LaVine getting foot surgery/Out for the season

[patryk7754]

Agreed but I think he’s never really been put in the right role. Here, he was expected to be the number one guy, which you can’t be if you’re not consistently carrying your team to wins. And when they finally added a couple of guys to help hi, it was probably the two worst fits for him. I think he can still live up to his contract but it has to be as a number two guy behind someone like embiid. And the a cherry on top is finding a PG like lonzo (it would be great if lonzo could come back to like 80/90% of what he was, but I have doubts.}

It’s not very likely but I think making a strong push for Embiid, hiring budenholzer and finding a true PG (if one exists anymore) would be the ideal plan.

If you are a max player, it shouldn't be hard to figure out the right role.

If Zach were back on a 20M per year deal, there probably wouldn't be any complaints. In the end, a lot of opinions are probably implicitly factoring in contract when talking about how good a player is. Like Zach's definitely a very talented player. When healthy, he's absolutely top 75, which means he's probably rightly cast as a #2 or #3 best player on a team. That's probably more of a 27M type guy than than 45M type guy.

The money will always get in the way there.

Agreed that lavine needs to be better with that contract, but it seems like moving off the contract would be extremely difficult, so I think, the best path would be surrounding him with a team that best fits his ability and at the same time adding a true elite number one. If by some miracle we are able to land Embiid by trading white, Vuc, Lonzo and every pick possible then I think the best transactions would be

Signing either D’Angelo Russell or Tyus jones( probably jones since he’ll be cheaper)
Sign Jalen Smith and Derrick Jones jr to be PF
convince Damar to come back as a 6th man
And end the curse that i convinced the bulls have been under for trading rose by bringing him back

Jones/Carte/Rose
Lavine/Ayo
Caruso/Damar
Smith/Jones
Embiid/Drummond

Not only would we have our superstar, which is a requirement to winning, lavine now has a guy to play off of seamlessly and a PG to get him the ball so he can get back to his his extremely efficient top 10 scoring.

[dougthonus]

Agreed that lavine needs to be better with that contract, but it seems like moving off the contract would be extremely difficult, so I think, the best path would be surrounding him with a team that best fits his ability and at the same time adding a true elite number one. If by some miracle we are able to land Embiid by trading white, Vuc, Lonzo and every pick possible then I think the best transactions would be

Signing either D’Angelo Russell or Tyus jones( probably jones since he’ll be cheaper)
Sign Jalen Smith and Derrick Jones jr to be PF
convince Damar to come back as a 6th man
And end the curse that i convinced the bulls have been under for trading rose by bringing him back

Jones/Carte/Rose
Lavine/Ayo
Caruso/Damar
Smith/Jones
Embiid/Drummond

Not only would we have our superstar, which is a requirement to winning, lavine now has a guy to play off of seamlessly and a PG to get him the ball so he can get back to his his extremely efficient top 10 scoring.

Seems like you are trying to wag the dog. If you can get a truly elite #1, you do so based on whether it makes sense, not based on anything going on with the guy who might then be the overpaid 2nd/3rd best player on the team whom you can't dump because he has no market.

[patryk7754]

Agreed that lavine needs to be better with that contract, but it seems like moving off the contract would be extremely difficult, so I think, the best path would be surrounding him with a team that best fits his ability and at the same time adding a true elite number one. If by some miracle we are able to land Embiid by trading white, Vuc, Lonzo and every pick possible then I think the best transactions would be

Signing either D’Angelo Russell or Tyus jones( probably jones since he’ll be cheaper)
Sign Jalen Smith and Derrick Jones jr to be PF
convince Damar to come back as a 6th man
And end the curse that i convinced the bulls have been under for trading rose by bringing him back

Jones/Carte/Rose
Lavine/Ayo
Caruso/Damar
Smith/Jones
Embiid/Drummond

Not only would we have our superstar, which is a requirement to winning, lavine now has a guy to play off of seamlessly and a PG to get him the ball so he can get back to his his extremely efficient top 10 scoring.

Seems like you are trying to wag the dog. If you can get a truly elite #1, you do so based on whether it makes sense, not based on anything going on with the guy who might then be the overpaid 2nd/3rd best player on the team whom you can't dump because he has no market.

I would say it always makes sense to try and get that guy. I wouldn’t characterize finding a way to make best of the situation (being stuck with lavines contract) is wagging the dog. The way I see it is we have three options

Stand pat
Dump lavine for major downgrades and probably a pick that turns out to be irrelevant
Keep lavine and maximize his skill set by putting him in the proper role behind a true number one he’d fit next to the best

[dougthonus]

I would say it always makes sense to try and get that guy.

I mean generally yes as long as some (probably obvious) assumptions are true. The guy has to want to be here, you have to have some plan to have talent around him etc...

I wouldn’t characterize finding a way to make best of the situation (being stuck with lavines contract) is wagging the dog. The way I see it is we have three options

It's wagging the dog, because the reason you get a superstar is not to make the best situation of LaVine, you get one because you want a superstar.

Stand pat
Dump lavine for major downgrades and probably a pick that turns out to be irrelevant
Keep lavine and maximize his skill set by putting him in the proper role behind a true number one he’d fit next to the best

The 3rd option probably doesn't really exist, but again, you wouldn't frame this around "Go get a superstar so you can make it work with Zach", it would be "Go get a superstar and try to win and oh Zach could also fit into that scenario".

It's really, really unlikely that you're going to trade your way into being a contender, even more so now that most of our assets are worth far less than they were a year ago. FWIW, in your scenario, you would only have the MLE / BAE to bring people in, pretty unlikely you're getting the guys you named as FAs with those two exceptions.

You probably would get decent vet min guys though if you had a roster ready to contend.

[patryk7754]

I would say it always makes sense to try and get that guy.

I mean generally yes as long as some (probably obvious) assumptions are true. The guy has to want to be here, you have to have some plan to have talent around him etc...

I wouldn’t characterize finding a way to make best of the situation (being stuck with lavines contract) is wagging the dog. The way I see it is we have three options

It's wagging the dog, because the reason you get a superstar is not to make the best situation of LaVine, you get one because you want a superstar.

Stand pat
Dump lavine for major downgrades and probably a pick that turns out to be irrelevant
Keep lavine and maximize his skill set by putting him in the proper role behind a true number one he’d fit next to the best

The 3rd option probably doesn't really exist, but again, you wouldn't frame this around "Go get a superstar so you can make it work with Zach", it would be "Go get a superstar and try to win and oh Zach could also fit into that scenario".

It's really, really unlikely that you're going to trade your way into being a contender, even more so now that most of our assets are worth far less than they were a year ago. FWIW, in your scenario, you would only have the MLE / BAE to bring people in, pretty unlikely you're getting the guys you named as FAs with those two exceptions.

You probably would get decent vet min guys though if you had a roster ready to contend.

My point is that making lavine the definitive number two and adding a superstar that fits well with him at the same time is our best path to being a contender right away. That doesn’t mean I am completely against trading lavine. If we could do lavine for embiid or whoever I’m all for it. I just don’t think it’s likely that Lavines contract is movable. So if Lavine is going to play a significant role on your team, you might as well add other guys who would maximize his ability. Doing so doesn’t hinder anyone else so there’s no point of doing it

[dougthonus]

My point is that making lavine the definitive number two and adding a superstar that fits well with him at the same time is our best path to being a contender right away. That doesn’t mean I am completely against trading lavine. If we could do lavine for embiid or whoever I’m all for it. I just don’t think it’s likely that Lavines contract is movable. So if Lavine is going to play a significant role on your team, you might as well add other guys who would maximize his ability. Doing so doesn’t hinder anyone else so there’s no point of doing it

My counterpoint:
1: Philly won't trade Embiid unless he demands out
2: If he demands out, he'll pick a list of teams (might even be as small as 1 team long) where he'll go to
3: The Bulls won't be on that list

The theory of "just trade for a superstar" is simply not practical to implement. You typically have 0 choice in this strategy, but sure if we could trade what you said for Joel Embiid, even with all the insane injury risks, I'd be down.

[DuckIII]

My point is that making lavine the definitive number two and adding a superstar that fits well with him at the same time is our best path to being a contender right away.

Agree. But we have no assets to do that.

So if Lavine is going to play a significant role on your team, you might as well add other guys who would maximize his ability. Doing so doesn’t hinder anyone else so there’s no point of doing it

But it does hinder others. Coby to some extent, and Ayo to a significant extent, and Pat to a degree before his ankles failed him all benefited from Lavine being gone. Which is logical. And the team as a whole has been better without Lavine this year. A lot better. So it’s hardly an established assumption that it would not hinder others. Really the evidence supports the exact opposite conclusion.

Now, if the Bulls were a contender that would be completely different because Lavine is better and more talented than those guys so maximizing him would still be a priority. But we aren’t even an average NBA team, let alone a contender. So catering the roster to Lavine at this point would be extremely foolish.

[MrSparkle]

Side note about Zach- in 2026/27, he’ll be tied with Luka and Trae for 11th best player at around $49M. If he gets back to 25 PPG, that’ll be justified even if he’s not on par with those two perennial stars… but his value is Tobias Harris territory at this point (or worse- more injuries/missed games and harder decline).

The max deal was offered expecting a flat line offensive floor for 1-2 years at worst, improvement at best. We instead fell to the parabola, right away.

I’ve come to expect zero magic from the FO… but I a thankless salary dump without sending a FRP is our realistic trade. It’d be risky to keep holding him, to salvage higher value. Detroit or Philly may say “hi and OK” to a TPE+crap-filler. If the Bulls actually spend the TPE for a change, you could find yourself coming out ahead.

[Dan Z]

My point is that making lavine the definitive number two and adding a superstar that fits well with him at the same time is our best path to being a contender right away.

Agree. But we have no assets to do that.

So if Lavine is going to play a significant role on your team, you might as well add other guys who would maximize his ability. Doing so doesn’t hinder anyone else so there’s no point of doing it

But it does hinder others. Coby to some extent, and Ayo to a significant extent, and Pat to a degree before his ankles failed him all benefited from Lavine being gone. Which is logical. And the team as a whole has been better without Lavine this year. A lot better. So it’s hardly an established assumption that it would not hinder others. Really the evidence supports the exact opposite conclusion.

Now, if the Bulls were a contender that would be completely different because Lavine is better and more talented than those guys so maximizing him would still be a priority. But we aren’t even an average NBA team, let alone a contender. So catering the roster to Lavine at this point would be extremely foolish.

Agreed. It'd be foolish now and wasn't a good idea a few years ago.

[Ice Man]

Side note about Zach- in 2026/27, he’ll be tied with Luka and Trae for 11th best player at around $49M.

I believe that you mean "best paid."

[MrSparkle]

Side note about Zach- in 2026/27, he’ll be tied with Luka and Trae for 11th best player at around $49M.

I believe that you mean "best paid."

BBBQ typo

[Bandit King]

Lavine trade value is worse the Justin Fields.

Both are overrated. Lavine needs to try again and prove he is worthy of being traded.