Chicago Bulls: Can Zach LaVine be a max-contract player?

The Chicago Bulls will need to extend Zach LaVine’s contract soon as he becomes a restricted free agent this summer. Could this contract potentially lead to a max deal down the road?

After tonight’s game against the Milwaukee Bucks, the Chicago Bulls will play just 10 more games this season. Thank goodness for that. Bulls fans have suffered enough.

And hopefully, the Bulls will lose enough games, and benefit from other tankers losing some, that they’ll at least have a chance to drop no lower than No. 8 overall in the 2018 NBA Draft.

Though they have a burgeoning young core in Lauri Markkanen, Zach LaVine and Kris Dunn, they badly need a guy who can develop into a top-notch talent to add to that mix.

Specifically, as much as I like LaVine and what he’s done, for the most part, in returning from his ACL injury last season, the Bulls still need to find out what he can really do as a potential leading scorer on this team.

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Following a torrid February (22.1 points, 40.8% on field goals, 43.2% on 3-pointers), LaVine has hit a wall in March. Some of it might be due to the inconsistent playing time as the Bulls try to tank without getting in trouble. But some of it is probably also due to just continuing to get his legs back.

Though his scoring average this month is better than when he returned in January (14.3 versus 13.8), his field goal percentage (33.7% versus 38.9% in January) and 3-point percentage (21.6% versus 35.7%) have been markedly worse.

In fact, the Bulls could shut down LaVine for the rest of the 2018 season in order to rest his recovering left knee. As this point, the team has likely seen all it needs to see from him, anyway. Playing him much more this year wouldn’t make much sense.

The question going into this summer will be: how has LaVine’s showing impacted the Chicago Bulls’ view of his future with the team?

No one doubts that the Bulls want to re-sign him this summer, whether they make an offer to him outright or play the Ryan Pace game with LaVine and match whatever offer sheet he might get if they let him test restricted free agency.

But what will they sign him to? And if he shows that he’s all the way back from injury in a year or so, will they go all-in and sign him to a max contract?

The Chicago Bulls have control of LaVine’s Bird Rights via their trade with the Minnesota Timberwolves to bring him here. As such, they’ll eventually have the ability to offer him a max contract (currently estimated at five years, $146 million).

There’s very little chance they sign him to that kind of deal right now, of course, as he still has to knock some rust off.

Plus, LaVine might not want to sign a long-term deal right now anyway given how weak the market looks for restricted free agents this year. As such, the Bulls might not mind letting him sign an offer sheet just so that they can match it.

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As such, the Bulls could probably lock him up to a one- or two-year deal worth somewhere between the cap hold his Bird Rights have him at for 2018 ($9.6 million) and the huge one-year, $18 million deal the Los Angeles Lakes gave to Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. Several guesses seem to hover closer to the lower end, though.

Then, LaVine could have another shot at a long-term contract down the road when he’s likely to make more. And by then, the Bulls will be able to gauge whether or not he’s worth dropping a huge check on.

Should LaVine regain the trajectory he was on in 2017 before injuring himself and turns into a 25-points-a-game guy in a couple of years after the Chicago Bulls have set themselves up, this could be an interesting decision in a year or two.

Of course, assuming Dunn is still here, the Bulls will need to start considering his contract around 2020, so that could complicate things. Meanwhile, Markkanen’s last team option comes up in 2021, giving them time with him. And whatever rookie they draft will be under control for quite a while.

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Though max contracts exist to help teams keep their star players in town, they still present challenges. So while it will absolutely be possible for them to do this with LaVine, they’ll need to weigh the risks.

If they’re going to drop almost $30 million a year on him and hamstring their ability to sign free agents or potentially keep their other players, he better be worth it.