The Chicago Bulls have likely exhausted most potential trading partners for a Zach LaVine deal, but the Washington Wizards are one team that still could be in play.
Washington -- not dissimilarly from Chicago -- is a franchise headed in no specific direction right now.
The Wizards selected 19-year-old big man Alex Sarr out of France with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2024 NBA draft, but Sarr is probably years away from anyone discerning whether or not he's a legit building block.
Washington's highest-paid player is Jordan Poole, but is he a guy you can build around as a first option? One has to assume that the Wizards would be open to moving Poole if the right offer surfaced.
Kyle Kuzma and Marvin Bagley III are two other players near the top of Washington's salary sheet whom the Wizards are in no way married to.
There are a couple of different packages comprised of the above players that Washington could send to Chicago for LaVine, if and when the Wizards decide they want to blow the whole thing up and make LaVine (still only 29) a key piece of their new plan.
First of all, there is a scenario in which Washington could acquire LaVine without trading Poole, which sounds like a more interesting star pairing for the Wizards than anything Washington can currently advertise to its ticket holders. Trading Kuzma and Bagley to Chicago for LaVine works financially.
It's superfluous to even talk about whether the Bulls would be interested in that return for LaVine, because it's a definite yes. Chicago would take a bag of Lay's potato chips to get off LaVine's contract at this point. It's not that the Bulls don't value LaVine; he just doesn't fit with their vision moving forward and the relationship is fractured.
What a breath of fresh air it would be for Chicago to shed LaVine's contract at last and take on Kuzma's $65 million over three years and Bagley's expiring contract in return.
On the other hand, if Washington wanted to keep Kuzma over Poole, a Poole-Bagley or Poole-Sarr package for LaVine would also work money-wise.
Chicago has draft picks to throw at the Wizards as sweeteners to get the ball rolling on a deal, but the Bulls should absolutely make their 2025 first-rounder off limits.
No one wants to see LaVine in Chicago (including LaVine), and the Bulls brass should use all of its collective brain power to work out a trade with Washington.
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