Earlier today, Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote a fan’s guide to tanking that is well worth your time. There are multiple useful nuggets from the piece, but perhaps none stick out more than his final sentence.
“Marvin Bagley III-Privately, this is the player that several members of the bulls organization believe is a better fit with Markkanen. it would give the bulls two versatile bigs”
Interesting.
Cowley doesn’t name a specific source, but he’s one of the most respected Bulls reporters out there. If he says that Bagley is privately their preferred target, there’s likely some truth to that.
Bagley is considered to have maybe the highest ceiling in this draft, given that he’s only 18 years old and currently dominating the nation’s toughest conference. The 6’11 Duke freshman is averaging 20.7 points and 11.1 rebounds and shooting over 60 percent from the field.
With all prospects there are flaws, for Bagley those flaws seem to include defensive effort, positional fit and a big ego. But we can delve deeper into the legitimacy of those supposed flaws at a later date.
It’s hard to see Bagley falling outside of the top four picks, and it’s hard to see the Bulls getting one of those picks without quite a bit of lottery luck. Either way, Cowley makes it sound as if the Bulls may be Hell-bent on finding a way to make Bagley a Bull.
