Zach LaVine and Stephen CurryJeff Haynes/NBAE via Getty Images
Zach LaVine and two second-round picks for Andrew Wiggins, Gary Payton II and Kevon Looney
It’s no secret that the Golden State Warriors are in on the Markkanen hunt. Last week, Tony Jones of The Athletic told the Bay Area’s 95.7 The Game that “Golden State has an offer on the table, and it’s substantial.”
But if Golden State gets into a bidding war for the 27-year-old with the Spurs (who are also reportedly interested in the Finnish sharpshooter and finisher), it probably doesn’t have the draft capital necessary to win.
And without Markkanen, despite a respectable rebound of an offseason after losing Chris Paul and Klay Thompson, the Warriors wouldn’t really have a bona fide second scoring option after Stephen Curry.
Perhaps that’s why they’ve been attached to Zach LaVine rumors for weeks.
The Chicago Bulls are reportedly willing to attach the second-round picks they just got in the DeMar DeRozan sign-and-trade in an effort to unload LaVine’s contract, and Golden State might be the one team that can justify taking on the rest of that deal.
It’s big, and this framework obviously costs the Warriors some depth, but if the 29-year-old is healthy, he and Curry would make up one of the league’s most explosive backcourts.
The pendulum has swung too far on analysis of LaVine. Even if you include his down 2023-24, he’s averaged 24.9 points, 4.4 assists and 2.9 threes, while shooting 38.7 percent from deep, over the last five seasons.
For Chicago, the justification is obvious. It’s already leaning toward a tank after the DeRozan deal. If the Bulls can now move LaVine and Nikola Vučević, they’ll be firmly in the hunt for the league’s worst record and a better chance to land Flagg.
Thanks to Michael Jordan and the size of the Chicago media market, this is an iconic team, but it hasn’t really had an icon-like talent since pre-injury Derrick Rose.
Flagg may be the kind of player capable of restoring some of that luster.