The Chicago Bulls can’t seem to make up their mind about this season. They go on winning streaks followed by losing streaks, they have the league’s best clutch shotmaker yet lose innumerable close games, beat the East’s top contenders and get blown out by tanking teams, and their best players are both best friends and incompatible, disgruntled stars.
Lately, the Bulls have been playing better and righted the ship, winning six of their last nine, but that has only brought them to 10th in the Eastern Conference. No team enjoys breaking up a good thing, but with reports of Zach LaVine talking to management about disliking his current role, antennae around the league have been raised in case he demands a trade or the Bulls make him available.
The Chicago Bulls could trade Zach LaVine. Who are the top suitors?
In their latest round-up of NBA rumors, HoopsHype reported that rival executives are keeping a close eye on the LaVine situation and that if the All-Star guard were to become available, a number of teams will be interested. The New York Knicks, Dallas Mavericks, Miami Heat, and Los Angeles Lakers make up that list of interested suitors.
Of that quartet, the Los Angeles Lakers are by far the most desperate to shake things up, with LeBron James making veiled comments about competing to the media and the win-now Lakers stuck down in 12th place. What would a trade offer from the Lakers look like for LaVine, and would the Bulls be interested?
What a Lakers, Bulls trade with LaVine could look like
Everyone and their mother knows the trade package that the Los Angeles Lakers have to offer. They have Russell Westbrook‘s massive $47 million expiring contract and their 2027 and 2029 first-round picks. Their drafts before then are tied up from the Anthony Davis trade. If a team trades with the Lakers, they are doing so because of the upside of those future picks.
Zach LaVine makes $37 million in the first year of his maximum contract, so at least one other player would need to be added to the deal to make the money work for the Bulls, who sit $1.7 million under the luxury tax line and won’t want to push over. Here is one such construction the Lakers could pitch to the Bulls:
The Lakers are stuck in the lurch of another disappointing season, with an aging LeBron James whose title for contending is growing smaller and smaller with each passing season. Yet they can’t trick themselves into believing they are one player away from contention, not with a 17-21 record.
Trading for an All-Star like Zach LaVine would allow them to follow both paths, making a big swing to mollify James and make them competitive this season while setting themselves up to fight for a title next season. Adding another injury-prone player in LaVine is certainly a risk, but the upside is that the Lakers have a true third star to help keep that window propped open.
This deal would also work if the Lakers asked for Alex Caruso instead of Coby White and Andre Drummond, but the Bulls probably say no and try to shop Caruso for a first-round pick elsewhere.
Would the Bulls trade LaVine to the Lakers?
The most important hurdle that would have to be cleared for this trade to go through is for the team to recognize it’s not going anywhere this season and to decide to move Zach LaVine in a trade. That is unlikely to happen, but it’s not impossible.
If they do make that decision, then we come to evaluating the potential packages available. Trading LaVine probably also involves moving Nikola Vucevic, DeMar DeRozan, or both, so getting a package from the Lakers that doesn’t involve win-now players is probably fine. Those two first-round picks hold a lot of upside. By 2027, LeBron James will be 42 years old, Anthony Davis will be 33 and likely have another two dozen injuries to his ledger, and LaVine’s knees will be 31. Shorting the Lakers makes a lot of sense.
That last point about LaVine’s knees is ultimately why the Bulls might do this trade. He is in the first year of a five-year, $251 million contract, with a fifth-year player option for $48.9 million. He has had multiple knee surgeries and continues to miss time off and on. If the Bulls suspect his knees are ticking time bombs, trading him now while he is healthy might be the right move.
Verdict: In the end, the Bulls probably continue to trick themselves into trying to compete with this core. If they do make the call to shop LaVine, there is a great chance a better trade is out there from a team with more assets, something more akin to what Donovan Mitchell brought back to Utah. So the Bulls probably pass on this one.