Chicago Bulls: BR says Zach LaVine is a starter who should be traded

The Chicago Bulls moving shooting guard Zach LaVine on the trade market is a risky idea that Arturas Karnisovas would have to be careful with.

What the 2019-20 season showed us about the Chicago Bulls was mainly the fact that there was a lot needed to improve the direction of the rebuild heading into its fourth year. The third year of the rebuild saw the Bulls finish up with a record of 22-43 prior to the pause. They weren’t good enough to get into the NBA’s 22 team restart at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, FL.

It wasn’t just the front office, coaching staff, or roster construction alone that needed fixing to get the Bulls rebuild going in the right direction starting during the 2020-21 season. All of the three needed a pretty good face lift, and that’s exactly what this organization got so far this offseason.

The Bulls started off by removing former vice president of basketball operations John Paxson and general manager Gar Forman from power in the front office. They were replaced by former Denver Nuggets general manager Arturas Karnisovas and Philadelphia 76ers senior VP of player personnel Marc Eversley.

Management even parted ways with now former head coach Jim Boylen back on Aug. 14, to provide yet another high-profile job opening in the Eastern Conference. Next up for the new look front office to tackle is the roster construction.

But how should they begin?

Bleacher Report had a piece that could spark an idea of where to begin in discussions among the Bulls fan base. On Aug. 24, that piece from Bleacher Report mentioned Bulls 25-year-old shooting guard Zach LaVine as one of seven NBA starters that should be traded this offseason.

Here’s a deeper look into what Bleacher Report had to say about the inclusion of LaVine on this list.

"The Chicago Bulls finally caught a break in the draft and boast the fourth pick this year. It’s true there are no guaranteed stars in this draft, but plenty of good potential role players are available. Combining the opportunity to select one of them with an established scorer like Zach LaVine could be enticing for numerous teams.While the former team’s lack of roster talent could make for an even worse version of LaVine’s current situation in Chicago, a deal with the latter club might be just what the doctor ordered for the UCLA alum. With Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving handling virtually all shot creation responsibilities, LaVine would be free to spot up from three and finish flashy dunks, his two best skills. In this vein, the Philadelphia 76ers and Denver Nuggets could be useful landing spots as well."

The argument here seems to be that the Bulls trading LaVine could continue to usher in a new era of basketball in Chicago. If the Bulls could manage to ship LaVine off to move the rebuild forward, then this makes sense. But they would be taking a big risk if the argument was that they should trade LaVine to build toward appealing to some of the bigger stars in the luscious 2021 free agent class.

During the 2019-20 season, LaVine played in 60 games (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. LaVine shot 45.0 percent from the field, 38.0 percent from beyond the arc, and 80.2 percent from the free-throw line.

He definitely seems to be doing his best to improve this offseason.

Trading LaVine is a very volatile idea, but one that the Bulls should at least think out if it will provide more value than not over the long haul for this rebuild. All options should still be on the table if the Bulls want to find the right route to reshape this roster from the top-down.