Film Breakdown: How Kings' Zach LaVine Can Improve His Value

While LaVine often struggled to make plays for others in Sacramento, he has shown flashes of on-ball creation for himself. Above, LaVine gets a handoff from Sabonis, who screens Cole Anthony while Anthony tries to go over the screen to stop LaVine from getting a clean triple off. Once LaVine gets Anthony on his back, Sabonis clears out Goga Bitadze, and LaVine gets an easy layup with no rim protection. 

While LaVine makes the right play for himself here, take a look at the rest of the defense and how quickly they converge on him when he gets into the paint. LaVine has the ability to easily collapse the defense and create open looks for the rest of his teammates. More often than not, LaVine is looking for his own shot, but these kinds of plays show how much more dynamic of an offensive player Zach can be when he is looking to get his teammates involved. 

Again, we see LaVine and Sabonis in their two-man game against the Orlando Magic. Here, LaVine gets a screen from Sabonis, and Bitadze is way too high, which gives Sabonis an easy run to the rim, and a simple pocket pass from LaVine completes the easy bucket. 

This type of action is available to LaVine and the Kings at any time because of his ability to shoot off the dribble, and it doesn’t hurt that Sabonis is one of the best screeners in the league. LaVine shot a blistering 44% on pull-up threes last season, which he can use to his advantage as a playmaker. 

There aren’t that many examples of LaVine using his scoring prowess to find open teammates with the Kings after just half a season, but there were plenty while he was with the Chicago Bulls. Above, LaVine realizes that the Sixers didn’t match up correctly as he sees both Danny Green and Joel Embiid on him at the top of the key. Carter Jr. just jogs towards the rim, and LaVine finds him for the easy lay-in before Tobias Harris can help from the corner. 

This is one of my favorite plays I found because, as Jackson Frank mentions, LaVine creates the bucket just by being the elite scorer he is night after night. Zach doesn’t need to make Nikola Jokic-level passes or reads to make an impact as a playmaker; most of the time, he’ll just need to make easy reads like the one above to add another dimension to the Kings’ offense. 

In the compilation above, Dan Favale highlights some of the higher-level reads and passes Zach made while with the Bulls. While LaVine won’t be asked to make many of these types of plays with the Kings, the point is that he is more than capable. 

LaVine has a habit of dribbling the air out of the ball at times and defaulting to tough step-backs when nothing materializes, which is a big reason why his reputation is what it is. LaVine’s best year in the NBA came in 2020-21 with the Bulls, where he set career highs in points per game and assists while making his first All-Star team. 

As Favale mentions, LaVine also improved his potential assists to 11.1 per game while not really changing the number of passes he made per game that season. Unsurprisingly, 2020-21 was also when LaVine set career highs in catch-all stats like VORP, BPM, and PER. 

How do the Kings bring out this version of LaVine?

Part of LaVine’s playmaking success in 2020-21 was due to the lack of on-ball talent in Chicago. In Sacramento, LaVine will be stuck playing with at least one of Dennis Schröder, DeMar DeRozan, or Malik Monk most of the time, which makes it that much harder for him to replicate his best season. 

Last year with the Kings, LaVine’s assist percentage was just 15.6, which would be his second-worst number for a full season in his career. LaVine’s playmaking success will come down to his ability to make quick reads, pass off the dribble, and operate in the pick-and-roll with Sabonis. If LaVine can make some strides from last season, the Kings' offense could look a lot better in 2025.