Zach Lavine

[Child of Wonder]

Dude is absolutely killing it in Chicago.

I still can't believe we traded him away instead of Wiggins in the Butler deal.

Zach is putting up 28.5/5/5 on 50/40/85.

Unreal.

Between the trade to get Butler and get rid of him, then subsequent trades for players we acquired, it all ended up looking essentially like this once you get rid of the useless scraps:

Lavine, Dunn, 7th pick (Markkanen) for Beasley

I'm sure Chicago wouldn't even trade Lavine straight up for Towns and a first round pick at this point.

Why am I a fan of this franchise?

[stra0448]

95% of Wolves fans were in favor of the Butler trade. Not me.

I hated the Wiggins deal even more. At least we got a proven star back with Butler. This hurts to type- we still owe Golden State a first round pick for that deal.

Let this be a lesson: don’t trade your potential star players when they’re just entering their prime. I want to see Edwards and McDaniels in the Wolves stupid “lake” blue and “aurora” green for a long time.

[MN7725]

Bulls wanted Wiggins?

[Crazy-Canuck]

Why would you be envious of lavine and the Bulls? They still cant play .500 ball in a horrid eastern conference. And outside of white and lauri, the bulls have built strong defenders around lavine, yet that still isnt enough to compensate for lavines defense.

If wolves front office put good defenders all around kat the past 2 years and gave him carte blanche on offense, theyd probably be a top 4 team if in the east right now.

[Calinks]

I would have much prefered Wiggins in that deal but I still stand behind the move. It worked, it was the right call IMO. The wolves needed to get older, better players. You don't win with a bunch of clueless talented young players. We made the playoffs, we were a team on the rise, the Butler situation just screwed it all up.

If Jimmy was happy here and stayed, we would probably be in the playoffs for 2-3 seasons by now and we would probably be a team that would be capable of getting to the second round or conference finals. KAT and Butler would have better chemistry we would have probably have moved on from an underperforming Teague and Gibson by now, we would probably be good.

The Jimmy Butler situation is what screwed that all up, would have been a totally different story had he wanted to be here we would be experiencing a lot more success than Lavine is in Chicago right now.

[Klomp]

I would have much prefered Wiggins in that deal but I still stand behind the move. It worked, it was the right call IMO. The wolves needed to get older, better players. You don't win with a bunch of clueless talented young players. We made the playoffs, we were a team on the rise, the Butler situation just screwed it all up.

If Jimmy was happy here and stayed, we would probably be in the playoffs for 2-3 seasons by now and we would probably be a team that would be capable of getting to the second round or conference finals. KAT and Butler would have better chemistry we would have probably have moved on from an underperforming Teague and Gibson by now, we would probably be good.

The Jimmy Butler situation is what screwed that all up, would have been a totally different story had he wanted to be here we would be experiencing a lot more success than Lavine is in Chicago right now.

Exactly, Jimmy and Thibs are what screwed everything up.

[Wolveswin]

Bulls wanted Wiggins?

That is the rumor and Wolves owner trumped Thibs and said make it LaVine. And one can speculate, Wiggins at time had more value than Wiggins — so do Wolves and Bulls don’t do 1st swap??? (Meaning Wolves keep #7 and Bulls keep #16). I think fair to say.

Towns | Dieng
Markkanen (assume they draft a PF) | Gibson | Bjelica
Butler | Bazz
LaVine | Rose | Crawford
Teague (assume they still sign him and trade Rubio) | Jones

[AbeVigodaLive]

Let's not forget a huge piece of the LaVine/Wiggins/Butler saga...

At the time, LaVine was recovering from knee surgery. For such a raw athletic guy, there were concerns about how it would affect his game both short- and long-term. And let's not forget that the Wolves would have had to decide how much to pay LaVine that summer... after he returned from an 11-month absence.

He struggled with Chicago, appearing in only 24 games and averaging 16.7 ppg on 38% fg.

For a team looking to make the playoffs immediately... was that going to cut it? And then, the Wolves/Bulls had to figure out if that was an anomaly or was it a fluke? The Bulls ended up inking Lavine to a 4 yr/$78M deal. Probably didn't look great right away... but it sure does now.

Obviously, right now we'd all prefer LaVine over Wiggins/1st or Russell... but when we look at the context at the time, it's dicier.

[Neeva]

Glen is an idiot that should not have a basketball team, worst owner in the nba for sure (maybe in all pro sports?)

[shrink]

I would have much prefered Wiggins in that deal but I still stand behind the move. It worked, it was the right call IMO. The wolves needed to get older, better players. You don't win with a bunch of clueless talented young players. We made the playoffs, we were a team on the rise, the Butler situation just screwed it all up.

If Jimmy was happy here and stayed, we would probably be in the playoffs for 2-3 seasons by now and we would probably be a team that would be capable of getting to the second round or conference finals. KAT and Butler would have better chemistry we would have probably have moved on from an underperforming Teague and Gibson by now, we would probably be good.

The Jimmy Butler situation is what screwed that all up, would have been a totally different story had he wanted to be here we would be experiencing a lot more success than Lavine is in Chicago right now.

Exactly, Jimmy and Thibs are what screwed everything up.

Right. Abe is right about Zach’s health, plus I couldn’t believe we also got the #16 pick in the deal too. We just used it poorly later.

https://www.si.com/nba/2017/06/23/jimmy-butler-trade-bulls-wolves-nba-draft-grades-zach-lavine-kris-dunn

And look! The second-guessers had to wait four years before circumstances changed and they could show up to complain about it as a bad trade! That’s far longer than most our deals!

[TRik]

I’m not a major Wiggins fan, he’s definitely not worth the contract he got, but people definitely crap on him too much for that. He’s currently a key piece for the Warriors, who have a 16-13 record. In the right situation Wiggins has value.

[Jedzz]

LaVine and White destroyed Houston the other day

LaVine, 50/67/100(3-3), 5 rebounds, 6 assists, 21 points, +35 (14 shots)

Justin Patton got into the game for Houston. 6 rebounds, 3 blocks, 4pts, +8.
All the Houston starters were -20 to -30 range. Tucker House, Wall, Tate, Gordon...

LaVine in 4 other most recent games
Kings: w, 75/50/100(5-5), 4 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steal, 0 block, 38 pts, +15 (20 shots)
76ers: l, 32/20/100(10-10), 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steal, 1 block, 30 pts, -13 (28 shots)
Pistons: w, 63/67/71(5-7), 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steal, 0 block, 37 pts, +1 (22 shots)
Pacers: w, 44/44/67(4-6), 9 rebounds, 3 assists, 0 steal, 0 block, 30 pts, +5 (25 shots)


Wiggins in most recent games (losses) to Charlotte and Magic

Char: Wiggs 53/33/50(1-2), 5 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal, 19pts, -5 (18 shots)
Mag: Wiggs 47/25/100(1-1), 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steal, 16pts, -15 (15 shots)

[SCTwins]

One plus side of keeping Lavine instead of Wiggins as well, is that Jimmy would have had zero problem with his work ethic and tenacity. There would have been way less friction in the locker room.

[Merc_Porto]

Lets not forget the time Lavine got traded he was dealing with a big injury.
He returned to the court 6 months after the trade.

But yeah, the only thing in favor of Thibs POBO here was the fact that he wanted to trade Wiggins and not Lavine while probably keeping the #07 because Wiggins value at that time was so high.

Happy for Zach though.

[Jedzz]

All Star Reserve - check

[BloodyQ]

Why would you be envious of lavine and the Bulls? They still cant play .500 ball in a horrid eastern conference. And outside of white and lauri, the bulls have built strong defenders around lavine, yet that still isnt enough to compensate for lavines defense.

What? They don't have defenders around him. No one on that team can defend, maybe Pat Williams at times, that's about it. Lavine is carrying them all by himself.