Getty Zach LaVine disagreed with a game-changing call in the Bulls' loss to the Portland Trailblazers on Saturday.
Imagine a world where Zach LaVine plays on another team besides the Chicago Bulls.
“l love Zach LaVine but, not with the Chicago Bulls,” ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins told me on the Heavy Live With Scoop B Show.
“I think he needs to be somewhere where Zach LaVine needs to be a number 2 guy. I don’t believe he’s a number one guy. Yeah he can go out there and get you 30, but he’s not a guy that will get you over the hump night in and night out.”
LaVine signed a 4 year, $78 milion contract in 2018 with the Chicago Bulls that runs throught 2022.
A UCLA product, Zach LaVine averaged 25.5 points, 4.8 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 1.5 steals per contest this season and was a borderline NBA All-Star. “By the end of the season, once we get team success, everybody is going to think about that,” LaVine told me before the NBA All Star break in February.
The Bulls went 22-43 last season and finished in eleventh place in the NBA’s Eastern Conference standings.
Injuries weren’t kind to a roster that also included Coby White, Lauri Markkanen, Wendell Carter Jr., Thaddeus Young, Ryan Arcidiacono, Otto Porter Jr., Denzel Valentine, Shaquille Harrison and Chandler Hutchison.
The NBA’s season begins on December 22 and LaVine and the Bulls are turning over a new leaf after partning ways with head coach Jim Boylen this summer.
During the offseason, the Bulls hired Billy Donovan to replace Boylen as head coach after Donovan and the Oklahoma City Thunder parted ways.
In five seasons, Donovan compiled a 243–157 coaching record while making the postseason each year and advancing past the first round just once.
Still, Kendrick Perkins thinks that LaVine could find greener pastures elsewhere. “You know with Zach LaVine I just see too much of you know; he’ll have six dominant games and then all of a sudden he’ll disappear for six and then, you see him again in six more,” he told Heavy Live With Scoop B.
“I want to see that stretch where it’s 12 of 15 games in a row where he’s dominating and having a 15-game span where he’s playing exceptional basketball. And so, I don’t like him on Chicago and I thought before the Bucks got Jrue Holiday I thought they could’ve made a push to get Zach LaVine some type of way; that would’ve been a good addition, but I love Jrue Holiday so; I’m a fan of Zach LaVine but, I’m not a fan of him on the Chicago Bulls.”