Chicago Bulls: Zach LaVine is starting to reach his potential

The Chicago Bulls made a decision to retain Zach LaVine last summer. His first season following the contract is turning out to be well-worth the investment.

Raise your hand if you criticized the Chicago Bulls front office for matching Zach LaVine‘s offer sheet the Sacramento Kings. If you did, thank you for being honest. Those that kept their hands down, you’re terrible liars.

Oh, the pitfalls of restricted free agency!

Not many (including myself) liked the four-year, $80 million offer that Zach LaVine got. The odds that he would live up to that deal were slim at best. The Chicago Bulls were banking off of a small sample size of 24 games played with the Windy City since he was dealt from Minnesota after he blew out his ACL a season prior. The former UCLA product hashed together 16.7 points on 38.3 percent shooting (34.1 percent from three) in year one with the Bulls.

However, he graded out as a very poor defender and wasn’t considered anything more than a second or even third option on an offense. In fact, from a shooting and defensive standpoint, he compares to Jamal Crawford rather nicely. That pretty much meant that living up to the price tag was going to be darn near impossible.

And that’s where the intrigue with the Bull’s lead gunner begins.

It goes without saying, but LaVine has almost certainly taken the next step when it comes to his progression. His numbers since the All-Star break (28.2 points, 4.8 assists, 49.7 percent from the floor, and 45.5 percent from long range) have almost been cartoonish. He has arguably been the best player in the league since the mid-season break.

The most incredible part about all of this was that there was so much baggage coming in from the Jimmy Butler deal. Think about it: Kris Dunn had a horrendous rookie year, Lauri Markkannan was seen as a specialist and nothing more, and LaVine recently blew his knee out.

Mark brings up a major point in this thread: Remember how the organization dealt with the Derrick Rose injury? With any other organization, teams would be cool with taking a swing on LaVine at the right price. But Chicago? They already had enough injury problems with Rose to last a lifetime.

The most important part about all of this is that we aren’t seeing him shut out Lauri like he would at times last year. Those two alone make up for nearly 55 percent of the Bulls’ usage rates (per NBA Advanced Stats) since they acquired Otto Porter Jr. at the deadline (last 12 games LaVine has played). So there is surely cause for excitement with those two operating together for the foreseeable future.

While he’s still a problem on defense, it’s not because LaVine doesn’t care — just more so that he isn’t very good at it. At the very least, he can play well enough on offense to hold up his part of the bargain with the deal he signed. He may never live up to the overall valuation, but he’ll come much closer than we would’ve guessed last summer.

The team as a whole has been pretty bad on defense for quite a bit now, but when the offense is clicking and operating on all cylinders, sometimes you can live with giving up 105 if you can score 110.

Just imagine when Wendell Carter Jr. returns next year. The offense should take another step forward and he can become the linchpin on defense. LaVine has taken a sense of pride in proving everyone he was worth the money the Bulls paid to keep him around. I guess we can thank the Kings for teeing it up.

I think he’s turned some doubters into believers, what say you?

(As I type this, he’s coming off a right patellar tendon strain, which is just dandy.)