LaVine’s contract yet another predictable mistake by Bulls
He also helped launch the Bulls’ 2017 rebuild, which was highly dependent on lottery luck.
Well, the Bulls might have finally gotten the fortunate break they’ve been waiting for. After signing a very reasonable three-year, $36 million deal over the summer, Coby White has become a serious contender for the NBA’s Most Improved Player Award, if not Eastern Conference all-star.
It’s just too bad so many of the Bulls’ bad mistakes in recent years were painfully obvious when they happened. Trading Jimmy Butler to launch the rebuild was a horrendous game plan – “Hey, let’s try to be bad and see what happens?”
Signing Jabari Parker as a free agent in 2018 to play out of position at small forward was a move destined to fail. Then the Bulls doubled down by trading Parker for Otto Porter Jr., who had maybe the league’s worst contract at the time and was constantly injured during his expensive residency in Chicago.
Giving up two first-round draft picks and Wendell Carter Jr. was too much for center Nikola Vucevic. But it’s tough to put that one in the mistake column since the Bulls may not have been able to add DeMar DeRozan and Alex Caruso the following summer without making a move to signal the rebuild was ending.
Then there’s the Bulls’ current dilemma: They’ve been playing well ever since Zach LaVine left the lineup. At the moment that’s not a problem, since the Bulls have gone 8-3 in the past 11 games. They’re sharing the ball, playing with energy and White has evolved into an excellent closer.
During these 11 games White is averaging 8.5 points in the fourth quarter, which is seventh best in the NBA, while shooting 66% overall and 60.9% from 3-point range. He and DeRozan have become an effective closing combo, something DeRozan and LaVine were never able to do consistently.
So for now, everything is fine on the West Side, but what happens when LaVine recovers from his foot injury? It’s possible he’ll need to get back on the court for the Bulls before any team agrees to a trade. It’s also possible the Bulls never get an acceptable trade offer for LaVine, with teams reluctant to take on the $138 million he’s owed over the next three seasons.
If LaVine comes back and the Bulls start losing, then what? How much time should they give him to work things out and get comfortable? Would coach Billy Donovan put LaVine back on the bench if it’s not working?
The thing is, the Bulls never should have put themselves in this situation. It didn’t take a stretch of the imagination to predict the Bulls would regret giving LaVine a full max contract before it even happened.
He can be a good player, he’s been an all-star twice. But someone who had never won a playoff series, or received a single vote for MVP or All-NBA, is not a max player.
The Bulls put LaVine in a position where his camp can say, “You agreed to the max contract but don’t want to let him lead the team.”
LaVine’s a good guy and by all indications was a solid teammate, at least until things got messy this season. But when he said things like, “I just want to get what I deserve,” before hitting free-agency or, “I think I’ve lived up to my end of the bargain,” when trade rumors began last month, he sounds like a player who doesn’t see the flaws in his game or doesn’t think they’re relevant.
Any Bulls fan can list the areas where LaVine could improve, so there’s no reason to list them here again. The point is, the Bulls should have had those conversations in the summer of 2022 when LaVine became a free agent.
Sure, his agent probably tried to force the Bulls’ hand in asking for a max deal. But was the worst that could have happened had the Bulls just said, “We see you as a valuable part of the team’s future but don’t think you’re worth a max contract?”
LaVine’s camp could have replied, “Fine, we want a trade.” Then the Bulls could have negotiated a trade when demand for LaVine was surely higher than it is now. Or he could have taken far less money to sign with another team outright, and the Bulls would have gotten nothing return.
In the latter scenario the Bulls could have the exact same roster they have now, just without the $40 million player who wants a new home.
