Bulls: What More Can Zach LaVine Do?
More than the new roster additions, the rising star's continued development will carry the Bulls forward
What more can Zach LaVine do?
With the last year or so as his springboard, he’s soared to new levels of personal success.
Since the NBA’s emergence from the pandemic bubble, LaVine has established himself as an All-Star, an Olympic gold medalist and he’ll likely receive the richest contract offer in Chicago Bulls history come the summer of 2022.
To prove Artūras Karnišovas and Marc Eversley right in their team-building, though, and bring the rest of his Bulls teammates along for a long-awaited return to the playoffs, he has to dig deeper into his bag.
That’s a big ask, to be sure.
(Had he slung six more assists and sank one more free throw, LaVine would’ve been in the company of Steph Curry and Larry Bird as the only players in league history to average 27 points, five rebounds and five assists while also shooting 50 percent from the field, 40% from three and 85% from the charity stripe.)
And yet to the extent that LaVine still hasn’t so much as taken a step on a basketball court adorned with an NBA playoff logo, it also feels fair.
After all, to whom much is given, much is expected. Or so the saying goes.
In this case, it’s LaVine being fortified with the finest collection of teammates he’s ever seen in his eight-year-career, a set of players Karnišovas and Eversley poured more than $100 million into to overhaul the previously middling Bulls roster.
It’s easier to rationalize LaVine missing the mark the past three seasons when his best teammate has been a 32-year-old journeyman. (No offense, Thad Young.)
But it’d be quite the uphill battle to try to explain away another post-season absence with DeMar DeRozan, Lonzo Ball and Nikola Vučević now in his corner.
LaVine has stretched out the boundaries with which critics have tried to contain his game (“just an athlete,” “can never be a No. 1 guy,” etc…) like Play-Doh and the more they’ve stretched the easier he’s been able to bust right through them.
How far LaVine stretches out from here will not only help raise his team’s ceiling, but also go a long way toward cementing his place as possibly the premier shooting guard in the league.
That being said, it’s hard to imagine LaVine having much room left for improvement offensively.
Seriously.
Where else is there for him to go on that side of the floor after getting to the rim more than Bradley Beal, and finishing a tick better at the rim than the Wizard's’ franchise player as well? Is finding the same measure of midrange success as Khris Middleton enough? How about connecting on a higher rate of his 3-point tries than both Damian Lillard and Luka Dončić?
“I want to be All-Defense, All-NBA,” LaVine told reporters back in February shortly after he was selected to play in his first All-Star game.
That’s it!
If the self-willed 26-year-old can summon the fire he manifested on that side of the floor while playing for Team USA last summer — where “I was picking up 94 (feet)…I was sliding, lunging, diving on the floor” — the former will almost certainly take care of the latter.
Even without such an ambitious leap forward, for LaVine to just take another step in the right direction on defense — for what it’s worth, he earned a better defensive box plus/minus than both Beal and Devin Booker last season, according to Basketball Reference — will take the loudest criticism of his game down a few decibels and help the Bulls punch above of their weight class.
With DeRozan and Vučević lightening both his scoring and play-making workloads, LaVine should have more energy to burn on defense, a situation similar to his in Tokyo.
While Lillard, Kevin Durant, Jayson Tatum, and Jrue Holiday won’t be walking through the Bulls’ door, those gathered in LaVine’s locker room today are far from the Gar Forman-John Paxson Bulls he played with.
I don’t know what more LaVine can do.
But if this guy’s past improvement is any indication, he’s got plenty left in his bag.