Is the Zach LaVine impasse pushing DeMar DeRozan off the Bulls?

Near the end of the regular season, DeRozan made it clear that he wanted to return to the Bulls.

"This is where I want to be," he said. "I love ownership. I love everything about the city and the franchise, top to bottom---the front office, the staff we have."

The Bulls seemed to want him back as well, but they also didn't want to go into the luxury tax for a team that has lost in the play-in tournament in the previous two seasons. Ducking the tax requires the Bulls to say goodbye to DeRozan or to Zach LaVine, who has three years and $138M left on his contract. Despite shopping LaVine to over half the teams in the league, they've found no takers for the star guard.

Now that they have agreed to a five-year, $90M deal with Patrick Williams, the Bulls are left about $13M below the luxury tax line. That's very close to the non-taxpayer mid-level exception. If DeRozan is going to take a severe pay cut like that, he will likely want to do that for a contender.

That's not likely to be the Bulls, after they swapped 30-year-old Alex Caruso for 21-year-old Josh Giddey and drafted 19-year-old Matas Buzelis from G League Ignite. If there were a market for LaVine, it would make a ton of sense to bring back DeRozan as a veteran for a young group, especially with how happy DeRozan said he was in Chicago, but the Bulls simply don't have the money.

Plus, they might be planning to tank. The 2025 draft class is supposed to be strong and the Bulls may be intrigued by the chance at a high lottery pick.

That leaves DeRozan in need of a new home, perhaps with the Miami Heat if they can clear some cap space or the Los Angeles Lakers if they can clear a ton of cap space. While returning to the Chicago seemed ideal for DeRozan, the Bulls are trapped in a bad relationship with LaVine. Once the Bulls realized this, the divorce with DeRozan was unavoidable.