It remains highly unlikely that the struggling Chicago Bulls will move star wing Zach LaVine ahead of the NBA trade deadline next week.
The 27-year-old LaVine inked a five-year, $215.2 million contract extension with Chicago last summer. The team has planned to build around him and DeMar DeRozan moving forward.
Thus far this season, it has not gone too swimmingly. Chicago sits at just 23-27 on the season and is currently the 11th seed in the Eastern Conference. It wouldn’t even be taking part in the play-in tournament if the season ended today.
This has lead to widespread speculation that a few role players could be moved by front office head Artūras Karnišovas. Whether Chicago changes its plans and blows this thing up before the Feb. 9 NBA trade deadline remains to be seen. What we do know is that there’s several teams interested in the two-time All-Star performer.
“The Lakers, Heat, Knicks and Mavericks have consistently been mentioned by league personnel as holding motivations to land LaVine if the time does arrive,” Yahoo! Sports Jake Fischer on Zach LaVine trade rumors.
Even if the Bulls were to put LaVine on the market in the last days before the deadline, the cost of acquiring this three-and-D wing would be absolutely huge. There’s currently no one even close to his level on the trade market, meaning supply and demand would come into play big time.
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New York Knicks could be best suited to land Zach LaVine in a trade
New York’s brass pushed back against offering up the farm for Donovan Mitchell in trade talks with the Utah Jazz ahead of the 2022-23 season. While LaVine would cost a whole heck of a lot, we’re not looking at the same bounty the Cleveland Cavaliers paid for Mitchell. That ended up being three first-round picks, two pick swaps and three high-quality players.
At 27-25, New York has struggled some in recent weeks. In fact, it heads into Thursday’s game against the Miami Heat having lost six of eight. It might now be time for Leon Rose and Co. to use its assets in order to pull off a blockbuster. LaVine would certainly quality.
- Zach LaVine stats (2022-23): 23.7 PPG, 4.8 RPG, 4.2 APG, 46% shooting, 38% 3-point
Assuming Chicago wouldn’t want to take on Julius Randle’s contract, a deal of this ilk would center around draft picks heading to Chicago. New York picked up multiple first-rounders in its trade frenzy during the 2022 NBA Draft.
It could offer up three first-round selections as well as youngsters Immanuel Quickley and Quentin Grimes to get things started in trade talks. From there, salary fillers such as Evan Fournier and Derrick Rose would have to be involved to make the contracts work.
Of the other three teams mentioned here, assets would be an issue heading to Chicago in a potential Zach LaVine trade.
The Lakers’ lack of draft picks and young players makes it nearly impossible to pull off a trade of this ilk. Dallas is still lacking assets from its ill-fated trade for Kristaps Porzingis from the aforementioned Knicks from eons ago. As for Miami, it has only first-round picks in 2026 and 2028 to offer up. That’s the same draft-pick compensation Los Angeles could entice Chicago with. In short, it’s not happening.
Either way, the slowly-progressing market ahead of the NBA trade deadline could pick up steam here soon. Whether that means Zach LaVine headlines the stars dealt before next week remains to be seen. It still seems highly unlikely.