The Chosen one wrote:netduri2 wrote:I would not trade LaVine for top pick of this extremely weak draft but I don't underdstand why people keep saying like Zach is already an all-star while HE IS NOT.
He never made it and here's the thing. If you think our poor record of winning percentage is due to all the injuries, G-league players like Felicio just look at the stats.
LaVine's PER(which is based on boxscore stats to calculate players' productivity per playing time) is too low to call him a sure fire all-star level player. He is ranked at the 43th in the league.
In fact his margin stats is worse. His PIPM number is negative due to his poor defensive impact. And on the offensive end because of his lack of playmaking skills he doesn't contribute to team's offense as much as his 25 points per game suggests.
Seth Partnow of the Athletic is now ranking players and guess where LaVine is ranked at? According to his evaluation using RAPM, PIPM etc there are at least 60 players whose ranking is higher than LaVine's. 60 PLAYERS ABOVE zach lavine!!
I don't want to be harsh on him because he is our best player on the team. But we need to understand that the problem is not only our rest of the players not good but also our go-to-guy is not a high level player.
Again another advance stats post. What ever happen to watching games. I’m not even a Lavine fan but I know basketball. Played in college, coached it. To everybody that watched the bulls play it’s very obvious Lavine played at an Allstar level. But no matter how well Lavine played the coaches are not going to put him in the Allstar game over a player who team is in the playoffs. I could name you a few players that Zach had a better year than. I willing to bet if you put Paskal Siakam on the bulls team Lavine had last year the bulls would not sniff the playoffs. Hell put Beal on last year bulls with all of the injuries the bulls would be the same if not worse.
Well if you want to hear my IN GAME analysis on LaVine I can tell you all day long.
1. His terrible decision making hurts not only his shooting efficiency but also teammates' rhythm.
How many times LaVine misses Lauri after he pops and just drives to the basket while 3 defenders waiting him in the paint? How many times LaVine misses teammates open at the 3pt line and just take bad shots?
I'm not saying he is too selfish to pass. I'm saying because he clearly lacks feel for the game he can't distribute the ball to open teammates. Your BASKETBALL team can't rely on someone who cannot make the right play.
I don't want to hear he is young so he still can improve his vision. He will start his 7th season next year. He is just who he is.
2. He told some great players like MJ, Kobe dominates in the playoffs while they took tons of mid-range shots so LaVine himself needs to take those shots.
Well the problem is that his mid-range shooting percentage is worse than league average.
The funniest part is that his mid-range fg%(34.4%) is even lower than his 3pt fg%(38%)!! I guess you can do the simple math, can't you?
2 points × 0.344
vs
3 points × 0.38
which one is more efficient? Of course the latter. And yet a guy named Zach LaVine insisted he needs to shoot more mid-range shots. Yikes.
I don't like his bbiq AND egos. Not at all. He thinks he can shoot efficeintly just like mid-range master(KD, Kawhi, CP3 etc) shoots but the harsh reality is he is below average mid-range shooters.
3. He is notorious for his really bad defense. His ball watching tendency kills his off-ball defense. His close-out is also poor. I don't like his gamble to steal the ball.
I can tell you all the details why I don't like his game. I watched enough Bulls basketball game this season to have my own basketball opinion. And most of advanced stats support my (maybe little harsh) evaluation on LaVine. Simplyly put he is not an all-star level player.
I don't care if Trae or Beal could carry the injured Bulls to the playoffs if they were on the Bulls last season. Technically We don't know what would happen.
But's here's the sure thing. Despite their poor team winning records their advanced stats is way better than LaVine's. And I can tell they are clearly better players than LaVine if you watch basketball games.