Why Zach is singlehandedly killing the Bulls (and a Note on Lauri)

[PaKii94]

One thing that really has irked me so far this season is people defending Lavine's play. Lavine has been BAD but with his raw stats you can't see that you have to watch the game closely.

Zach lavine is singlehandedly killing the bulls. Possession after possession he makes a bad play or a bad turnover or takes a dumbass contested shot or makes a bad cut or blows his defense assignment. Taken individually it wouldn't be too bad. Everyone makes mistakes but Zach does it time and time again. There is a reason why his advanced stats are so bad. He is barely a neutral while scoring efficiently. That's because the shots he does take (and makes) are very tough offense breaking shots. These shots (and shotmaking) is beneficial when a play is broken down and at the end of the shotclock but it is offensive flow breaking when he does it randomly in the game and then starts to heat check.

I decided to rewatch the Bucks game for Zach and Lauri's minutes from the beginning to about halfway through the third. That's when the game got out of hand due to the foul trouble and no other rim protection available. Lauri actually played a really good game up until that point. It was obvious his role was to play spacer and draw Giannis out of the paint. His objective on the defensive end was to create a wall (with WCJ) against Giannis's driving. Lauri did that pretty successfully. He did get beaten a few times by him but everyone gets beaten by Giannis a few times.

Anyway, I decided to watch closely possession by possession since most people won't go back to rewatch. Here is the log. It's mostly team errors and random comments. Notice who's name keeps popping up. I will bold Zach's mistakes, Italisize Lauri's mistakes and underline good players by the two of them:

From the beginning of the game
1- Sato messes up (fumbles off his leg) but hits a off the bounce 3
2- Sato redemption with a steal and transition bucket
3- Wendell hedges due to game plan but it gives brook the roll
4- Lavine clogs the court spacing leading to a bad sato shot leads to transition Giannis ( who luckily misses shot)

5- Lauri correct pick and pop with Lavine as a driver and misses (in and out 3)
6- Sato bad defense
7- Wendell and Lavine Pick and roll but he didn’t wait for Wendell roll. Took a midrange shot with 17 on the clock, misses

8- Giannis hits a 3 over Lauri (live with it. It was well contested)
9- Zach had screen option to top or cut baseline. He chose baseline but not decisively. Wendell had the lob but instead bad possession
10- Wendell bad screen
11- Zach slacking on D. leads to open Matthews/Giannis under the rim. Luckily it was a kicked ball instead

12- Lavine is out of position on offense. Should be in corner but calling for double screen instead. Made up for it by feeding to Wendell under the basket off difficult drive
13- Wall by Wendell & Lauri against Giannis, Lauri open at the 3 when Giannis defends Sato’s drive, makes it
14- Lavine bad defense, allows baseline drive, breakdown, hutch saves with a steal, draws foul in transition
15- Lavine commited too hard to help D (supposed to show until the pass out, Matthews hits a 3)

16- Wendell fumbles pick and roll pass, transition Giannis, and 1 on Lauri -> Lauri can't protect the rim against freight train Giannis. I am sorry. Very few people can.
17- Zach ball watching brings in the defense on Sato & Wendell 2 man game. Lauri correctly moves to opposite corner. Hutch has to put up tough shot, Wendell hits putback
18- Good closeout on Giannis drive by everyone, good rotation, tough shot wes matthew miss
19- Lauri drives and draws foul on Giannis
20- Zack and Lauri two man game, Lauri drawing Giannis out, has open pop. Instead Lavine takes a tough covered long 2 with 15 seconds on the clock and makes it. BAD possession
21- Thad on Giannis now, Giannis draws easy bump foul
22- Giannis misses FT but gets rebound. Lavine loses his man, Bledsoe gets easy drive and points
23- Thad misses easy bucket at hoop
24- Lauri good charge attempt on Giannis transition, Giannis takes wild shot and misses. Should have been charge
25- Lavine in Transition to hutch fumbles the pass
26- Lopez beats Lauri but not Lauri’s fault. He was hedging. Lauri is not a center
27- Thad open 3 miss results in Giannis transition
28- Zach breaks play set for him and passes out to Thad resulting in horrible spacing. Ends in end of shotclock zach contested mid range (he makes). BAD possession

29- Zach finds Coby on the open 3. Finally a POSITIVE possession. At 5:22 in the 1st

30- Lavine breaks offense (set for him) to tell Sato to go ISO on Lopez on the wing. Sato launches a bad 3

31- Lauri, fed up with it gets rebound, blows off Zach, drives in, and gets a tip in. (4:38) -> Lauri being aggressive. Tension between the two
32- Zach correct pass to Lauri (positive play #2)
33- Lauri’s Layup gets blocked by greek freak (looked like he was going to dunk but didn’t have the lift)
34- Zach bad defense (but opponent gives up the ball) makes bad pass on transition end trying to over Giannis. Thad (vet play) multiple times had passed up that kind of pass because of Giannis
35- Lauri comes back and hits a 3 in transition off of Coby pass (27-22 Bulls) Both Zach & Lauri out of the game



So in their first stint of minutes. Lavine had 14 BAD mistakes, 2 good plays. Lauri 6 good plays. Good defense. One layup blocked by greek freak & one and1 given up to Giannis in transition off of a bad play on the other end by Wendell. Despite this, Bulls are up NOT due to Lavine but due to the rest of the team playing good offense + defense.

------

In the mean time Coby is cooking Coby is cooking and bench does their job, Zach comes in for round 2 (44-39 Bulls)

37- Transition play, 21 seconds on the clock. Only Matthews in front of him back pedaling, Coby out lets to zach… and Zach brings the ball back out. Almost turns it over, Wendell recovers it.
38- Random note Dunn was guarding Giannis at this point. Hutch on Bledsoe (Bledsoe beat him off the dribble)
39- I will give Zach credit, he was trying to get it to coby on the next play… however, I think again he broke the play. Results in transition Giannis, and then him fouling Matthews on the 3 point line (Lauri comes in)

40- Lauri takes lopez off the dribble and gets foul shots
41- Lavine should have gotten a foul on transition drive but instead it goes out of bounds
42- Lauri Lavine pick and pop Lauri gets semi open 3 (misses) but Zach didn’t fully draw out Giannis! A good ball handler would have run it so much better. Paint was wide open because Giannis was in noman’s land
43- Lavine not involved in the play. Offense runs smoothly. Lauri gets foul on putback
44- Lauri at C with hutch at pf. Lauri guarding Giannis too closely, Dunn gets beat off dribble by Bledsoe
45- Lauri open 3 but Giannis closes fast. He misses
46- Lauri hedges gets Giannis open. I think technically Lavine was supposed to dig there but give him a pass cause it’s Giannis
47- Lavine does iso crap, breaks spacing and play. Results in hard Coby layup. He makes it though

48- Lauri gets beaten by Giannis foul shots
49- Lavine drives it into a packed paint and turns it over with Thad/Hutch/ Sato open on the 3 point line saved by Matthews missing open transition 3
50- Good coast to coast by hutch
51- Giannis takes contested 3 against Lauri and misses
52- Lavine takes contested 3 with 19 seconds on the clock in transition with no one to rebound. No one in the paint. BAD possession…. But makes the shto
53- Lauri good defense but Rolo gets switch onto Sato
54- Lavine fumbles ball, recovers and bails on play (for him). Comes back to take another contested tough 3…. Makes it. At this point Zach has 10 points 4/5 FG but how many bad plays?

55- Lauri gets beat in transiton (No rim defense)
56- Zach breaks play AGAIN. Lauri is telling him to run the play. There was a double screen for him instead he drives in and picks up dribble. Luckily Lauri gets the back to him in a hasty cut which results in a foul…but broken play. Zach comes in and takes another contested 3 and misses (so now 3 contested 3s in a row)

57- Lauri gets ball on defense and doesn’t give it up to Zach (!!) and drives in. gets called for offensive foul on flop

58- Zach ball in transition, keeps ball, drives into packed paint and turns it over. Lauri transition gets scored on. No rim protection, hes not a center….but also he’s tired. Lauri sits (60-59 bulls)

59- Thad bad play. Zach no effort in getting back Easy basket.
60- Zach makes ncie pass out of 2 man game but then chills in the paint blowing up spacing for Sato to drive and then runs the wrong way leading to a packed paint. Coby bails out play with side step 3

61- Zach drives in, was a charge on Bledsoe but called a block. Zach gets pass and takes a contested 3 with 18 on the clock
62- Wendell guards Rolo too quickly
63- Zach takes last shot… a contested midrange 3 giving Bucks another transition opportunity
64- Half time (66-65)

We are now at the half. What is the tally for the second stint?
Lavine: Another 13 mistakes. One positive play
Lauri: 2 mistakes (bullied in transition by Giannis), 4 positive plays

Total for the half: Lavine a whopping 27 mistakes and 4 positive plays. Lauri with 6 positive plays but only 4 blow plays. And this is due to him playing out of position as a rim protector... NOT breaking the offense. I also didn't list the multiple times Lauri DID slow down Giannis and cause him to pass out or on the offensive end pull him out of the paint.

The raw stats wouldn't show you this though. They will show you the points Lavine got on his broken play contested 3s and iso contested midrange.

---------

Now the hope is maybe Lavine will clean it up at the half right? WRONG. Here is the 3rd quarter:


65- First play of the half, Zach travels
66- Giannis draws a foul on Lauri, Wendell doesn’t box out FT attempt
67- Lavine draws a foul (almost moving screen due to timing).
68- Finally Zach’s tough shot making is necessary. The ball moves around but not open shot. Zach takes and makes a tough midrange shot at the end of the shot clock. FINALLY POSITIVE SHOT
69- Lavine comes off a curl but takes and makes a tough 3 14 seconds left on the clock (15 pt 6/10)
70- Bledsoe immediately comes back and beats lavine to the hoop
71- Hutch blows rotation on next play but then lavine fails to box out leading to giannis foul on Wendell
72- Another positive lavine possession. He outlets to a cutting hutch for a drive in transition
73- Lavine blows an open transition. Looks to go to a packed paint for a dunk instead of flairing to corner for 3 off pass from Sato (he was looking). This breaks play and leads to Zach contested iso 3 with 10 seconds on the clock (miss)
74- Wendell offensive foul with pnr with Lavine. Lauri center yet again
75- Zach loses the ball off of good Sato pass. Turnover

76- Thad on Giannis, easy buckets. Timeout
77- Zach does a wild drive and kicks it out to sato. Sato bails him out with contested 3

78- Zach isos again. Does pnr with hutch but isos again. Then drives it into a packed paint and misses. Leads to Giannis transition. And 1 on Lauri (80-78 bulls, Lauri sits)

79- Zach now stands in a corner while the 4 guard+thad lineup flails around.
80- No center so Giannis easily scores. 2 straight transition drives against thad
81- Lavine iso drives against Giannis, misses, leads to foul shots on the other end

82- Zach blows the play set for him AGAIN. He runs into thad breaking spacing yet again. This results in Coby having to take a contested midrange by giannis

83- Sato takes a charge on Giannis transition.
84- Ball moves around. Gets to Lavine WIDE OPEN on the 3 point line with 8 seconds on the clock… instead of taking the OPEN shot, he drives into a packed paint on Giannis. Gets bailed out with foul call.

85- Off the inbound Zach blows up his OWN PLAY AGAIN! Blowing the spacing and cutting options. He literally just stands there! Ends up a turnover by Sato at the end of the clock
86- Coby rookie error
87- Zach goes to wrong corner on offense and blows spacing again! Leads to Coby getting confused, an iso zach drive where he picks up his dribble and then a bad fadeaway shot
88- Coby rookie error
89- Zach leaves (86-82 bucks)

In this half, with WCJ in foul trouble, Lauri was playing much more center. Since Giannis was also playing center, his job was to draw out Giannis from the paint. Lauri was chilling on the opposite side of the perimeter while lavine was blowing play after play. Again let's tally it up:

Zach with ANOTHER 13 fatal mistakes with two additional positive plays

Lauri with one mistake and zero positive plays. But again, his spacing was getting Giannis out of the paint.

In total for 3 quarters of play, Lavine had 50 BLATANT mistakes which results in stagnating the Bulls to 6 positive plays. When your highest usage player constantly makes mistake after mistake, the team won't go anywhere. There is a reason why everyone's offensive game is down even though the system is getting them good shots. It's because Lavine is breaking any semblance of flow. This is further exacerbated when the game gets close in the 4th quarters and Lavine decides that he needs to be Kobe and 'save' the team.

Zach can get any number of points but until he corrects these egregious mistakes, the Bulls aren't going anywhere, and Zach lavine will remain AT BEST a neutral player (if he is very efficient with his shot making) or a negative player like his career so far (if he keeps taking tough shots and keeps making the same mistakes).


I will end it with what Lauri said in the post game interview. He along with Boylen said they both didn't mind the lack of shots (he's right because his job was getting Giannis out of the play) and that Coby played a good game and "Zach was being Zach".

Zach was definitely being zach alright and I think Lauri is getting frustrated with it. There were a few times where Lauri refused to pass the ball off the rebound when Zach asked and took it with him instead. I think 4/5 times he got fouls and one time was the Giannis block.

[PaKii94]

Sorry this ended up being very long because play after play Lavine would do some stupid stuff. I was watching the footage for key examples to show Lavine's poor BBIQ but pretty much the whole game is the footage for it.

[PaKii94]

Everyone on the team made mistakes. That's basketball. Lavine was just heads and tails above. Thad was also very bad in his minutes. I don't think he stopped Giannis once.

[PaKii94]

https://www.blogabull.com/platform/amp/2019/11/11/20940318/chris-fleming-the-bulls-offense-and-the-power-of-habit

This is the principals of the Bulls offense. Literally everyone on the team gets it and plays it relatively well.... everyone BUT Lavine.

[ZOMG]

Lauri looks like he can't wait to be off this team. He looks like he hates basketball and life right now. I don't blame him.

I DO blame him for some other things but not for getting depressed having to share the court with the brilliant basketball mind known as Zach LaVine. I never thought I'd say this, but these days I enjoy watching Dunn play more than Zach. That should tell you something.

At the end of last season, I was somewhat ready to believe in LaVine since he'd shown some small signs of playing smarter basketball. But in these 12 games, he's destroyed all that goodwill. What I hate the most is that he's the one player on this team with absolutely zero accountability. He can literally do anything he wants. There's never any danger of Zach being yanked for the final 4 minutes of a game despite having spent the quarter playing like ass.

Somehow, we've gone back to a system where Zach is the main ballhandler and Sato goes to stand in a corner. THIS is what we're paying Satoranski for?? Good god. It's so stupid it makes my head hurt.

The Bulls' complete inability to use Zach in the correct way (strictly as an off-ball gunner/scorer) is by far the most damning coaching failure of the last couple of seasons. Someday we'll look back at a time when Chicago tried to ride LaVine as an alpha dog "do-everything" guy and shake our heads. At that point, he's probably playing 22mpg for the Bucks and mostly shooting corner 3's.

We're 12 games in and the possibility of Zach making an All Star team has turned into a bad joke.

[CE1141]

[PaKii94]

Man I was only looking for a few examples for bad Lavine possessions. I ended up pretty much rewatching the whole game again because of how many there actually were

[CE1141]

Man I was only looking for a few examples for bad Lavine possessions to defend Lauri. I ended up pretty much with better effort than Lauri.

[PlayerUp]

Bulls wins this season are against:

Memphis (Tanking)
NY Knicks (Worst Team in the NBA)
Atlanta (Without Trae Young and John Collins)
Detroit (Without Blake Griffin)

Nothing impressive.

We're a bad team and yes the reason is primarily due to Lavine who is more like a 6th or 7th guard on a contender than a 1st, 2nd or 3rd option. Lauri has just been utter garbage. Can't defend or shoot. He wants off this team? Who is going to want a 7'0 bigman who can't defend and shoots 27% from 3.

As soon as Lavine or Lauri have a good month of basketball, maybe time to consider selling high on them.

[MeloRoseNoah]

I want Ron Mercer Jr gone. The end.

[JimmyJammer]

Seriously, you took the time to log all of this? It's time to stop making excuses for Lauri and his lack of assertiveness. He needs to learn from Carter, who is not even getting any play called for him. It's three years into Lauri's career, yet he can't post up even a 5ft10 midget guarding him. Whose fault is that? Lauri has missed more wide open shots than any player on the roster by a long shot. Whose fault is that? Lauri always ends up with some misterious injury every season. Whose fault is that? No one is holding Lauri back, but himself. You take Zach out of this team as presently constituted, and you have yourself a dumpster fire.

[GrowingHorns]

Seriously, you took the time to log all of this? It's time to stop making excuses for Lauri and his lack of assertiveness. He needs to learn from Carter, who is not even getting any play called for him. It's three years into Lauri's career, yet he can't post up even a 5ft10 midget guarding him. Whose fault is that? Lauri has missed more wide open shots than any player on the roster by a long shot. Whose fault is that? Lauri always ends up with some misterious injury every season. Whose fault is that? No one is holding Lauri back, but himself. You take Zach out of this team as presently constituted, and you have yourself a dumpster fire.

I will have a party.

i have no doubt Lauri and the whole team would fly with a better flow, and I'd much rather start developing Coby as the starter at this point of stupid Zach is playing. Especially on 2nd halfs. I don't mean to say Lauri hasn't been troubling with his effort or that would be Zach's fault. But this team looking complete **** on 2nd halfs so often is in a big part to blame on Zach. He's the first guy out for a trade, i bet we'd get decent deal if we get some great scoring games for few weeks out of him. I'm not believing a second he'll suddenly become that much smater of a guard any team would excel with this kind of usage rate from Zach.

[Red Larrivee]

I do not think he's singlehandedly killing the Bulls, because other players are contributing significantly as well. However, LaVine is definitely a big reason for the team's struggles, especially on the defensive end.

Read on Twitter

The above is really, really concerning.

[drosereturn]

Everyone on the team made mistakes. That's basketball. Lavine was just heads and tails above. Thad was also very bad in his minutes. I don't think he stopped Giannis once.

Excellent detailed post to silence the Zach defenders. He makes so many bad plays I dont even view it as a mistake anymore.
When you are a 6yr pro and making bad plays every few minutes, your just bad. end of story.
Not only his misplay destroys the offensive flow, usually ends up in a 4-5 pt swing due to giving up fast transition buckets.

Lauri isnt a bad defender anymore. His playmaking has improved and rebounding the ball well.
Not shooting well is his one of he few main weakness but his strength has always been shooting it will even out.

[JimmyJammer]

Seriously, you took the time to log all of this? It's time to stop making excuses for Lauri and his lack of assertiveness. He needs to learn from Carter, who is not even getting any play called for him. It's three years into Lauri's career, yet he can't post up even a 5ft10 midget guarding him. Whose fault is that? Lauri has missed more wide open shots than any player on the roster by a long shot. Whose fault is that? Lauri always ends up with some misterious injury every season. Whose fault is that? No one is holding Lauri back, but himself. You take Zach out of this team as presently constituted, and you have yourself a dumpster fire.

I will have a party.

i have no doubt Lauri and the whole team would fly with a better flow, and I'd much rather start developing Coby as the starter at this point of stupid Zach is playing. Especially on 2nd halfs. I don't mean to say Lauri hasn't been troubling with his effort or that would be Zach's fault. But this team looking complete **** on 2nd halfs so often is in a big part to blame on Zach. He's the first guy out for a trade, i bet we'd get decent deal if we get some great scoring games for few weeks out of him. I'm not believing a second he'll suddenly become that much smater of a guard any team would excel with this kind of usage rate from Zach.

There is no doubt in my mind that Lavine can be better, but Lauri is the real problem of the team. He can't pass the ball and he e is shooting 27% from the 3pt shot, with most of them being open shots. If he makes 35% of these shots, we are looking at at worst a record of 7-5 instead of 4-8. Satoransky has also been a disappointment because he was supposed to be the PG that would glue the team together by making sure that everyone is getting their shots where they need to get them. His failure to do that is forcing guys like Zach to take the role of playmakers in their own hands, which they are not. Zach has not been getting open shots like Lauri because every eye of the opponents defense is on him every night. So imagine you pair Lavine with a real playmaking PG, he would kill it with way better efficiency. Despite all the attention that Zach is getting, he is still averaging 37% from the 3pt shot and his assist numbers are good for a shooting guard. We need to trade Lauri before the rest of the league knows what many Bulls fans know, which is he is soft, streaky and has low basketball IQ.

[drosereturn]

I do not think he's singlehandedly killing the Bulls, because other players are contributing significantly as well. However, LaVine is definitely a big reason for the team's struggles, especially on the defensive end.

Read on Twitter

The above is really, really concerning.

I dont think the defensive end is that bad tbh and the Harden stat kinda showed his improving from worst to bottom third.
His issue is he jacks up random contested 3pts when theres 20 seconds left and when it doesnt connect, ends up opponent rebound and dunk/layup which is at least a 4pt swing. How could any player be confident after witnessing all of that?
Not only its a losing play, it just destroys player morale and chemistry
Literally, hes just washed up Carmelo version of SG that offers nothing.

Simple solution: Substitute Zach for White in the starting lineup since he offers everything Zach doesnt which is defense/playmaking/ spot up 3s. But i think the locker room will face another riot if coach did that.

[cjbulls]

Zach has the tools and skills but is missing the bbiq. That precludes him from becoming a star, however he still can be a useful player in the right situation.

Lauri to me is the bigger concern. If he’s not scoring efficiently, what is he? He doesn’t create any offense. An average rebounder, bad playmaker and bad defender. At best he’s just a pick and pop shooter who can’t guard anyone.

Zach can at least create offense, and be an efficient scorer when he cuts back on the ball hogging and bad shot selection. That can be coached out of him (or at least traded to a team that feels like they can coach it out of him).

Lauri is certainly more of a team player than Zach, but otherwise I’m not sure what he’s adding over him.

[Jvaughn]

It's amazing how people can blame singlehandedly Zach when Lauri has regressed in almost every statistical category. He is currently averaging 14/8/2 on 37% from the field with a 52TS%. On top of that we haven't had any consistent SF play due to Otto's injury and Hutch's ineffectiveness to be a factor in the half court.

There are many things to attribute our poor play too. Zach's play is definitely a contributor, but as Jammer pointed out above, he's rarely ever getting setup for easy shots and often has to heave up bad shots m our savior Satoransky has got to be an offensive threat. He seems unwilling to be aggressive and look for his own offense. Because of this defenses can and have been playing him for the pass and giving him the Rondo treatment off ball.

Be mad at Zach if you want. I can completely understand that. He takes questionable shots and the defensive effort and awareness definitely are lacking, but you're kidding yourself if you think he's the only problem and that trading him will magically solve all this teams issues. He and Coby are by far the only 2 players on this team that can create their own offense right now. And we've seen what happens when Coby's shot isn't falling. Remove Zach out the equation and you'll really see how bad this offense can be.

[coldfish]

I haven't watched in as much detail as the OP. I agree with the general assertion that Zach has sticky hands and is a bad decision maker. I question his shot selection. He holds the ball too long. Etc. All of this hurts both him and his teammates on offense. I'm not even getting into his defense.

Its entirely possible for this dumpster fire to be more than one player's fault though. Lauri is straight up trash this year. When a guy misses open shots, there is no one to blame but him. Lauri's decision making is just as bad as Lavine's but its not as obvious because Lavine frequently decides to be too aggressive/selfish at times and its right there in front of you. Lauri's mistakes are passivity. He disappears or takes the easy way out a lot.

I think Lavine is beyond hope. Dude says all the right things but still can't fix his flaws which likely means he can't.

I worry that Lauri just has so many things in his head that when it clears, he will drastically improve and that will be on another team.

[wonderboy2]

It's amazing how people can blame singlehandedly Zach when Lauri has regressed in almost every statistical category. He is currently averaging 14/8/2 on 37% from the field with a 52TS%. On top of that we haven't had any consistent SF play due to Otto's injury and Hutch's ineffectiveness to be a factor in the half court.

There are many things to attribute our poor play too. Zach's play is definitely a contributor, but as Jammer pointed out above, he's rarely ever getting setup for easy shots and often has to heave up bad shots m our savior Satoransky has got to be an offensive threat. He seems unwilling to be aggressive and look for his own offense. Because of this defenses can and have been playing him for the pass and giving him the Rondo treatment off ball.

Be mad at Zach if you want. I can completely understand that. He takes questionable shots and the defensive effort and awareness definitely are lacking, but you're kidding yourself if you think he's the only problem and that trading him will magically solve all this teams issues. He and Coby are by far the only 2 players on this team that can create their own offense right now. And we've seen what happens when Coby's shot isn't falling. Remove Zach out the equation and you'll really see how bad this offense can be.

+1000 it’s mind-blowing honestly. The two players that help the bulls out the most with their offense gets criticized the most. I would hate to see what this team would do if Lavine of White wasn’t playing or being aggressive. It would be a lot of shot clock violations and and even worse shots going up especially if Sato is on the floor.