1. Zach LaVine, Shooting Guard
This year was almost the time where rising star 25-year-old 6-foot-6 and 180 pound former UCLA Bruins shooting guard Zach LaVine got his first career NBA All-Star selection. The former 13th overall pick of the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round of the 2014 NBA Draft did have himself his best year in the NBA to date during the 2019-20 campaign.
But LaVine didn’t get to see the fruits of his labor come to be since the Bulls weren’t even able to make it into the NBA’s 22-team restart at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, FL. Scrimmages already started for the nine teams out of the Eastern Conference that are competing in the restart, but the Bulls are left idol to watch.
LaVine played in 60 games during the 2019-20 season (starting in all of them). He averaged 25.5 points per game, 4.8 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.5 steals, and 0.5 blocks. And he did all that while shooting 45.0 percent from the field, 38.0 percent from beyond the arc, and 80.2 percent from the free-throw line.
That helped LaVine to register a career-best 2.5 box plus/minus rating, and crack four total win shares for the first time in one regular season. And he was able to get that number of win shares during a shortened season with a mediocre supporting cast at best.
Sticking around in the Windy City might be seen as a waste of his prime years in the eyes of LaVine, which is a fair take if Boylen is still around next season.