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Chicago Bulls star Zach LaVine has been open to a trade for months.
LaVine is averaging 21.7 points, 4.2 assists, and shooting 42.8% from three-point range. Those are all improvements from the 2023-24 season. The Bulls hoped a strong start to the season would boost LaVine’s trade value.
It has not, even as the February 6 trade deadline draws closer.
“Nothing has changed,” a close anonymous source told ESPN’s Brian Windhorst in a batch of intel published on December 13.
“Zach LaVine is having the best shooting season of his career, hitting 51% of his shots overall and 43% of his 3s. But despite this and even with more than a year on the trade block, there still hasn’t been any movement on a deal or any change of heart from LaVine and his desire to be moved from Chicago,” Windhorst wrote.
“LaVine has $89 million on his contract for this season and next and then has a $49 million player option for 2026-27 — plus a history of knee injuries. The Bulls have found those factors have largely frozen the market on him. With all of the new layers of restrictions affecting team building, trading for a player with a $40-plus million annual salary is complicated at best for most teams. LaVine, regardless of his fine play and 22 points-per-game scoring average, is stuck in a holding pattern.”
Zach LaVine in Loop on Bulls’ Trade Plans
“LaVine and center Nikola Vucevic know the Bulls are looking to trade them, and it likely would be to a contender once the market shifts closer to the trade deadline in February. They can help their own cause by playing the game the right way,” the Chicago Sun-Times’ Joe Cowley wrote in November.
“Both players know that once the Bulls get to the midway point of the season, rotations and minutes might change in an effort to make sure the team keeps its top-10-protected first-round draft pick out of the Spurs’ hands next summer.”
That timeline would put a potential decision on LaVine’s (and Vucevic’s) future around three weeks before the trade deadline.
However, LaVine has been aware and open to the Bulls’ plan for months.
LaVine’s agent, Klutch Sports CEO Rich Paul, defended his client. Reports about concerns teams might have about trading for him circulated.
“This whole idea that Zach has been anything but professional in this situation is false. This guy has played hurt. He has represented the franchise with class. A lot has taken place during his time with the Bulls and he’s taken the high road every time,” Paul said, per K.C. Johnson for NBC Sports Chicago on July 4. “Does every player get frustrated at times? Yes. But Zach has been the ultimate professional and deserves better.
“The Bulls have business to do. And we’re letting them handle their business.”
That business included the Bulls trade sending DeMar DeRozan to the Sacramento Kings. But even with that out of the way, nothing has materialized for LaVine.
Insider: Bulls Rejected Mavericks’ Offers to Zach LaVine
Windhorst expressed similar sentiments during a recent episode of “The Hoop Collective” podcast, noting that he believed LaVine would have been traded if he was playing like this two years ago before the NBA went to a more restrictive collective bargaining agreement.
However, Windhorst’s guest and colleague Tim Macmahon shared that the Bulls turned down overtures from at least one team. That was the Dallas Mavericks, though it was two years ago.
The Mavericks instead acquired Kyrie Irving in a trade with the Brooklyn Nets.
“Two years ago, the Mavericks tried to trade for him [LaVine] before they got Kyrie,” Macmahon told Windhorst during the December 9 episode of the “The Hoop Collective” podcast. “The Bulls weren’t interested.”
The Bulls were also linked to a potential trade with the Detroit Pistons involving LaVine last season. But that was before the guard underwent season-ending foot surgery.
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