Chicago Bulls: Ranking the 5 projected starters for 2021-22

1. Chicago Bulls guard Zach LaVine

With a potential max extension looming, Zach LaVine made significant strides as the Bulls’ top offensive option last year, setting career highs in points per game (27.4) and true shooting percentage (63.4).

When people talk about LaVine, his leaping ability is usually the topic of conversation. That springloaded verticality contributes to his many highlight plays, but it also affords him the ability to rise over defenders on jumpers and hang in the air for just long enough to finish at the rim.

As you can imagine, this forces defenses to pay extra attention to him, which unlocks his playmaking.

At this point, no one should be concerned about LaVine’s offensive production; he has all the tools to be the primary engine of a good scoring attack. His defensive output, however, remains a question mark, though you could argue that his issues on that end are a tad overblown (minus-0.6, 44th percentile; not good, but certainly not among the worst in the league).

When he’s locked in, LaVine can be a very good one-on-one defender (74th percentile in opponent’s isolation PPP, albeit a small sample), but he has struggled in rotations and as a help defender. LaVine has improved in that area, though, so we’ll see if that continues this year.

If it does and he remains stellar on offense, another All-Star appearance could be in his future, perhaps even an All-NBA selection.