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Thad Young and Zach LaVine date back to 2014. That year, a 19-year-old LaVine was drafted 13th by the Timberwolves, and a few months later Young was traded to Minnesota ahead of his eighth season in the league. . Young almost immediately became a mentor to LaVine, and five years later they became teammates again in Chicago.
The two have enjoyed playing together for the past two seasons, with LaVine recently calling Young “the best teammate I’ve ever had.” This connection allowed Young to be both LaVine’s biggest fan and an honest critic. Before the start of this season, Young said he approached LaVine and relayed his hopes for the team, as well as his expectations for LaVine. Young explained that if the Bulls had any hope of being relevant, and if LaVine wanted to be named an All-Star for the first time, the 25-year-old would have to take another leap and become a two-way player. .
Fast forward a few months, and LaVine is doing her best to fulfill that mandate.
Take the final three minutes of the Bulls’ 105-102 win over the Pistons on Wednesday. With just over 2:30 hours left, LaVine took over. He stepped back and made a James Harden – esque 3 from the left wing. Then his eye caught a small space that turned into a canyon as he drove and pumped twice for a prominent dunk. And then, after Detroit trapped LaVine, he threw in a flurry of passes that resulted in a Coby White 3 to almost seal the game. LaVine finished with 37 points, five rebounds, five assists and three steals.
Young had seen enough of LaVine to campaign for that All-Star spot they were talking about. Wednesday’s performance only confirms this. “Zach has been amazing all season,” he said afterwards. “He’s definitely an All-Star.”
“Zach really works. … He wants to be a winning player, ”Bulls head coach Billy Donovan said after Monday’s 120-112 win over the Pacers, a game that went into overtime thanks in part to a step back 3 de LaVine towards the end of regulation. “He knows that maybe throughout his career he hasn’t had that opportunity. He wants to learn and improve. He’s been a real driver and a willful cutter, he knows he has to improve defensively, he knows that if he wants to be a leader he has to be really responsible for bringing him in all the time.
LaVine is marking this season with the same ease he had in dunk contests early in his career – and at a pace that only Steph Curry, Kevin Durant and Larry Bird have done before. He’s still a great pilot, but now that’s just a footnote for the rest of his game; a piece from a time when he was doing a lot less on the pitch for struggling teams. This year has been different.
The Bulls are now scratching at the kind of relevance Young wanted ahead of the season. Their 12-15 record isn’t exactly great, but they’re only half a game away from the top 8 in the East; and given how the past two seasons have unfolded (22 wins in both), the fact that Chicago is already halfway through that winning tally is a small victory. And LaVine? Well, he’s averaging 28.5 points per game, a career-high, and he’s not only been the engine of success for the Bulls, but he’s also set to become what Young said he would be. if he put in the work: an All-Star.
It was summer 2018 and Zach LaVine had just been told he needed to put away the most famous part of his game. His longtime trainer Drew Hanlen told LaVine he was no longer allowed. to dive during off-season training sessions. This was for several reasons. First, Hanlen wanted to evolve LaVine’s skills from being a two-time slam dunk champion and becoming a player who had more to his game than otherworldly athleticism. And secondly, whenever any of LaVine’s strengths spread across social media, it would make numbers and perpetuate the idea that LaVine was just a dunker.
The irony is that years before Hanlen told LaVine to stop dunking, this skill – specifically, a 360-degree dunk, between the legs during his professional day at UCLA – played a role in pushing LaVine in the Draft Lottery. But in 2018, LaVine had been in the league for four seasons and was expected to show improvement in other areas. So Hanlen and LaVine started working on adding a new skill to each offseason – be it play, rhythm, ball screens, floats, or shooting. Now, in the seventh season of LaVine, it all comes together.
“I think it’s just gradual,” Hanlen said of the improvements. “I think [he] was really good last year, but didn’t get much credit because the Bulls weren’t very good. Now he’s getting more credit because, number one, he’s been more efficient this year, but the Bulls have been more competitive this year as well.
This particular offseason has been longer than most of the Bulls since they haven’t been to the Orlando bubble, and Hanlen spent that extra time using workouts he had done with Bradley Beal and Jayson Tatum to help. LaVine to focus on three areas of his game: the pace of play, his intermediate game (floats, runners), and doing more than 3 imbalances. That latest skill – which has been ongoing since LaVine declared herself for the 2014 draft – is paying off this season.
Lavine shoots more 3s than ever (8.2 per game) and places them at a record 44%. His free-throw shot hovers just below 85% which is the only thing stopping him from posting a 50/40/90 season so far. LaVine’s effective field goal percentage is over 60%, and only four other players who attempt 15 or more shots per game have a higher eFG% than him – and the only goalkeeper in that group is Steph Curry.
“It’s really impressive because a lot of times it seems like he doesn’t think anyone is in front of him,” Donovan said of the LaVine shoot. “He succeeds so easily.”
LaVine’s workload has also increased this season, with his minutes exceeding 35 per game for the second time in his career and his utilization rate of 30.7%. And while Donovan made a point of saying the Bulls can’t count on him to keep scoring at this rate, between injuries and absences, that’s exactly what the Bulls need to stay afloat.
As far as LaVine is concerned, that’s the type of season he’s been working toward – the result of the kind of drive and work ethic that Donovan now praises whenever LaVine has a big game. “I plan to do this. I put in time and effort, ”said LaVine after scoring a season-high 46 points against the Pelicans last week. “You know I’m not afraid to miss these photos or take them.”
This season, LaVine already has 13 games of 30 points or more. He had 19 all last season. His performance of 46 points last week was preceded by performances of 35 and 39 points. In his last two games, he has totaled 67 points.
“You see it so much, countless times,” White said after LaVine exited against the Pelicans. “Since this year and last year I’ve seen him come out really hot where it’s like, ‘Is he really hot, or is that just him?'”
After the Bulls edged the Pistons on Wednesday night, Donovan mentionned that LaVine had wanted to keep Jerami Grant full length and had requested the mission. Donovan nodded, and as the Bulls won, Grant scored 43 points in the game, including 19 in the fourth quarter.
It’s clear that LaVine still has room for improvement, especially on the defensive end. Hanlen believes LaVine can revamp the same athleticism he shows offensively in his defensive effort. “I think he’s finding out how difficult it is to be a two-player because he does so many offensive things,” Donovan said. “I told him that the big league players play on both sides of the field. You can’t be a one-sided player and I think he’s committed to trying to do that now.
Hanlen and Donovan both see a few other areas in which LaVine can continue to develop. Hanlen pointed out that LaVine’s score opens up plenty of opportunities for him as a playmaker. (This season he averages 5.2 career assists.) Donovan pointed out LaVine’s selflessness and said the next step was knowing when to channel aggression into scoring and when to use it to engage teammates.
“Sometimes he tries to read the game instead of reacting to the game,” Donovan said. “He’s almost trying to figure out what’s going to happen instead of being aggressive and then reacting and responding to it, so we just need him to be aggressive.
Still, when it comes to late-game shots, LaVine wants to take them. This season he has shown he can make them too. And that kind of fearless confidence bodes well for his ever-growing role and rise through the ranks of NBA players.
Even for those who have been at the forefront of LaVine’s development, there isn’t a specific moment when he showed them what he could become. Hanlen says he knew almost immediately after working with LaVine that he had potential All-Star. Young has seen LaVine’s potential and growth since he mentored the Minnesota rookie, but it wasn’t until this year that it all came together. White has seen him for two seasons now. Donovan for one.
The way LaVine plays and talks about his performances, it’s like that is exactly what he expected of himself from the start. And now, this could finally be the season where everyone sees it, too.
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