Chicago Bulls: Midseason team awards for 2018-19 season

Most Improved Player: Zach LaVine

One of the major objectives for the 2018-19 season was the growth and development of Chicago’s Big 3 of Zach LaVine, Lauri Markkanen and Kris Dunn. Taking that into consideration, it is only fair that this award would be handed out to one of the players acquired in the draft night trade from 2017.

Despite suffering an elbow injury that kept him out of the rotation for 23 games, Markannen’s production is similar to what he did last season. Dunn’s numbers (13.9 points and 6.9 assists per contest) favorably compare to his stats from a year ago, even though he has missed 26 games thanks to an MCL injury.

But the player who has made the biggest leap from last season is LaVine. Suiting up for just 24 games in 2017-18, he compiled averages of 16.7 points, 3.9 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game on slash lines of .383/.341/.813. Although the numbers weren’t overly impressive, most of his uneven play had do with the fact he was coming off an ACL injury that kept him off the court for 11 months.

This season, it has been a different story for the fifth-year shooting guard. Not only are his numbers up across the board (23.5 points, 4.4 rebounds and 4.3 assists per outing), LaVine is shooting 45.7 percent from the field overall and 35.4 percent from beyond the arc.

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The fact that LaVine was able to put up these numbers when the Bulls were without the services of Markkanen, Dunn and Bobby Portis, makes his production even more impressive.