Zach LaVine era is over, but Bulls’ malaise continues

In parts of eight seasons, Zach LaVine scored more points in a Chicago Bulls uniform than all but five other players: Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Bob Love, Luol Deng and Jerry Sloan.

The two-time slam-dunk champ took and made more 3-pointers than any Bulls player ever while taking, making and missing the seventh-most field goals in franchise history. LaVine, a two-time All-Star and gold medalist, had the ball in his hands for much of his run in Chicago, and he put up the numbers to prove it.

But few will be advocating for his number to be retired. LaVine had the misfortune of playing for the Bulls in a lost decade, and people will always focus on the context of the points he scored.

“Legacy” is an overused word in sports, but LaVine should be remembered in Chicago as a fine scorer who helped lift the franchise out of its doldrums and into mediocrity — which isn’t the kind of sporting career one dreams of as a child.

It isn’t LaVine’s fault the Bulls are what they currently are: an irrelevant franchise in a major market. But he was the face of the franchise for most of the past decade.

This summer will mark the 10th anniversary of the Bulls firing Tom Thibodeau, and the franchise has been spinning its wheels since — at least when it hasn’t been going in reverse. In that span, the Bulls have rebuilt their roster, hired and fired a few coaches, changed front offices, won a few playoff games, competed in the Play-In Tournament, treaded water, changed their shot profile, made a bunch of fans miserable and lost more games than they’ve won. And, they moved to a new cable network few people get.

LaVine played in 416 regular-season games for the Bulls. In that span, they went 174-242. While the Bulls won just 41.8 percent of the games he played in, that percentage skyrockets to 48.8 over the last three-plus seasons as the team did make one playoff series and reach two Play-In appearances. No one will remember these years with any fondness. At best, they had a fun few months back in the fall and early winter of the 2021-22 season.

This isn’t to pin it all on LaVine, who has had to wear the sobriquet of “losing player.” When he finally made the playoffs in 2022, coach Billy Donovan was thrilled for him to have an attempt to change his narrative.

“I think sometimes in the NBA for these guys, you don’t necessarily get a chance to get to choose where you get picked,” Donovan said. “Sometimes, you don’t have an option on what team you’re playing for. A lot of times, you don’t have the option (of) the coaches you’re playing for, to get personal coaching.

“It was mind-opening to me when I got here (that) I was his sixth coach. This guy’s had six different coaches, played on different teams, and he hasn’t necessarily been afforded a lot of success.”

He made around $182 million with the Bulls, so no one should feel bad for him. I enjoyed watching LaVine most of the time, and he earned the respect of the media for being not only a stand-up guy but also a “real one.” He was refreshingly normal and funny. After every desultory loss in the Jim Boylen era, there he was at his locker.

LaVine has plenty of agency as the main guy for the last seven years, but it’s not his fault he was drafted by Minnesota and traded to a Bulls team trying another rebuild.

After firing Thibodeau, the Bulls’ front office made mistake after mistake like hiring Fred Hoiberg, replacing him with Boylen and never figuring out how to build a roster. They didn’t have a Plan B when they lost Lonzo Ball in the 2021-22 season or much of a plan on how to maximize the talent they had.

This season, they went with “shoot more 3s” as a strategy without playing any defense. It hasn’t worked. As of the trade, they were 21-29 and barely holding onto 10th place in the Eastern Conference.

LaVine came to Chicago from Minnesota in the summer of 2017 as the headliner of a blockbuster draft-night trade for Jimmy Butler. He leaves days before the trade deadline as the Bulls aim to restart once again. LaVine is off to Sacramento to join DeMar DeRozan on a Play-In Tournament hopeful on the other side of the country.

After Los Angeles and Dallas shocked the world, the Bulls both surprised and underwhelmed us Sunday night. In a three-team trade with one great franchise and two middling ones, it was no surprise who came out the winner.

The headline for Sunday’s three-team deal with the Bulls, Kings and the San Antonio Spurs was the latter landing dynamic guard De’Aaron Fox without giving up Stephon Castle and keeping the 2025 unprotected first-round pick owed by the Atlanta Hawks. San Antonio can now pair Fox, who asked for a trade from the Kings, with Victor Wembanyama.

The Bulls will try to pare down its roster some more — and what lies ahead of them could be more losing.

We knew the Bulls had been trying to unload LaVine for a year, but who had confidence they would get it done? Their team president Artūras Karnišovas isn’t what you would call a wheeler or a dealer. He hadn’t made a deadline deal since 2021 when he traded Wendell Carter Jr. and two first-round picks to Orlando for Nikola Vučević.

Trading LaVine to the Kings, who signed him to an offer sheet in 2018, didn’t net the Bulls much in return, aside from giving them certainty they could keep their 2025 first-round pick, which was slated to go to San Antonio this season if it fell out of the top 10. There were still two more years of protection on the pick if it didn’t convey, so it was integral for them to get it back as they embarked on another youth movement.

That it needed to happen at all also makes you think, once again, that Karnišovas isn’t very good at his job, which isn’t a very controversial statement. He and his general manager Marc Eversley had a memorable free-agency splash in 2021 and have otherwise been inert. Can they figure out how to build a sustainable winner this time around? Should they even get the chance?

I can’t blame them for an average return in this deal as I doubt suitors were lining up for LaVine due to his contract. Karnišovas signed LaVine to a five-year, $215.2 million extension after the 2022 season, and a year later, both sides were looking to a breakup.

After missing most of last season with various injuries, LaVine rebounded amid trade rumors and was having a nice season, averaging 24 points (shooting 51.1 percent from the field and 44.6 percent from 3) with 4.8 rebounds and 4.5 assists. He missed the last three games on paternity leave after his wife gave birth to their third child. He can help a contender. The Kings are a 10th-place team in the Western Conference, currently a game out of eighth.

In 2017, LaVine was acquired by John Paxson and Gar Forman in their quest to rebuild their roster. In retrospect, getting LaVine, Lauri Markkanen and Kris Dunn wasn’t a bad return for the bridge-burning Butler. While the Bulls fumbled the development of Markkanen, LaVine spent the bulk of his 20s with the team putting in work and scoring all those points. Forman has since been fired, and Paxson hangs on as an adviser. He looks much happier now without the weight of the franchise on his shoulders.

Meanwhile, Butler has made his rounds in the NBA, exciting and frustrating fans across the country as he made the playoffs, led the Heat to two NBA Finals appearances and built his brand of obnoxious success.

While LaVine is much easier to handle than Butler off the court, he couldn’t hold a candle to Butler on it. When the Bulls and Heat met in the 2023 Play-In finale, LaVine shot 6 of 21 and scored 15 points with just one point in the fourth quarter. Meanwhile, Butler scored 13 of his 31 points in the fourth quarter. Butler is a difficult guy, but he’ll be remembered one day as a winner.

It’s fitting, perhaps, that the Heat come to town Tuesday for the Bulls’ first game without LaVine. Butler, currently suspended by Miami, won’t be playing, either. He is looking for a new home as well.

(Top photo: David Banks / Imagn Images)

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