The Chicago Bulls slid into a trade headlined by De’Aaron Fox’s move from the Sacramento Kings to the San Antonio Spurs to join French phenom and superstar Victor Wembanyama.
As part of their return, the Kings landed Zach LaVine from Chicago, a player Sacramento has coveted for years.
With that move, it seems like the Bulls have finally, mercifully, decided to initiate a legitimate rebuild.
The first hints of that decision were the Alex Caruso-Josh Giddey swap with the Oklahoma City Thunder last summer and the sign-and-trade that sent DeMar DeRozan to Sacramento (which was only a sign-and-trade in name; the Bulls were letting their franchise leader walk as he entered his age-35 season).
Now, whether ironically or not, LaVine and DeRozan are together once again, just on the West Coast rather than the Midwest. Unfortunately for the Kings, they’re about to experience exactly what a LaVine-DeRozan partnership can produce. And it’s not fantastic.
Kings likely in for multiple seasons of play-in tournament mediocrity
With DeRozan and LaVine at the helm, the Bulls’ high-water mark was a 46-36 record in the 2021-22 season. Half of that year featured a healthy Lonzo Ball, but the team finished the regular season 7-15 and backed into the playoffs before losing in the first round in five games to the Milwaukee Bucks.
The Bulls went 40-42 the next season and 39-43 in 2023-24, the final year the duo played together in The Windy City.
Individually, DeRozan made two All-Star appearances in those three seasons and was Second-Team All-NBA in 2021-22. LaVine was also an All-Star that year. However, their individual success never translated to team success.
Chicago found a comfortable home in the Eastern Conference Play-In Tournament, grabbing a No. 10 seed in 2023 before losing to the Miami Heat and doing the same in 2024, albeit with the No. 9 seed.
The two All-Star guards, along with Nikola Vucevic, combined to form one of the most average teams in the NBA for three consecutive seasons.
Now, LaVine has joined DeRozan in Sacramento. They’ll play alongside big man Domantas Sabonis, a good rebounder, passer and efficient scorer who’s also a sieve on defense; their version of Vucevic.
With Fox in San Antonio, the Kings lack a high-level point guard, as LaVine and DeRozan did in Chicago once Ball went down. In fact, the only other player ESPN lists as a guard on Sacramento’s roster is Malik Monk.
The Kings lost an offensive spark plug in Fox and replaced him with a scoring savant in LaVine, who’s having one of the best seasons of his career. But Bulls fans have already seen this story: LaVine, DeRozan, poor rim protection and average point guard play equate to a whole lot of mediocrity.
Sacramento fans, get ready to light that beam for a No. 9 or 10 seed and a subsequent play-in tournament loss.
