Portland Trail Blazers: 3 best remaining free agents for their taxpayer MLE

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Lauri Markkanen, Robert Covington, Gary Trent Jr., Enes Kanter, Portland Trail Blazers, Chicago Bulls (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images) /

2. Lauri Markkanen could be a future cornerstone for the Portland Trail Blazers

Lauri Markkanen never thought that he’d be hanging out to dry without a contract on day six. The sweet-shooting, Finnish big man was selected seventh overall in the 2017 draft by the Chicago Bulls, in hopes they’d be building a dangerous guard-big combo with Markkanen and newly acquired Zach LaVine.

Instead, Lauri has failed to develop and has actually regressed both years since 2018-2019. This certainly could be a product of situation, considering the former Arizona Wildcat’s minutes and shots have decreased significantly since his second year as well.

Chicago had a lot of offensive firepower on their roster after trading for LaVine and constantly lacked a true playmaker to divvy up the shots. Markkanen’s injuries and Chicago’s surplus of young scorers vying for opportunity have pushed him out of the Windy City.

Despite the troubles he’s encountered in his early career, there’s no denying the potential that Markkanen still carries.

He may have the nicest looking stroke of any true seven-footer not named Kevin Durant in the league. He’s sneaky athletic, capable of putting the ball on the floor and driving past other big men. He has a developing low-post game that was seldom taken advantage of in Chicago.

While any seven-footer who shoots 36 percent from deep can earn multiple contracts in the NBA, it’s Markkanen’s blend of agility and touch in addition to his size that could make him a star one day. There’s not many bigs out there taking dribble handoffs as part of their team’s offense. Even fewer of them have the fluidity and poise to finish the above play.

Markkanen would fill in as an offensive hub off the bench for the Blazers. If they need more size for a particular matchup, they can insert Lauri as their starting four. Like Millsap, he can also play center, giving Portland the option to run a five-out offense and maximize spacing.

As a defender, he’s pretty much as useful as a traffic cone right now, but his agility foreshadows that he could turn into a good positional defender as a center one day, a la Marc Gasol.