Chicago Bulls: 3 troubling observations after nine games

Exploring three of the biggest concerns revolving around the young Chicago Bulls

Following the Chicago Bulls’ free-agent acquisitions this summer, it has become pretty transparent that the Bulls front office is expecting to make their first playoff berth since 2017.

Though we are only nine games into the NBA season and it’s still early, there are have been several glaring weaknesses to make note of; issues that can possibly be there all season long for this once aspiring Bulls core. Without further ado, here are three takeaways from the 3-6 Bulls.

Lauri Markkanen’s ceiling

Typically, besides a few outliers (e.g., Butler and McGrady who were not one of the primary scoring options their first three years in the league, unlike Markkanen), after a player is in their third season, they tend to exemplify the kind of player they will end up being for the rest of their NBA careers.

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In Markkanen’s case, after his late rookie to early sophomore season, many fans and analysts began predicting that Markannen was going to become a star one day. Most notably, after his stretch of averaging 26 and 12 in the month of February last year.

But for some odd reason, these past two years, including the small margin of games this season, consistency always seems to a huge problem for him. The same goes for his level of aggression. Or rather lack thereof.

The common excuse we often heard during his rookie season was Markkanen simply hitting the “rookie wall.” The subsequent year, the narrative centered around his elbow injury and how it led to him losing the muscle he had developed that past summer.

So one can only wonder: what exactly will be the explanation for his inconsistent performance this time?

At some point, isn’t it fair to start to ask questions and become a little worried? Not to mention the strange back problems he’s still allegedly battling at just 22 years old. A health condition that drew concern during the first year of the Bulls’ rebuild as well.

Succeeding the promise he briefly showed last season, you would think that there would be an enormous amount of growth going into his third year.

Yet, that hasn’t quite been the case so far in this early season. As a matter of fact, to make matters worse, 31-year-old NBA veteran, Thaddeus Young, has completely outplayed him and rightfully taken some of his fourth-quarter minutes for a handful of games.

As for the notion that Markkanen is a stretch big that fits today’s NBA perfectly, well, Young – who has never been labeled a “stretch four” and is supposed to serve as a mentor to the Bulls’ young core these next two years – is shooting 35 percent on 3.9 attempts, while Markkanen is shooting 26 percent on 6.1 attempts.

And if Markkanen isn’t going to provide anything offensively, it’s not like he’s going to be able to still help you on the other end like he’s Giannis.

There have been a handful of theories thrown around as to why Markkanen’s offensive struggles continue to be a problem. One of them being, Lauri lacking assertiveness; his introverted/laid back personality prevents him from being someone who thrives off of confrontation.

Notwithstanding the different approach this distinctive form of personality commands, two players who have proven to share similar personality traits are the two former Spurs, Tim Duncan, and Kawhi Leonard.

From the get-go, Greg Popovich has always made it clear to his team what everyone’s role was and what style he wanted to play. Whether it was through ball movement or playing inside-out during the late 90s to mid-2000s, if someone was chucking up shots or not running the play correctly, you had better believe that the player was going to get barked at and be immediately benched.

The same went for any mistakes made defensively. No one was immune to criticism. Not even his superstar players.

With the Bulls, however, there isn’t exactly a Hall of Fame coach with Popovich’s credibility to command that sort of respect.

Sure, coach Boylen might have been a member of the coaching staff on those Spurs and Rockets championship teams, but he served as an assistant coach and has yet to prove that his head coaching abilities can lead to winning.

Besides the questionable coaching decisions (e.g., using up all his timeouts very early in a game, throwing out odd lineups, making weird defensive schemes like blitzing the pick-and-roll, regardless of the opponent’s personnel), Boylen has made these past two seasons, the other big question still remains: who exactly is supposed to be held accountable when it comes to Lauri not living up to expectations thus far? In other words, how much of the blame pie should go to Boylen, Lauri himself, the training staff, or just plain bad luck?

If Markkanen really has the potential to be a 1A, as a portion of Bulls fans still believe, does he need to go up to teammates and demand the ball – instead of just serving as a spot-up 3-point shooter (an inefficient one so far, if I might add) – or is that up to coach Boylen? Because there are certainly plausible arguments on both sides.

Lack of depth at the small forward position

There is no question Otto Porter has struggled early on (there might also be an injury or sickness that isn’t getting widely reported). And though he’s likely to find his groove again – Porter actually played very well against Detroit and the Lakers – the Bulls coaching staff doesn’t really have any other wing options to throw out there anyways.

Who are the Bulls exactly supposed to replace Porter with that will make them that substantially better? Valentine? Hutchinson?

It’s pretty obvious that in light of Butler being traded in the summer of 2017, the Bulls have been in dire need of a defensive-minded wing – badly. Their lack of depth at the three even led to Fred Hoiberg overplaying Justin Holiday for the 2017-18 and 2018-19 season, as well as Boylen consistently opting to put out an undersized three-guard lineup after being named the interim head coach.

Late last season, Boylen’s three-guard lineup included Kris Dunn, Shaq Harrison, and Wayne Selden.

As for the seven games into this 2019-2020 season, Boylen has been playing Kris Dunn, Coby White, and Ryan Arcidiacono together off the bench. At times, Boylen even chooses to have either Archie or White play alongside Zach Lavine and Tomas Satoranksy. And the question many fans are contemporarily wondering is why?

After all, it’s pretty much common sense that those undersized lineups create mismatches defensively and affects their ability to rebound at an effective rate, let alone forces the Bulls’ best rim protector, in Wendall Carter, to leave the rim and trap the ballhandler in pick-and-roll situations.

It’s almost as if Boylen, or whoever came up with that particular defensive scheme, believes Porter, or any other guard who provides backside help, has a good chance of defending the rim as effectively as Carter.

Statistically speaking, according to NBA.com’s stats, even the numbers point out that when it comes to the Bulls’ defensive rebound percentage, they are ranked dead last by averaging an abysmal 68.2 percent (it jumped to 68.9 after Carter’s rebounding night against the Lakers).

Now, in Boylen’s defense, Hutchinson was injured to start the season. Hence the reason why on Tuesday, when the Bulls faced the Lakers, Hutchinson made his long-overdue debut by guarding LeBron immediately off the bench, while Archie only got one minute of action.

Then again, instead of making quick substitutions based on player matchups, Boylen still decided to stick to his usual three-guard lineup of White, Lavine, and Satoranksy, where throughout small stretches of the game, either White or Markkannen were matched up against LeBron on defense, which is simply a disaster waiting to happen.

Make no mistake, until Hutchinson is able to reconstruct his shot or at least become somewhat of a threat from the perimeter – other than being able to push the ball in the open court after grabbing a rebound – he’s practically ineffective on offense. His performance in the Summer League as a 23-year-old sophomore can only amplify concern.

However, if the Bulls were to look at addressing the wing position via trade, it’s worth noting that Dunn would likely need to be attached which would only create a void at the point guard position.

And for all of Dunn’s flaws, based on what we have seen so far in White’s rookie season, White has proven he’s too scoring oriented to run an NBA offense at the point guard position; if he were to become the primary backup point guard rather than playing off the ball as he does now, the ball movement would be atrocious and look even worse than it does now.

Above all, one must not forget, Coby White has naturally been a two-guard going back to his high school days at Greenfield School.

Besides Paxson calling him a “combo guard” during the Bulls’ post-draft press conference this past summer, White only slid into the point guard role at North Carolina once Joel Berry II graduated and coach Roy Williams didn’t have any other choice.

Lavine’s fit with Markkanen

Based on his scoring production last year, Lavine has earned the role of serving as the primary scorer on this Bulls team.

That being said, despite Lavine’s playmaking noticeably improving, he still tends to live up to the “scorer” label by always looking for his own shot first in key moments. More specifically, in the fourth quarter.

If that’s the case, it’s only normal to wonder just how much more creative Boylen can get in order to maximize Lauri’s offensive abilities. Because it definitely won’t come from running the pick-and-pop with Lavine and having Lauri simply stay on the perimeter like he’s Channing Frye -ironically his draft night comparison.

John Sabine of the Bulls Outsiders made the valid point that the Bulls should consider staggering the minutes of both Markkanen and Lavine. That way, each individual player can become the focal point of the offense for two and a half quarters.

A few minutes of this particular strategy occurred against Indiana on Sunday. Both Lavine and Markkanen were pretty inefficient, but once they start hitting their shots more consecutively, this might be something to keep a close eye on.

All in all, the harsh reality is that yes, the Bulls’ best players aren’t living up to expectations and they are only two games ahead of the dreadful Knicks. But outside of Thaddeus Young and Wendall Carter (Lavine is doing well on the offensive end, but his off-ball defense is still bad), everyone is playing awful.

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Hopefully, that will change soon because if it continues to go sideways, not only will it be hard to get a high lottery pick given the new lottery reform, but it will also ruin the organization’s chances at potentially attracting a max free agent in 2021. Even if it has always been a longshot.

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