Chicago Bulls: Re-ranking players who should be traded first at deadline

4. Lauri Markkanen, Power Forward

Any spike in production that Markkanen had with the Chicago Bulls since the start of the month of December has died down in the last two weeks. Head coach Jim Boylen is catching a lot of flak, including from a lot of the Bulls media, in his usage of Markkanen. While all that faults in Markkanen’s game this season isn’t Boylen’s fault, the blame should go in both directions.

Markkanen isn’t getting the number of looks that he should be in each game this season. Too many games see Markkanen just get eight or nine field goal attempts while another player like center Luke Kornet or Dunn are getting 5-10 shots per game. Markkanen is shooting better than he did at the outset of the regular season, but his numbers are still very pedestrian.

So far this season, Markkanen is averaging 15.0 points per game, 6.5 rebounds, and 1.6 assists while shooting 42.9 percent from the field and 35.0 percent from three-point range. Markkanen is at least getting his three-point shooting numbers above 35 percent, which is the minimum it should be sitting at.

But sitting shy of three win shares on the season and having a sub-15.0 player efficiency rating shows that Markkanen isn’t at the point he needs to be in the third year of his NBA career. The down-slide Markkanen saw this season is a good metaphor as to where the rebuild is at in the third year under GarPax’s direction.