Lets talk Zach Lavine

[Stratmaster]

I agree with you that his hot take after one bad game is ridiculous, but Lavine was a decent contributor to last night's loss. He didn't play nearly to this year's standards (and not just shots weren't falling)

I agree. He was completely passive most of his time on the court. I have had enough of the "get others involved early" approach. I am not saying Zach should immediately take over to start the game either. But this idea of having him stand in the corner or stroll around the 3 point line making passes for the first 4 minutes of every game isn't good. How about we let Zach get a feel and score some early buckets before the defense settles in? THAT will allow others to get involved when the defense has to react.

I don't think it's zach being passive but coby and WCJ playing hot potato with 80% of the possessions to begin the game for the sake of their "development". The ball barely reaches him and the few times it does he's forced to be himself going and ends up taking forced/dumb/frustrated shots. He's an elite shot maker so he usually makes those but last night they weren't falling.

And it's the same with Lauri but since he's not a guard his attempts are even more limited to catch and shoot 3s (and limited self created drives)

Ideally our offense should begin continually with a Lavine/Lauri action and the rest of the team should be playing off of them. This isn't the case until thad comes in and Lavine starts playing on ball with him.

Agree 100%. Coby and Lauri should be the guys in the corner and rotating to the 3 point line at the wing for catch and shoots when the defense attacks Zach. Lauri does that pretty well. I can't blame Coby for not doing it because Billy is putting the ball in his hands to start the game.

[Cabbage bulls]

Throughout this season Zach has been getting absolutely hammered when taking it to the hole, but he gets zero respect from the officials. On the other side of the spectrum is Jimmy Butler, who gets a ton of foul calls when driving. The fact that players need to "earn" the star foul calls is a freaking joke.

Am I just completely wrong and my hometown is blinding me, or does Zach get treated unfairly by the officials? Is there any stat that quantifies how often a player takes contact while having the ball?

[Mk0]

He'd get plenty of calls if he learned to sell out and do the head snap.

Seriously. Jimmy became an elite player when he realized that if he snapped his head on drives he'd get 8 a game and raise his ppg.
This is the league now.

[coldfish]

Throughout this season Zach has been getting absolutely hammered when taking it to the hole, but he gets zero respect from the officials. On the other side of the spectrum is Jimmy Butler, who gets a ton of foul calls when driving. The fact that players need to "earn" the star foul calls is a freaking joke.

Am I just completely wrong and my hometown is blinding me, or does Zach get treated unfairly by the officials? Is there any stat that quantifies how often a player takes contact while having the ball?

You are not. This is absolutely ridiculous.

Its really starting to get in Zach's head. He is getting a lot of techs. To a large degree, I have been disappointed that BD isn't taking his bullet for Zach. BD has to get thrown out of a game.

[Chi town]

Throughout this season Zach has been getting absolutely hammered when taking it to the hole, but he gets zero respect from the officials. On the other side of the spectrum is Jimmy Butler, who gets a ton of foul calls when driving. The fact that players need to "earn" the star foul calls is a freaking joke.

Am I just completely wrong and my hometown is blinding me, or does Zach get treated unfairly by the officials? Is there any stat that quantifies how often a player takes contact while having the ball?

You are not. This is absolutely ridiculous.

Its really starting to get in Zach's head. He is getting a lot of techs. To a large degree, I have been disappointed that BD isn't taking his bullet for Zach. BD has to get thrown out of a game.

This.

Zach has to sell the contact like Jimmy. He rarely does.

[WindyCityBorn]

Throughout this season Zach has been getting absolutely hammered when taking it to the hole, but he gets zero respect from the officials. On the other side of the spectrum is Jimmy Butler, who gets a ton of foul calls when driving. The fact that players need to "earn" the star foul calls is a freaking joke.

Am I just completely wrong and my hometown is blinding me, or does Zach get treated unfairly by the officials? Is there any stat that quantifies how often a player takes contact while having the ball?

You are not. This is absolutely ridiculous.

Its really starting to get in Zach's head. He is getting a lot of techs. To a large degree, I have been disappointed that BD isn't taking his bullet for Zach. BD has to get thrown out of a game.

This.

Zach has to sell the contact like Jimmy. He rarely does.

Zach is trying to score while Butler is mainly trying to draw fouls. Despite all the free throws Butler gets he is still a less efficient scorer. I’m all for Zach learning art of drawing fouls as long as that doesn’t lead to missing shots because actually making the shot isn’t his first priority.

[Mbrahv0528]

When is last time Butler played on team without a good supporting cast? That last season with the Bulls we were not good. Don’t pretend he makes wine out of water.

The TWolves. You know, the worst team in the league?

Butler took those dudes to the playoffs.

And let's not pretend anybody thought Miami was a good supporting cast. Nobody thought they would contend, and Butler dragged them to the finals.

The same T-Wolves with all-star in Towns and really good PG at the time in Teague. That was not a team devoid of talent. Miami was already a winning team. They were not devoid of talent. And the East was piss weak and still is.

The narrative around Butler is that teams get worse when he leaves and better when he arrives. This is based around reality and what actually happened in team life so far in his career. Not sure why anyone would try and spin alternate facts about this?

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[WindyCityBorn]

The TWolves. You know, the worst team in the league?

Butler took those dudes to the playoffs.

And let's not pretend anybody thought Miami was a good supporting cast. Nobody thought they would contend, and Butler dragged them to the finals.

The same T-Wolves with all-star in Towns and really good PG at the time in Teague. That was not a team devoid of talent. Miami was already a winning team. They were not devoid of talent. And the East was piss weak and still is.

The narrative around Butler is that teams get worse when he leaves and better when he arrives. This is based around reality and what actually happened in team life so far in his career. Not sure why anyone would try and spin alternate facts about this?

Sent from my SM-F707U using RealGM mobile app

The narrative was that he was carrying teams. I don’t think that is true. Maybe this year.

[Jcool0]

That Jordan number

Read on Twitter

[ZOMG]

OK, there's this thing that has been bugging me for a while.

The "Zach gets double teamed a lot" narrative. It's simply not true.

For an All Star scorer, I'd say it's surprising how FEW double teams he sees. Teams are simply not making it a priority to get the ball out of LaVine's hands. Case in point - in the Thunder game, he was working exclusively against single coverage. That tells you that teams would rather let Zach try to beat them with ISO ball than to deal with the humming ball-movement offense led by Thad - which is predicated by getting the defense scrambling.

The league is starting to respect the Bulls offense. You still don't see the same respect for Zach individually. There's a reason for that.

The fact that the Bulls backcourt basically has zero gravity makes it even more amazing how they're able to get to their sets so easily. The Thad effect in the middle is nothing short of amazing.

[JimmyJammer]

OK, there's this thing that has been bugging me for a while.

The "Zach gets double teamed a lot" narrative. It's simply not true.

For an All Star scorer, I'd say it's surprising how FEW double teams he sees. Teams are simply not making it a priority to get the ball out of LaVine's hands. Case in point - in the Thunder game, he was working exclusively against single coverage. That tells you that teams would rather let Zach try to beat them with ISO ball than to deal with the humming ball-movement offense led by Thad - which is predicated by getting the defense scrambling.

The league is starting to respect the Bulls offense. You still don't see the same respect for Zach individually. There's a reason for that.

The fact that the Bulls backcourt basically has zero gravity makes it even more amazing how they're able to get to their sets so easily. The Thad effect in the middle is nothing short of amazing.

I disagree with some parts of your assessment. I agree, teams are starting to pay close attention to our offensive sets, but not doubling Zach is not by choice. The reason why they cannot double Zach is because he is effective on the ball and off the ball. Zach does not spend much time with the ball in his hands. His moves and decisions are quick enough to keep double-teaming at bay. Also, the type of offense that the Bulls have been running makes it difficult to double him. The Bulls orchestrate their offense through Sato, Thaddeus, Coby and even Wendell, so Zach gets to operate in the shadow of that. I have seen teams try to build a wall around Zach to prevent the drive, but the problem with that is the deadly step-back he can hit you up with, from anywhere on the court. Zach is at a point in his career where he is almost unguardable because of the multitude of ways that he can score.

[kodo]

Zach's efficiency is easily the most impressive thing about this season.

eFG% of the league's top 10 scorers
#1 Beal: 53.2%
#2 Lillard: 55.6%
#3 Embiid: 55.9%
#4 Steph: 59.4%
#5 Giannis: 59.3%
#6 Lavine: 62.2%
#7 Luka: 53.8%
#8 Kyrie: 59.3%
#9 Jokic: 60.3%
#10 Kawhi: 57.0%
(unqualified) Durant: 59.2%

The last top 10 scorer to be scoring at this efficiency was 2016 Steph when he was the first to win a unanimous MVP and 73 games.

This may be the most "over achieving performance for a non-star player" I've ever seen in NBA history. Lavine is not a All-NBA or future Hall of Famer like the rest of these guys. Even if this is just a favorable point in time and his eFG% drops, he'll still be quite comfortably near the top with less than half the season to go.

[PaKii94]

https://heatnation.com/media/rj-barrett-shares-valuable-advice-jimmy-butler-gave-him-in-the-middle-of-a-heat-knicks-game/

This is something Lavine could learn from Jimmy. He gets stripped too often on his drives.

I wish Lavine/jimmy could have been on the same together. They both would have fed off each other's work ethic and drive

[MalagaBulls]

As things stand going into the TDL I don't know if Zach will have the appetite to stick around for another retool/rebuild. This year is more of the same:
Bum slay bad to mediocre teams and compete occasionally against the top teams. The definition of mediocre to treadmill. Why would you want to waste your prime years (27-29) on that?

[coldfish]

OK, there's this thing that has been bugging me for a while.

The "Zach gets double teamed a lot" narrative. It's simply not true.

For an All Star scorer, I'd say it's surprising how FEW double teams he sees. Teams are simply not making it a priority to get the ball out of LaVine's hands. Case in point - in the Thunder game, he was working exclusively against single coverage. That tells you that teams would rather let Zach try to beat them with ISO ball than to deal with the humming ball-movement offense led by Thad - which is predicated by getting the defense scrambling.

The league is starting to respect the Bulls offense. You still don't see the same respect for Zach individually. There's a reason for that.

The fact that the Bulls backcourt basically has zero gravity makes it even more amazing how they're able to get to their sets so easily. The Thad effect in the middle is nothing short of amazing.

I swear you are watching a different team than I. For the past month, I have been seeing teams double Zach well outside the perimeter in an attempt to get the ball out of his hands. Its the "blitz the ball handler" scheme without the pick even happening.

Its extremely rare that teams actually do that to anyone. Its a complete lack of respect for the rest of the team.

[Grodoboldo]

OK, there's this thing that has been bugging me for a while.

The "Zach gets double teamed a lot" narrative. It's simply not true.

For an All Star scorer, I'd say it's surprising how FEW double teams he sees. Teams are simply not making it a priority to get the ball out of LaVine's hands. Case in point - in the Thunder game, he was working exclusively against single coverage. That tells you that teams would rather let Zach try to beat them with ISO ball than to deal with the humming ball-movement offense led by Thad - which is predicated by getting the defense scrambling.

The league is starting to respect the Bulls offense. You still don't see the same respect for Zach individually. There's a reason for that.

The fact that the Bulls backcourt basically has zero gravity makes it even more amazing how they're able to get to their sets so easily. The Thad effect in the middle is nothing short of amazing.

I swear you are watching a different team than I. For the past month, I have been seeing teams double Zach well outside the perimeter in an attempt to get the ball out of his hands. Its the "blitz the ball handler" scheme without the pick even happening.

Its extremely rare that teams actually do that to anyone. Its a complete lack of respect for the rest of the team.

It's the Derrick Rose defense we saw back then. And it's even more effective now because not only we still have a team with only one credible creator 10 **** years after learning that lesson, our roleplayers now are much, much worse.

[Ice Man]

If I were coaching the opposition, Zach wouldn't get off a shot in the first quarter against my team. If the rest of the Bulls beat me during that first quarter, we would re-evaluate. But not one shot from Zach in the first 12 minutes.

[kodo]

One thing that was noticeable vs Utah, the Bulls set pretty crappy screens. Lauri, Thad, Patrick. Stacey was noticing how when Gobert sets a screen the defender was completely out of the play, and really borderline illegal as he would even push into the defender after the screen and stop him from recovering. But even their guards set solid screens.

Chicago's screens for Lavine, the defender is still on Lavine the entire way, even on the double high screens we usually run. Our bigs slip very early, and offer very little resistance. They're looking for the ball after the screen, not looking to actually hold up the defender. Very Boozer-ish.

It would be great to get a solid starting big who can play a decent 2 man game w/ Zach. Thad is more of a slip the screen guy taking advantage of how hard they hedge on Lavine. We don't have any bigs actually generating wide open shots for Lavine, either from knocking someone down on screens or drawing a double near the paint.