Zach LaVine: Flashing His Tantalizing Potential As Season Winds Down

“F – – k me”. The two words muttered by then-19 year-old combo guard, Zach LaVine, when the Minnesota Timberwolves had selected him with the 13th overall pick in this past June’s draft.

More from Minnesota Timberwolves

• 5 NBA players everyone should be keeping a close eye on in 2023-24
• Ranking the 4 riskiest boom-or-bust NBA teams in 2023–24
• Ranking the 10 championship-less NBA teams by closeness to title
• 1 Crucial skill that every Timberwolves star must work on this summer
• 3 players in line for a big raise during the 2023 NBA offseason

Equipped with a bionic left leg and a dumbfounding fixation over Chief Keef tracks, LaVine’s less-than-enthused reaction caused a cavalcade of negative consternation, primarily from long-suffering Wolves fans.

Little did the Timberwolves faithful know, however, Zach was merely expressing his relief for getting drafted — embellishing the moment after realizing he had achieved his life-long dream.

The city of Minneapolis would slowly begin to embrace the willowy 6-foot-6 jumping-jack’s expressive, unreserved nature, his innate presumptuous mindset, and his unrelenting love for the game of basketball (and the movie Space Jam).

In contrast to his outgoing and endearing personality, his early season play frustrated most Wolves fans. Pigeonholed as the team’s exclusive point guard, due in large part to the Ricky Rubio injury, LaVine was forced into an overwhelming role, acting as the team’s starting, and many times, and lone lead guard.

Not surprisingly, he struggled. You can read his early season rookie report here.

Myopic Start

Naturally, LaVine lacks pure point guard instincts. For one, he primarily played off the ball during his lone year in Westwood, serving as UCLA’s scoring dynamo off the bench. Throughout his life, he has been asked to be a scorer. Nothing more. Nothing less.

So, it comes to no surprise that Zach would flounder handling basic point guard duties, such as not telegraphing his passes, keeping his dribble alive, and making decisive decisions when acting as the team’s lone initiator.

It wasn’t just his point guard play that was concerning; LaVine compounded his catastrophic play by attempting an inconsiderate amount of long two’s, was allergic to interior contact, and could not finish at the rim, driven in large by his inability and reluctance to absorb the slightest of nudges.

In addition to the turnovers and questionable shot selection, his defense was perhaps the most depressive part of his game. LaVine had zero clue as to how to defend the point of attack — showing a lack of spatial awareness, did not know where the picks were coming from, and often took horrible angles (i.e. failing to ice certain situations, or force opposing guards towards the sideline) when defending the screen and roll.

His overall effort on that end was not always there as well, often giving up on a play, collapsing like a crashed Corvette when a screen collides with his frail, wiry frame.

Sure enough, LaVine was, and still is, measured out and rated as the worst rotational player in the association by a number of advanced metrics. Most notably, he is dead last in the league in RPM (Real Plus-Minus), according to ESPN.

But let’s be real, Zach has been put in an uncompromising position for the majority of the year. He’s been force-fed minutes at the point guard spot even though his current skill-set clearly screams shooting guard. To make matters worse, he has had to lead a lineup, and play for a coach that does not exactly exude the modern day philosophy of pace and space basketball.

Specifically, Saunders is an old-school basketball mind who utilizes the three-point shot as a minor complementary tool, as opposed to an atomic weapon. In fact, save for the 2006 and 2007 Detroit Pistons, all of Saunders’ teams since 2000 have ranked in the bottom third of the league in three-point attempts. This year, the Wolves are dead last in the NBA in said category, per NBA.com.

With no floor spacing and an archaic post-up oriented gameplan, it should come to no one’s surprise that the LaVine-at-the-point experiment has been such an unmitigated disaster. Perhaps if he played in a more modern capacity, Zach would perform much better in a lead guard role. But that has not been the case.

Breaking Through

Since his coming out party during All-Star weekend via his scintillating performance in the dunk contest, though — spearheaded by Rubio making a brief comeback from his ankle injury and the signing of Lorenzo Brown — it has freed LaVine to play more as an off-guard with point guard-like skills.

In a less-demanding role, and instilled with a newly injected dose of confidence, LaVine has flourished. Since Mar. 1, the reigning slam dunk champion is averaging over 15.4 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 4.3 assists per game on 55.5 percent TS% (true shooting percentage), per Basketball-Reference.

More interestingly, the Bothell, Washington-product has been a drastically more efficient player when playing alongside a true point guard.

In fact, according to NBAWowy!, since March, LaVine scores at an eFG% (effective field goal rate) of 50.5 percent and a TS% of 56.4 percent, when playing at the two alongside Brown. Moreover, he also shoots a blistering 45.5 percent from beyond the arc, produces at an above-average 1.05 PPP (points per possession), while using up an astonishing 30.3 percent of the Timberwolves’ possessions when serving as the team’s resident off guard.

In comparison, during the same stretch, when serving as Minnesota’s lone ballhandler — without the presence of Rubio or Brown –LaVine’s effectiveness falls off a cliff, scoring on a banal 46.5 eFG% and 50.8 TS%, while producing an anemic 0.85 PPP and a usage rate of just 23.5 percent.

Clearly, when placed on the wings, LaVine is not only more aggressive, he also evolves into a much more efficacious player.

Chiefly, at this stage of his career, LaVine is simply a more accurate shooter off of the catch as oppose to shooting off of the bounce. Not only have approximately 77.8 percent of his three-point makes this season been assisted on, since the All-Star break, Zach has also made over 47.3 percent of his catch-and-shoot threes. Thanks to his cat-quick release, he has been equally effective shooting off of multiple swings or off of DHO (dribble hand-offs) sets.

Conversely, during the same stretch, the former Bruin converts on only 31.8 percent of his pull-up attempts. However, over 37.4 percent of his shots derive off of his off-the-dribble forays, while catch-and-shoot opportunities only make up for roughly 20.4 percent of his overall field goal tries.

Undoubtedly, LaVine is already an above-replacement level player as a wing, where he can catch and shoot, catch and attack, and inspire fear with the ball in his hands in open court situations. However, he should be more judicious with his shot selection in the meantime.

On the other hand, even though he has started 14 out of the last 15 games primarily at the point guard position, his brash confidence and attack-mode mentality have spurred his ongoing onslaught, putting up an encouraging 18.3 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 4.8 assists per game in over 38.2 minutes a contest over the stretch.

He still makes an avalanche of boneheaded plays — most notably, barreling into well-positioned defenders in transition, struggling to execute post-entry passes, and committing crucial turnovers when running ATO (after time-out) plays.

However, he has shown an escalated fervor to attack the basket and finish, using both hands, at every opportunity — a facet of his game and a brand of rage he failed to showcase during his lone season at UCLA.

For once, I’m starting to see the Russell Westbrook comparisons. I used to scoff at their perceived likeness because of LaVine’s lack of aggression and anger. But Zach’s combination of speed, explosiveness, handle, and leaping ability is not normal.

He is not human; he belongs in the same alien race as Westbrook.

Will he ever develop the same type of chip-on-the-shoulder mindset, the unrelenting motor, and more importantly, the indestructible body as the triple-double machine known as Russell Westbrook? Probably not. But the odds of it happening have grown exponentially since his days at a collegiate prospect.

As a secondary ballhandler, LaVine shows a unique ability to curate his own shot at any given time. As well, he showcases his penchant for hitting his diving bigs from time to time, while sucking in the defense with his hard charging drives.

Without a doubt, Zach has enjoyed a nice stretch of games. With that being said, however, many obscure ultra-talented rookies throughout the annals of NBA history has also experienced strong finishes to their inaugural campaign only to falter the very next season to reciprocate such success when teams begin to exhaustively scout and gameplan for them.

In 2010, New Jersey Nets rookie Terrence Williams, lit the league on fire with his overall play, averaging over 14.1 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 5.4 assists per game over his final 22 contests of his rookie season. However, a mere three years later, Williams would find himself out of the league and playing in Puerto Rico.

To effectively ameliorate such an occurrence, LaVine must address his two major flaws. For one, LaVine is still painfully weak, and worse yet, he does not play hard and fully utilize his mind-numbing athleticism at all times.

Future Prospects

The traits that make Westbrook the most feared individual force this season is undoubtedly his ability to play balls-to-wall on every possession, and on both ends of the floor, in conjunction with his unfathomable strength and explosiveness at the lead guard position. His combination of unwavering effort and athletic prowess allows him to impact the game in more ways than just his scoring — grabbing over seven rebounds, dishing over eight assists, and swiping over two steals a contest in addition to his 27-plus points per game.

As a high usage player, committing an inflated volume of turnovers comes with the territory. If his play at the two guard spot during his torrid stretch serves as any indication, a peak LaVine will use a sizeable amount of the Wolves’ offensive possessions while serving as the team’s ball-in-hand playmaking wing — ala Dwyane Wade and Monta Ellis.

In fact, despite his fine play as of late, Zach is still relinquishing over 4.1 turnovers a contest over his last 15 games.

Accordingly, to mitigate his high-turnover nature, LaVine must use his athleticism to impact other aspects of the game, such as attacking the offensive glass (something his teammate, Andrew Wiggins, has done swimmingly well over the stretch run), playmaking for his teammates, and flying around on the defensive end.

But, LaVine has yet to grasp the importance of playing hard on every possession. He’ll often contest shots halfheartedly, allow a cavalcade of back-door cuts, and remain sedentary when the ball is out of his hands.

Playing with an unabating motor may just be an inherent trait. On the other hand, gaining strength comes with hard work and time. Unlike Wiggins, though, LaVine does not possess a chiseled frame and broad shoulders. His narrow body type and slouched structure may make it harder for Zach to add to his slender 183-pound frame.

From all accounts, however, LaVine has a persistent work ethic and the willingness to be great.

In a recent interview with Timberwolves.com‘s Kyle Ratke, LaVine revealed, “With my own goals in hand, though, I’m someone that, I feel like I’m ready to play now. I want to go out there. I have the highest goals for myself,” he said. “That’s going out there and being the best player on the floor every time. That’s my mentality. If it’s Michael Jordan, you know, that’s the mentality I take to the court. I always want to improve. I’m someone who’s always going to be in the gym working on my game, but I have the confidence to step in and play right now.”

Live Feed

Dunking with Wolves

In addition, Saunders has mentioned on several occasions that LaVine is the type of player that you have to “keep out of the gym,” highlighting his fondness for hard work and practice.

Dave Benz, the play-by-play commentator of the Minnesota Timberwolves, also disclosed during a recent Wolves broadcast that, in a private conversation with Zach’s father, Paul LaVine — a former linebacker of the Seattle Seahawks — he told Benz that he will work with his son in the weight room vivaciously this offseason in an effort to transform Zach from Screech Powers to The Rock (maybe not to that extreme, but you get the point).

As LaVine continue to develop his on court awareness and overall feel for the game, while refining his slovenly handle and inconsistent J, if — and this is a big if — Zach can successfully build his body without compromising any of his fast-twitch athleticism, and somehow acquire a young Kobe Bryant– / Westbrook-esque unremitting approach to the game, we may be witnessing the disentanglement of a future superstar.

If we live to see that day, the Timberwolves should might as well change their 201X playoff slogan to: “F – – k me, Zach LaVine just led us to the postseason.”

*Stats current going into Apr. 13’s slate of games

Next: NBA: 10 Players Who Deserve More Appreciation

More from Hoops Habit

• The 5 most dominant NBA players who never won a championship
• 7 Players the Miami Heat might replace Herro with by the trade deadline
• Meet Cooper Flagg: The best American prospect since LeBron James
• Are the Miami Heat laying the groundwork for their next super team?
• Sophomore Jump: 5 second-year NBA players bound to breakout