Chicago Bulls: 5 bold offseason predictions

5. Marriage between Bulls and Nikola Mirotic will continue

Since joining the Bulls back in 2014, Nikola Mirotic’s career has been a roller coaster ride of sorts. The good news is he has been a double-digit scorer in each of his three seasons in Chicago.

At the same time, though, there are long stretches in which Mirotic has little or no impact on the game when he’s on the court. In other words — as was the case with Tony Snell — Mirotic is not playing with the kind of consistency the Bulls had hoped for.

To make matters worse, Mirotic hasn’t performed all that well during the postseason either. Back in 2014-15, his averages included 5.7 points and 2.7 rebounds per game on 30 percent shooting from the field.

In the 2017 NBA Playoffs, Mirotic averaged 8.7 points and 5.0 rebounds per outing, but shot just 34 percent overall and a forgettable 29 percent from beyond the arc. These weren’t exactly the kind of numbers the Bulls expected when they acquired his draft rights back in 2011.

Although there were reports about the front office fielding offers for Mirotic prior to the trade deadline back in February, the Bulls now seem open to giving him one more opportunity to shine, even if his shooting numbers (41 FG% and 35 3P%) don’t indicate that a drastic improvement is on the horizon.