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Bulls mailbag: Assessing Zach LaVine’s trade market, potential draft targets originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
Presented by Nationwide Insurance Agent Jeff Vukovich
It’s always a bit odd covering a non-playoff team. Granted, stuff bubbles up—assistant coaching changes, the NBA Draft Combine descending upon Chicago, postseason hardware.
But for close to two months, as the NBA playoffs are staged, the Chicago Bulls are on the outside looking in—and for the second straight season to boot. No wonder you have so many questions.
With the injuries to Lonzo Ball, Zach LaVine and Patrick Williams especially, the team was missing three starters at the end of the year. That would affect any team in this league. Nevertheless, the Bulls remained somewhat competitive and arguably fun to watch. Though there is a ceiling, one may wonder if the team could have made some noise in the playoffs with more injury luck. What’s your take? Have Bulls fans been overly critical of team management? — Rene K.
Rene adds that he’s checking in from Austria, so he gets first question and answer because that’s where my wife and I honeymooned. (Fire emoji.)
I never tell fans what to think or judge fandom. It’s anybody’s and everybody’s right to cheer or boo their team how he or she wishes. What I will say is from my perspective, it’s fair to criticize management for trusting a core that clearly has a ceiling—or at least a ceiling without Ball. There has been plenty of evidence, both in terms of on-court play and advanced metrics, that the core of DeRozan, LaVine and Vučević has a ceiling that isn’t championship caliber.
Where I think any criticism of management needs to be balanced is that their original vision worked. The significant changes enacted in the 2021 offseason led to the Eastern Conference’s best record for half a season until injuries hit. But the Bulls are over two calendar years and multiple transactional cycles removed from that. And some of the few remaining assets are depreciating in value.
Karnišovas finally said it publicly himself: This group hasn’t worked. So let’s see what management…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/bulls-mailbag-assessing-zach-lavines-135831932.html
Author : NBC Sports Chicago
Publish date : 2024-05-31 14:16:50
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