LAS VEGAS — Zach LaVine got exactly what he wanted.
The young swingman always believed this kind of deal was coming his way — the one that will pay him $78 million over the next four years, when the Chicago Bulls match the offer sheet LaVine signed with the Sacramento Kings as they intend to do, according to ESPN.com’s Adrian Wojnarowski. And Chicago always knew this was a possibility in the high stakes game of restricted free agency, but now that the offer is on the books, the broader question becomes, what exactly is the organization getting for all that money?
It’s a question that will not only hover over everything the Bulls do for the next four years, it will help define the legacy of longtime Bulls executives John Paxson and Gar Forman. The latest offer the duo made to LaVine was just a couple million per year less than the $19.5 annual salary in the offer sheet he signed with the Kings, according to league sources. If LaVine, now the team’s highest-paid player, turns into the kind of superstar the Bulls believed he could be when they acquired him in a package that sent All-Star swingman Jimmy Butler to the Minnesota Timberwolves last summer, then Paxson and Forman aren’t going to care if they paid a few extra million than they would have liked on Friday — and will likely be even more excited with LaVine’s salary remaining flat as the cap goes up in future years.