Why the Chicago Bulls will re-sign Zach LaVine

1. A solid return

The most important thing about living returning to the basketball court for the Chicago Bulls wasn’t sparking a playoff run In the midst of their surprising stretch of winning.

No, it definitely wasn’t that.

Rather, the bulls needed to see that Levine could still be the same player he was pre-injury.  And in large part, he demonstrated just that.

He had rust to knock off, no question about that. But he didn’t like his springy athleticism, his confidence in shooting the ball freely or his ability to get hot from the outside.

https://twitter.com/chicagobulls/status/974452765609967617

Every once in a blue moon, he even made a big play or two on the defensive end, though he was still pretty bad generally on that end of the floor.

In short, he was exactly the player the Chicago Bulls traded for. And though he didn’t come close to averaging the 19 points per game he did before suffering his torn ACL, I don’t think that was a prerequisite for keeping him around.

They just needed to see that the ability was still there and could manifest itself with some consistency as he grew more comfortable.

Even better, he suffered no apparent health setbacks along the way. So now, all the bulls have to do is evaluate his play and whether or not they believe he could approach that 20 points per game plateau given a full season under his belt. And from what we saw from him last season, why not believe that?

And if you believe you have a 23-year-old 20 point-per-game guy in your backcourt, you don’t just let him walk out the door.