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

[meekrab]

Disgusting overpay for a guy who hasn't proven anything.

[contestedlayups]

Great news. GET MAD EVERYONE!!!!!!!!

[nomorezorro]

Why did we announce this right away? Asking in earnest. I thought the idea was to make teams feel pain for coming after your RFAs.

probably more benefit to mending any hurt feelings with lavine than making the kings wait

i would assume we don't have to officially match for 48 hours still. maybe try to wrangle a trade to use some cap room

[Bulls_Fan]

I've been saying for months the Bulls were becoming the Eastern Conf version of the Kings. This further cements that thought.

[GimmeDat]

It's a slight overpay, but it's 78 mil and frontloaded. Anyone making this in to a bigger deal that it should be are just overreacting.

Lavine has a lot to improve on, heck, a tonne if you're basing it off his 24 games with the Bulls, (which is unfair to do). But the attitude towards Lavine on this board has been far too extreme in the negative. He's a good piece to have.

[TheGOATRises007]

Guess the Bulls see something in Zach. I expect 20 5 and 5 from him this season

More like 20 2 and 2 with awful defense.

[HearshotKDS]

Hoping he proves me wrong, but as of right now this looks like high potential to bite the Bulls down the road.

[Ctownbulls]

Why did we announce this right away? Asking in earnest. I thought the idea was to make teams feel pain for coming after your RFAs.

This is more about the relationship with Zach. From that perspective, I agree with the timing even though I don't agree with the move itself.

[Grodoboldo]

http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com

[RebuildaBulls]

ok they gave him the fort, lets hope he lives up to it so we can trade him

[Nucky Thompson]

Decision means Bulls have no space left now and are left with the Mirotic / Nelson TPE's totaling about $10.4m, the $8.6 mid-level, and $3.4m Bi-Annual Exception.

I don't think those numbers are accurate

[sco]

Wait, it was only $78M, not $80M. Gross exaggeration!

Pfft, of course you match $78M!

Zach, my man!

He's gonna be better than Derrick Rose!

[Ctownbulls]

KC article scares me...he is lubing the casual Bulls fan up.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

Well....

[fleet]

Why did we announce this right away? Asking in earnest. I thought the idea was to make teams feel pain for coming after your RFAs.

Lavine was raking them over the coals.

[WindyCityBorn]

So, we end up with Lauri, Dunn and cap space. I can't see all-star talent coming here for the next years. I say the tank is strong in us

No one is coming here. Never have and that isn't changing any time soon. No LaVine means you absolutely must tank again even harder. Cap space for established stars is a pipe dream.

[BR0D1E86]

I’d put the odds at around 90% that is contract is viewed as being horrific and detrimental to other moves pretty quickly.

We just locked up a top 400ish player for 20% of the salary cap though, so we’ve got that going for us.

[Daxel]

Bulls needed to match.
Why people keep thinking Chicago is a FA destination ?
Gasol, Wade, Wallace, etc All past their primes and that is all Chicago is getting next year too, we will probably end with D. Howard or Melo.
Let young talent walk away for nothing is just a very dumb thing to do for a rebuilding team.

[Hugi Mancura]

Lmao **** him. This is how the Bulls approach RFA

That's why no one wants to play here. Our front office sucks. Never proactive.

They offered him $18 million a year. They were proactive with Felicio last year. How'd that turn out?

No-one wants to play in Chicago because they offer awful contracts. 18M/year is over payment for LaVine, like Felicio's contract was over payment. Free agents see Bulls offer huge contracts to mediocre player and thus killing any chance to create competitive team. It doesn't matter how good your other young players are or how good they will be, but if team signs several bad contracts like this LaVine's and Felicios team loses any chance to actually do trades to improve the team. Sure it might only be couple millions over what LaVine is worth, but his contract will be impossible to trade because of those couple millions. Now you have tied 30M on two contracts and average players that you can't trade, so you have pretty much tied your only chance to improve this team. Cap space is more important in today's NBA than average scorer's and that's why Bulls should run away from this contract. This will kill Bulls cap space for four years.

If LaVine would have shown any signs of improvement in his 4 years in NBA this might be a decent contract, but he hasn't improved his game at all. He can be a important bench scorer in a championship team, but he is not a starter in a winning team and he will be a starter in Bulls team, so it would mean Bulls will be a losing team for the next 4 years. Well, Bulls FO have been awful, so it is difficult to see anything else to happen.

[D_GoLow]

Yes! Good move

[Payt10]

Derrick Rose rated better. Let that sink in.

Anyone that takes major stock in anything Zach Lavine did last year, stats-wise, is fooling themselves. Most players struggle the first year coming off major knee surgery. He was also trying to integrate himself on a new team that was trying to be bad.

Are ignoring now that he's been horrible every year of his career, and last year was more or less in line with his career with a small drop in ts%?

A small drop? He had a TS% of .57 his last year with the Wolves and a .49 TS % with the Bulls. One is very good and one is very bad. I don't think you know what "horrible" means. He was awful last year, and it's not difficult to figure out why.