Lauri Markkanen isn’t anti-fan.
The 7-foot Bulls big man, however, is anti-noise.
So while he knows the criticism and concerns of his game are kicking at the doors of the Advocate Center on a daily basis, in his world it’s all a waste of time and energy.
“Obviously you hear stuff,’’ Markkanen said after the Thursday practice. “I’m not going to pretend I don’t hear anything, but I don’t pay attention to that. People don’t know what really goes into it, they don’t know what your position is. It’s easy to block out.’’
Ok, simple for an athlete to say, but let’s call his bluff.
“I’m serious, it’s easy,’’ Markkanen said. “You know the hours you put in during the offseason and you know the work you did. It just doesn’t always go your way. Let the work that I did be my confidence that I can move from this, and I can do it. The people outside this building only see the stat lines. They don’t know what really goes into it, so why should I pay attention to that?’’
Fair enough, but Markkanen should pay attention to some of it.
After all, this is a Bulls organization that publicly admitted that the entire offseason was built on the shoulders of Zach LaVine and Markkanen being the pillars of this rebuild.
Both players embraced that idea on media day, and bragged about how they welcomed the pressure of that crown.
Then the regular-season games actually started to happen.
LaVine’s average scoring, rebounds and assists are down across the board from last season through 15 games, but he’s at least had some LaVine highlight moments.
Markkanen? Moments, but the amount that can be counted on one hand. There was his 35-point, 17-rebound debut on opening night in Charlotte, a bunch of bad in between, and then Wednesday.
In the win against the Pistons, Markkanen scored 24 — his second-highest output of the season — and went 3-for-4 from three-point range — a distance he’s shooting just 29.1 percent from so far.
“Hopefully it starts things up, but I never get too high or too low,’’ he said of the Detroit showing. “Do the same work here today that we do every day, try to be the best team we can be. That’s all we can try and do.’’
Bulls fans don’t want “try,’’ however. They want do.
Specifically, they want Markkanen and LaVine to do what they were expected to in Year 3 of playing together.
Yet, they still continue to play stat line teeter-totter. The two games Markkanen did lead the team in scoring, LaVine was a combined 9-for-28 for 21 points.
That hasn’t gone unnoticed, and better believe it’s been talked about between the two.
“We’ve talked about it and we both … I don’t think Zach is in his best … I just think he’s putting the work in and it’s only a matter of time before he also gets it going consistently,’’ Markkanen said. “Everyone is going to have off nights, but the one thing I love about Zach is he’s going to bounce back. It’s just a matter of time before we’re going to turn this around.’’
What if they don’t? What if while the two skillsets should connect perfectly together, they never find that common ground as this season goes on? Does one have to go in a trade?
That’s not even up for debate internally at this point, according to one source, but roster decisions are always fluid.
Markkanen is definitely not ready to give up on it.
“We both can do multiple things,’’ Markkanen said. “We get into a two-man game we should be really difficult to guard. We just got to do it consistently. We’ll get there.’’
