Bulls guard Zach LaVine feeling like knee problems are behind him

It was Zach LaVine’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t moment.

Late into the 2021-22 campaign, the Bulls guard was entering his first offseason as being an unrestricted free agent with a huge payday awaiting, but also finally being on a team that was playoff bound for the first time in his eight-year career.

All the while, his injured left knee was betraying him on a daily basis.

His choice was to play through it, publicly downplay the severity even at the cost of performance, and deal with the consequences.

“Me at 80%, 70%, whatever it is, I’m still one of the best players in the NBA and damn sure one of the best players on the court when we play,” LaVine insisted last March.

Admirable, but not entirely true, as he wasn’t even the best player on his own team in that second half.

The Sun-Times reported in April that LaVine was actually operating closer to 50%, as the source went on to say that getting him ready for games was an almost all-day procedure.

Fast forward to the start of this upcoming NBA season, and LaVine sounded like a man that had a bunch of weight lifted off his shoulders.

Then again, getting a max contract for $215 million over the next five years has that effect.

“I just feel good,” LaVine told reporters after playing in three of the four preseason games.

And not just because of his new tax bracket, but because of the cleanup surgery last spring that now has him playing basketball without limitations.

“I think that’s been the main thing, not having any aches and pains, and being able to go out there and really play without any limitations in my own mind, like, ‘OK, I can’t go left,’ or ‘I might not be able to dunk on this play.’ ” LaVine said. “You’re not supposed to be thinking that way when you play basketball. I dealt with that a lot last year.”

And it showed.

LaVine came out of the 2021 summer with Team USA looking like a player that finally understood the importance of dominating on the offensive end, but also being an irritant on the other side of the floor.

In his Olympic run to a gold medal, LaVine’s role on that team was to pick the opposing guard up full-court and disrupt the offense.

A mindset that he kept at the start of the Bulls season.

Between LaVine, Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso, the Bulls backcourt started off last year as a nightly headache for the opposition. Whether it was turning teams over and getting out in transition or simple deflections to mess up the timing, the Bulls were among the top of both the steals and deflections categories.

By the end of November, however, LaVine’s left knee started acting up, and his defensive numbers plummeted each month after that.

With the surgery and rehab now in his rear view mirror, there are still question marks entering the tip-off with the Heat in Miami, as well as no clear-cut plan on how LaVine and the coaching staff will handle his workload this year.

“I’m going to still do some maintenance,” LaVine said of the knee. “That’s just the truth about it. I’m going to have to manage it and go through different things before and after practice to make sure I’m feeling good every day, but that’s life in basketball and guys get older – I’ve had two knee surgeries now – and I have to understand that I have to do the little extra things to make sure I’m feeling my best every game.”

What will this latest version of LaVine exactly look like on both ends of the floor? Wednesday night on South Beach will be a good place to start answering that question.