Why is Zach LaVine’s on/off court effectiveness looking so bad?

It’s clear at this point of the regular season that the Chicago Bulls have stumbled upon one of the very best scoring duos in the NBA between star shooting guard Zach LaVine and shooting guard/forward DeMar DeRozan. Each is playing at an All-Star caliber level, and look out for both of these stars to challenge for All-NBA Team honors by the end of the regular season with the pace they’re producing at right now.

But if LaVine and DeRozan are both producing at All-Star caliber levels in the Bulls’ starting unit, why are some of the net rating and on/off-court numbers so bad for the former of the two?

LaVine has registered a career-best .156 win shares per 48 minutes, a solid 3.2 box plus/minus, and tied a career-best with a 21.5 player efficiency rating. But he’s also registered nearly a career-low with on/off-court plus/minus per 100 possessions so far this season at -9.2. That is the second-lowest tally of his career in terms of that metric.

There is another rating metric that would give the indication that LaVine isn’t a very positive presence on the floor for the Bulls compared with the rest of the team. LaVine ranks second from the bottom in terms of Bulls players that have played in at least 300 minutes this season in on-court plus/minus per 100 possessions, at +2.0. The only Bulls player that ranks lower than him is rookie point guard Ayo Dosunmu.

Zach LaVine has some numbers that don’t illustrate his true impact on the Chicago Bulls this season

So how is LaVine having such a brilliant season individually, and the Bulls are finding elevated success in the win column, but his plus/minus metrics are suffering?

First and foremost, LaVine is often counted on to be a spark plug with a bulk of the second unit players in the lineup with him this season. The four most effective four-man combinations he’s played in with the Bulls so far this season are also four of the five that he’s played the fewest minutes with this season.

Two players that LaVine tends to not be too efficient with on the floor so far this season are rookie point guard Ayo Dosunmu and shooting guard/forward Javonte Green. When there are two-way players that don’t tend to make a huge impact offensively in terms of facilitating and/or off-ball, LaVine just doesn’t have much success with them in terms of on-court plus/minus. That was a trend present with him last season too.

Green is the fourth-most common player in the two-man combinations with LaVine this season, and Dosunmu is the sixth, in terms of minutes played together.

A good example of on/off-court plus/minus per 100 possessions to counter some of the more detrimental results of LaVine is DeRozan. Three of the five most effective four-man combinations in terms of plus/minus per 100 possessions for DeRozan this season with the Bulls fall in the four most common groups for him to play in thus far.

And there are just two games that are complete outliers that are killing LaVine’s plus/minus right now that he got more minutes in at bad times compared to other Bulls players such as DeRozan. When the Bulls were toasted by the Indiana Pacers and Golden State Warriors in the last month, LaVine combined for a -53 while DeRozan didn’t even have a plus/minus half as bad. Those two games are stat sheet killers and nothing but that.

It is interesting to look into the on/off-court plus/minus per 100 possessions as an indicator of effectiveness for certain players. But when LaVine hasn’t really missed any minutes so far this season for the Bulls and they were just blown out in two games against the Warriors and Pacers, there are opportunities early on in the campaign for his plus/minus to get ruined.

There is time for it to recover, and we’ll see how that trends. For the time being, I believe that the all-encompassing advanced metrics do a better job illustrating LaVine’s true impact on games so far this season compared with the net rating and plus/minus stats.

LaVine and the Bulls are sporting a record of 16-8 after a big four-point road win on Dec. 4 over the Brooklyn Nets. Next up for the Bulls is a meeting at home at the United Center with the Denver Nuggets on Dec. 6.