The contract negotiation between Lauri Markkanen and the Bulls continue.
Both Markkanen and his coach reiterated that on Thursday.
Where they end up as the Dec. 21 deadline approaches? There’s the unknown.
“What I will say is we all believe that Lauri is an important part to our team moving forward,” coach Billy Donovan said in a Zoom call, after an afternoon practice in Oklahoma City. “We feel like he’s only going to continue to get better and improve, but I would say that’s something that both sides are going to try and work out.”
“Try” the key word, but trying has a price.
Several of the standout players from Markkanen’s 2017 draft class have already put their rookie contracts in the rearview mirror for fat new extensions.
From Boston’s Jayson Tatum to Utah’s Donovan Mitchell, and most recently Miami’s Bam Adebayo, who put his John Hancock on a five-year, $195 million deal just before camp opened.
Markkanen insisted two weeks ago that he wanted to stay a Bull and get a deal done, but one concern: Is the timing right for his organization to do that, or let Markkanen hit the market as a restricted free agent where his price will be set by other teams?
Considering the inconsistencies of his play going back to last season, smart business might be the latter.
“There’s been negotiations, but not much to tell you guys right now, so we’ll see,” Markkanen said. “It’s not putting any extra pressure on me right now, so I feel confident going game by game — we’ll see what happens.”
What’s happened so far? Well, Donovan is looking for better days ahead from his 7-footer.
It’s only three preseason games, but there’s still some of the lingering concerns that Markkanen treaded in last year, starting with his shooting touch.
Heading into the preseason finale against the Thunder on Friday, Markkanen was shooting 30% from the field and 26% from three-point range, hitting just 5-for-19 from long range for the 2-1 Bulls. Donovan’s advice for the seventh overall pick in ’17? Shooters gotta shoot.
“Like I was really encouraged to see him after missing quite a few shots in-a-row, being able to bounce back,” Donovan said of Markkanen’s last game. “Now the next step I think for him is going to end up being he misses one or two, being able to make the third one. There’s a mindset to that. I feel good about the shots. He’s not forcing it. There are some he could probably shot fake a little bit, but for the most part he’s taking pretty good looks. He is seven feet, he can shoot over a lot of people, so he’s just to keep internally having that confidence that the next one is going to go down.”
The alternative, according to Donovan, is if Markkanen becomes passive. Then it could affect the entire offense.
“What that’s going to do is jam up the floor for the rest of the guys because people won’t necessarily give him … he creates a lot of gravity,” Donovan said. “Like when he catches the ball people shift out to him, which opens up spacing. He’s done a good job, Lauri, he just hasn’t shot the ball like he’s capable of, I believe.”
The hope is he will, but is that enough to sway a leap of faith in the next few days?
“In terms of the details of what those conversations are like with [executive vice president of basketball operations] Arturas [Karnisovas] and [Markkanen’s] agent, I think that’s between Arturas and the agent,’’ Donovan said, “but in terms of us talking about how we see Lauri organizationally, I think we all feel pretty good and pretty strong that he’s an important piece to our team.”
