Chicago Bulls star Zach LaVine believes that the team’s success this season is a result of many Bulls players reporting to the team facility more than a month before the mandatory date this season.
With their win over the Atlanta Hawks on Thursday, the Bulls took over the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, as they lead the Miami Heat by half a game.
“The Bulls falling short of creating a playoff threat before LaVine reached the open market would have been nothing short of a failure,” Bleacher Report’s Jake Fischer wrote. “And the early results have been more than promising. LaVine and others in the organization believe their 39-21 record was a direct result from the majority of Chicago’s roster reporting to the team facility over a month before the mandatory start of training camp.”
It appears that the team’s commitment from the onset of the 2021-22 campaign has allowed Chicago to reach its full potential so far this season.
LaVine and DeMar DeRozan have become one of the best duos in the NBA. The team’s addition of DeRozan this past offseason may have been the best move by any NBA team over the summer.
This season, DeRozan is averaging 28.3 points, 5.2 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game while shooting 52.1 percent from the field and 35.3 percent from beyond the arc.
The Bulls have played well even with multiple key players missing time due to injury. The team should get even better once some of those contributors return, which could help keep the Bulls in one of the top spots in the East entering the postseason.
LaVine, who is set to become a free agent after this season, is going to have several reasons to stay with the Bulls if the team makes a deep playoff run this season.
