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LaVine deal is Bulls business as usual: one bad move leads to another

After the deal is done, everyone wants to know: Was it a good trade, bad trade?

In the case of the Bulls sending Zach LaVine to Sacramento for Zach Collins, Kevin Huerter and Tre Jones, it wasn't much of anything.

This trade won't make the Bulls any better, probably won't tank the season. The Bulls went 3-9 in their last 12 games, so things weren't going well to begin with. Maybe the arrivals will find life in a new home, but all three were low-usage subs with their old teams.

The Bulls waived Torrey Craig and Chris Duarte on Monday to make room on the roster for the newcomers.

The Bulls will probably make additional moves before the NBA trade deadline arrives on Thursday, with eyes on Nikola Vucevic and Lonzo Ball. One potential positive is with the Lakers trading Anthony Davis to Dallas for Luka Doncic, the Lakers could use a big man.

There were already rumors about Golden State having interest in Vucevic. Can the Bulls’ management team of Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley coax a first-round pick from either of those teams? Don't count on it, but hopefully AKME will at least ask.

The big difference here is the Warriors can send back all expiring deals in return, which would give the Bulls some payroll flexibility heading into the summer. The Lakers don't have expiring deals and Rui Hachimura might be the only trade chip that works, assuming rookie Dalton Knecht is off limits.

The Bulls did acquire a first-round pick in the LaVine trade. Of course it was their own selection, which previously went to San Antonio in the DeMar DeRozan sign-and-trade in 2021.

So this fits right into the long-running Bulls plot line of one mistake leading to another. This 10-year run of low success began with the firing of coach Tom Thibodeau, who had the Bulls in the playoffs five straight years, and made the second round in 2015, just before being let go.

They tried to retool by moving Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah, didn't like how that turned out, so they made the ill-fated Jimmy Butler trade in 2017. That deal produced no positive results, so it was out with Gar Forman/John Paxson, in with Karnisovas/Eversley.

A turning point in the new era arrived when Karnisovas decided it was time to accelerate the rebuild and try to pull Vucevic away from Orlando. The Bulls gave up too much in return, Wendell Carter Jr. and two first round picks. Karnisovas could have said, “One first is a fair deal, take it or leave it.”

If the Magic accepted those terms, the Bulls could have given the Spurs a first-rounder in 2023 for DeRozan and been in the clear by now. If Orlando said no, the Bulls would hopefully have had the sense to hang up the phone, draft Franz Wagner and would likely be in better shape today.

Of course, giving LaVine a massive max extension was another major blunder. Since LaVine had no history of leading a team to success, they should have negotiated a better deal or a sign-and-trade back then. Instead, they'll try to accept victory by turning LaVine's trade value from nonexistent a year ago to three role players and an old, familiar first-rounder Sunday.

So in some ways this was the perfect Bulls transaction for the current era. The twin mistakes of the Vucevic trade and LaVine contract extension working together to create a perfectly ho-hum deadline deal. Now it's time to hunt for lucky charms to bring to the next draft lottery, and hope for the best.

Some franchises would probably make front office and coaching changes at this point, but that doesn't seem to be in the Bulls' plans. In the most meaningful ways, nothing has changed — come out to a game and you'll get both Benny spilling popcorn and an exciting Dunkin' Donuts race, guaranteed.

The LaVine trade is small potatoes, however, compared to the buzz created by the Doncic-for-Davis deal, which came with no advance warning.

How does this make any sense for the Mavericks? Doncic is a generational player, just 25, and makes any team a Finals contender for the next 10 years.

Well, it's possible the Mavs have seen enough of Doncic behind the scenes to project him as a bad long-term investment. Or maybe general manager Nico Harrison, who worked for Nike before taking this job, made a horrendous decision.

Hey, it's the NBA. Mistakes happen, sometimes over and over again.

Zach LaVine spent eight seasons with the Bulls before being traded Sunday to Sacramento. AP
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