BREAKING (foot) NEWS: Zach LaVine to undergo season-ending surgery
this friggin' team, man
As has been typical with Bulls injury news the past forever years, the impact starts small and then escalates extremely quickly. The team announced on Saturday afternoon that Zach LaVine is going to have season-ending surgery on his right foot.
And in another very-Bullsy way, this news was delivered oddly. They look to be distancing themselves in invoking LaVine’s agent as part of this decision. Soonafter they trotted out Billy Donovan (alone, again…why he’s responsible for giving these updates - like with Lonzo Ball just yesterday - is bizarre if not easily explained by AKME cowardice) to only further emphasize that this was LaVine making this decision.
This whole injury situation is colored in timing and tone by Zach’s trade request. I want to believe, if you’re a professional basketball player: having surgery on your foot is worse for a career than getting traded to the Pistons. But typing that out doesn’t make it seem so clear-cut…
Depending on one’s intrinsic skepticism, either LaVine is superlatively mercurial or he’s brittle. Neither designation is good for the Bulls plan of life without him.
They could still technically trade LaVine this week, though the return would clearly be even lower than before. Remember, though, that his value may still be even lower in the offseason, so I don’t want to let the front office off the hook for another do-nothing deadline.
This could adjust their plan on this season and the rest of the roster’s trade availability, but I’m not so sure about that either. With or without LaVine, they are destined to achieve their stated goal of being at 9th or 10th place and a competitive out.
(we now are all bracing ourselves for some similar update with Patrick Williams, and I think that actually would make the team KO the season)
I cynically (of course) think all this really changes is that it adds excuses.
What sucks the most about this situation is there isn't even anyone to root for! Zach, Klutch, and the Bulls are all unsympathetic characters. Zach is a distracted former All-Star on a max contract who doesn't contribute to winning. Klutch is a wannabe kingmaker with no scruples about collecting money for their clients who'd rather be "injured" than honor their contracts for teams they don't want to play for. Finally, the Bulls' front office sucks and their medical team does have a bad history of mis-diagnosing serious injuries. Everyone's a villain. It's a shit sandwich on shit bread.
So I think it's pretty weird that there's been no description of what kind of surgery Zach is having. For that matter, I don't recall any specific description of what specific injury he suffered to his foot. It's all a bunch of really generic stuff. His foot is "inflamed" and now, suddenly, months later, he's having undescribed but season-ending surgery? WTF.