What (if anything) will happen with Robin Lopez?
Top 10 Bulls storylines for 2018–19 season
The Chicago Bulls are in the midst of the one of the more intriguing transition periods in the league. After trading Jimmy Butler for the package of Kris Dunn, Zach LaVine and the No. 7 pick (Lauri Markkanen), Bulls management hardly got a look at their three core pieces on the floor together. And when they did, the results weren’t pretty, as evidenced by their -21.6 net rating as a 3-man unit per NBA.com. But during the the 2017–18 regular season, the Bulls were able to at least evaluate their young talent on an individual basis. And a big reason they were able to (specifically) get a real look at their young group, was due to the play of veteran center Robin Lopez.
Out of the Bulls top 12 lineups in minutes played last year, Lopez was in two of the three with positive net ratings, and a fourth lineup, that posted a -0.2 net rating that over a full season would project to be a team in the mid-to-high thirties in wins.
The point being, the Bulls have an asset in Lopez. He makes teams better, mentors young players and has fun with mascots. But just how he works in Fred Hoiberg’s system is what makes the future of the Bulls’ center position so interesting.
Remember this?:
It was amusing. It didn’t really matter, and end of shot clock situation in which Lopez decided to try expand his range, with surprising success. No look at this:
A center sprinting the floor to spot up, comfortably, for a 3-pointer. Wendell Carter Jr.’s ability to do all little bit of everything could shatter the glass ceiling on the Bulls’ potential to be a contender down the line.
The comparisons to Al Horford were somewhat stale and predictable, but for once seem to be correct in assessing a talent. At his peak, Carter Jr. projects to be a center who could effectively be your defensive anchor, while spacing the floor and providing low post scoring in doses. The fact that he played next to a high usage player (or a few) in college helps, because scoring efficiently with a low usage rate will help Carter thrive with this current Bulls roster. Doing the dirty work is what will make Carter the hero in Chicago, something Lopez can definitely tutor him on.
Hoiberg will have a tough time figuring out this rotation. But you can expect to see Lopez starting, and both he and Carter receiving 20+ minutes per game.
The elephant-sized Bull in the room (for our purposes) is that Lopez is on an expiring contract of $14.3 million, and what happens with Lopez will be the single biggest indicator of which direction the Bulls are going in.
Teams starting rookie centers are usually bad at defense for obvious reasons. But if there is a playoff contender in need of a serviceable defensive center, then Lopez trades become a reality. But this all depends on what the Bulls record is, likely by the All-Star break in mid-February.
If the Bulls are a winning team by the All-Star break, then that probably means the defense is ranked at least somewhere in the low-teens to high-twenties in terms of defensive rating. Lopez, serving as the linchpin of that D, could be the difference between the Bulls competing for the 8-seed or ping-pong balls. But if the Bulls difficult schedule to start the year slips them up, then the chances of Carter starting — or at least receiving more minutes than Lopez — go up significantly, and Lopez would instantly become a trade/buyout candidate.
So the Bulls front office has said they want to win, while the build of the roster clearly screams on with the rebuild. And Lopez is perhaps the team best defender, but clearly not a part of its long-term future. Carter is on a rookie-scale contract, has an NBA-ready body and all the skills you would want in a Hoiberg center at just 19 years old.
What will happen?
If history is any indicator, and the Bulls front office continues to keep Bulls-ing harder than any Bulls front office ever has before, nothing will happen. Lopez will play out the year on his expiring contract. He will be a great mentor to Wendell Carter Jr. And who knows? He may even re-sign with Chicago on a team-friendly deal.
And all of that would be OK. Because financially, Lopez isn’t going to effect the Bulls ability to go after free agents in 2019. And by all accounts Lopez is a well-liked player by all of his teammates and the Bulls fan base. But the single most important thing to the future of this Bulls team is how much progress the young players on this roster make. And if Chicago is clearly a lottery-bound team after the first quarter of the season, there is no reason Carter shouldn’t be the starter.
