Free agents the Chicago Bulls should’ve signed instead of Alfonzo McKinnie: Ersan Ilyasova
Speaking of bringing in a veteran voice into the locker room for Donovan and the Bulls, missing as many pieces as the team is right now, a name that would’ve been nice to see in the Windy City is the veteran power forward and adept floor spacer Ersan Ilyasova. As is the case with Cook, I’ve talked about the idea of adding Ilyasova to the second or third unit as a veteran piece in the rotation before.
The Bulls are not shooting the ball very frequently from deep this season. And the Bulls are tremendously lacking size in the frontcourt rotation (or at least what’s left of it at this point) beyond star center Nikola Vucevic. This team isn’t going to get more size in the frontcourt unit either with rookie center Marko Simonovic getting sent back down to the G-League affiliate Windy City Bulls heading into the weekend.
However, if we’re comparing the Bulls signing a veteran out of free agency such as Ilyasova to someone like McKinnie, there would be a more proven and experience piece coming into play. Obviously, Donovan is going to have a plan in place for how to utilize McKinnie in whatever minutes he gets off the bench in the next few games.
Shooting the three-ball at a clip of around 44 percent in his time with the Utah Jazz last season, it’s hard to imagine the Bulls finding a better floor-spacing big man than Ilyasova. Yet, McKinnie did shoot the three-ball at a clip of 41 percent with the Lakers last season. So maybe that’s a positive sign of things to come.
I would personally be a bigger fan of the Bulls signing a guy like Ilyasova given his versatility in the frontcourt unit off the bench compared with someone like McKinnie. Ilyasova can play at the four or the five in a smaller lineup. He had a steal percentage around 2 last season and a block percentage above 3.