Chicago Bulls: 3 players that benefit most from hire of Billy Donovan

2) Chicago Bulls who benefit from Billy Donovan hiring: Lauri Markkanen

There’s no single Bulls player that needs to have a bounce back 2020-21 season than the fourth-year former Arizona Wildcats power forward Lauri Markkanen. The Bulls saw Markkanen take a pretty significant step back during his third year in the NBA, which was supposed to be the season where he took a potential leap to stardom.

Markkanen does still bring a mind-boggling amount of potential to the table, but that picture of him becoming a star seven-footer is waning more and more to NBA fans. He didn’t look great in most of the 50 games he played in with the Bulls during the 2019-20 shortened season (all of which he started in).

He averaged 14.7 points per game, 6.3 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 0.8 steals, and 0.5 blocks. Markkanen shot 42.5 percent from the field, 34.4 percent from beyond the arc, and 82.4 percent from the free-throw line. His career low -0.6 box plus/minus rating, 2.6 total win shares, 56.0 true shooting percentage, and 14.3 player efficiency rating highlighted some of the struggles from Markkanen in the 2019-20 campaign.

Where Markkanen needs to improve the most is with his rhythm shooting, confidence in distributing the ball, and just staying healthy in general. The staying healthy part can always be out of Markkanen’s control, but he struggled with various injury issues again in the season that was. Starting out the 2020-21 season strong will be a huge key for Markkanen in the final year of his rookie contract.