Zach Lavine: Offered 4/80 from Kings update p26 Bulls Matched

[League Circles]

You cant judge somebody this talented on one bad season he is very young and needs some more coaching.

Here's the key thing :

Most of us who are down on him were never high on him. His poor performance last season was just icing on the cake of poor to mediocre play in his career to date, following mediocre draft position.

[Bandit King]

You cant judge somebody this talented on one bad season he is very young and needs some more coaching.

Here's the key thing :

Most of us who are down on him were never high on him. His poor performance last season was just icing on the cake of poor to mediocre play in his career to date, following mediocre draft position.

And so he's only been in the league for about 2 years his future is not set in stone!

[dice]

I still can't get over the ocean comments. I don't know why but I don't know if I'll ever be able to get over it. Unless he pulls a 180 and becomes good. Otherwise I'll just forever be astounded that we paid Lavine more money per year than almost any player in franchise history and he didn't know where about the oceans and great lakes after 3 years of being a millionaire adult travelling to 30 cities repeatedly. I still can't wrap my head around that profound lack of awareness and ignorance. I'm going to try to be positive about this guy but that will definitely be in my mind until he is either good or gone.

what did he say?

Basically that he thought lake Michigan was an Ocean.

LaVine has a youthful sense of energy and wonder – he initially thought the body of water beyond his hotel window was an ocean, not Lake Michigan

https://www.nba.com/article/2017/06/27/chicago-bulls-blockbuster-trade-blows-franchise-different-direction

hmmm...say what you want about derrick rose, but i'm pretty sure he knows lake michigan ain't no ocean!

whatever it is, i wouldn't mind sailing zach out into the middle of it and tossing him overboard

[BR0D1E86]

You cant judge somebody this talented on one bad season he is very young and needs some more coaching.

What about four bad seasons? Because he’s had four bad seasons.

[BadWolf]

It's actually a really solid interview.

[dice]

You cant judge somebody this talented on one bad season he is very young and needs some more coaching.

What about four bad seasons? Because he’s had four bad seasons.

but the coaching, man. the COACHING. before he only had thibs, now he's getting an education in hoiball!

[johnnyvann840]

You cant judge somebody this talented on one bad season he is very young and needs some more coaching.

Here's the key thing :

Most of us who are down on him were never high on him. His poor performance last season was just icing on the cake of poor to mediocre play in his career to date, following mediocre draft position.

We keep hearing this same thing about judging him from one bad, 24 game season. What about his entire 6600+ minutes of NBA basketball.

I could say the same thing about people who keep saying "he was really good just before he got hurt". That is not true. He had 7 decent weeks of efficiency, which was actually a period where he was terrible impact wise. Then he fell off for a couple weeks and was horrible, then he got hurt.

So out of 6600+ minutes, he's had about 18 games where he was efficient, but still highly negative impact wise. The other 212 games he's played in the league, he has been inefficient, highly negative impact, a bad, really bad player.

[League Circles]

You cant judge somebody this talented on one bad season he is very young and needs some more coaching.

Here's the key thing :

Most of us who are down on him were never high on him. His poor performance last season was just icing on the cake of poor to mediocre play in his career to date, following mediocre draft position.

And so he's only been in the league for about 2 years his future is not set in stone!

Of course it's not set in stone. Though like someone else pointed out it's been 4 years not 2, and even though he missed time the last 2 years with injury, he's played a ton of total minutes.

But if the future isn't set in stone, you must realize that you may be wrong on all these bolded things:

Zach has great work ethic and he will prove all of his doubters wrong. He can shoot, dunk, score at will, and create his own shot. Defense can always improve with a little effort. Zach is too talented and will be a league leader in scoring.

[waffle]

1. He stays healthy
2. He understands and accepts his role
3. He tightens up his team D

The one thing I love about Z is his handle in traffic. He can just weave through people like they were looking at their phones. If he could become an average to above average passer? And we now appear to have a few FINISHERS on O? He could have a very productive year I think

But I wait to be impressed.

[The Senator]

These are players where, you can't doubt their individual numbers, but, on the face of it, you know that they aren't taking you absolutely anywhere. They're just a talking point to help First Take, Undisputed, Sports Nation, Highly Questionable, PTI, Around the Horn, Colin Cowherd and Dan Patrick crawl through their time slots like there is something to discuss.

This post just reminded me just how prolific awful sports talk is in the media.

[Hangtime84]

1. He stays healthy
2. He understands and accepts his role
3. He tightens up his team D

The one thing I love about Z is his handle in traffic. He can just weave through people like they were looking at their phones. If he could become an average to above average passer? And we now appear to have a few FINISHERS on O? He could have a very productive year I think

But I wait to be impressed.

Increasing b-ball IQ we would have a heck of player. Heck I’m willing to wait 2 years for it too.

Not sure if FO would

[dice]

You cant judge somebody this talented on one bad season he is very young and needs some more coaching.

Here's the key thing :

Most of us who are down on him were never high on him. His poor performance last season was just icing on the cake of poor to mediocre play in his career to date, following mediocre draft position.

We keep hearing this same thing about judging him from one bad, 24 game season. What about his entire 6600+ minutes of NBA basketball.

I could say the same thing about people who keep saying "he was really good just before he got hurt". That is not true. He had 7 decent weeks of efficiency, which was actually a period where he was terrible impact wise. Then he fell off for a couple weeks and was horrible, then he got hurt.

So out of 6600+ minutes, he's had about 18 games where he was efficient, but still highly negative impact wise. The other 212 games he's played in the league, he has been inefficient, highly negative impact, a bad, really bad player.

in his best season, post-injury, the timberwolves were significantly better with a replacement player (brandon rush) starting in his place. better offensively, better defensively, better record. and rush's job was just to stand at the 3 pt line offensively and do his best defensively

[WindyCityBorn]

1. He stays healthy
2. He understands and accepts his role
3. He tightens up his team D

The one thing I love about Z is his handle in traffic. He can just weave through people like they were looking at their phones. If he could become an average to above average passer? And we now appear to have a few FINISHERS on O? He could have a very productive year I think

But I wait to be impressed.

Increasing b-ball IQ we would have a heck of player. Heck I’m willing to wait 2 years for it too.

Not sure if FO would

I think the contract they gave him(matched) shows they are committed. EVERYONE including myself is going to want to see serious improvement next season though and not just in scoring.

[TheGOATRises007]

I just saw the Lavine ocean comments.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

[RedBulls23]

Now this is the kind of answer you give. At least acknowledge that you're working on it and giving the effort.

“I have to step it up a lot,” LaVine said. “I've always been somebody that can keep somebody in front of me. I've had mishaps off the ball, with awareness and things like that. That's always something you can improve on.”

“I'm not gonna slack off from that,” LaVine said. “I hear people talk: 'You can't do this.' it helps me pay more attention to it and get better. I could care less. It's something I want to be better at, and I want to be great on both ends.”

https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/bulls/zach-lavine-dishes-free-agency-defense-and-his-plan-lead-bulls-back-glory-i-want-be-great?amp&__twitter_impression=true

[RedBulls23]

Read on Twitter

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Hopefully we will see some good highlights.

[tunit213]

Read on Twitter

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Hopefully we will see some good highlights.

Wow Lavine looks even more athletic than before if that’s even possible lol. Dude just glides in the air. Theres a legit free throw line windmill dunk in there. Here’s the highlights.

Watch on YouTube

Edit- just realized the date is new but this footage is old. My bad

[DanTown8587]

If we were making the pro-Lavine argument based on what was different last year, here is what you'd say

1. He drastically improved the quality of his shots
Some people would say that he was a better offensive player in his third year in Minnesota versus last year and I think that's results based scouting that doesn't look at what he was doing. In Minnesota, he was playing heavily off the ball a lot of the time and assisted on a ton of shots (80.8%) and simply had a lot of three point attempts (43.7% of his shots were threes) that he made a fairly decent percentage of (.387%). He wasn't getting you much offense efficiently that wasn't threes. The guys who profile that way who are good players in this league are either highly rated defenders and/or valuable offensive players in other ways (Otto Porter, Klay Thompson, Robert Covington, Joe Ingles, Gary Harris, etc) so it would be hard for Zach with his other deficiencies to provide value if he was playing a similar offensive role. So what did Zach do last year? He drastically improved his free throw rate (going from 19.7% to 30.1%) while also drastically increasing his shots in the paint (43.9%) compared to the previous year (33.3%). He also slightly cut down on two point jump shots (10-23 feet) from 23.1% to 21.4%. If he continues to cut those shots out, that will only help.

2. He shot woefully below career norms at every level of the floor
Here is how Zach shot his first three years compared to last year

At rim: .652% v .549%
3-10 ft: .351% v .233%
10-16 ft: .323% v .381% (less than 6% of his shots)
16-23 ft: .366% v .255%
3pt: .378% v .341%
corner three: .438% v .214%

Let's say nothing changes at about the location of his shots, simply the way he makes them. Let's say he finishes

at rim - .625
3-10 ft - .340
10-16 ft - .30
16-23 - .35
3pt - .375

All slightly below career average, but let's just see how his scoring numbers impact

New points per 100 - 34.4
New FG% - .442%
New TS% - .549%

At the usage he's rocking, those numbers aren't horrific (they're basically average league efficiency on high volume). If he continues to improve his finishing at the rim to include more made shots and/or more fouls, that will continue to improve the TS%. If he continues to take even less and less of those long twos, he'll really see a surge seeing how poorly he shoots those.

3. He finally did other things on the floor
His non-scoring per 100 in Minnesota year 3

Rebounds - 4.6
Assists - 4.0
Steals - 1.2

That's woefully bad contribution in other areas for a guy who plays that many minutes. If you have a guy out there who is nothing more than a scorer, he better be REALLY good at scoring and doing a lot of it.

Last year in Chicago

Rebounds - 7.0
Assists - 5.4
Steals - 1.8

Who got to 35/7/5 per 100 while playing 30 minutes a night last year? Only

Harden (42/7.5/12)
Curry (39.8/7.7/9.2)
Durant (37.1/9.6/7.6)
Lillard (36.6/6.1/9.0)
James (36.4/11.5/12.1)
Giannis (36.4/13.6/6.5)
Embiid (36.3/17.4/5.0)

Obviously Zach's numbers pale woefully to theirs but it's hard to imagine Zach not being a positive player if that's his contributions.

So we will see what happens with Zach. Year 5 is going to tell a lot of whether the rates he did things at last year was a little flukey (his FTR and rebound/assists numbers are drastically higher than previous years) or if he's made subtle changes since his time in Minnesota that shows he's ready to be a better player. Because even with that "great' scoring year in Minnesota in year 3, he was a net negative player and had a below league average PER (14.6).

[JimmyJammer]

Read on Twitter

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Hopefully we will see some good highlights.

Wow Lavine looks even more athletic than before if that’s even possible lol. Dude just glides in the air. Theres a legit free throw line windmill dunk in there. Here’s the highlights.

Watch on YouTube

Edit- just realized the date is new but this footage is old. My bad

I love me some MJ, but I think Zach is the most athletically gifted player that the Bulls organization has ever seen. That does not obviously say a lot, but I am just stating the fact.

[AshyLarrysDiaper]

Read on Twitter

?s=19

Hopefully we will see some good highlights.

Wow Lavine looks even more athletic than before if that’s even possible lol. Dude just glides in the air. Theres a legit free throw line windmill dunk in there. Here’s the highlights.

Watch on YouTube

Edit- just realized the date is new but this footage is old. My bad

I love me some MJ, but Zach is the most athletically gifted player that the Bulls organization has ever seen. That does not obviously say a lot, but I am just stating the fact.

Stop it. There's more to athleticism than jumping high. MJ has him on straight line speed, quickness, strength, wiggle, in the air body control, and he was every bit the leaper as a young man. Ya too damn thirsty.