Chicago Bulls: end of season roundtable discussion
By Luke Askew
What was your favorite thing or moment from the 2017-2018 Chicago Bulls?
Luke Askew: I just loved watching the player development. Seeing Kris Dunn go from zero to hero, seeing Lauri Markkanen get destroyed during draft analysis and then be one of the top five rookies in the league and setting three-point records like it’s nobody’s business. All of that was really fun. Oh, and watching Zach LaVine dunk on people every now and then.
Daniel Greenberg: My favorite moment from this past season was the game against the New York Knicks. It was Lauri Markkanen’s first NBA game at Madison Square Garden. That was the game where Markkanen showed me that he belongs in the NBA. He had eight three-pointers and a nasty dunk on Enes Kanter. Lauri Markkanen finished that game with a double-double and I will remember that game for a long time.
Khobi Price: My favorite moment from the Chicago Bulls 2017-2018 season was when rookie forward Lauri Markkanen dropped a career-high 33 points during the Bulls January 10 double overtime victory against the New York Knicks. Markkanen showed it all in this game. He went 8-15 from three and added 10 rebounds to tallie up a double-double. He also topped off the night with a dunk of the year candidate over Knicks center, Enes Kanter.
Matt Ostrowski: This is a tough question to answer, mostly because my favorite part of the season was the most damaging to the team’s future outlook. However, that random stretch in December where the Bulls went 10-2 was absolutely the most fun part of the season.
After starting 3-20, it was nice to remember what a competitive basketball team looked like for awhile. Sure, it doomed the Bulls to just sixth in the lottery standings, but what’s a better result of this season: ending up sixth in the lottery standings while having won some games thanks to the development of the youth, or ending up second while showing almost no progress? I don’t know the correct answer but I’ll take the former and cross my fingers for some lottery luck.
Nicholas Neindorf: Watching new players on the team rise has been a lot of fun this year for me. David Nwaba is already a fan favorite and Cameron Payne put a lot of haters to rest this season. Bobby Portis is finally living up to the #FreePortis movement of two seasons and Kris Dunn was a surprising bright spot this year. And of course, Lauri Legend has made the whole rebuild seem a lot more optimistic.
Idrees Muhammad Kudaimi: My favorite part of the 2017-2018 Bulls team was the Big 3’s promising start in Chicago. Dunn looked much better than he did last year, LaVine looked like he should, and Markkanen actually played like Kristaps Porzingis. The future is very bright. An underrated aspect of the season? David Nwaba’s growth. He could be a solid starting wing for a while.
Willie Lutz: Watching Lauri Markkanen develop was one of the most special things I’ve experienced as a sports writer. The night of the draft, I gave the Bulls a D- for drafting Markkanen. Now, I think he’s become one of the most tantalizing prospects in the NBA. I didn’t see it coming, not in the slightest.
Juan Hernandez: Watching Lauri Markkanen play. I very wrongly thought that Markkanen was just a shooter. He’s much more than that. He’s a much better dribbler than I thought, and I didn’t realize he was such an athlete. The Bulls have themselves a key part of the future with the seventh pick from last years draft. And that dunk on Enes Kanter was nasty.
Ben Bokun: My favorite part of this Bulls season was Lauri Markkanen. before the year began, I was unsure about the choice to draft him out of Arizona, but he proved that he can be the centerpiece of the organization for years to come.