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

[TheHrvReport]

This is going to go down as a huge mistake if true. Lavine is far from a complete player right now and IMO has the highest ceiling of anyone on the team, higher than Lauri. I would give him 19 mil/year if that's what it took. You just don't let a kid with that kind of work ethic and potential walk for nothing.

[waffle]

um...really? He certainly is a great athlete, but this league is full of great athletes who just don't have what it takes between the ears or between the legs to be great players.

I hope he does great but his on the court performance (that i have seen to this point) does not give me the same optimism for potential greatness that you see.

High potential? Sure. Extremely high risk? ABSOLUTELY

[SensiBull]

Bottom line is that I don't see LaVine as a 1st option on a deep playoff team NOR as a specialist player on a team of equals.

I think the NBA of yesterday was one where the ability to put the ball on the floor and finish at the rim in traffic was rare enough to justify a max contract.

Today, Kris Dunn, Jerian Grant, David Nwaba, Sean Kilpatrick and Cameron Payne can all do that almost for collectively less than $18-19 MM.

LaVine's proven skill set just is not rare enough to justify paying him max money.

Today, based on supply and demand, skills like distribution, shot-blocking, outside shooting, rebounding and perimeter defence are all skills that carry a premium. None of that screams Zach LaVine to me.

LaVine isn't getting a max deal from any team. May be one team might make a crazy offer but I think it unlikely. I say $60 million/years is fair offer. No he hasn't earned that, but it's worth the the gamble and wouldn't hurt us in free agency once we shed guys like Lopez and Holiday(and maybe stretch Felicio if he doesn't improve significantly).

Should we be so sure about that? I know the market has normalized some, but teams gave Tony Snell and Allen Crabbe a **** ton of money. If I wanted LaVine, I'd call the Bulls bluff and make an offer.

This post reminds me of when my Mom used to say, "If all your friends jumped off a bridge to their deaths, would you jump too?"

[First, let's just calibrate. I assume that your bring up Tony Snell and Allan Crabbe because both are also considered Shooting Guards. Just to avoid tripping over the rug later in this discussion, let's agree that that's what he is.

Sometimes he finds his way onto lists of Point Guards, but, for my money, someone who averages 3 apg and shoots 34% from the arc is a Shooting Guard on his best day.]

That said, not "teams" but Milwaukee and Brooklyn, specifically, have given Tony Snell and Allen Crabbe "a ***** ton of money", but, where has that gotten those franchises?

- Brooklyn finished one game ahead of the Bulls and had no lottery picks this year.
- Milwaukee finished 7th in the East, 3rd in the Central Division, but have the 7th highest payroll in the entire league, behind: Cleveland, Golden State, OKC, Miami, Washington and New Orleans.


Despite being the 6th highest paid player on the Milwaukee Bucks, Tony Snell is playing 19.1 minutes (the 8th highest on the team), and averages 7 points per game.

https://hoopshype.com/salaries/milwaukee_bucks/

Despite being the absolute highest paid player on the Nets, Crabbe is 5th on the team in points per game at 13ppg.

https://hoopshype.com/player/allen-crabbe/salary/


Competition isn't about fitting in. It's about standing out.

In all competition, the goal is to find something that you have that is inimitable, or "often imitated but never duplicated" and make that thing the most important asset in your industry. Paying someone a max contract is like taking out Key Employee Insurance on that person. You spend it on the person who, if they went down, the whole team would collapse.

In the case of Golden State, they've found that threshold where, if you're accurate enough from 3, you score more points than teams that are only getting 2 points at a time. Steph Curry and Klay Thompson were the keys to that, and Kevin Durant's outside shooting put him right in the middle of that same philosophy.

That shooting is why they get away with small ball, and why other teams struggle to recreate their philosophy. It literally means finding three other players with those types of shooting numbers and putting them all on the same team with hustling jacks of all trades, like Draymond, Iguodala, etc.

Guess who Golden State's three highest paid players are.

https://hoopshype.com/salaries/golden_state_warriors/

You look at Top 20 players in the 2017-18 3-point percentage stats for the regular season and no other team has 3 players in the Top 20.

http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/player/_/stat/3-points/sort/threePointFieldGoalPct/seasontype/2

Boston has Tatum and Horford but with only 500 or so attempts.

Detroit has Anthony Tolliver and Luke Kennard on about 550 attempts.

Golden State has in order, Klay, Steph and Durant, at numbers 4,13 and 16, respectively, for a combined 1500 or so attempts. Klay Thompson alone shoots about 500 attempts by himself.

Neither Allan Crabbe nor Tony Snell are in the Top 20 at all, much less Zach LaVine, and they are Shooting Guards!

You see, unlike Brooklyn and Milwaukee, Golden State don't pay the oompa-loompas more than they pay Charlie. Everybody can afford oompa-loompas. Charlie is rare. So, they corner the market on Charlies and dare the rest of the league to find any.

The league's answer? Tony Snell and Allan Crabbe at $10MM per.


The Warriors have a team philosophy built around shooting. That volume and that accuracy results in more Points Per Shot than teams that get to the rim a lot, unless those teams that get to the rim a lot:

A. Create more possessions, by, for example, creating more turnovers on defence and converting the to points at the other end (which is where a pocket-picking Kris Dunn, on 2spg and/or a shot-blocking Wendell Carter Jr. can come into their own.); or
B. Getting to the foul line a lot and converting there.

Provided that they play effective enough defense to make up for any shortcomings, the wind up with more W's, fresher players who don't have to do a lot of physical banging to get points, less injuries and more service/usage out of those players.

It's the opposite of what Tom Thibodeau does to his teams.

Ironically, the Bulls are 29th out of 30th in salary, outperforming 5 teams who had more ping-pong balls in the hopper by the end of the season. Only Dallas paid less, and got the 5th pick in the draft as opposed to the Bulls' 7th.

So, the Bulls aren't paying much, but, they're getting more value than they're paying for, so far, and seem to be intent on keeping those ratios in tact, even when they get to the point of paying max money to the right player(s) for it, rather than just trying to dollar-match Allan Crabbe and Tony Snell like this is some sort of Jerry Lewis telethon or something.

Had Zach LaVine averaged over the whole season what he averaged in 24 games, it would have put him at 12th among Shooting Guards in the league in Points per Game at 16.7, which is impressive in a 30-team league.

http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/player/_/stat/scoring-per-game/sort/avgPoints/seasontype/2/position/shooting-guards

However, he would have done it on 34% shooting from behind the arc.

That's 9th best on the team, with players like Denzel Valentine, Justin Holiday and Sean Kilpatrick all capable of splitting those minutes at Shooting Guard between them without paying LaVine max money, and get something much closer to 40% shooting from that distance between them, and let's not even talk about defending.

When the right players with the right skills show up, the Bulls will open up the pocketbook, just enough to get the amount of skill needed to execute the most inimitable skill set they can build, and not a moment before.



Zach LaVine is expendable.

[Chitownbulls]

Re-sign him

Bulls probably leaking this out hoping teams second guess about offering LaVine the max.

[HoopsterJones]

I hope the Bulls sign him to a reasonable 4 year deal. I think he has something to prove.

[ralphisBullsFan]

Re-sign him

Bulls probably leaking this out hoping teams second guess about offering LaVine the max.

Garpax and their strategery at work.

[Proven_Winner]

Lavine is essentially in LA because he wants to be in LA. There is no magic water or food or better courts there than in Advocate.

But, the sun actually comes out in Los Angeles. This year at least Chicago is gloomier than Seattle. I was back in Chicago a few weeks ago. It rained 5 out of the 6 days I was there. Depressing.

It’s all random it’s been summers where you pray the sun would go away.

[Proven_Winner]

There trying to build a culture where everyone is consistently holding each other accountable and build chemistry. Lavine should get a pass though since LA is his home and he’s a known work horse so you know he isn’t slacking. Also we never heard reports like this when Taj, Noah, Jimmy, and Rose use to workout in LA instead of advocate.

Because during that time Advocate wasnt done. It opened in 2014. Bulls want their guys to me in their new facility so they dont need to go into LA or wherever to train. So they can carefully monitor their work ethic and actuall progress by both coaching staff and nutritionist. They also want them there so actual chemistry between players during practices improves. So there is less headaches when we hit summer camp.

Slacking or not, Bulls can't offer Lavine a contract if they dont know did he took steps to improve. It's not just does he train or not, it's actually does he train right way and work on things he isnt good at. If there is one thing I can't fault front office is this one.

Lavine is essentially in LA because he wants to be in LA. There is no magic water or food or better courts there than in Advocate.

Exactly what I said but yea. I understand both sides and I agree more with the Bulls because that’s what the rebuild is supposed to be a about. A restart and chance to set a good culture that can attract future free agents and get the best out of every player.

Back in the Rose mvp seasons the team did a lot of bonding and on the court it showed when guys could effortlessly communicate and make plays. And when one went down the next guy seamlessly fit in even if we grabbed him out of FA randomly.

[Houston_Bulls]

You guys are crazy; you don't want to give big money to below average NBA talent. Lavine was a top five pick who had every opportunity, the best player development coaching money can buy, and he's still a below average player. The guys ceiling is a lot lower than people think.

Zach Lavine seems like a good guy, and I'm rooting for him, but we have to be realistic about his potential.

[sco]

I'm not sure what folks would have expected the media narrative to be on this one at this point.

There's no denying that if Lavine came back at the top of his game, things would be different. In some ways it was best-case scenario. He played below expectations and gave a little concern with some knee pain. If those didn't happen, there'd be no way we'd have a shot for a decent or 1+1 deal, which is ideal.

[danzou]

Lavine was a top five pick

He was not.

[johnnyvann840]

Lavine was a top five pick

He was not.

Not even a top 10 pick. Not even a top 12 pick

[VolumePoster]

You guys are crazy; you don't want to give big money to below average NBA talent. Lavine was a top five pick who had every opportunity, the best player development coaching money can buy, and he's still a below average player. The guys ceiling is a lot lower than people think.

Zach Lavine seems like a good guy, and I'm rooting for him, but we have to be realistic about his potential.

Just FYI -

Superbly talent athlete as voted on by NBA gms
Not a top five pick, picked 13
Thibs notoriously tough on rookies

There are reasons to be wary of giving big money to him, though, I agree.

[johnnyvann840]

I don't know why people keep talking about a 1+1 deal or things like this. Here's what is going to happen. We have already heard this from Paxson. Three times in the last month he's said it. Bulls are going to let Zach go out and get an offer. That offer sheet has to be for 3 years at least. Rule. Then, he will come back with his best offer and the Bulls will either match the offer or say goodbye to Zach. That's it. There won't be any preemptive offer from the Bulls for anything close to $20M per year as some are suggesting. That would be pure idiocy. If nobody offers more than $15M per year for 3 or 4 years, the Bulls probably match and it's probably a good gamble. Worst case is we have a tradeable contract that should be fairly easy to move.

[WindyCityBorn]

I'm not sure what folks would have expected the media narrative to be on this one at this point.

There's no denying that if Lavine came back at the top of his game, things would be different. In some ways it was best-case scenario. He played below expectations and gave a little concern with some knee pain. If those didn't happen, there'd be no way we'd have a shot for a decent or 1+1 deal, which is ideal.

Seems like he definitely still wants to be here so I think a deal that satisfies both sides will be reached.

[johnnyvann840]

^^ Now, if Lavine doesn't get an offer sheet from anybody that he deems satisfactory, then the Bulls are really in the drivers seat and can just lowball him with a MLE type money deal over a few years. If he doesn't like it he can play for the QO and "bet on himself" Jimmy Butler style. If he takes and breaks out this year then we have him on a great value contract for a couple more seasons.

[HoopsterJones]

You guys are crazy; you don't want to give big money to below average NBA talent. Lavine was a top five pick who had every opportunity, the best player development coaching money can buy, and he's still a below average player. The guys ceiling is a lot lower than people think.

Zach Lavine seems like a good guy, and I'm rooting for him, but we have to be realistic about his potential.

Zach was drafted 13th overall not top 5.

[johnnyvann840]

I'm not sure what folks would have expected the media narrative to be on this one at this point.

There's no denying that if Lavine came back at the top of his game, things would be different. In some ways it was best-case scenario. He played below expectations and gave a little concern with some knee pain. If those didn't happen, there'd be no way we'd have a shot for a decent or 1+1 deal, which is ideal.

Seems like he definitely still wants to be here so I think a deal that satisfies both sides will be reached.

There won't be any "deal reached". Bulls are either going to match Lavine's best offer he gets from another team, or they won't. It's really that simple.

[Alcatraz17]

First… giving Zach a deal shorter than 4 year deal would be worse than giving him a max deal.

Even if things turned around in 2 seasons...he would be up for contract again in the same window as Dunn and Lauri.

If...if....if...the bulls want to keep Zach...it has to be 4 years. Because of that commitment, he SHOULD be willing to take something in the 15-18 million dollar range.

So, IMO, the question is....do you want the bulls to sign LaVine at 4 years, 60-65 million? I'm saying yes to this.

[blicka]

So many of you will look foolish, The way you talk about lavine is despicable. Lavine absolutely has the highest ceiling on the team

you can pretend it's lauri all you want