Lauri Markkanen
The Chicago Bulls extended a qualifying offer to Lauri Markkanen, making him a restricted free agent this offseason. They have a need at the power forward spot, but given how poorly he meshed with center Nikola Vucevic following his acquisition from the Orlando Magic at the trade deadline, the writing was on the wall for Markkanen.
The 24-year old is coming off the best shooting season of his career, knocking down 48 percent of his shots and 40.2 percent of his 3-point attempts. That kind of floor spacing from the frontcourt is something teams crave, and he will have no shortage of suitors.
According to sources, the Boston Celtics, Minnesota Timberwolves, Dallas Mavericks and New Orleans Pelicans are in the running for Markkanen and ready to pay him about $15 million annually.
Ultimately, Markkanen will end up with the Boston Celtics. Their combination of available playing time, as their depth chart at power forward, is wide open, and fit timeline-wise will be too good to pass up.
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Lauri Markkanen could slide into the starting power forward spot, providing spacing to a Celtics offense that was sometimes bogged down in the halfcourt becoming over-reliant on Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. He won’t offer much defensively, but Boston has enough strong defenders around him that they should be able to hide him some.
