What Bulls guard Zach LaVine has been doing recently is as much artistic as it is athletic.
It perhaps has been his most impressive masterpiece since putting on a Bulls uniform for the first time in 2017.
In five games since the calendar flipped to 2025, LaVine is averaging an eye-opening 32.8 points on 60% shooting from the field, including 42.4% from three-point range.
Oh, by the way, throw in getting to the free-throw line 5.6 times per game, as well as averaging five assists and 4.8 rebounds.
And he remains on the Bulls, despite a front office that actively has been trying to trade him for almost two seasons, with 25 days until the trade deadline Feb. 6.
‘‘People are supposed to talk about you, have opinions about you,’’ LaVine said after the Bulls’ blowout victory Friday against the Wizards. ‘‘If you’re not at that level, they wouldn’t talk about you at all.
‘‘I’ve done a better job this year of just canceling out a lot of the noise.’’
He has done more than that.
LaVine has done a better job of being a team leader and willing defender and of understanding how to affect winning rather than simply filling up the box score.
So why is he still on the market?
Despite getting prime LaVine, not to mention All-Star-level Nikola Vucevic, the Bulls are 18-20 and barely holding on to a play-in spot in the Eastern Conference.
The ongoing issue in trying to trade LaVine is that there’s a pecking order in the trade market, and the Bulls find themselves fighting against LaVine’s previous reputation — given his max contract — even though he has evolved as a player and a person.
The Sun-Times reported last month that there was ‘‘light momentum’’ in trade talks with the Nuggets, but those have stalled. A source also said there was early-season talk about LaVine and the Lakers, but the puzzle pieces didn’t fit at the time. And with the Lakers recently trading guard D’Angelo Russell and his contract to the Nets for forward Dorian Finney-Smith, the puzzle has all but been thrown in the garbage.
LaVine and the Bulls also remain hostages in the game of chicken happening with the Heat and Jimmy Butler in Miami, as well as the Pelicans’ dumpster fire.
The Suns and Warriors want to trade for Butler, but it’s not that easy because he has a $52.4 million player option for 2025-26 and could walk after this season.
The Pelicans, meanwhile, are dealing with a cold market for forward Brandon Ingram and might have to take the sign-and-trade route with him this summer. But does that mean they might turn their attention to trading forward Zion Williamson, who has become a 290-pound headache?
Be it the constant injuries, the offseason drama stemming from his relationship with an adult-film star or simply being suspended for the Pelicans’ game Friday after being late for another team flight, Williamson seems to have burned almost every bridge with the
organization.
Even with all that baggage, however, Williamson is a superior talent with impressive skills when he plays. Just watch the film from the Pelicans’ play-in loss to the Lakers last season, in which he scored 40 points and grabbed 11 rebounds before leaving the game late with an injury to his left hamstring.
All that uncertainty leaves the Bulls waiting as they watch LaVine play the best basketball of his career on a slow boat to nowhere.