Thank Fucking God Zach LaVine Is An All Star

I'm not joking or saying this shit lightly when I say Thank Fucking God that Zach LaVine is an all star. Not that I needed it personally or that Chicago is dying for some kind of story here. But really more just because I need something to hang my hat on at the end of the day and right now that's Zach LaVine making the All Star game. 

I can talk numbers and for a moment I most certainly will. At 53/41/90 on his % spreads, you're talking about a bonafide elite scorer. He's got 14 games of 30 or more and will likely shatter last year's mark of 19. He grades out top 5 in the league in nearly every clutch metric and represents BY FAR the biggest percentage of his team's 4th quarter offense. It gets even bigger with just 3 minutes left to play. And even more impressive is that you KNOW it's coming and he's still getting his buckets efficiently. 

Then there's the defense. Consistently figured to be one of the worst defenders in the league, LaVine is starting to creep into the "serviceable" category at about 40% league average for his position. A lot of those metrics are rolled from your supporting cast though so don't read too much because the cast hasn't changed at all from last year. Instead it's really just been coaching/leadership and in that interpretation, LaVine looks even stronger. At 25 he's really only becoming the player he'll be in his prime. So all of this is really fucking positive and I'm very happy. 

At the highest level though, I know the NBA is profoundly corrupt so when you see LaVine get nominated you know there's a collective sense that the Bulls are ready to be in the conversation again. You may think I'm joking but I'm not. I'm convinced Adam Silver would never let a Jim Boylen coached team pick higher than 7 because he's smart enough to know Jim Boylen sucks. And I'm now convinced the NBA has every reason to invest in the Bulls and make us a destination for free agents. They want to make us cool again because for the first time in YEARS we're finally ready for the designation. I know that's loose and flimsy logic, but it holds in my brain, and that's good enough for me.

Even if it's not - doesn't matter. Zach LaVine is an All Star and that's just a small taste of all the good shit coming our way. 

I'm convinced. I had a vision. I saw the future. 

Spoiler Alert: it's very red. 

PS - Bulls talk will continue this week on Red Line Radio as it must. I'd promote it through our twitter account but it's still being hacked by the Turkish scam artists. nearly 60 days later and still no recovery but you imagine that's just because there's so many boxes to check when giving an account back to guys like us. Either way you can listen here