Chicago Bulls: All Star Game not a testament of LaVine, DeRozan’s true talent

It was a wild night for the NBA world as Team LeBron and Team Durant took the stage for the 2022 NBA All Star Game. For Chicago Bulls fans, it was a breath of fresh air to see two of their own take the court.

DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine were drafted to opposite squads in this one and got to face off against one another. Early on, LaVine used a screen to shed DeRozan’s defense and drill a three — something DeRozan said he saw coming after the game.

It was a lot of fun to see those two out there with the league’s best — after all, it was much deserved on both their parts.

However, as the brightest stars used the stage as an opportunity to show off a little bit, the Bulls’ duo decided not to do so. Okay, aside from LaVine’s 360 dunk on a wide open breakaway, the duo placed themselves on the back burner.

Chicago Bulls All Stars Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan opted for a quieter night at the 2022 NBA All Star Game.

At one point, we saw two guys going back and forth, having their own little three-point shootout in LaMelo Ball and Stephen Curry.

That was, of course, until Curry took over the show by himself and continued knocking down deep threes just for fun. Curry ended up with 50 points altogether and broke the all-time record for threes in an All Star Game with a whopping 16.

DeRozan and LaVine, meanwhile, sort of let the other guys show off whenever they wanted. Neither one of them demanded the ball. Neither one of them seemed as though they wanted to show off — and that’s perfectly fine.

Both LaVine and DeRozan are the type of guys who hardly have egos. They don’t need to use a stage like that to try and showboat. Instead, their personalities overflow with humility and a team-first mentality.

So, when given the opportunity to go out and put on a show, they chose not to. Instead, it was the bigger names who “hogged” the ball, for lack of a better term, and opted to put their name on a pedestal.

DeRozan finished with a modest 10 points, five assists and four rebounds while LaVine ended with 12 points, three assists and three rebounds.

When it comes to crunch time, DeRozan and LaVine will do plenty of talking with how they play the game. When the playoffs come around, or even when regular season games stay competitive, they will do exactly what they’ve done all season — close.

These two are closers. They step up when it matters most, and quite frankly, the All Star Game simply doesn’t matter a whole lot. Seeing these two take a back seat was actually expected. Now, we wait for the real basketball to start back up and let their play do the talking.