Bulls' Zach LaVine Sets Tone for ‘Prove It' Season for Team and Rebuild

Zach LaVine sets tone for ‘prove it’ season for Bulls originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago

Sometimes, it’s worth remembering Zach LaVine’s path to being the rebuilding Bulls’ centerpiece. 

After a one-and-done career at UCLA, he was drafted 13th overall by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the 2014 draft. Amid a scoring breakout in his third season, he tore his ACL at age 21. Before he could fully rehabilitate that injury, he was traded to the Bulls while on his rookie contract. He now enters the 2020-21 campaign set to play for his sixth coach in seven NBA seasons, and his third in three years for the Bulls, alone.

There’s no time to be complacent on a trajectory like that, and LaVine hasn’t been. He’s improved each season since returning from the ACL and outperformed the four-year, $78 million offer sheet the Bulls matched in the summer of 2018 that, at the time, was widely panned as an overpay. Famously an offseason grinder, he’s assumed a leadership role in the Bulls’ locker room. Last year, he broke into the league’s upper echelon of wing scorers amid unideal circumstances.

Still, certain benchmarks have eluded him. All-Star recognition, for one. Leaguewide perception as a player that affects winning -- the Bulls teams he’s been on have won 27, 22 and 22 games, respectively, and the winningest Minnesota squad he played for went 31-51 in 2016-17, the year he tore his ACL and played just 47 games -- another.

And, of course, a playoff berth remains his white whale.

It's a lot. When you put so much hard work in and, at least for me, I don't do this to be a regular guy,” LaVine told reporters on the first day of Bulls media week. “I don't take my body to exhaustion just to be a role player or something. I want to be great in this league, so to be great you have to make your team better and you have to go to playoffs and play winning games. And I haven't gotten that part of my career yet and it sucks.

“For somebody that wants to be at that caliber or that stage, being traded here, I wanted to bring the team back to the glory days and get toward that stature again. I work my ass off to get there and hopefully I continue to make the city proud, my family proud and go out there and do what I have to do.”

The Bulls’ work is cut out for them in that regard. As of this writing, 13 of 15 players on the full-time roster are slated to return from last season’s team that went 22-43 and was left uninvited from the NBA restart. The front office is fresh-faced, the coaching bench is overhauled, but the players on the court will be largely the same, leaving the success of this season dependent on internal improvement.

“We have pretty much the same team. We have a new facelift of our front office and our coaching staff. We’re going to have to work with that and continue to get better. I think we’re all excited to see what we can do under Billy in the offense and the defense that he runs. The goal is still the same -- to go out there and win every game you compete in,” LaVine said. “Obviously, that’s a daunting task, but we haven’t done a lot of winning the last couple years. You have to step on the court and have the mindset that we’re going to continue to get better. You have to strive to make the playoffs. I think that’s the main thing. If you have anything lower than that, you’re just walking into failure. For me personally, my main goal is winning -- going out there and being a competing team each and every day, giving us a chance to win.”

Even as the team’s presumptive best player, LaVine knows he can do more on that front. He reiterated long-professed aspirations of growing as a playmaker for others and defender.

I think I’ve made strides. Each year, I go in and try to get something better every year,” he said. “But the main goal is to win games and how you can help your team win games. So that’s the main thing I’m trying to continue to get better at. With the attention I bring on offense, I can continue to be a better playmaker and a better defender. I’m one of the most athletic guys in the league, there’s no reason I shouldn’t be somebody to go out and be a stopper. 

“I think I’ve shown flashes of that. I just want to continue to show it and help winning basketball. Because when you win games, it helps everybody throughout the whole organization.”

In pursuit of that, LaVine said he spent the offseason investing in his body through targeted dieting and recovery techniques to better prepare him to withstand the rigors of a full NBA season (last year was his most durable since arriving in Chicago, playing 60 of the team’s 65 games).

He watched last season’s restart and playoffs, and admitted being “upset” to not have earned a spot. He dissected game film with longtime trainer Drew Hanlen, refining his pick-and-roll technique, pocket-passing and finishing at the basket. He committed to building relationships with the new front office regime and coaching staff.

“He’s been tremendous in this offseason,” Artūras Karnišovas said of LaVine. “He’s been communicating with me every day and with the coaching staff. The communication has been great. He cannot wait to get on the floor with his teammates and to figure out the ways we can win the game. Moving forward, he’s been an unbelievable individual player. He has a skillset that is hard to find in our league.”

The key, as Karnišovas went on to presciently pinpoint, is applying LaVine’s individual exploits to a team context. Head coach Billy Donovan echoed that sentiment, saying in his media week presser that, while LaVine is a “dynamic” offensive player, the Bulls finding success will stem from not relying so much on his dynamism alone.

“We just have to put it in a way that is going to be in a team setting,” Karnišovas said of LaVine’s individual talent. “It’s all about results. It’s a result-driven league. We’ll try to figure out how to win games.”

LaVine knows this better than anyone. He’s coachable and -- despite perception and, at times, execution -- is team-focused in his approach. Though his isolation scoring prowess doesn’t immediately seem to jibe with Karnišovas and Donovan’s stated playstyle philosophy, there’s no reason he can’t adapt and fill a prescribed role. If wins begin to pile, he’d do so even more eagerly.

“With me, I just try to get the job done by any means necessary,” LaVine said. “If that means I gotta go out there and score more, if I gotta be out there and be a facilitator, if I have to take a bigger role on defense, you know, whatever it is I just want to win games. I want to get to the playoffs, I want to continue to move this franchise forward. 

“I take that role on as being the leader of the team and being the best player I want to be out there, be able to adjust to how the flow of the game is and adjust to how to win basketball games. So, for me, it's just do whatever is necessary. And I try to prepare myself, I come into camp as the most conditioned guy, and I want to come in there and make sure whatever role I have to take I'll be ready for it.”

For him, and for the core whose promising nature has been propped up by new management all offseason, this season could be the last to prove viability. The stakes are urgent, and the Bulls’ principles are very aware of that. Wise words and pure intentions no longer cut it.

“We have to show it. The last couple years, we haven’t been able to show that,” LaVine said. “And we haven’t been together as a team either. We’ve been injured, and there hasn’t been a lot of consistency throughout our lineups. I think it gives them a chance to look at us and see what we have, and it gives us a chance to go out there and show what we can do. Because to be frank about it, we haven’t really shown anything.”

Otherwise, the business of basketball that LaVine knows so well looms -- for all the optimism surrounding the positive impact the new front office and coaching staff will have on players, they’re also not wedded to anyone.

We’ve said a lot of things but we haven’t been able to go out there and actually execute it,” LaVine said. “We have an extremely good coach and a good front office and we have to go out there and show what we can do. If not, we know the business of basketball and something is going to change.”

RELATED: Zach LaVine addresses trade rumors, centers focus on season

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