Zach Lavine, Bulls Reportedly Not on Same Page

Standout shooting guard Zach LaVine and the Bulls are not seeing “eye-to-eye,” with an obvious disconnect between the sides over the past several weeks, per Shams Charana and Darnell Mayberry of The Athletic.

The Bulls have lost four straight (through Monday) and after starting 5-4 have won just six of their previous 20 games. 

One of the issues involves some “on-court, stylistic tension” between LaVine and small forward DeMar DeRozan, the team’s scoring leaders. The Bulls have held multiple team meetings — including one-on-ones with LaVine and DeRozan — to try to resolve any issues, per Charania and Mayberry. 

But as Luke Adams of Hoops Rumors noted, the reporting in The Athletic story is “somewhat vague,” so it’s hard to know if this is anything serious when it comes to personalities on the team, or just a rougher start to the season for a team without a true “A-level” superstar.

“I think everybody goes through ups and downs, just like every team does,” LaVine told The Athletic. “Obviously if we’re not winning games, not everybody’s going to be happy. It’s not going to look as good as it was before. It’s all glitter and show when you’re winning games. But when you’re losing games and you’re trying to do the same things, it’s turmoil.

“Everybody has their right to their own opinion. For me, I keep my head down. I work on my game and try to help my team. I help try to lead the team. That’s where I stand. I just try to take it day by day and evaluate how we’re doing.”

Some outside the organization have been saying for weeks that they believe the Bulls very well could become sellers ahead of the trade deadline, in the event things don’t pick up soon.

While the Bulls aren’t likely to just clean house, they could make a move for more picks if the season continues as is. One year after returning to the playoffs, they haven’t seemed to progress much.