot up to 6'10 and grew wings.

It was Lauri's quote. Also I never saw him compliment the Bulls' strength and conditioning program.

Lauri is a RFA, he's also not going to say anything negative about himself.

It's really a nothing quote.

But when Zach LaVine puts out videos of himself WORKING OUT VERY HARD, they're practically pieces of investigative journalism...