Zach LaVine’s Voice Should Carry Some Weight With Bulls’ Front Office
Zach LaVine likes what Coby White brings to the table. And that should count for something when the season begins.
Much has been made of how Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley will retool the franchise as the Bulls try to become a more modern organization.
It remains to be seen who will be the Bulls lead coach once the season resumes and players find their way back playing on the court. And director of player development Shawn Respert will not be retained after his contract expires at the end of the 2019-20 season.
With the Bulls having these important issues to address, it should not be lost on management the importance of taking into account the voices on their current team.
One such voice that should carry more weight than all should be Zach LaVine.
LaVine is not only the team’s leading scorer but has transformed into the vocal leader that the Bulls have needed as they have navigated unsuccessfully through this rebuild. Night in and night out he has been at the forefront of addressing the media as losses have piled up through the years. Through it all, LaVine has pointed to one of the few silver linings that this current team offers besides himself. He has been effusive in his praise of Coby White, and hopefully, the new Bulls regime is also taking notice.
Coby White is definitely a starter in this league, and he should continue in that capacity no matter who the next head coach is.
We haven’t seen much of the Bulls potential dynamic pairing starting lineup that features LaVine and White in the backcourt. But there were nine games where the two shared the same court in crunch time and each scored 20 or more points between the two. That’s pretty impressive for a player who was still trying to find his identity and balance the roles of distributor/playmaker/scorer in his rookie year without starting.
And LaVine really liked the fearlessness that White displayed while on the court. In his rookie year, White has started just one all year while averaging 13.2 points, 3.5 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 39.4 percent field-goal shooting. But according to LaVine White is a “flamethrower” who can be a “problem” for the league once the two develop more chemistry on the court.
The stats that White put up after the All-Star break gave a glimpse as to the kind of player that White can blossom into.
— Mark (@mkhoops) May 14, 2020
That’s not to say that White won’t have his challenges while adapting to playing the lead guard position on a full-time basis. However the mere fact that LaVine has been singing his praises since training camp should make us all feel a little giddy.
If Lauri Markkanen can regain his form that he displayed in his first 2 seasons and White can harness the play-making and scoring ability that he has on a regular basis, LaVine will finally have some running mates to get things turned around a lot quicker than expected.
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