After an injury-riddled 2023-24 season, two-time Chicago Bulls All-Star shooting guard Zach LaVine is making the most of his tenure in the Windy City ahead of 2024-25, per Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times.
The 6-foot-5 former UCLA swingman struggled with right foot pain throughout the 2023-24 season and eventually sprained his right ankle. He last suited up in a game on Jan. 18, and had surgery on the foot in Feb.
Across just 25 contests for the 39-43 Bulls last season (23 starts), LaVine averaged 19.5 points on .452/.349/.854 shooting splits, 5.2 rebounds, 3.9 assists, and 0.8 steals a night. That marked the 29-year-old’s least-prolific scoring output since his first injury-plagued season in Chicago, 2017-18.
Zach LaVine #8 of the Chicago Bulls celebrates with teammate Nikola Vucevic #9 against the Toronto Raptors during the 2023 Play-In Tournament at the Scotiabank Arena on April 12, 2023 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Both players are available via trade, but it appears interest has died down for the time being.
Andrew Lahodynskyj/Getty Images
LaVine, a prolific three-level scorer, could be a big help to a variety of contending teams — but the general wisdom around the NBA is that the oft-hurt wing is not worth his lucrative current contract. He’ll be earning $43 million in 2024-25, and is under contract with Chicago through at least 2025-26, with a $49 million player option on his 2026-27 season.
Read more: Zach LaVine to Warriors? One NBA Insider Thinks It’s a Good Idea
For now, LaVine is trying to approach his impending season as if he’ll be a Bull throughout.
“There were a lot of thoughts and rumors and opinions about me, about the organization, so just know that whenever it needs to come from me or them, you’ll know it will be from them,” LaVine said recently. “Everything else you can take with a grain of salt with false narratives or whatever it may be.”
His head coach Billy Donovan raved about how LaVine has handled team practices thus far and comported himself with teammates.
“I think he’s practiced really well,” Donovan said. “I don’t think I could say that the last couple of years, and I don’t think it was necessarily because of him not wanting to practice well. I think a lot of times he was coming out of an injury. Seeing him in September and some of this August, I felt like this is about as good as I’ve seen him physically in a couple of years.”
“He’s always been really good with his teammates as far as the relationship piece, but I see him really helping the team, helping the group. Certainly, from a pride standpoint, as much as he invests into it, yeah, I think he wants to re-establish himself. I don’t see anything wrong with that, but I don’t sense he’s trying to do that at the expense of, ‘Hey, I’m just worried about what’s on the back of the jersey and forget the Bulls right now.'”
The two-time All-Star was a core component of the team’s botched recent bid for playoff respectability. After a massive roster rebuild in 2021, Chicago was hoping to be a perennial pseudo-contender. Instead, the team made the playoffs once in three years.
LaVine and fellow former two-time All-Star Nikola Vucevic have both been the subject of much trade scrutiny since the team signaled it was moving towards a rebuild by trading All-Defensive Team guard Alex Caruso and former six-time All-Star small forward DeMar DeRozan.
Read more: Bulls Still Striving to Trade Two Veteran All-Stars
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