Chicago Bulls: 2 studs, 1 dud, from win over Pels in home opener

Chicago Bulls Stud No. 1: Zach LaVine

The first-time All-Star selection and Bulls star shooting guard Zach LaVine is the hottest player on this team in the first two games of the regular season. As the Bulls opened up the home regular season schedule on the night of Oct. 22, LaVine was the spark plug for the offense yet again. His volume scoring and tough shot-making abilities are starting to compound with more efficiency in shot selection.

You can’t help but be impressed with the way that LaVine started out this regular season slate for the Bulls. He’s averaging around 33 points per game, seven rebounds, five assists, 0.5 steals, and one block, through the first two games of the regular season.

In this game, in particular, LaVine registered a game-high 32 points, six rebounds, five assists, no steals, one block, and six turnovers. And he shot 11-of-19 from the field, an impressive 6-of-9 from beyond the arc, and 4-of-5 from the free-throw line.

This game did see LaVine’s perfect stretch from the free-throw line snapped. But shooting 4-of-5 from the free-throw line, after going a perfect 11-of-11 the previous game, isn’t too shabby.

The one fault for LaVine in this game was the six turnovers. But that is going to happen when someone commands a usage rate of north of 36 percent sometimes. That is still something to clean up. But this type of production is worth it if it means that the Bulls are going to get 30+ points per game out of LaVine on better than 50 percent shooting from the field and beyond the arc.

The advanced metrics do a good job, for the most part, looking at the effectiveness of LaVine through two games. He’s registered a sparkling 34.9 player efficiency rating, 76.8 true shooting percentage, and a whopping .373 win shares per 48 minutes.