NBA: Off-season weakness each star should have worked on

29. Zach LaVine, SG, Chicago Bulls – Playmaking

Zach LaVine came into the league as an uber-athletic dunker with raw offensive skills. To his credit he has improved significantly as a player, now scoring among the league-leaders at an efficient rate, including hitting 41.9 percent of his 3-points last season. He was the fulcrum of the Chicago offense.

The next step in his growth is improving as a playmaker and distributor. By virtue of having the ball in his hands so often he racks up a fair amount of assists, but he needs to grow from merely passing the ball to leveraging his impact on defenses to set up teammates in optimal situations.

The Bulls invested in Lonzo Ball as their longtime point guard alongside LaVine, and for all that Ball does well he is not an elite playmaker in the half-court, but rather a much more dangerous player off-ball as a shooter and cutter. That means it will be up to LaVine to shoulder the burden of running the offense in the half-court.

He has certainly shown growth in that area, but for him to take the next step as a player who doesn’t simply score but elevates his team’s offense he will need to improve his playmaking. For a team unlikely to escape the basement in terms of defense, LaVine has to be at the helm of a Top-5 offense for this team to make the playoffs.