NBA Daily: Winds Of Change Swirling Around Chicago

In September 2017, the NBA Board of Governors passed lottery draft reform in which the odds that each team in the lottery would get would be more spread out than in past years.

This move was made in hopes that teams would stop intentionally losing the majority of their games during the regular season – the fashionable word for it being “tanking” – in hopes of getting a high lottery pick. Honestly, it’s more likely than not that the act of tanking will never fully vanquish, but there are certain benefits to this most recent reform.

That begins and ends with the lowered odds. Before this season, the team with the worst record had a 25 percent chance of getting the first overall pick in the draft. Now, not only is it 14 percent, but the teams with the second and third-worst record have the same odds. The first team to have less than half those odds is the seventh-worst team.

Because of this, bottom dwellers don’t have to worry as much about their lottery odds if they won an extra game or two before the season’s end. By doing this, we get a chance to see these teams experiment before their doomed seasons’ end which could potentially give us a taste of what’s to come next season.

That’s pretty much what’s happened in the most recent weeks since the trade deadline passed. Since Kevin Love’s return, Cleveland has played its best basketball all season. In Atlanta, Trae Young is making a solid – though sadly pointless – case for Rookie of the Year.

But of all the teams at the very bottom of the league, the one team that may take the biggest leap next season could be the Chicago Bulls.

This hasn’t been an easy season for the Bulls. They’ve dealt with a coaching change, prolonged injuries to multiple players and even lost a game by a whopping 55 points. All of it has made for what many would say has been another miserable season. While it is true that this season will overall be a failure, since the trade deadline, the Bulls have turned the corner.

The Bulls made a polarizing trade at the deadline, acquiring Otto Porter Jr. from the Washington Wizards for Jabari Parker and Bobby Portis. Porter is an excellent player to have on the team, as both his floor-spacing and defense have given him a well-earned reputation around the league. Porter is also just 25 years old, so his best stuff is yet to come.

As good as Porter is, he’s getting paid a max-level contract at $26+ million for the next two seasons even though he’s never really gotten much All-Star consideration. That’s not a dig at Porter. Paying him that much is better than paying, say, $20 million for Jabari Parker’s services. It just seems like on paper it wouldn’t be worth having Porter eat up that much cap space on a young team like the Bulls.

So far, Porter seems to be exactly what the doctor ordered. Since his arrival, the Bulls have gone 5-3, with three of those wins coming against Boston, Brooklyn and Orlando – three teams that are very much in the thick of the playoff race. Oh, and Porter missed a game-and-a-half in that stretch.

5-3 isn’t great, but it’s a step up. Porter’s definitely played a hand in their improved play lately, as evidenced by this noteworthy stat.

In 170 minutes together, Lauri/LaVine/Porter have posted a 121.8 ORtg.

— Jason Patt (@Bulls_Jay) February 28, 2019

Porter’s presence opens up so much for Chicago because of the spacing that he provides. Since his arrival, the Bulls have the sixth-highest offensive rating in the league, averaging 114 points per 100 possessions. That’s a major improvement from where they were before since they currently rank last this season in offensive rating (104.2). Defensively, the Bulls have pretty much remained the same in that span (112.5 DRTG) as they have all season (112.1 DRTG).

It hasn’t been perfect, but the team is beginning to find an identity that it hasn’t really had since the Tom Thibodeau days.

And Porter isn’t solely responsible for the Bulls’ encouraging play. A fair amount of credit has to go to the Bulls’ most valuable prospect – Lauri Markkanen.

Remember how the Bulls have gone through what seems like a never-ending cycle of injuries? Well, that started with Markkanen, who missed the first month-and-a-half with an elbow injury.

The second-year Finnish sensation has overall been pretty solid in his sophomore season. He’s averaging 19.4 points on 44.3 percent shooting including 37.6 percent from deep. He also has shown improvement on the boards – 9.1 rebounds a game – and the Bulls are plus-5.7 offensively with him on the court.

Those are considerably better numbers compared to his promising rookie season, but his play over the last month has got to make the Windy City folk giddy.

Since February began, Markkanen has had what has easily been the best stretch of his young career. He’s putting up 26 points on 48.6 percent shooting and 34.6 percent shooting from three – his most recent 0-for-5 performance may have something to do with that – along with 12.2 rebounds per game. His stand-out performance came against the Celtics – the same team responsible for that 55-point beatdown earlier this season – in which Lauri put up a career-high 35 points to go with 15 rebounds.

Those are franchise cornerstone-like numbers, and since the Bulls have been moderately successful in that stretch (for them), they don’t get categorized as “Good Stats/Bad Team.” Markkanen still leaves a lot to be desired defensively. He averages merely 0.6 blocks per night and the Bulls defense is plus-1.8 with him on the floor.

Of course, there’s always room for improvement with second-year players, but the headline here is – the Bulls have an undeniably special talent on their hands with Lauri Markkanen. Plenty probably saw that already, but now we’re starting to see them reap some of the rewards.

Finally, there’s Zach LaVine. LaVine has garnered a reputation for being an empty stats kind of player, or in other words, a scoring machine whose impact gets negated by his lackluster defense. When you look at Chicago players’ net ratings, it’s pretty hard not to dispute that.

Overall this season, Chicago is plus-0.9 with Zach on the floor. Offensively, the Bulls are plus-4.7 with him on the floor but are also plus-4.0 defensively. Even during this last month, which has been the best of Zach’s career, it’s still the same old story.

In the month of February, LaVine is averaging 24.5 points, 5.8 assists and 5.4 rebounds per game on 53.2 percent shooting overall and 49 percent from three. That’s excellent, but the Bulls are a minus-0.5 with him on the court. He’s made them better offensively – plus-20.9 – but worse defensively – plus-21.4.

There are two silver linings to this.

1. LaVine is only 23.
2. In this most recent eight-game stretch, Chicago is plus-8.2 with him on the floor, even if his awful defensive numbers still cancel out a lot of his scoring output.

If the Bulls are improving because of LaVine, then that has to be a good sign going forward.

Are there still a few kinks to work out? Of course, but every young team needs time to truly flesh out who they are as a team. We knew the Bulls were promising, but now with Otto Porter aboard, it looks like they’re starting to put it together.

Let’s not forget: Wendell Carter, who’s suffered from the injury bug for nearly half the season, will be back fully healthy next season. Even though he hasn’t had the best start in the NBA, there’s no telling what he’ll look like between now and then.

To wrap this all up in a bow, even with this great play of late from the Bulls, they’re still probably going to get a high lottery pick when the season concludes. Thanks to the lottery reform, they won’t screw themselves over too badly from this newfound success.

Back before this season started, this writer believed the Bulls had the potential to be better than most thought.

Maybe next season, he’ll get it right.