Count the Hawks among those interested in Bulls guard Zach LaVine, Vincent Goodwill of NBC Sports Chicago tweets. They’ll join a handful of suitors that also includes the Kings, as we wrote about earlier this week.
Atlanta, like Sacramento, will have plenty of cap space to throw at the restricted free agent. A bidding war between clubs well short of the cap, coupled with the 23-year-old’s hypothetical ceiling, could drive the former slam dunk champion’s forthcoming contract through the roof.
While there are concerns about LaVine’s health following an ACL tear in early 2017, he remains a world-class athlete that averaged 18.9 points per game half-way through 2016/17 before succumbing to the injury.
LaVine performed admirably in just over a third of a season with the Bulls but Chicago may pause at the thought of matching a max or near-max contract offer sheet should either the Hawks or Kings decide to go that high.
It’s worth noting that Hawks general manager Travis Schlenk has been particularly conservative financially throughout his short tenure with the franchise. That said, the chance to net a potential All-Star young enough to build around may prove too much to resist.
Lol get Lavine and trade Schroeder, schlenk is gonna do well *eye roll*
LaVine is going to get a max contract offer sheet? Are you kidding me? Just stop. Why spend the money just to just end up with a lower lottery pick next year? Kings pick is the Celtics anyway I guess.
Protected if they get number 1 pick
Poor Lauri Markkanen! His already good rookie season could have been even better with LaVine as the ball handler for the whole season, instead of the mess the Bulls fielded at PG in his absence.
Must give him flashbacks of his college time at Arizona, where a corrupt Sean Miller gave in to the demands of his diminutive 5’8” PG Jackson-Cartwright’s family to not recruit over their son. No one understood why Miller would agree to such an insane privileging but Jackson-Cartwright’s clan probably had dirt on him and threatened to use it as leverage.
As a consequence, Markkanen and later Ayton suffered under Jackson-Cartwright’s dismal ball handling as well as Miller’s inept coaching.
The Bulls would be fine to let him go, or sign and trade, the only bad contract they have is Felicio, and he plays 0 D, Tank it and get top 5 pick. Dunn is fine at PG for now
They should sign Boogie… max him out.. “all the talent leaving the East going to the West” Re-balance the league lol.
??? Trae needs a D-minded 2G. Bazemore is fine. Go for Jabari if you must go. I thought Sclenk was was going to take on salary, do the process thing.