Chicago Bulls: 3 reasons to trade Lauri Markkanen this offseason

2. Injury history (trade him before all value lapses)

While it is problematic that Markkanen not meshing well with the other pieces of the Bulls young core, that is not the worst part about his short career so far in the NBA. In his third year in the NBA coming out of the Arizona Wildcats basketball program, Markkanen was looking to prove that he could finally put a fully healthy season together.

Markkanen was able to mostly stay healthy in the first half of the regular season, but everything started to fall apart in February. Ankle sprains and a pelvic injury started to limit Markkanen in the last month or two before the pausing of the season. He was getting back into the swing of it at the outset of March, but who knows how long that was going to last.

Prior to the NBA hiatus from COVID-19, Markkanen was just a couple games away from eclipsing the total number he played in last season. Various injury problems limited Markkanen to just over 50 games played last season. He played in 16 more games during his rookie season than he did in his second year.

This injury timeline for Markkanen since starting his NBA career back in 2017 (thanks to Fox Sports) shows eight different injuries over the course of just three years. And he’s already had to miss a decent amount of games without undergoing an injury that is of a truly devastating nature like an ACL or achilles tear.

If the Bulls don’t see a bright future for Markkanen in the Windy City, they should save for both themselves and him while he still has a decent amount of trade value brought to the table.