Rough showing in summer league a sign of what's in store for Bulls
It would be easy to declare the Bulls' summer-league experience a failure, but look at it this way: The 2-3 record in Las Vegas was right in line with the low expectations of the coming season.
The reality of the Bulls' rebuild is pretty simple. The only players that really matter right now are Zach LaVine, Lauri Markkanen and whoever they draft next June.
If Denzel Valentine and Cameron Payne were disappointing, if Kris Dunn and Paul Zipser stunk it up during their lone summer appearance, so what? The Bulls are hoping to be bad next season. As John Paxson said, they've defined their direction. As long as the Bulls are aiming for the bottom, they might as well set a goal of landing the No. 1 pick in next year's draft.
With that in mind, there was some good news to come out of summer league:
• Markkanen performed reasonably well. His overall stats don't look good thanks to a 1-for-13 clunker in Game 2 against Atlanta. But he seemed to pass the eye test.
The 7-footer from Finland showed some athleticism and averaged 9 rebounds in the three games he played. So the feeling that he'll be more than just an outside shooter remains intact. He's got a nice-looking shot, but it needs some work. Eliminate the Atlanta game and he shot 6 for 15 from 3-point range (40 percent), but just 11-for-28 overall.
• LaVine told ESPN he's ahead of schedule and will be ready for training camp. That's relatively good news if true, but it remains to be seen if the Bulls accept an early return or nudge LaVine into a more conservative timeline. The Bulls want fans to get excited about LaVine's future, but the goal is still to be bad.
In theory, the Bulls might appreciate LaVine getting a chance to be mentored by Dwyane Wade. There's probably a decent chance Wade will move along to a contending team after the trade deadline passes, so the window for that to happen may be limited.
• Finally, the Bulls locked up their best summer-league player, Antonio Blakeney, to a two-way contract. That's good news for the G-League's Windy City Bulls, since the 6-4 shooting guard from LSU will spend most of his time playing at the Sears Centre.
The Windy City Bulls are sort of a distant sidebar to the coming season. Since the NBA team is trying to land a high draft pick, will the Bulls put some effort into improving the minor-league squad in Hoffman Estates?
G-League salaries are complicated, but the Bulls have the opportunity to sign another two-way player, someone who can spend time with both teams; and have up to four affiliate players, who can land an extra $50,000 for attending NBA training camp before going to the G-League. Mostly, it comes down to how much money they want to spend. The downside with affiliate players is they can be signed by another NBA team, like Spencer Dinwiddie with Brooklyn last year.
Back to the big-league squad, Bulls management has talked about how great it's been to have their young players working out this summer at the Advocate Center. The group includes Payne, Valentine, Zipser, Jerian Grant, Bobby Portis, and Cristiano Felicio, along with Nikola Mirotic, who is still a restricted free agent.
After putting all that work in, it would have been nice to see something better than 35-percent shooting in summer league from Valentine and Payne. But if anyone from the group of summer campers turns into a good NBA player, that's a bonus. The Bulls need results from LaVine, Markkanen and maybe have Dunn develop into a starting caliber point guard. So far, Dunn's defense appears to be well ahead of his offense.
After claiming David Nwaba off waivers from the Lakers, the Bulls have 12 players under contract with Mirotic still expected to be No. 13. They might add one more player this summer and there are good players still on the market, but fans should keep their expectations low, just like the Bulls next season.
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