Watching ppl still try to claim Zach is better than Demar is crazy. Zach is like the poster child for empty stats. Not because he's not an impressive player with great skills, but because he's unwilling to do the important things that are key to a contributing team - sharing the basketball, playing D, moving without the ball. There is no reason the Bulls can't play this way with Zach except HE doesn't want to put in the effort and HE wants the ball as much as Demar. His ball IQ holds back his talent. It would be sad except he is paid 40 million a year, refuses to change and is now sulking. Just a totally incomplete player.
Off court too, DeMar puts in effort towards the young players and they adore him. I don't think he's much of an on-floor 'leader' but that's better than anti-leader Zach (part of the problem of the mid 3 is none of them are)
The funny thing is that for one part of the Bulls propaganda to be true — the team with Lonzo was actually good and not a flash in the pan — another part has to be false. People have tied themselves in knots to explain why Lonzo was so important without talking it through to its ultimate conclusion: Zach was the third, maybe fourth or even fifth most important player on that team, and probably the most easily replaceable of them. Not first, and not irreplaceable.
With a player like this we also have to split them between The Platonic Ideal of Zach LaVine and Real Existing Zach LaVine. The Bulls without either Zach are likely going to have some serious scoring droughts, which Platonic Ideal Zach would help with but Real Existing Zach frankly has made even worse this year. It's easy to confront that situation and think the solution is "We need a guy like Zach that can just go out there and create," and Platonic Ideal Zach can do that, but Real Existing Zach isn't.
Unfortunately both Zachs are airheads on defense and give up a lot of fucking points and neither does a fucking thing when they don't have the ball. Donovan should have benched him when he began half-assing it up the floor in the half-court or letting his man go by him so he could try to poke the ball out from behind. Unfortunately, we're coached not by Platonic Ideal Billy Donovan, but Real Existing Billy Donovan.
We’ve seen Zach at close to the platonic ideal over large sections of the last three seasons. Hyper efficient, incredible distance shooting, no long twos, getting to the line and finishing. All that has been there. And still his point differential was at best marginally positive.
Why he’s decided to throw away his best aspects for tepid mid range step backs is a mystery to me. Even if he didn’t like the new offense he should have still been looking for the things that work for him. But alas, he’s Real and Existing and Delusional.
I have a long-standing theory about people that they are dumb. But observant. So when people are flailing for something, they look around and instead of really understanding the characteristics that make someone or something successful, observe a superficial or stereotypical thing to focus on that really doesn't cut it.
Like, the Soviet Union collapsed, and all those communists decided that they needed to be capitalists, but what they understood as "being capitalist" means "being a gangster".
So, Zach's sitting there and seeing how beloved and (relatively) successful DeMar is, so he decides to abandon being a 3 point shooter and chuck mid range shots like DeMar.
It's weird, because the obvious best use of his talent would have been as a Ray Allen or Klay Thompson like line of development. If the guy would just move off the ball and shoot, he'd be freaking amazing.
I think the things he’s unwilling to do also hurt his own results based on his skillset.
His handle is terrible, but he holds on to the ball instead of keeping it moving. He does nothing off-ball, but has the aforementioned issue on-ball and has the skills to score just as much without the ball in his hands. His shot selection is atrocious, but he’s a good enough shooter that if it was better he’d be a truly elite scorer.
It’s too bad the Bulls have a coach that exists to do what the stars want rather than… coach, because LaVine playing the way he could would be a lot better than LaVine
Zach is just millenial Mitch Richmond. Excellent scorer that doesn't do anything else and doesn't contribute to winning.
I think someone would still trade for him but expectations need to be strongly tempered. a distant 1st is the best you're gonna get.
Regarding Coby, he has honestly improved over the years. His defense will never be above average due to physical limitations(T-rex arms mainly) but he can be solid just be giving effort. Still not feeling him a starting PG but he can be one of the best 6th men who can give 16
17 months ago all of the media and most of the fan base said you had to give Zach the max because it's "just the cost of modern day players like Zach". There should be a lot of people owning up to that take now, expecially media people who now say he's worthless when he's the same guy as 17 months ago
he's worth the max and that was still the correct move, just not worth more to where a team should feel need to pay a bunch of assets (and potentially tax dollars) to acquire him
I wish at the time AK did more negotiation and it wasn't the total max and with the trade kicker and player option, but they couldn't have the alternative of no ~$40M salary slot
it's only the wrong move if they'd have to attach a pick to move him, but I don't think the market is THAT soft
Unfortunately not able to go back and read what you wrote at the old site but I remember what you wrote making logical sense about the $40M slot when I read it. I still think the right move was either sign+trade, or let him walk and soft reset. If it is indeed the truth that no Zach equates to a better product than Zach, then why worry about the cap so much and just try to sign and trade or no big deal that he walks. Signing him and keeping him led to where we are today. And so many people were tripping over themselves talking about "building around Zach" and how young he still was. I know you werent, but it was the popular opinion
But I still hold that an average GM should be able to get at least a Bradley Beal type return or close to a Jrue Holiday/ Harden return, and we shouldnt just be discussing this as if its inevitable AK shits the bed. We'll see how it plays out, lot of time left
All 3 of those guys have been high level players on actual playoff teams. Zach has made the playoffs once in his whole career. And yea the Beal/Harden deals don't look too hot so i think GMs are going to be a much more wary now. Holiday is an actual two-way player who can run an offense so you can't compare his value to a 1 dimensional guy like Zach
right, my old friend Ricky was trying to goose Zach's value by comparing his shooting numbers to Jaylen Brown, not mentioning that Brown is an actually-good defensive player
Is he the same guy as 17 months ago? He's playing like shit now and pouting his way off his team. For a guy who already had some fragility in his case for stardom, that could move the needle a bit.
Like tic-tac-toe and Global Thermonuclear War, the only way to win is not to play.
That is, given that they waited too long and got themselves into the position where they had to sign Zach to that deal, they had to do it. But what they should have done is traded him sooner and not put themselves in that position.
There were stories about Zach being shopped at the end of 2021-22 season before the max, so just odd the way things played out over the course of the next summer and to now
Doesn't seem odd to me. The Bulls have been shopping him and expecting to get more than they're actually going to get. So they sit back and say, "should be able to get at least a Bradley Beal type return or close to a Jrue Holiday/ Harden return" and do nothing.
Physically speaking (re: injuries), he probably even looks better than he did 17 months ago given last season's durability esp regarding his knees. So that's much less a story now than then.
As far as attitude etc, I don't know why anyone ever thought he was anything other than a finesse player, so that hasn't changed. His personality arc after the Olympics with Klutch should have sent up concerning flags to varying degree; maybe not necessarily negative, but something to monitor. Then, during the opening months of the summer of 2022, he was heavily posturing with statements about having an open mind and wanting to visit other teams even after it was clear the Bulls would offer him the max. Fans generally responded to that with, "What else is he supposed to say? He's negotiating" but it made it clear Zach was willing to go through the media via Klutch for posturing and Zach was willing to play power games to force the Bulls hand on matters.
So I'm not too sure much with his personality has changed since the max either, although certainly the Billy benching and the recent trade request are the biggest examples of him being a diva. The delineation point with Zach's personality from ascending player, to "star" diva, was when he signed with Klutch before the max though.
As far as this season, he sucks ass but it seems likely due to just wanting to be traded which is unfortunate but not uncommon. Harden and Lillard were more dramatic than Zach is being.
Decision trees in basketball can go back to the 1980s sometimes, but Arturas' Decision #1 here on Zach LaVine is that "Zach is a player we can still build around" and dates from, what, Summer 2020? January 2021? It's maybe not a risky bet when a player is 24 years old. But a decision like that is very much an "open trade" and a GM, with some difficulties, has to decide when to "close" it. Otherwise it goes on forever and starts influencing other moves. Extensions. Complimentary players. Extensions for those complimentary players. What to do with draft picks. All these things are influenced by continuing to "trade" on the idea that "Zach is a player we can still build around."
If the Bulls had "closed" that decision before everyone else noticed the obvious truth (I would guess NBA personnel are way ahead of us, but his total implosion in the play-in vs. Miami was nationally televised and was certainly the final verdict), a lot of other decisions don't get made. In retrospect, they're almost all bad decisions.
Compare this situation with Philadelphia, where Decision #1 is closed when Ben Simmons passes out of an open lay-up in Game 7 vs the Hawks. Ben and Embiid can no longer play together, that much is sure. Aside from the Bulls situation being totally straight-forward in comparison, Philly seems to "close" their "open" decisions very quickly, even when they made the wrong one! They somehow got James Harden for Simmons, signed Harden to a 1-and-1 deal, then at some point realized he'd lost too much (pretty obvious seeing him last year and even more now in LA, despite his protests that he hasn't lost a thing). So they "closed" that decision and didn't offer Harden an extension into 2024/25. Yet they ALSO informed Maxey's agent they would be extending him NEXT summer rather than Summer 2023 because they want to capitalize on maximum cap space that they get by not signing James Harden to an extension.
You can't do all of these things: believing Harden is still a solution in 2024 means an extension, no cap space in 2024, so you would just extend Maxey now too. Recognizing Maxey's talent and extending him in the Summer of 2023 regardless of Harden also closes that cap space.
What this says to me is that Philly is thinking at least two steps ahead; Karnosovas seems chronically thinking at least two steps behind.
Look, if they get a shit haul for him then I'll still blame the FO. No issue there. But Zach isn't as good as those two you mentioned, which is why we're having this conversation in the first place.
Paying him a max for this level of dogshit play is unacceptable. Dude is playing like Clippers James Harden. I could live with paying him to be an expensive #2 playing next to a superstar but that's not happening anytime soon.
Still like it more than the Vooch extension though lol
Maybe it will tip the other way soon where someone talks themselves into getting him for free. Hell, maybe we will get a second rounder or a fringe-rotation player out of the deal.
Someone’s got to fall in love with the idea of Zach on their team and then be unable to walk away. It’s easier to start that if you think you’re getting a bargain.
The rejuvenation of The Coby White Experience around here is, I think, the byproduct of low expectations and years-long stretches of bad basketball. Coby's shooting fifty percent from deep in his last five and is generally running around the floor with a smile on his face. Graded against the backdrop of this season, or more recently and generally speaking, this franchise, it's *impossible* not to root for him. He's been a revelation, and his numbers are stellar sans LaVine.
But I tend to think that's more because this team is untreated sewage and less because Coby White is an actual starting NBA Point Guard, Point Guard of The Future (TM). I'd love to be wrong about this.
The fan base also decided he (and Lauri and Carter and pretty much every other Bulls player going back to Elton Brand outside of a couple of brief respites of sanity) were all worthless because the team pushed them into unrealistic roles with garbage teammates.
They're not future MVPs, but they're not worthless, and the short-sighted "let's trade all this young garbage for old vets" outcome was just another manifestation of the same impatience and ignorance that leads most to now say "trade all these old garbage vets and let the kids play".
Just got back from looking at the Bulls' history of moving on from young guys. Should have gone with my initial idea of reading aloud from the Necronomicon instead.
Coby is not a high level starting PG. He's still miscast in that role. On a contending team, he is a top 6th man. He's more akin to a Malik Monk than a DeAaron Fox.
i think he is good enough at this point to be in the rotation of an actual good team
Agreed. He's a combo guard and would be the first guard off the bench on a good team. The Bulls aren't a good team, so he starts. This team still needs a legit PG. And this is no insult to Coby-- I envision his destiny as a higher end 6th man.
First we all should stop thinking point guards when nowadays anyone can play ‘point’ forwards and centers included. DeMar does a nice job. Next confidence is everything and Coby is starting to believe in himself again.
Lastly don’t underestimate this team as long as Zach is injured or traded and Caruso stays healthy they will start to win consistently. My recommendations 1. If Devonte Green is healthy and not under contract sign him.
2. Play Andre more minutes and start him. He’s a much better player then Nikola.
3. Fire Donovan .. he absolutely is a horrible game coach who doesn’t know what it takes to win NBA games. I don’t know how he has stuck around so long.
Ayo should start with Coby and Demar and Williams. Trade Zach and Nikola. Get a rebounder and shot blocker and guy who can penetrate and dish with a good A/Turnover ratio.
Who the hell is this Devonte Green you keep mentioning? Are you referring to Javonte Green? Yes, I believe the Warriors waived him.
It's clear there's something going on with him that was never made public. He was clearly an NBA caliber player. The fact that he couldn't crack the rotation when he came back from injury last year and couldn't even stay on the Warriors G-League team tells me he's toast, which is really too bad. He was so fun to watch play.
Nobody wants Vooch. His contract is terrible and is fully guaranteed.
The Bulls are now in the situation where no* team wants to trade for Zach.
*The Lakers might post 15 Jan, who knows.
What's 'funny' is that, apart from the Lakers, the only other team that has shown interest in Lavine, the Knicks, Lavine doesn't want to be traded to. Not the first time Klutch are impacting the players they're supposed to look after with bad decisions and spite.
This is all about the roster = AK, one guard that won’t pass when double teamed, one that takes very questionable shots. Neither one plays any defense. Roster makes no sense at all. You can’t have 3 defensive holes in the same starting lineup, Zach, Demar and Vooch. Any of those guys would be better in a different situation. Not to mention we have so many guards it is ridiculously crowded, just a horrible roster that makes absolutely no sense. Zach has regressed ever since they said we don’t think you are good enough so we went and got a veteran in Demar, he is now the go to guy instead of developing Zach. Then to make it worse you paid the guy like he did develop into an all NBA guy even though he clearly has not. Now you are stuck with him. AK all day all the blame is there. Bulls will have to move Demar unless Joe Dumars is still throwing away money like he did on Ben Gordon.
Don’t get me wrong Demar is a hall of famer, just did not fit with this roster. Signing him made very little sense with Zach already here. Zach needs to own his lack of development as well. Coby did not make excuses and put in the work. I mean if Zach just improved his handle he is a completely different player. If they have a stat on most bobbles Zach may be at the top of the league. Either way one of them had to go in my opinion to have any chance to salvage the year. I hope they prove me wrong, I watch all the games and can’t take anymore this year of the lack of effort losses.
Wonder if Houston could be a trade candidate for Zach. Something like:
HOU sends out Reggie Bullock, Jalen Green, Cam Whitmore, Victor Oladipo, Jock Landale plus some draft consideration
CHI sends out Zach
HOU does it because they want to win now and Zach is way better than Jalen Green. Zach takes offensive pressure off of FVV and FVV and Brooks take defensive pressure off of Zach. Zach is forced to play more off ball because Sengun runs a lot of their offense. They loose Green and Whitmore, but 1) They still can build around Thompson, Sengun, Smith, and Eason and that's still a lot and 2) Green looks somewhat unlikely to be the next Devin Booker or something, so chances of getting royally burned by this look slim.
CHI does it because Green and Whitmore are lottery tickets of some kind and oh who am I kidding they do it because I'm not sure there's a better deal to be had. I don't really like Green for pretty much exactly the same reasons why I don't really like Zach. And Whitmore might be a non-felonious Miles Bridges, but he's more likely to be Joey Graham so that's also little whatever for me. But this might be as good as it gets, I don't know.
Man, I keep striking out thinking about the Caruso trade I would follow this up with. He's hard because as a defensive connector he makes the most sense on a good team, but so many of them have gotten good by sending away most of the sorts of things the Bulls should want in return.
How about Charlotte though? A "tired of being bad" team? I haven't watched them even once this year. PJ Washington is playing 31 MPG, so they must kind of like what he's bringing them even if his numbers don't look great at the moment. But he seems a little like the odd man out with Bridges, Miller, and Hayward as fairly natural modern 4s and Mark Williams as the starting 5. So maybe sending Alex and Landale to CHA for PJ Washington and like a top-X protected pick?
Philly seems like a good fit and I'd like to kick the tires on Paul Reed and KJ Martin. I think they have some semblance of pick they can offer soonish, but their pick sheet is a labyrinth of options and swaps.
Is OKC close enough with Wallace that they'd not want Caruso? If I were them, I'd want Caruso for the next couple years teaching those younger guys like Wallace how to be more like him. They have a mountain of picks and interesting players they could send back
I thought about OKC but 1) my suspicion is they will be in a holding pattern until this summer as they see their team play through increasingly high leverage situations and figure out who really makes the cut and 2) I think their needs are clearly more at the 4, for a variety of reasons.
Boston? They've got their own picks to trade (though they obviously won't be great). I don't think Sam Hauser or Payton Pritchard are terrible. Jordan Walsh has maybe potential...
Pritchard has to be in the deal to make the money work, but he's poison pill, so making this deal work under the cap rules is actually surprisingly difficult. The Celtics would have to send out 4 guys (Pritchard, Brissett, Hauser and Walsh). Would need a 3rd team to sort some of that out I guess.
Caruso seems like an extravagance when you've got Holiday and White, but if they really want to maximize their title chances this year, adding him would give them some hellacious defensive lineups and depth.
For the Bulls, how many low picks is enough? Boston can trade 24-27, and a variety of decent 2nds, but in the end, none of them has very high appeal. I'm enticed, but not sure I wanna pull the trigger either.
Works pretty well except the Bulls would have to figure out how to roster all those guys even if they plan to waive them later, right?
I'd probably prefer the Pistons as a target if they're actually on the table because:
1) I think I'd rather have Jaden Ivey than Green. Still undersized, but seems a lot sturdier and has potential to be an OK defender.
2) I think there's a chance that maybe we can unload Vuc on them too, which looks like it's probably financially impractical with the Rockets because there's just not the salary matching options.
I'd be pretty surprised if 2) came to pass. They already have 200 centers as is and one of them is a really high level prospect. Agree on 1) though, which, maybe I'm too much of a pessimist, but is the reason why I don't think it will happen lol. But I like DET as a trade partner, along the lines of what yfbb laid out in another thread.
My thinking on Vuc was maybe that they could be convinced that 1 below average "savvy vet" would be a better backup to Duren than 2 young guys who are really bad (Bagley and Wiseman). I actually think Bagley has come around to just below average, but Wiseman seems like he's on the Jahlil Okafor Express out of the NBA.
Given all their youth, maybe they'd prefer a "steadying influence" or something.
It has been painfully obvious to any astute observer of basketball that Zack is an overall negative player and at best should be barely in the rotation. He can’t play defense and is a walking turn over. Additionally he has poor court presence and poor judgement. The ball sticks when he is on offense and his teammate’s don’t play as well with a guy who either can’t miss and hogs the ball ( 10-15%) or takes poor shots and shoots a low percentage (40-50%). Yes he’ll win a handful of games but for every game he wins he’ll lose 1 1/2. If a team will take his contract I’d trade him for a ham sandwich.
Also why isn’t DeVonte Green on this team??
Answer : beyond belief coach and GM or he’s injured??
Kind of off-topic, but three different people have referred to AK as GM in this comments section. He's not GM though, Mark Eversley is. Kind of makes you wonder what he's doing if we all default to thinking of AK as GM.
If someone can trade a player I call them the GM, their title is kind of irrelevant. And no I have no idea what Marc Eversley does. I saw an interview over the summer where he wanted it known that he lives on the northside and sends his kid to public school.
if the Bulls are normal (so probably not), I'd imagine AK makes the decision to trade Zach, and what kind of return to look for
Eversley would then lead conversations with teams and other execs he may be more familiar with, he previously worked with the Raptors and Sixers, for instance
Eversley just says "boss, you wanted recent first round selections, I won't bore you with the details of who they are. But you'll like them, they can't play basketball at all!"
It was unclear as to why he didn’t play after his injury but when healthy he was only 1 of 3 Bulls with a positive +/- and at full strength he would ( should ) be in the Bulls rotation.
I believe he is 30/31 so unclear as to why he’s not on an NBA team. He must have passed a physical to have tried out for a spot on the Warriors. He epitomizes the type of player that helps you win as does Coby and Caruso.
He was barely on an NBA team when he was 28. I love Javonte but he's a scrapper, and teams would often rather give that slot to a young player or emergency PG or C. He's never had an easy shot at this.
He was only "signed" to the Warriors for 3 days, mostly as a technicality to assign him to their G League team after waiving him. While he's on the Santa Cruz Warriors roster, he hasn't logged any stats. My guess is he's away from the team and waiting for 10 days to start, but I don't know.
With Indy getting to Vegas, would they go for it and trade Walker/Nembhard for Caruso? Might be too much, but neither play much. Vuc trade was bad, but drafting PW instead of Haliburton or Maxey was also huge.
What a position to be in.
Watching ppl still try to claim Zach is better than Demar is crazy. Zach is like the poster child for empty stats. Not because he's not an impressive player with great skills, but because he's unwilling to do the important things that are key to a contributing team - sharing the basketball, playing D, moving without the ball. There is no reason the Bulls can't play this way with Zach except HE doesn't want to put in the effort and HE wants the ball as much as Demar. His ball IQ holds back his talent. It would be sad except he is paid 40 million a year, refuses to change and is now sulking. Just a totally incomplete player.
Off court too, DeMar puts in effort towards the young players and they adore him. I don't think he's much of an on-floor 'leader' but that's better than anti-leader Zach (part of the problem of the mid 3 is none of them are)
The funny thing is that for one part of the Bulls propaganda to be true — the team with Lonzo was actually good and not a flash in the pan — another part has to be false. People have tied themselves in knots to explain why Lonzo was so important without talking it through to its ultimate conclusion: Zach was the third, maybe fourth or even fifth most important player on that team, and probably the most easily replaceable of them. Not first, and not irreplaceable.
With a player like this we also have to split them between The Platonic Ideal of Zach LaVine and Real Existing Zach LaVine. The Bulls without either Zach are likely going to have some serious scoring droughts, which Platonic Ideal Zach would help with but Real Existing Zach frankly has made even worse this year. It's easy to confront that situation and think the solution is "We need a guy like Zach that can just go out there and create," and Platonic Ideal Zach can do that, but Real Existing Zach isn't.
Unfortunately both Zachs are airheads on defense and give up a lot of fucking points and neither does a fucking thing when they don't have the ball. Donovan should have benched him when he began half-assing it up the floor in the half-court or letting his man go by him so he could try to poke the ball out from behind. Unfortunately, we're coached not by Platonic Ideal Billy Donovan, but Real Existing Billy Donovan.
We’ve seen Zach at close to the platonic ideal over large sections of the last three seasons. Hyper efficient, incredible distance shooting, no long twos, getting to the line and finishing. All that has been there. And still his point differential was at best marginally positive.
Why he’s decided to throw away his best aspects for tepid mid range step backs is a mystery to me. Even if he didn’t like the new offense he should have still been looking for the things that work for him. But alas, he’s Real and Existing and Delusional.
I have a long-standing theory about people that they are dumb. But observant. So when people are flailing for something, they look around and instead of really understanding the characteristics that make someone or something successful, observe a superficial or stereotypical thing to focus on that really doesn't cut it.
Like, the Soviet Union collapsed, and all those communists decided that they needed to be capitalists, but what they understood as "being capitalist" means "being a gangster".
So, Zach's sitting there and seeing how beloved and (relatively) successful DeMar is, so he decides to abandon being a 3 point shooter and chuck mid range shots like DeMar.
It's weird, because the obvious best use of his talent would have been as a Ray Allen or Klay Thompson like line of development. If the guy would just move off the ball and shoot, he'd be freaking amazing.
The allegory of the cave fits this situation pretty well.
I think the things he’s unwilling to do also hurt his own results based on his skillset.
His handle is terrible, but he holds on to the ball instead of keeping it moving. He does nothing off-ball, but has the aforementioned issue on-ball and has the skills to score just as much without the ball in his hands. His shot selection is atrocious, but he’s a good enough shooter that if it was better he’d be a truly elite scorer.
It’s too bad the Bulls have a coach that exists to do what the stars want rather than… coach, because LaVine playing the way he could would be a lot better than LaVine
Zach is just millenial Mitch Richmond. Excellent scorer that doesn't do anything else and doesn't contribute to winning.
I think someone would still trade for him but expectations need to be strongly tempered. a distant 1st is the best you're gonna get.
Regarding Coby, he has honestly improved over the years. His defense will never be above average due to physical limitations(T-rex arms mainly) but he can be solid just be giving effort. Still not feeling him a starting PG but he can be one of the best 6th men who can give 16
17 months ago all of the media and most of the fan base said you had to give Zach the max because it's "just the cost of modern day players like Zach". There should be a lot of people owning up to that take now, expecially media people who now say he's worthless when he's the same guy as 17 months ago
no
he's worth the max and that was still the correct move, just not worth more to where a team should feel need to pay a bunch of assets (and potentially tax dollars) to acquire him
Lol
I wish at the time AK did more negotiation and it wasn't the total max and with the trade kicker and player option, but they couldn't have the alternative of no ~$40M salary slot
it's only the wrong move if they'd have to attach a pick to move him, but I don't think the market is THAT soft
Unfortunately not able to go back and read what you wrote at the old site but I remember what you wrote making logical sense about the $40M slot when I read it. I still think the right move was either sign+trade, or let him walk and soft reset. If it is indeed the truth that no Zach equates to a better product than Zach, then why worry about the cap so much and just try to sign and trade or no big deal that he walks. Signing him and keeping him led to where we are today. And so many people were tripping over themselves talking about "building around Zach" and how young he still was. I know you werent, but it was the popular opinion
But I still hold that an average GM should be able to get at least a Bradley Beal type return or close to a Jrue Holiday/ Harden return, and we shouldnt just be discussing this as if its inevitable AK shits the bed. We'll see how it plays out, lot of time left
I agree, I think the idea that he'd get much better though - and only from waiting - isn't feasible
That Lakers package is out there Jan15. If AK can get something similar now elsewhere then do it now IMO
Don't see any reason to believe that.
1. Beal and Harden are both looking like bad deals for the team acquiring them.
2. The pool of teams that even have that kind of draft capital has further dried up by two teams.
There's a big chunk of teams that literally can't make an offer like that even if they wanted to.
All 3 of those guys have been high level players on actual playoff teams. Zach has made the playoffs once in his whole career. And yea the Beal/Harden deals don't look too hot so i think GMs are going to be a much more wary now. Holiday is an actual two-way player who can run an offense so you can't compare his value to a 1 dimensional guy like Zach
right, my old friend Ricky was trying to goose Zach's value by comparing his shooting numbers to Jaylen Brown, not mentioning that Brown is an actually-good defensive player
Is he the same guy as 17 months ago? He's playing like shit now and pouting his way off his team. For a guy who already had some fragility in his case for stardom, that could move the needle a bit.
Like tic-tac-toe and Global Thermonuclear War, the only way to win is not to play.
That is, given that they waited too long and got themselves into the position where they had to sign Zach to that deal, they had to do it. But what they should have done is traded him sooner and not put themselves in that position.
There were stories about Zach being shopped at the end of 2021-22 season before the max, so just odd the way things played out over the course of the next summer and to now
Doesn't seem odd to me. The Bulls have been shopping him and expecting to get more than they're actually going to get. So they sit back and say, "should be able to get at least a Bradley Beal type return or close to a Jrue Holiday/ Harden return" and do nothing.
So Zach is doing them a favor by forcing their hand.
Totally. I give him credit for pulling the trigger where AK refused to.
Physically speaking (re: injuries), he probably even looks better than he did 17 months ago given last season's durability esp regarding his knees. So that's much less a story now than then.
As far as attitude etc, I don't know why anyone ever thought he was anything other than a finesse player, so that hasn't changed. His personality arc after the Olympics with Klutch should have sent up concerning flags to varying degree; maybe not necessarily negative, but something to monitor. Then, during the opening months of the summer of 2022, he was heavily posturing with statements about having an open mind and wanting to visit other teams even after it was clear the Bulls would offer him the max. Fans generally responded to that with, "What else is he supposed to say? He's negotiating" but it made it clear Zach was willing to go through the media via Klutch for posturing and Zach was willing to play power games to force the Bulls hand on matters.
So I'm not too sure much with his personality has changed since the max either, although certainly the Billy benching and the recent trade request are the biggest examples of him being a diva. The delineation point with Zach's personality from ascending player, to "star" diva, was when he signed with Klutch before the max though.
As far as this season, he sucks ass but it seems likely due to just wanting to be traded which is unfortunate but not uncommon. Harden and Lillard were more dramatic than Zach is being.
Decision trees in basketball can go back to the 1980s sometimes, but Arturas' Decision #1 here on Zach LaVine is that "Zach is a player we can still build around" and dates from, what, Summer 2020? January 2021? It's maybe not a risky bet when a player is 24 years old. But a decision like that is very much an "open trade" and a GM, with some difficulties, has to decide when to "close" it. Otherwise it goes on forever and starts influencing other moves. Extensions. Complimentary players. Extensions for those complimentary players. What to do with draft picks. All these things are influenced by continuing to "trade" on the idea that "Zach is a player we can still build around."
If the Bulls had "closed" that decision before everyone else noticed the obvious truth (I would guess NBA personnel are way ahead of us, but his total implosion in the play-in vs. Miami was nationally televised and was certainly the final verdict), a lot of other decisions don't get made. In retrospect, they're almost all bad decisions.
Compare this situation with Philadelphia, where Decision #1 is closed when Ben Simmons passes out of an open lay-up in Game 7 vs the Hawks. Ben and Embiid can no longer play together, that much is sure. Aside from the Bulls situation being totally straight-forward in comparison, Philly seems to "close" their "open" decisions very quickly, even when they made the wrong one! They somehow got James Harden for Simmons, signed Harden to a 1-and-1 deal, then at some point realized he'd lost too much (pretty obvious seeing him last year and even more now in LA, despite his protests that he hasn't lost a thing). So they "closed" that decision and didn't offer Harden an extension into 2024/25. Yet they ALSO informed Maxey's agent they would be extending him NEXT summer rather than Summer 2023 because they want to capitalize on maximum cap space that they get by not signing James Harden to an extension.
You can't do all of these things: believing Harden is still a solution in 2024 means an extension, no cap space in 2024, so you would just extend Maxey now too. Recognizing Maxey's talent and extending him in the Summer of 2023 regardless of Harden also closes that cap space.
What this says to me is that Philly is thinking at least two steps ahead; Karnosovas seems chronically thinking at least two steps behind.
Great comment which makes me want to decision tree Pat Riley's career
Look, if they get a shit haul for him then I'll still blame the FO. No issue there. But Zach isn't as good as those two you mentioned, which is why we're having this conversation in the first place.
Paying him a max for this level of dogshit play is unacceptable. Dude is playing like Clippers James Harden. I could live with paying him to be an expensive #2 playing next to a superstar but that's not happening anytime soon.
Still like it more than the Vooch extension though lol
At this point, I just want Zach gone without giving up any picks. As long as we aren't taking on even longer term salary, I'll probably be happy.
Maybe it will tip the other way soon where someone talks themselves into getting him for free. Hell, maybe we will get a second rounder or a fringe-rotation player out of the deal.
Someone’s got to fall in love with the idea of Zach on their team and then be unable to walk away. It’s easier to start that if you think you’re getting a bargain.
The Bulls are a bad restaurant with small portions.
The rejuvenation of The Coby White Experience around here is, I think, the byproduct of low expectations and years-long stretches of bad basketball. Coby's shooting fifty percent from deep in his last five and is generally running around the floor with a smile on his face. Graded against the backdrop of this season, or more recently and generally speaking, this franchise, it's *impossible* not to root for him. He's been a revelation, and his numbers are stellar sans LaVine.
But I tend to think that's more because this team is untreated sewage and less because Coby White is an actual starting NBA Point Guard, Point Guard of The Future (TM). I'd love to be wrong about this.
No this is, like, normal fan behavior. Young guys show you some things and you get excited? Yep, that's very normal shit.
This is a double-edged sword.
The fan base also decided he (and Lauri and Carter and pretty much every other Bulls player going back to Elton Brand outside of a couple of brief respites of sanity) were all worthless because the team pushed them into unrealistic roles with garbage teammates.
They're not future MVPs, but they're not worthless, and the short-sighted "let's trade all this young garbage for old vets" outcome was just another manifestation of the same impatience and ignorance that leads most to now say "trade all these old garbage vets and let the kids play".
Just got back from looking at the Bulls' history of moving on from young guys. Should have gone with my initial idea of reading aloud from the Necronomicon instead.
Coby is not a high level starting PG. He's still miscast in that role. On a contending team, he is a top 6th man. He's more akin to a Malik Monk than a DeAaron Fox.
i think he is good enough at this point to be in the rotation of an actual good team
Anything more than that is asking to much of him
Agreed. He's a combo guard and would be the first guard off the bench on a good team. The Bulls aren't a good team, so he starts. This team still needs a legit PG. And this is no insult to Coby-- I envision his destiny as a higher end 6th man.
First we all should stop thinking point guards when nowadays anyone can play ‘point’ forwards and centers included. DeMar does a nice job. Next confidence is everything and Coby is starting to believe in himself again.
Lastly don’t underestimate this team as long as Zach is injured or traded and Caruso stays healthy they will start to win consistently. My recommendations 1. If Devonte Green is healthy and not under contract sign him.
2. Play Andre more minutes and start him. He’s a much better player then Nikola.
3. Fire Donovan .. he absolutely is a horrible game coach who doesn’t know what it takes to win NBA games. I don’t know how he has stuck around so long.
Ayo should start with Coby and Demar and Williams. Trade Zach and Nikola. Get a rebounder and shot blocker and guy who can penetrate and dish with a good A/Turnover ratio.
Who the hell is this Devonte Green you keep mentioning? Are you referring to Javonte Green? Yes, I believe the Warriors waived him.
It's clear there's something going on with him that was never made public. He was clearly an NBA caliber player. The fact that he couldn't crack the rotation when he came back from injury last year and couldn't even stay on the Warriors G-League team tells me he's toast, which is really too bad. He was so fun to watch play.
Nobody wants Vooch. His contract is terrible and is fully guaranteed.
The Bulls are now in the situation where no* team wants to trade for Zach.
*The Lakers might post 15 Jan, who knows.
What's 'funny' is that, apart from the Lakers, the only other team that has shown interest in Lavine, the Knicks, Lavine doesn't want to be traded to. Not the first time Klutch are impacting the players they're supposed to look after with bad decisions and spite.
This is all about the roster = AK, one guard that won’t pass when double teamed, one that takes very questionable shots. Neither one plays any defense. Roster makes no sense at all. You can’t have 3 defensive holes in the same starting lineup, Zach, Demar and Vooch. Any of those guys would be better in a different situation. Not to mention we have so many guards it is ridiculously crowded, just a horrible roster that makes absolutely no sense. Zach has regressed ever since they said we don’t think you are good enough so we went and got a veteran in Demar, he is now the go to guy instead of developing Zach. Then to make it worse you paid the guy like he did develop into an all NBA guy even though he clearly has not. Now you are stuck with him. AK all day all the blame is there. Bulls will have to move Demar unless Joe Dumars is still throwing away money like he did on Ben Gordon.
Well said. Zach could succeed with a good point guard and a defensive center, and a coach who coached harder.
Demar’s ball-stopping 2-pointer success has been a really bad example for Zach. He needs to stick with dunks and threes and athleticism.
Don’t get me wrong Demar is a hall of famer, just did not fit with this roster. Signing him made very little sense with Zach already here. Zach needs to own his lack of development as well. Coby did not make excuses and put in the work. I mean if Zach just improved his handle he is a completely different player. If they have a stat on most bobbles Zach may be at the top of the league. Either way one of them had to go in my opinion to have any chance to salvage the year. I hope they prove me wrong, I watch all the games and can’t take anymore this year of the lack of effort losses.
Wonder if Houston could be a trade candidate for Zach. Something like:
HOU sends out Reggie Bullock, Jalen Green, Cam Whitmore, Victor Oladipo, Jock Landale plus some draft consideration
CHI sends out Zach
HOU does it because they want to win now and Zach is way better than Jalen Green. Zach takes offensive pressure off of FVV and FVV and Brooks take defensive pressure off of Zach. Zach is forced to play more off ball because Sengun runs a lot of their offense. They loose Green and Whitmore, but 1) They still can build around Thompson, Sengun, Smith, and Eason and that's still a lot and 2) Green looks somewhat unlikely to be the next Devin Booker or something, so chances of getting royally burned by this look slim.
CHI does it because Green and Whitmore are lottery tickets of some kind and oh who am I kidding they do it because I'm not sure there's a better deal to be had. I don't really like Green for pretty much exactly the same reasons why I don't really like Zach. And Whitmore might be a non-felonious Miles Bridges, but he's more likely to be Joey Graham so that's also little whatever for me. But this might be as good as it gets, I don't know.
Man, I keep striking out thinking about the Caruso trade I would follow this up with. He's hard because as a defensive connector he makes the most sense on a good team, but so many of them have gotten good by sending away most of the sorts of things the Bulls should want in return.
How about Charlotte though? A "tired of being bad" team? I haven't watched them even once this year. PJ Washington is playing 31 MPG, so they must kind of like what he's bringing them even if his numbers don't look great at the moment. But he seems a little like the odd man out with Bridges, Miller, and Hayward as fairly natural modern 4s and Mark Williams as the starting 5. So maybe sending Alex and Landale to CHA for PJ Washington and like a top-X protected pick?
I like Caruso too much to send him to Charlotte.
Philly seems like a good fit and I'd like to kick the tires on Paul Reed and KJ Martin. I think they have some semblance of pick they can offer soonish, but their pick sheet is a labyrinth of options and swaps.
Is OKC close enough with Wallace that they'd not want Caruso? If I were them, I'd want Caruso for the next couple years teaching those younger guys like Wallace how to be more like him. They have a mountain of picks and interesting players they could send back
I thought about OKC but 1) my suspicion is they will be in a holding pattern until this summer as they see their team play through increasingly high leverage situations and figure out who really makes the cut and 2) I think their needs are clearly more at the 4, for a variety of reasons.
Boston? They've got their own picks to trade (though they obviously won't be great). I don't think Sam Hauser or Payton Pritchard are terrible. Jordan Walsh has maybe potential...
Pritchard has to be in the deal to make the money work, but he's poison pill, so making this deal work under the cap rules is actually surprisingly difficult. The Celtics would have to send out 4 guys (Pritchard, Brissett, Hauser and Walsh). Would need a 3rd team to sort some of that out I guess.
Caruso seems like an extravagance when you've got Holiday and White, but if they really want to maximize their title chances this year, adding him would give them some hellacious defensive lineups and depth.
For the Bulls, how many low picks is enough? Boston can trade 24-27, and a variety of decent 2nds, but in the end, none of them has very high appeal. I'm enticed, but not sure I wanna pull the trigger either.
I'd take it. But I'd take just about anything. I'm sick of watching this team.
Guaranteed you are putting more thought into this than AK. He GMs like he's taking 3 hour naps every afternoon.
Works pretty well except the Bulls would have to figure out how to roster all those guys even if they plan to waive them later, right?
I'd probably prefer the Pistons as a target if they're actually on the table because:
1) I think I'd rather have Jaden Ivey than Green. Still undersized, but seems a lot sturdier and has potential to be an OK defender.
2) I think there's a chance that maybe we can unload Vuc on them too, which looks like it's probably financially impractical with the Rockets because there's just not the salary matching options.
I'd be pretty surprised if 2) came to pass. They already have 200 centers as is and one of them is a really high level prospect. Agree on 1) though, which, maybe I'm too much of a pessimist, but is the reason why I don't think it will happen lol. But I like DET as a trade partner, along the lines of what yfbb laid out in another thread.
My thinking on Vuc was maybe that they could be convinced that 1 below average "savvy vet" would be a better backup to Duren than 2 young guys who are really bad (Bagley and Wiseman). I actually think Bagley has come around to just below average, but Wiseman seems like he's on the Jahlil Okafor Express out of the NBA.
Given all their youth, maybe they'd prefer a "steadying influence" or something.
It has been painfully obvious to any astute observer of basketball that Zack is an overall negative player and at best should be barely in the rotation. He can’t play defense and is a walking turn over. Additionally he has poor court presence and poor judgement. The ball sticks when he is on offense and his teammate’s don’t play as well with a guy who either can’t miss and hogs the ball ( 10-15%) or takes poor shots and shoots a low percentage (40-50%). Yes he’ll win a handful of games but for every game he wins he’ll lose 1 1/2. If a team will take his contract I’d trade him for a ham sandwich.
Also why isn’t DeVonte Green on this team??
Answer : beyond belief coach and GM or he’s injured??
ah but would any astute observer of basketball know who "DeVonte Green" is?
2nd of 5 Javontes recently legally changed his name.
I don’t know but I saw him play a few dozen games before his injury and he can play on my team.. for sure if he’s injury free etc
Kind of off-topic, but three different people have referred to AK as GM in this comments section. He's not GM though, Mark Eversley is. Kind of makes you wonder what he's doing if we all default to thinking of AK as GM.
We need to sit Eversley in front of two Bobs and ask him what it is that he does around here.
I'm going to jump to conclusions here and assume Evs deals with the GD customers so the engineers don't have to!!!!!! Man's got people skillz
If someone can trade a player I call them the GM, their title is kind of irrelevant. And no I have no idea what Marc Eversley does. I saw an interview over the summer where he wanted it known that he lives on the northside and sends his kid to public school.
if the Bulls are normal (so probably not), I'd imagine AK makes the decision to trade Zach, and what kind of return to look for
Eversley would then lead conversations with teams and other execs he may be more familiar with, he previously worked with the Raptors and Sixers, for instance
Then Eversley physically takes the trade offer from the teams to his boss?
Eversley just says "boss, you wanted recent first round selections, I won't bore you with the details of who they are. But you'll like them, they can't play basketball at all!"
the conspiracy against Zach's trade value deepens further: The Ringer updated their rankings and LaVine fell to #50
https://nbarankings.theringer.com/
I wouldn't be too upset though at this being in any way valid, as they have Vuc as #84, actually up from their preseason rankings.
Agree I’m old and forgot his first name
It was unclear as to why he didn’t play after his injury but when healthy he was only 1 of 3 Bulls with a positive +/- and at full strength he would ( should ) be in the Bulls rotation.
I believe he is 30/31 so unclear as to why he’s not on an NBA team. He must have passed a physical to have tried out for a spot on the Warriors. He epitomizes the type of player that helps you win as does Coby and Caruso.
He was barely on an NBA team when he was 28. I love Javonte but he's a scrapper, and teams would often rather give that slot to a young player or emergency PG or C. He's never had an easy shot at this.
He was only "signed" to the Warriors for 3 days, mostly as a technicality to assign him to their G League team after waiving him. While he's on the Santa Cruz Warriors roster, he hasn't logged any stats. My guess is he's away from the team and waiting for 10 days to start, but I don't know.
This post, while terse, was one of your very best efforts yfbb. Hat's off.
With Indy getting to Vegas, would they go for it and trade Walker/Nembhard for Caruso? Might be too much, but neither play much. Vuc trade was bad, but drafting PW instead of Haliburton or Maxey was also huge.
I don't see why they would. Plus they've got Bruce Brown, who's about as similar a player as you're going to get to Caruso already.