What is the Problem with Zach Lavine?

Zach Lavine was once a 2x All-Star, but now he is untradeable and the Chicago Bulls can't get rid of him

This off-season, the Chicago Bulls have indicated they are interested in tearing down their roster and starting a rebuild. They actually started this process when they traded Alex Caruso to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Josh Giddey, and it appears they have searched for trade partners who may be interested in their top veterans, Zach Lavine and DeMar DeRozan.

Unfortunately, opposing teams seem uninterested in trading for Lavine, so much so that the Golden State Warriors declined a trade in which they would get the 28-year-old shooting guard for Andrew Wiggins and Chris Paul (who the Warriors eventually waived). This lack of interest is a bit surprising considering Lavine is a two-time All-Star who has yet to reach age 30. However, a closer look at his profile reveals why no one wants his services, especially with his sizeable contract.

Let’s dive into Zach Lavine’s game and see why he is not the same player who made back-to-back All-Star teams in 2020 and 2021.

The Good Old Days

The beginning of Zach Lavine’s career was slow and, honestly, very rocky. His first couple of years with the Minnesota Timberwolves were rough as he struggled to score efficiently and was a very poor defender. He would slowly improve, though, and after being traded to the Chicago Bulls as part of the Jimmy Butler trade, he became a solid starter.

From 2018 to 2020, Lavine saw his impact metrics go from well below average to well above average largely because he became a great three-point shooter and went from one of the worst defenders in the league, to merely a bad defender.

2020 and 2021 were strong seasons for Lavine as he averaged 26/5/5 on 61.9% true shooting across 125 games. He also had a box plus-minus of +3.2 across both seasons, including a BPM of +4.0 in 2020 and +2.4 in 2021. Estimated plus-minus viewed these seasons similarly, giving him an EPM of +4.2 in 2020 and +2.5 in 2021. By this point, Zach Lavine had become a very good player and his offensive skillset was outstanding as he was a strong three-level scorer who could pass fairly well for a shooting guard. His defense had also continued to improve and was around average on this end of the floor during these years.

Since then, his performance has consistently gotten worse year-after-year as his BPM and EPM have both decreased dramatically since 2021.

Year-By-Year BPM (2022-2023)

2022: +1.9

2023: +0.4

Year-By-Year EPM (2022-2023)

2022: +2.8

2023: +0.5

Let’s take a closer look and see why his performance has gotten worse over the last two seasons.

Scoring Woes

One area in which Zach Lavine has become way less productive than he was just three seasons ago is scoring. This past season, he averaged 19.5 points per game on 57.8% true shooting across 25 games before having season-ending foot surgery. This was the first season since he averaged less than 20 points per game since 2017 and his true shooting percentage was the lowest it’s been since 2019.

A big reason why his scoring output has dipped is because he has gotten worse as a rim finisher. This past season, he shot 57.4% at the rim on 5.5 attempts per 75 possessions. His rim FG% was the lowest it’s been since 2020 and his rim frequency was the lowest it’s been since 2017. He was generating a good number of rim attempts, but not like had in previous seasons and he definitely wasn’t finishing at the rim at the same level as before.

Another issue with his scoring profile is his three-point shooting. Over the last three seasons, he has made 37.7% of his threes on seven attempts per game, which is great, especially considering he self-creates a lot of his long-distance jumpers. However, his 3PT% has decreased in each of the last two seasons:

Year-By-Year 3PT%

2021: 38.9%

2022: 37.5%

2023: 34.9%

Luckily for Lavine, adjusting for the difficulty of his three-point attempts makes him look like a phenomenal three-point shooter. BBall Index has a few metrics that measure players’ three-point shooting ability by looking at a multitude of factors including volume, shot difficulty, and shot creation. This past season, Lavine produced extremely well in all three areas.

2024 BBall Index 3PT Shooting Metrics

3PT Shot Making: 81st percentile

3PT Shot Creation 97th percentile

Perimeter Shooting: 90th percentile

Although his advanced shooting metrics were great last season, they were worse than previous seasons, which makes sense considering he made a lower percentage of his threes while maintaining the same shot difficulty that he’s had for most of his prime.

A Good Passer or Just High Usage?

In the past, Zach Lavine has consistently been a very good passer for a shooting guard, sporting an assist rate of 22.1% from 2019 to 2022. During this time, he was very good at generating assists while limiting turnovers, which an extremely valuable skill.

Unfortunately, his assist rate has been below 20% in each of the last two seasons, which is partially due to the fact that his usage rate has decreased. His passing efficiency, which I’d consider to be how often he generates assists vs. how often he turns the ball over, both relative to his usage, has also remained pretty good.

A closer look at his advanced passing metrics reveals that his passing ability fell off a cliff last season.

2024 BBall Index Playmaking Metrics

Passing Creation Volume: 78th percentile

Passing Efficiency: 78th percentile

Passing Versatility: 90th percentile

Passing Creation Quality: 3rd percentile

Playmaking Talent: 35th percentile

These stats show us that, this past season, Lavine was a high-volume passer who generated a lot of assists and did a good job of limiting of turnovers from bad passes. He also was a versatile passer, able to generate assists from numerous play types. However, the quality of his assists compared to his teammates was very poor, which is reflected by his low passing creation quality.

All of the metrics listed above are used to generate the playmaking talent metric. Although Lavine was able to generate a lot of assists while limiting turnovers, the quality of his assists wasn’t that impressive, which indicates that his value as a playmaker mostly came from his ability to handle a significant offensive load which generally leads to more assists. Unfortunately, his skill as a passer wasn’t that great, which is why he performed ao poorly in the playmaking talent metric.

Defense! Defense! Defense!

We’ve talked a lot about Zach Lavine’s offensive skillset, but now let’s discuss his defense. This has never been his strong suit as he’s mostly been an average defender at best during his peak seasons. However, his defense was shaky last season and BBall Index’s data indicates he was a bad defender based on numerous factors.

In 2024, Zach Lavine had a steal rate of just 1.3% and a block rate of just 1%. Also, the Bulls’ defense was 0.4 points worse when he stepped on the floor. These numbers are not very good and show that he was not very active on defense and his defensive impact was limited.

BBall Index’s data shows similar results, indicating he was mostly average at generating steals and deflections, though he was solid at contesting shots and recovering loose balls. However, his underwhelming defensive production looks worse when you consider that his matchup difficulty ranked in the 18th percentile. All of this is why his D-LEBRON, which is the defensive portion of BBall Index’s plus-minus metric, ranked in the 32nd percentile.

How the Mighty Have Fallen

Just a few years ago, Zach Lavine was a great player whose elite scoring ability and strong playmaking allowed him to be an All-Star in two consecutive seasons. Unfortunately, he is not the same player he once was as his rim-finishing, three-point shooting, playmaking, and defense have all regressed over the last couple of years.

This, along with the fact that he has three years left on a five-year $215 million contract that will pay him a minimum of $43 million in each of the next three seasons, is why the Bulls want to get rid of him and why other NBA teams are not interested in trading for him.

On the bright side, Lavine is just 28 years old and perhaps there is a chance he will return to his glory days. Regardless, his worsening performance over the last two seasons makes it understandable why he is not a desirable commodity anymore. If the Chicago Bulls find a way to trade him, it will be interesting to see which teams wants him and whether or not he can be an impactful player once again.