This is not the style of NBA basketball that Zach LaVine grew up watching.
Heck, it’s not even the style he was playing in the NBA last season.
The Bulls guard is putting up 7.7 three-point attempts per game in the 2024-25 campaign, which is the most since he was basically a one-man show in the 2020-21 season (8.2 attempts per game), but that’s not the major story with this offense he’s a part of.
As a team, the Bulls will enter the Friday game with Charlotte second in the league to only Boston with 43.5 three-point attempts per game.
Some perspective on that: The Bulls were 26th in the league last season with 32.1 three-point attempts, but those same 32.1 attempts back in the 2016-17 season would rank them fourth overall in the league.
This isn’t some overnight trend, it’s an evolution. And one that the Bulls had to make.
Evolve or die.
“It’s just the evolution of stuff and the NBA is a copy-cat league,” LaVine said. “You see who is in contention and doing stuff well, and it’s a numbers game now. Most people are shooting threes, and you’ve got to be able to match that. It’s cool. It’s more possessions, more people are getting opportunities because the ball is being shared more in most scenarios.”
That doesn’t mean LaVine is embracing the idea of players being more skilled these days because of the outside shooting, however.
“I think some of it is it’s a little predictable, like come down and shoot,” LaVine said. “It takes a little bit of skill out of the game from what I’ve watched with like Kobe (Bryant), (Michael) Jordan, Melo (Carmelo Anthony), and stuff like that, with them working out of the post, getting to their spots skill-wise. There’s still guys that do that but in a different way.”
That’s where Billy Donovan comes in. While the Bulls coach has his critics, he’s also coached to his personnel to perfection. When he had players like a healthy Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso it was about causing chaos on defense. When he had to rely more on DeMar DeRozan it was the mid-range game and get to the free throw line. Now that he doesn’t have the defenders he once had and DeRozan was sent to Sacramento in a sign-and-trade it’s been high-pace, shoot threes, and try and wear teams down despite a guard-oriented roster.
The results have been mixed with a 10-15 record, but the numbers haven’t. Donovan has the Bulls playing the only way they can to stay competitive.
“I’ve been playing this way my whole life,” Ball said of the change in philosophy. “The transition, running fast into threes, that’s the way I’m accustomed to playing. Find the open guy and take good shots.
“The game has definitely changed. It’s evolved over time. It’s a lot faster, obviously. Everybody is just trying to get up shots, get up threes now, especially the corner ones and the transition ones.”
Not the puzzle that the Bulls are having an issue with. The problem that’s being emphasized this week in practice is how to stop opposing teams from doing the same?
The nights that haven’t gone well for the Bulls are usually when they aren’t shooting well from long range, and they then have to figure out how to counter what other teams are doing.
“One of it has to be (limiting) the turnovers, right, because you want to be able to set your defense,” Donovan said. “The second thing is teams are going to make and miss shots, that’s just the way it is. We can’t give up second-chance opportunities. We’ve got to be really good in our communication.”