Zach Lavine

[GrindCityHustle]

He is low key a guy I think could make an impact on the right team. He still has the athleticism and shooting ability after being injured. He can easily put up 25 on any given night still

Is his only chance at getting the right role a buyout? Are there any contending teams that could legitimately take him dumping bench guys?

Would he put a team like the Rockets or Cavs over the top or am I overvaluing his impact. I don't consider him a true chucker as he is a decent defender.

[tsherkin]

Needs to sharpen his instincts on the court. Could be a better playmaker. Could definitely be a better defender with his tools. He's more of a 2nd or 3rd option kind of guy, but he's played mostly on teams which didn't really have a chance to go anywhere and has had frequent availability issues.

I imagine on a team with a strong backline and a real first option, he'd probably look a lot better... and he sure doesn't look bad on offense now anyway.

[dirkdiggler4177]

He is one of those players who get hated on because he was never on a good team. Zach Randolph was the same. He was considered a low-IQ, no-defense kind of player till he came to Memphis. Same With Wiggins before the Warriors.
The biggest problem for him is not his ability, but his contract and being injury-prone. No serious contender wants anything to do with him. Just to put it into perspective. He makes just as much as Luka.

[Blame Rasho]

Needs to sharpen his instincts on the court. Could be a better playmaker. Could definitely be a better defender with his tools. He's more of a 2nd or 3rd option kind of guy, but he's played mostly on teams which didn't really have a chance to go anywhere and has had frequent availability issues.

I imagine on a team with a strong backline and a real first option, he'd probably look a lot better... and he sure doesn't look bad on offense now anyway.

He honestly should be a super 6th man. I don’t think your team will be good if he is your 2nd or 3rd option. He is can drive, shoot, and pass better than most players in his position.

He will need to be a guy you hide on defense on a quality defending team. I just wouldn’t want him on the court in the last 5 mins in a close game because I don’t trust him on the defensive side of the floor. Coach would have to do offense/ defense substitutes with him.

It has actually been nice to see him be as good as he has been on the offensive side of ball. When he was drafted, I never thought he would be as good as he has been.

[Billl]

If Zack was making $25M, there would be lots of teams willing to take a gamble and see if he can translate those raw stats into a winning environment. And stay healthy of course. At $47M? Who has $47M in salary to dump on the hope it works with him?

[JonFromVA]

He is low key a guy I think could make an impact on the right team. He still has the athleticism and shooting ability after being injured. He can easily put up 25 on any given night still

Is his only chance at getting the right role a buyout? Are there any contending teams that could legitimately take him dumping bench guys?

Would he put a team like the Rockets or Cavs over the top or am I overvaluing his impact. I don't consider him a true chucker as he is a decent defender.

Zach continues to be a poster boy for why we should be paying less attention to box score stats (even TS%) and looking at impact numbers. BPM hints at Zach's lack of contributions beyond shooting/scoring, but no matter where Zach plays his teams usually get worse when he's on the floor.

Read this, learn this:

https://www.82games.com/2425/24SAC10.HTM#onoff

So while a team like the Cavs might be able to cover up his defensive inadequacies to some extent with Mobley and Allen, they realize the best teams will pull their bigs out of the paint and take advantage of switches to attack their weakest defender, so they're trying to shore up their D at other positions.

[tsherkin]

He is one of those players who get hated on because he was never on a good team. Zach Randolph was the same. He was considered a low-IQ, no-defense kind of player till he came to Memphis. Same With Wiggins before the Warriors.
The biggest problem for him is not his ability, but his contract and being injury-prone. No serious contender wants anything to do with him. Just to put it into perspective. He makes just as much as Luka.

Randolph got hate more because he was a bit of a chucker. That's an aggressive word, but he definitely shot more than he should have and wasn't a very good option for it. He wasn't a particularly good scorer, but he did love to shoot. Dude knew how to use his body and was an excellent offensive rebounder, knew how to draw fouls, but he was pretty weak at actually making shots. Circa 2010, he was pretty solid for a couple seasons, but mostly he was fairly mediocre in a mid-volume role.

Wiggins actually just sucked until he was turned into a roleplayer for the Warriors.

[Chuck Everett]

Not a fan. He can score and dunk. What are his intangibles? Does he have any?

[tsherkin]

He honestly should be a super 6th man. I don’t think your team will be good if he is your 2nd or 3rd option. He is can drive, shoot, and pass better than most players in his position.

He will need to be a guy you hide on defense on a quality defending team. I just wouldn’t want him on the court in the last 5 mins in a close game because I don’t trust him on the defensive side of the floor. Coach would have to do offense/ defense substitutes with him.

It has actually been nice to see him be as good as he has been on the offensive side of ball. When he was drafted, I never thought he would be as good as he has been.

I think he'd be a bit wasted as a sixth man. We've seen teams field guys who are far worse on D than him and be very successful. As long as you aren't building AROUND him, it's fine. Like, for example, once Wemby really gets rolling and stops just bombing from 3, he'd fit well on the Spurs after they've sorted out their D. You can tolerate a weak defender if he's bringing that level of punch. His 2021 and 2022 seasons were actually pretty good offensively.

But yes, there would be a little bit of a dance with him defensively in certain situations. That isn't all that unusual. Insert Tom Jones joke here for all my people who now have back and knee issues.

[JonFromVA]

He is one of those players who get hated on because he was never on a good team. Zach Randolph was the same. He was considered a low-IQ, no-defense kind of player till he came to Memphis. Same With Wiggins before the Warriors.
The biggest problem for him is not his ability, but his contract and being injury-prone. No serious contender wants anything to do with him. Just to put it into perspective. He makes just as much as Luka.

Very different than Randolph in the sense that Randolph took and missed a lot of awful shots (career TS% of 52.2), however Randolph's teams were usually better with him on the floor than off even when he was on bad Portland teams - and he'll always be connected to the Jailblazers.

[Upperclass]

You cant ask him to do anything outside of his primary role of which he's simply good not great. That type of player doesnt contribute to winning

[Wingy]

Been an easy player to **** on and a lot of it is related to the new apron rules.

Everyone craps on the contract…
but no one can point out the last time a 2x all star entering prime years didn’t get maxed.

I think he’d flourish playing next to one of the league’s true alphas like Joker, Giannis, Luka. Alas, extremely unlikely that ever happens. As long as reasonably constructed, Zach’s supposed “loser”-ness isn’t bringing that team down.

He’s always been a good teammate, and super-efficient on offense while his best-ever teammate, gravity creator has been an older DeMar Derozan.

Gregg Popovich was good giving him a real role on the Olympic team while we’ve seen relatively “equal” players (like Ingram), and better players (like Tatum and Embiid) completely benched in Team USA scenarios. This and his time with Derozan are explicit evidence that he’s a guy who’s willing to fit in.

Zach’s got plenty of flaws in his game, the apron implications that didn’t exist before are real in evaluating him today, but overall the dude gets way too much flack.

[JonFromVA]

Needs to sharpen his instincts on the court. Could be a better playmaker. Could definitely be a better defender with his tools. He's more of a 2nd or 3rd option kind of guy, but he's played mostly on teams which didn't really have a chance to go anywhere and has had frequent availability issues.

I imagine on a team with a strong backline and a real first option, he'd probably look a lot better... and he sure doesn't look bad on offense now anyway.

He honestly should be a super 6th man. I don’t think your team will be good if he is your 2nd or 3rd option. He is can drive, shoot, and pass better than most players in his position.

He will need to be a guy you hide on defense on a quality defending team. I just wouldn’t want him on the court in the last 5 mins in a close game because I don’t trust him on the defensive side of the floor. Coach would have to do offense/ defense substitutes with him.

It has actually been nice to see him be as good as he has been on the offensive side of ball. When he was drafted, I never thought he would be as good as he has been.

Zach is going to make $47M ... Ty Jerome who can deliver similar shooting efficiency AND passing AND is used to coming off the bench AND has played that role on a 64-win team was offered less than the MLE this off-season as a UFA.

Maybe when LaVine's contract runs out or he gets bought out, he'll sink to his proper level and we'll find out; but he hasn't come off the bench since his rookie season.

[tsherkin]

Zach is going to make $47M ... Ty Jerome who can deliver similar shooting efficiency AND passing AND is used to coming off the bench AND has played that role on a 64-win team was offered less than the MLE this off-season as a UFA.

Ty Jerome has literally one season where he touches Lavine's efficiency, though, so it's not a guarantee so much as a single-season outlier at this point in his career. And that came inside a pretty permissive offensive environment without any real defensive attention of consequence.

[cpower]

if he is asking for a contract today he would get 15M at max. clearly a huge overpay and nobody wants to touch that contract.

[JonFromVA]

Been an easy player to **** on and a lot of it is related to the new apron rules.

Everyone craps on the contract…
but no one can point out the last time a 2x all star entering prime years didn’t get maxed.

I think he’d flourish playing next to one of the league’s true alphas like Joker, Giannis, Luka. Alas, extremely unlikely that ever happens. As long as reasonably constructed, Zach’s supposed “loser”-ness isn’t bringing that team down.

He’s always been a good teammate, and super-efficient on offense while his best-ever teammate, gravity creator has been an older DeMar Derozan.

Gregg Popovich was good giving him a real role on the Olympic team while we’ve seen relatively “equal” players (like Ingram), and better players (like Tatum and Embiid) completely benched in Team USA scenarios. This and his time with Derozan are explicit evidence that he’s a guy who’s willing to fit in.

Zach’s got plenty of flaws in his game, the apron implications that didn’t exist before are real in evaluating him today, but overall the dude gets way too much flack.

DeRozan you say? How about Sabonis too?

Lineup data:

Ellis-LaVine-DeRozan-Murray-Sabonis 219 min => -4 +/-
Ellis-Monk-DeRozan-Murray-Sabonis 200 min => +79 +/-

https://www.82games.com/2425/2425SAC2.HTM

[rand]

LaVine has a weak physical presence on the court and it shows up on defense, rebounding and off the ball. Much like Beal, though more athletic while not as skilled. This kind of player scales badly on more talented and physical teams where his offense is less needed and his defense gets highlighted as a weak link in every rotation.

Players like LaVine and Beal are prime candidates to get albatross contracts because what they're good at -- scoring -- is the main pathway to stardom. A top-10 defender in the league with very limited ball skills like Caruso is consigned to "roleplayer" status because defensive value is so much less well detected (especially by casual fans) than the ability to throw up 25 PPG on positive TS Add.

[JonFromVA]

Zach is going to make $47M ... Ty Jerome who can deliver similar shooting efficiency AND passing AND is used to coming off the bench AND has played that role on a 64-win team was offered less than the MLE this off-season as a UFA.

Ty Jerome has literally one season where he touches Lavine's efficiency, though, so it's not a guarantee so much as a single-season outlier at this point in his career. And that came inside a pretty permissive offensive environment without any real defensive attention of consequence.

The only guarantee with LaVine is that his shooting won't make up for his other deficiencies and for some reason GM's keep gambling on him and both GM's and fans keep hoping a new team will be the answer.

[tsherkin]

The only guarantee with LaVine is that his shooting won't make up for his other deficiencies and for some reason GM's keep gambling on him and both GM's and fans keep hoping a new team will be the answer.

We've only ever seen him playing on Minnesota at the start of his career, Chicago and now briefly with Sacramento.

Put him on a team which doesn't suck and see what happens.

It's not like he's been working with a lot, and we know he isn't a tier-1 type of player, so evaluating him based on total lift on crap teams doesn't make sense.

[Wingy]

DeRozan you say? How about Sabonis too?

Lineup data:

Ellis-LaVine-DeRozan-Murray-Sabonis 219 min => -4 +/-
Ellis-Monk-DeRozan-Murray-Sabonis 200 min => +79 +/-

https://www.82games.com/2425/2425SAC2.HTM

If it were a longer trend, I might get worked up. Given it’s a small sample size of about 4.5 games worth of minutes, while adjusting to new teammates post trade deadline (unlike Monk), and not knowing who those units were matched up against, I’m not going to put a ton of stock into this particular data.

Edit:

Also, the point I started with was gravity. As good as Domas is, he’s not creating a whole ton. In fact, like DeMar, he’s another clogger.