Wiretap: Bulls Hope To Re-Sign Zach LaVine At $14M-$16M

[SensiBull]

Try to imagine him in an offense like this:

(Skip past the first 45 seconds, which is basically just an ad)

Watch on YouTube

Dude...stop...please.

You have 6 posts on this page alone. We get it. You don't think Zach is a good basketball player. Are you just monitoring this thread to address anyone who possibly doesn't agree with you?

That sounded auto-biographical, actually.

[SensiBull]

But, whose counting?

OH! YOU ARE!

[SensiBull]

https://www.everydayhealth.com/emotional-health/psychological-projection-dealing-with-undesirable-emotions/

[nomorezorro]

https://art19.com/shows/bulls-talk-podcast/episodes/82fd2d80-0bb4-4adf-a648-856f38daa462

Listen to the whole thing, but for the sake of this post listen to Kendall Gill starting at 13:20

sounds like a guy who's saying that he thinks lavine is going to get much better because he works hard.

i would like to see the case for re-signing lavine at a $14+ million figure that is not solely predicated on hypothetical future production. the one that says "hey, even if he doesn't improve by leaps and bounds" — because sometimes people only get marginally better after their first four nba seasons — "he can still be a productive nba player."

or even the one that says "here are some concrete reasons why i believe zach lavine can improve his defense, and his decision making within the context of a team offense, thus making him a solid long-term investment." give me a good reason to believe he can address any of his glaring flaws, which frankly do not seem like easily projectable fixes to me.

because, like, this is the nba. i'm pretty sure most of the guys work hard at trying to be good at basketball. but some end up better than others! faith alone is not a particularly persuasive argument in favor of re-signing lavine.

[Onibuh]

Could he be of interest for the Spurs? S&T LaVine for Ball & Deng and Lakers use him in a Leonard trade.

[rygar]

LaVine would flourish in the right system as a 6th man scoring bench player. Kinda like Jamal Crawford or Gerald Green with better handles, and playing mostly off-ball. He would just needs to accept that role. Expecting him to be a 2nd option is just too much. $10-$14 M/year would be a good deal, anything more, no thanks.

[BullsFTW]

Could he be of interest for the Spurs? S&T LaVine for Ball & Deng and Lakers use him in a Leonard trade.

I'd rather have Ingram than Ball

[Onibuh]

Could he be of interest for the Spurs? S&T LaVine for Ball & Deng and Lakers use him in a Leonard trade.

I'd rather have Ingram than Ball

SA would rather have Ingram over Ball too.
I think Lonzo would be a good pickup for unused Cap Space

[aguifs]

How many pages will we need to discuss Lavine's free agency?

[SensiBull]

I just want to remind evryone that:

1.We do have real moderators who can and will lock a thread if THEY (as in 'not you') decide that a topic is not pertinent to this board. There are MULTIPLE posters who have made multiple comments on this topic. If you lack that power, it's because you aren't a mod and have no business telling other equally-privileged posters what they can / can't / should / shouldn't be posting in the first place.

2. Commenting in a thread moves it to the top of the board. Commenting in a thread you don't think should exist is like giving mouth-to-mouth to someone you hoped would die. You become responsible for having helped to keep it going.

3. If your mouse's scroll button works well enough for you to review another poster's posts in a thread you aren't enjoying reading, it works well enough to move on to a thread you will.

There is clearly an imminent announcement about what the Bulls decided. When what will be done has been done will be a little late to be bringing these nuanced views to the topic.

Until that decision is made, talk will continue, as it should.

[blicka]

Just said the other day in another thread booker and zach lavine have very similar advanced stats/peripherals

Difference is booker has a higher usage rate,more fga's,more mins which allows him to inflate his stats on a trash team.His defense is equally as bad/worse than lavines

Booker is gonna get 158 million, lavine won't get half of that.

3 letters, ACL.

Even if we threw out the ACL injury that Zach apologists are so eager to ignore, there's only a superficial similarity between Booker and Zach. Zach's career high PER is 14.6. Booker is far superior, with his PER at 18.1. That's the difference between a Top 60 NBA player (Booker), and the 153rd ranked NBA player (Zach). Booker is considerably younger-- he's only 21. Zach is 23. Booker scored 24.9 points per game last season. Zach's best scoring output ever has only been 18.9 points per game, although he could only manage 16.7 points per game with us last year. Booker averaged 4.7 assists per game. Zach could barely manage 3.0 assists per game. Booker averaged 1.5 more rebounds and shot much better than Zach has ever done from the free throw line. Booker has experienced a jump every year in production, going from an initial PER of 11.9, up to 14.6 in his sophomore season, to 18.1 this year. Zach started out at a PER of 11.3, and then remained in the 14 PER range for the next three seasons.

Saying Zach is like Booker is a superficial analysis. That idea seems plausible because the two do share similarities in weaknesses. Both are foul prone and bad at defense. But the claim that Zach is somehow on Booker's level because of that is patently false. Zach is nowhere near the offensive force that Booker is. Zach is far more incompetent than Booker is on the offensive side of the floor. It's like comparing Eddy Curry to Dirk Nowitzki because they both had some defensive issues and both were scorers. Just stop with the propaganda already.

What a terrible post , just terrible. Who cares about "per" when he's doing it on a team that loss 61 games? all booker has to do is be efficient and his per will look nice

Booker is 1.5 years younger than zach lavine that is not "considerably younger"

Booker scored 24.9 ppg last season on 32% usage rate and 19.5 fga's per game 2 things zach lavine has never done.Not once he's never had the chance to dominate the ball like booker

Free reign to shoot and on a 61 loss team is not impressive

LavIne averages 3.2 apg for his career booker averages 3.5 apg for his career.

You're just looking up stats and ignoring context. Zach lavine and devin booker are the exact same players from offensive ppp comparisons to per to ts to the bad defense.Booker has a higher usage rate period

[TheHrvReport]

https://art19.com/shows/bulls-talk-podcast/episodes/82fd2d80-0bb4-4adf-a648-856f38daa462

Listen to the whole thing, but for the sake of this post listen to Kendall Gill starting at 13:20

I agree 100% with them. I can easily see Zach getting his offense and shooting percentages more consistent while upping his points per game, improving his man and team defense and then demanding 100+ mil the following summer when he's UNRESTRICTED. There's too much risk there for the Bulls IMO and I know GarPax don't want to have another tanking season so I think that will influence their decision.

I don't see this dragging on into August like it did with Jimmy and Niko.I think they get a deal done in the next couple weeks, probably at 4 years 80 million. People on here will cry but with the cap going up and Zach making improvements, I think it won't look too bad when we look back on it a couple years from now.

[coldfish]

How many pages will we need to discuss Lavine's free agency?

About 1/10th as many as will be dedicated to discussing the result of his free agency. Regardless of which way this goes, its going to be a hot topic for a very long time.

[Truebiscuit]

https://art19.com/shows/bulls-talk-podcast/episodes/82fd2d80-0bb4-4adf-a648-856f38daa462

Listen to the whole thing, but for the sake of this post listen to Kendall Gill starting at 13:20

I agree 100% with them. I can easily see Zach getting his offense and shooting percentages more consistent while upping his points per game, improving his man and team defense and then demanding 100+ mil the following summer when he's UNRESTRICTED. There's too much risk there for the Bulls IMO and I know GarPax don't want to have another tanking season so I think that will influence their decision.

I don't see this dragging on into August like it did with Jimmy and Niko.I think they get a deal done in the next couple weeks, probably at 4 years 80 million. People on here will cry but with the cap going up and Zach making improvements, I think it won't look too bad when we look back on it a couple years from now.

What was the part about Butler's contract a few years back? The Bulls and Butler were $4M-$6M apart, couldn't get a deal done, and in the end it cost them $40M+.

[League Circles]

https://art19.com/shows/bulls-talk-podcast/episodes/82fd2d80-0bb4-4adf-a648-856f38daa462

Listen to the whole thing, but for the sake of this post listen to Kendall Gill starting at 13:20

I agree 100% with them. I can easily see Zach getting his offense and shooting percentages more consistent while upping his points per game, improving his man and team defense and then demanding 100+ mil the following summer when he's UNRESTRICTED. There's too much risk there for the Bulls IMO and I know GarPax don't want to have another tanking season so I think that will influence their decision.

I don't see this dragging on into August like it did with Jimmy and Niko.I think they get a deal done in the next couple weeks, probably at 4 years 80 million. People on here will cry but with the cap going up and Zach making improvements, I think it won't look too bad when we look back on it a couple years from now.

What was the part about Butler's contract a few years back? The Bulls and Butler were $4M-$6M apart, couldn't get a deal done, and in the end it cost them $40M+.

And then there are all the flip sides to that:

Eddy Curry
Ben Gordon
Omer Asik

To name a few.

Meanwhile, the outcome of the Jimmy situation was still absolutely excellent for the Bulls. Just not as excellent as signing the earlier deal would have been.

[SensiBull]

If it wasn't for the matching salary cap requirement, Butler wouldn't have brought back three players, quickening the rebuild, provided we make the right call here.

[madvillian]

If it wasn't for the matching salary cap requirement, Butler wouldn't have brought back three players, quickening the rebuild, provided we make the right call here.

what was your old username, back when you were Eddy Curry's #1 fan?

[SensiBull]

Response withdrawn by author

[madvillian]

Past is prologue Senisbull and I think it might give some of our newer posters insight into your behavior in this thread to know what happened to lead up the name change.

Also, your last paragraph shows a shocking lack of self awareness. You've made this thread about you (as you've done in the past here) and I was simply reminding you that perhaps you should take a step back (again).

[SensiBull]

Yeah. I was right. This was a weaponised question.

I'll hire my own image consultant if I decide I need one.

This didn't deserve a good faith response. Beyond that, if you want to trump up some sort of 'exposee'' on me, use your own ink, and don't forget to explain how you selected me out of several hundred posters,so people can factor in whatever this is really about for you.

EDIT: Just in the interim, while we wait for moderator action, the name change was a creative choice. Not an alias to escape anything to which there was any sort of 'lead-up.'

We're talking about 15 years ago, in the days of players like Eddie Robinson, Tyrus Thomas, Khalid El-Amin and Chris Duhon. For the third time I'll mention that the old username made reference to how bad the team was, which was true when I first started posting.


IIRC, though, around the time of the name change, we'd moved above .500 with players like Ben Gordon, Kirk Hinrich and Luol Deng. So, a name that implied that the team was still on hard. times seemed unfitting.

There was no 'what happened lasttime.' You make it sound like I'm coming back from some sort of ban or something.


Now, I'm going back to the thread topic. You're welcome to join me.