The Chicago Bulls knew they were going to have to face a challenger for Zach Lavine at some point. His restricted free agent status made that inevitable. Surprisingly not many teams surfaced, but as the saying goes it only takes one. After a long run of rumors over the past couple weeks, it seems they finally made their move.
Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports broke that the Sacramento Kings had delivered a four-year, $80 million offer to Lavine. This averages out to $20 million per season. That would make him one of the 40 highest-paid players in the league. On par with Serge Ibaka and Danilo Gallinari. The big question moving forward is whether the Bulls are prepared to match the offer.
RFA Zach LaVine has agreed to a four-year, $80M offer sheet with the Sacramento Kings, league sources tell Yahoo. The Chicago Bulls have 48 hours to match.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) July 6, 2018
They have now until July 8th to decide on whether or not they’re ready to pay Lavine that kind of money. Gar Foreman and John Paxson are hard to predict in these situations. There’s no doubt that Lavine has value. He’s really the only true scorer they have on the roster. Somebody who can create for him. Yet his injury history and inconsistency are likely to give them pause.
Then there’s this comment he gave to ESPN’s Marc Spears.
"I'm disappointed that I had to get an offer sheet from another team. But Sacramento stepped up and made a strong impression. It appears that Sacramento wants me more than Chicago."
– Zach LaVine told @MarcJSpearsESPN https://t.co/UmRZ1dQ9Yg— Daniel Greenberg (@ChiSportUpdates) July 7, 2018
This would seem to signal the negotiations between his people and Chicago haven’t been as productive as hoped. Lavine had one option on the table that gave him leverage. It’s hard to fault him for taking it. Now he gets to see whether the Bulls were serious about making him a focal point of their rebuild over the next few years.
Given what the team lost in the original trade to get him, it would seem counterproductive for them to let him walk. That kind of money is expensive and might be considered overpaying a bit, but his potential loss would hurt just as much. If not more. This isn’t an easy decision to make.
