Zach LaVine
Chicago Bulls

Player Facts

Height: 6'5"
Weight: 200lbs.

Wingspan: 6'8.25"

Date of Birth:
Mar. 10, 1995
College Experience: UCLA (1 year)

Selections

All Star: 2
All-NBA: 0
All-Defensive: 0

Player Grades

Speed/Explosiveness: 10
Physical Strength: 6
Positional Size: 8
Positional Wingspan: 8
Paint Scoring: 9
Midrange Scoring: 6
Three-Point Scoring: 9
Dribbling: 8
Passing: 7
Perimeter Defense: 5
Interior Defense: 3
Rebounding: 6

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JUMP TO SECTION

> Intro

> Fiery Offense

> Mixing Up Speeds

> Scoring Strengths

> In-Between Game + Coming Off Screens

> Playmaking Strengths

> Open Court Dangerousness

> Struggling with Physicality + Turnovers

> Some Defensive Woes

> Beacon Bacon

>Link to Player Contract & Salary Info

*All short clips courtesy of Smart Highlights & NF (YouTube)

*All statistical data courtesy of NBA Advanced Stats

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STRENGTHS

Intro

Zach LaVine is an explosive combo guard standing at 6'5" with a 6-8 + wingspan. His incredible bounce has delivered countless highlight dunks across his career. Beyond his freak athleticism, Zach has cultivated a deep and diverse offensive skill set. He has turned himself into an elite scorer at the NBA level.

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Fiery Offense

At the backbone of LaVine's offensive impact is his generational athleticism. The various skills that Zach has worked tirelessly to develop are largely predicated on his physical gifts. A prime example of this is how his lightning-quick first step allows for high-level slashing.

His last step before rising up for an interior finish is equally as explosive. With these lethal abilities, he's able to keep his dribble moves simplistic in style. Most notably, he has cleaned up his shooting efficiency markedly from all over the floor as he’s matured - 59.6% eFG% in 2020-2021, 55.4% in 2021-2022.

Zach likes to utilize a subtle hesitation move to momentarily freeze his defender. He will also employ the push-cross or simply a sharp crossover as either the blow-by move or as a part of a longer series of moves. LaVine is one of the game's best at using the hang dribble to halt his man before exploding out of it.

LaVine's explosiveness and tight handle are maximized via his aggressiveness when attacking the rack. He averaged 12.0 drives per contest in 2020-2021, superior to the likes of Paul George, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and LeBron James. 2021-2022 had him at just under 10 nightly slashes.

Mixing Up Speeds

Over the years, Zach has honed his ability to change up his speeds with the basketball. He's able to unleash his speed in spurts, optimizing his attack by being unpredictable. If he was going full speed all the time, he'd be much easier to game-plan for from a defensive perspective. This improvement shows up in his isolation numbers, where he was in the 91st percentile during 2020-2021.

LaVine's firm grasp of when to flip the switch on his speeds has propelled him into being an outstanding cutter. One juke towards the ball is often enough for Zach to shed his man going backdoor. As a value-add, his springy legs make him a lethal lob-catching threat on these basket cuts.

For scoring off cuts, he was in the 94th percentile in 2018-2019 and placed in the still-impressive 75th percentile the next season. Moreover, his top-end spot-up shooting caps off his nice repertoire when playing as the secondary option. When attacking closeouts, the UCLA product rampages down the lane for a flush.

Scoring Strengths

Another element of Zach's supreme slashing is adaptability. He assesses the stance and hand-positioning of his primary defender and reacts accordingly. LaVine tears past his man whenever he recognizes their hips turned the other way. Additionally, he burns defenders with their hands low through his quick release, high-elevation jump shot.

After piercing through the paint, LaVine has a bevy of jaw-dropping finishes to select from. He has the luxury of taking off from well beyond the restricted area and improvising in mid-air. This serves to throw off the timing of the rim protector, and it helps Zach earn trips to the line.

Per 36 minutes, he got to the line 6.2 times per game in 2018-2019 and 5.8 times in 2019-2020. He hit over 80% of his shots here in both seasons.

He fearlessly attacks bigs in the paint on his layups and dunks. Zach's aggressiveness, great deceleration, and killer instinct as a slasher help him finish against taller defenders. He gets crazy hang time as he glides to the tin and can finish on either side.

The gathers used by LaVine in the lane are both flashy and effective. Through thunderous jams and skillful lay-ins, Zach nailed 61.7% of his restricted area shots in 2018-2019. He achieved a higher level of play in 2020-2021 - shooting a big-man-like 65.5% in the restricted area.

In-Between Game + Coming Off Screens

Zach's midrange game is another reliable part of his scoring arsenal, snaking the screen-and-roll to get there. Over the years, he has exchanged many of his midrange shots for above-the-break threes, but he still capable inside the arc. Also, he rises high for floaters near the paint when the situation calls for it.

Coming off the ball screen, Zach has a skip in his step that he can easily pull up from or turn the corner to explode. He needs only a small sliver of daylight to burst through the seam of a defense.

His three-point shooting has been a steady area of improvement for Zach, culminating in a fantastic 39% clip on 2020-2021 pull-ups. Overall, he was in the 82nd percentile for 2020-2021 scoring production as the screen-and-roll ball-handler.

Playmaking Strengths

LaVine has grown into a good passer as a combo guard, namely in the pick-and-roll. The improvement in his patience here parallels his increasing maturity as a basketball player. This is clearly visible when finding rolling bigs like Nikola Vucevic, and, in the past, Wendell Carter Jr., at the opportune moment.

Zach's playmaking package is perfectly suited to complement a lead guard on the court. LaVine plays the bulk of his minutes at two-guard so it's unfair to expect point guard-level court vision. Still, Zach is talented when examined next to other shooting guards from a facilitation standpoint. His 4.9 assists per game in 2020-2021 is a good mark for a player who only sees occasional point guard minutes.

Open Court Dangerousness

As expected given his top-notch athleticism, Zach is a devastating force in transition. As soon as a possession changes hands, Zach will speedily leak out for an outlet pass. He can go coast-to-coast in a flash as a solid rebounding guard with the pull-up triple in his back pocket.

The open court is where LaVine puts on a show with nasty slams. In 2019-2020, he scored more transition points than Jayson Tatum, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and CJ McCollum in fewer games played. He was again a monster in 2020-2021 with 238 fast break points.

WEAKNESSES

Struggling with Physicality + Turnovers

Zach has a hard time finishing through contact at the hoop. The main factor at play here is his relatively light frame, tipping the scales at merely 200 pounds. Added bulk would undoubtedly serve to enhance LaVine's abilities in this regard.

He turns the ball over at an alarming rate via ill-advised or simply inaccurate passes. There are multiple specific aspects of his game to point to as potential reasons for this weakness.

The chief reason is that he seems to mentally commit to a certain pass too early - often to his dive man. The problem with this is that a flurry of player movement can take place during this gap of time, resulting in numerous misdirected passes. In 2019-2020, Zach was tenth in leaguewide turnovers committed despite playing only 60 games.

Some Defensive Woes

LaVine is a mediocre player on the defensive end. His engagement level fluctuates from game-to-game and even from possession-to-possession. He is a decent option to throw on smaller, quicker guards in space though.

With his size and speed, he has some tantalizing perimeter defensive potential. Unfortunately, perhaps because he expends so much energy offensively, this is not the case.

He often gets stuck on screens with subpar footwork or just gives up on fighting through them altogether. This results in many weak shot contests as he trails the opposing ball-handler. Moreover, it can result at all-out bites on shot fakes which can lead to undesirable fouls.

The statistics back up these shortcomings, with opponents shooting 3.5% above their typical three-point clip with LaVine defending in 2018-2019. In addition, opponents shot 8.9% above their average inside of six feet when checked by the 6'5" Zach that same year.

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Beacon Bacon

Zach’s father, Paul LaVine, had a brief stint in the NFL playing for the Seattle Seahawks