Chicago Bulls: How to unlock a healthy Lauri Markkanen’s potential?

With the return of Lauri Markkanen, the Chicago Bulls need to do everything in their power to ensure their prospective superstar has the best shot at succeeding.

The Chicago Bulls just haven’t been able to catch any luck when it comes to injuries this season. A foot injury sidelined Otto Porter Jr. for a majority of the season, Wendell Carter Jr. injured his left thumb and dropped out of the lineup for several weeks, and a stress reaction in Lauri Markkanen’s pelvic served to spoil what many already felt was a lost season for one of the Bulls’ cornerstone players.

Now, with the return of Markkanen imminent however, the Chicago Bulls might actually get a chance to give their real starting five some minutes together. That is, once Zach LaVine returns from a quad injury in what will hopefully only be a week.

There’s a lot that the Bulls will need to address when that magical time of healthiness comes for the majority of the lineup, but perhaps nothing will be as important as working on Markkanen’s development into a reliable second option.

For a player who was hyped as a prospect on the verge of becoming a breakout star heading into the season, Markkanen never felt like more than a bland starter on a bad team.

Look at almost any metric and you’ll see that this has just been a rotten year for him. He’s averaging career lows in points and rebounds while his shooting percentage’s have suffered across the board. It’s not hard then to see why so many have been quick to call Markkanen a disappointment this season and rail on how he’s in some sort of never-ending slump

That’s not exactly the kind of press you want a key part of your rebuild getting if you’re the Bulls, but it could be deserved. Despite a bounce back December campaign where he shot a red hot 50 percent from the field including 41 percent from downtown, Markkanen hasn’t shown much signs of turning this season around.

It’s easy for people to place the blame for those slouching stats and inconsequential games on Markkanen’s shoulders. After all, we’ve seen players thrive despite their hapless teams before. Heck, Trae Young was an all-star starter this season while stuck on a putrid Atlanta Hawks squad. Still, this might be one of those times where the finger might be better pointed elsewhere than the player himself.

The Chicago Bulls offense has been awful this year in every sense of the word. If it weren’t for Zach LaVine’s tremendous scoring efforts, it would be hard to call much of what the Bulls have done on that end of the floor watchable. The Bulls rank 26th in offensive rating this season, just a touch below bottom-feeders like the Cleveland Cavaliers and Minnesota Timberwolves. Jim Boylen’s offensive scheme of ignoring anything that’s not a three or layup has been gut-wrenchingly bad at times.

All of that has been repeated ad nauseum this season though, so why is it that so many are quick to slam Markkanen?

Perhaps some of the complaints of fans and media alike could be allayed if the Bulls actually made an effort to unlock Markkanen’s potential. During that sharpshooting December, Markkanen’s usage rate barely shifted to reflect that change in his play. Instead, the team seemed committed to keeping him as a deep second option at best.

That’s not exactly the kind of behavior that promotes growth in a player, but then again so little makes sense with Bulls management these days that it really isn’t much of a surprise.

With Markkanen’s incoming return, the Chicago Bulls now have an opportunity to right that wrong. Yes, Markkanen seemingly settled back into his slump in January, but it’s not hard to imagine that some pain associated with his stress-related injury factored into that.

Once he’s fully up to speed and has shaked off some of the rust, there would be little excuse for the Bulls not to see what the team could look like if Markkanen got to handle the ball more.

The key to success for Markkanen in that expanded role could be easy to find too. The Dallas Mavericks have already shown some grand results when they moved their lengthy, cornerstone power forward down to center this season, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to believe that Chicago should follow suit.

At center, Kristaps Porzingis has been a revelation for Dallas. He’s been a total wrecking ball, racking up a 25 point, 10 rebound a game average in February that was capped off by trashing the Timberwolves in his first game of March.

Both Porzingis and the entire Dallas Mavericks as a whole have looked like real threats in the stacked Western Conference with how well “The Unicorn” has been playing. Looking at that kind of success, maybe it would be wise for the Chicago Bulls to test a similar plan

That’s not to say that moving Markkanen to center would instantly turn him into someone as dominant as Porzingis is right now, but it could help expand his role and put him in a place to better succeed.

By cleaning the glass, Markkanen will naturally get the ball in his hands more often, allowing the team to potentially run some plays through him as the primary ballhandler. Playing center would also give him the chance to maybe toss in some Brook Lopez-style trailing threes into his game, or even crash the rim by building a head of steam into the paint.

Those are all elements of how the Dallas Mavericks have used Kristaps Porzingis lately, and it’s easy to imagine Markkanen excelling in a similar role. He’s just mobile enough to keep defenses on their toes when guarding downtown, and he certainly has the height and length to be a solid rebounder. Of course, he’s likely never going to be the same level of stopper as Porzingis is, but a position change could easily help boost those defensive stats.

The Bulls have flirted with giving Markkanen minutes at center in the past, but if they are truly committed to making this version of the rebuild a success, then they might need to give him some more time to grow into the position as another lost season winds down. On the surface, it’s not hard to envision a world where Markkanen turns into a star like Porzingis. All he may need is the time, patience, and opportunity from Bulls management to make that happen.