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Lavine is underrated

  • June 16, 2023


[https://nbarankings.theringer.com/](https://nbarankings.theringer.com/)

I’ve read through the top 75 and I lost a couple brain cells so I had to stop. Since I’m a bulls fan, I have to talk about the egregious placements of derozan and lavine at 41 and 47 respectively. I may be severely biased, but there are numerous players such as (Domantas Sabonis, Draymond Green, Evan Mobley, JJJ, Desmond Bane, Andrew Wiggins, Aaron Gordon, Julius Randle) who are clearly not better than either of them and a couple more players who would be debatable. It just pisses me off how disrespected these guys are.

In addition, going off of recent news of the Bulls open to trading Lavine, I’ve seen many mock trades on [fanspo.com](https://fanspo.com) (check the site out, it’s pretty cool) that have downright horrendous offerings for Lavine and for some reason it just clicked for me that almost everybody not affiliated with the bulls underrate Lavine and what he brings to a team. Sure he has his moments and I’ve had my fair share of screaming at the screen wanting him to stop pulling midrange shots. But, he is undoubtedly in my mind, a top 20 scorer in the league, and a player who is best of all, available. Even though I would like to see the Bulls blow it up, I fear the return on Lavine will be disgusting and we’ll be put into the same position we’re always put in.

16 comments

  1. Oh boy, here come the offseason posts about how everyone on our team is underrated even though we can’t even make it to the playoffs.

  3. You are biased my guy. Sabonis is coming off an all nba season in which he was the second best player on the 3 seed, Draymond is still a top 10 defender and a top 5 all time defender, Mobley was in DPOY top 3, JJJ was the dpoy, Wiggins was the 2nd best player on the finals champs last year, AG was the 2nd best this year. I’ll atleast listen to you about Bane and Randle but Randle is a multi time all nba guy and Bane was playing like one before the injury. Zach and Demar CANT defend they are liabilities on that end, and not worth much if their shots aren’t falling where all of these other guys bring more playmaking and defense to the table. Zach and Demar are not the 1st or 2nd best / most important players on an actual championship team and that’s just the facts.

  6. Lavine started slow and finished fast last season. After having his left knee scoped in the offseason, he seemed to lack lift during the first quarter of the season. But after that he got it going, scoring 26 points on 50.6 percent shooting from the field and 38.4 percent from three over the last three-quarters of the season. And he was especially good in March, scoring 28.4 points per game on a scorching .650 true shooting percentage.

    So he was at his healthiest at the end of the season, and for once actually gets to work on his game in the summer instead of rehab. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has the best year of his career next season.

    Unfortunately, it’s not going to be enough to put the Bulls into contention. But it sure would suck if LaVine had his best years with another team like Jimmy Butler did.

  9. There’s more to basketball than how many PPG you can put up. Considering the list of players you picked out as “being worse” than these two, I’m not sure you understand that.

  10. I think he’s an incredibly efficient scorer that in the right situation could really pop off.

    But he regularly takes defensive possessions off, has issues involving other teammates without turning it over, and in high pressure situations often makes bad decisions. You can nitpick his exact spot but 30s-40s is probably accurate.

  11. I’m taking Sabonis and JJJ over both of them right now. I’m taking Mobley over them because of his age and potential. Randle is arguable and it just depends what the team wants but yea you are very very biased lmao

  13. He’s better than Jamal Murray imo. I know he had a very good playoffs but he’s just lavine with less athleticism. Again just my opinion.

  14. I agree but I think the conversation to be had is, why is this team only a .500 club with 2 top 40 guys and 3 top 100 ones, and I feel like a lot of folks will not like the answers:

    – Paw has been a complete black hole, albeit with a great night every now and then to remind us of what he could become

    – Ayo was absolutely terrible as the starting PG over the first half of the season probably one of the worst 5 in the league

    – The Bulls got very, very little production from a bunch of guys who are defense first but play on a team that lacks offense. Javonte Green is the biggest offender here. I like DJJ but he’s similar

    – I am just not at all a fan of how the big rotation gets used and I think it murders us on rebounds. Vooch is fine but there are stretches where Vooch is the only legitimate big man on the court for entire games. Drummond seems to not work as a 4 but Williams is a tweezer forward at best (who also needs to be more active on the boards) and DDR is basically listed as a 4 because he plays on the same court with 3 smaller players

  15. Even if you agree or disagree, these lists don’t mean anything. Like Demar was 20-23 all season (even when he was injured and not playing well) but as soon as we didn’t qualify for the playoffs he drops 20 spots. Lavine was playing like the 200th best player in the beginning of the year and was 41st, then had one of the best 2 months stretches in the league and moved DOWN. Kyrie was like 60th on this list this season too

    After 20, lists don’t matter. It’s random

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