Maybe it’s not time to shut down Lauri Markkanen for the rest of the regular season just yet, but the Bulls’ second year forward sure seems like the could use a day or two off. On Tuesday night he labored through 16 first-half minutes before bowing out at halftime of the Bulls’ loss to the Raptors with what announcer Stacey King said was an illness. After the game, Jim Boylen clarified with reporters that Markkanen left with fatigue after a few hard practices that caught up with him. He finished with 10 points on 2 of 10 shooting and nine rebounds.
The outing came three days after a 6 of 20 performance in Saturday’s 31-point loss to the Utah Jazz. Though Markkanen finished with a solid 18 points and 10 rebounds, none of it came easy and he was 1 of 6 from beyond the arc. March has been a massive struggle for Markkanen - other than his 32-point outing against Washington - and when he isn’t surrounded by the rest of the core – Kris Dunn, Zach LaVine and Otto Porter Jr. were all out Tuesday – the load he’s asked to carry has become overwhelming.
There’s a difference between getting him some run as the alpha scorer on nights LaVine sits, but when his secondary and tertiary scorers are Wayne Selden and Robin Lopez, it’s not really accomplishing much for his progression.
With all Markkanen has accomplished in his second season it’s easy to forget that he missed the first 10 weeks of the season with that elbow sprain. That was 10 weeks without practice, without strength training and without any real conditioning. Perhaps Markkanen is no longer feeling the side effects of that injury, but even he admitted he had lost some of the muscle he put on in the offseason, and it’s a safe bet he’s nowhere close to 100 percent. And at this point in the rebuild (with Lottery balls still in play, too) resting him over the final seven games isn’t the worst option.
And while he’s not the one to blame fatigue for any of his shortcomings – he’s said multiple times that he’s continued his same routine to snap out of his funk, so it’s not like he’s taking any time off – Markkanen’s per month shooting numbers suggest he might be feeling it.
Here are his 3-point shooting numbers by month:
December: 39.4 percent on 6.7 attempts
January: 37.9 percent on 6.3 attempts
February: 34.8 percent on 6.9 attempts
March: 31.1 percent on 5.6 attempts
NBA
And while it’s not always a perfect correlation to fatigue, it’s telling that Markanen’s 3-pointers have gone down considerably from February to March and yet he’s averaging fewer drives per game in March (6.8) than he did in February (8.3). Yes, his usage is down from 26.8 to 23.7 in that same span, meaning fewer drive opportunities, it’s safe to say Markkanen hasn’t been as aggressive of late.
It also may not be a coincidence that Markkanen’s overall struggles – he’s been poor from deep since February began – first popped up after the quadruple-overtime win over the Hawks. Markkanen was also battling flu-like symptoms in that game and took just one shot in the final 18 minutes. Surprisingly, he played 29 minutes two days later at home against the Hawks and hasn’t missed a game since, despite his struggles. In fact, Markkanen hasn’t missed a game since he returned Dec. 1.
It might be time for that to change. Again, maybe it doesn’t need to be for the rest of the season. But if Markkanen is going to be tasked with holding up an offense with no supporting cast, it isn’t doing anything to help chemistry with the core and it’s putting an unnecessary burden on him. The Bulls have seen enough from their budding star to know he can be a leading scorer; he doesn’t need to prove it while being flanked by the cast he was surrounded by on Tuesday.