You ever play that “game”… would you rather? We used to do that all the time back in the day; it would get pretty explicit. I think of that part from Step Brothers too… you have to F one, marry one, kill one… haha. It’s sort of like a spin-off of Truth or Dare, in a way. Anyways… they do this outside of my son’s school each morning; obviously the options are NOT explicit. For example, would you rather have more fame, money, or free time… would you rather speak every language or be able to talk with animals… stuff like that. As we drop off my son each morning, if I’m the one that gets out with him, I’ll walk him to the door, so I can participate in this daily survey too; it’s fun. My son and I have had a running “would you rather” about Zach Lavine…
Zach, the max guy for the Bulls, the 40M per man over the next five years. That’s a big pill to swallow. At the time though, what were our options? Well, either sign him to the max, or let him walk; I guess we could have signed and traded him… maybe that was the best option. We decided to do the first half of that, and sign him to the max deal; the returns on that thus far have been less than inspiring. I know it’s early, and yeah, I’m going to be patient, but… as we see all these other guys around the NBA doing well, my son and I wonder… would we rather have one of those guys or Zach? The answer to this question most of the time has been overwhelmingly the other guy. What does that mean? Well, I think it means bad news for the future of the Bulls, unless Zach can take his game to the next level, and make HIMSELF the answer to that question.
I’m not talking about the top, top guys. Luka, Joker, Giannis, Tatum, Ja, Steph… those are easy. Nothing against Zach when it comes to those guys. But what about that next tier? Certainly Zach should be in there, right? Well, how big is that tier? As we look around the league at other shooting guards/small forwards, honestly, I’d prefer most of them over Zach. Andrew Wiggins, Kyle Kuzma, Donovan Mitchell, SGA, Klay, Jaylen Brown… anybody you’d take Zach over yet? Shit, I’m still mad we traded Butler for him; I’d still take Butler over him today… facts. Another fact is even though we can’t take Zach over any of these guys, we can’t even take him over another guy on the Bulls, with DD. This is getting ugly. Devin Booker, Paul George, Bradley Beal, Anthony Edwards, Dejounte Murray… tell me there’s somebody that we’d take Zach over. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned someone yet. Maybe I’m just out there… maybe Zach SHOULD be in this next tier. What tier are we on again?
Point is, Zach is getting paid the max; he’s getting paid like THE man. Fact is, he’s NOT the man; can he be a true #1 guy? Tough question. Hoping there’s a day when we can answer that question “YES”, if not… well, DD won’t be around forever… we need guy, and not just a guy… we need a #1, then Zach can slide into that #2 role. Surely he’s more than just a catch and shoot dude… OK, I’m going to stop. The Bulls return from France and will host the Hawks on Monday night. Let’s just focus on that…for now… and try to keep stacking Ws. Go Bulls!!!
Leave a Reply