Chicago Bulls

The Chicago Sports Alliance, which includes the NFL's Bears, NBA's Bulls, NHL's Blackhawks and MLB's Cubs and White Sox, made a commitment of $300,000 to find "evidence-based solutions to gun violence" after recent mass shootings in Texas and Buffalo.

Here's the teams' full statement:

On Tuesday, 19 students and two teachers were killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

That tragedy occurred less than two weeks after a racist mass shooting at a Buffalo grocery store killed 10 people.

Both shootings were carried out by gunmen who used high-powered assault rifles.

Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr delivered one of the most impassioned speeches about his desire for improved gun-control measures on Tuesday:

It's one snippet of the effort made by sports teams and players since the shootings.

The New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays used their social-media accounts to raise awareness about gun violence rather than providing game coverage during Thursday's contest.

Minnesota Vikings cornerback Kris Boyd, a Texas native, started a GoFundMe fundraiser to benefit the families whose children were killed in Uvalde.

"These are children, man. ... Try to put that in your mind," Boyd said. "I saw something on Twitter that said they had to identify these kids by their backpacks. I was devastated. I cried."

Donations from the Chicago sports franchises will benefit two organizations.

The Robb School Memorial Fund was set up to help families impacted by the tragedy.

The Sandy Hook Promise Foundation was established after a 2012 school shooting in Connecticut where 20 children and six staff members were killed. It aims to "honor all victims of gun violence by turning our tragedy into a moment of transformation."

Chicago's teams said they are "committed to making a difference through our resources in this gun violence epidemic."

The Dallas Mavericks reportedly may have interest in pursuing guard Zach LaVine via a sign-and-trade with the Chicago Bulls.

According to NBA insider Marc Stein, LaVine may have "more interest in leaving Chicago than initially presumed," which has resulted in several teams emerging as candidates to acquire him in a sign-and-trade deal.

Stein named the Atlanta Hawks, Portland Trail Blazers and San Antonio Spurs as teams believed to be in the mix for LaVine, and noted that sources believe the Mavericks are weighing the possibility of making the move as well since the Mavs are "intent on finding at least one more All-Star-caliber player" to complement superstar guard Luka Doncic.

The 27-year-old LaVine is set to hit free agency this offseason, which comes at a perfect time since he has turned in the four best seasons of his career during his four-year stint with the Bulls.

LaVine was named an All-Star for the first time during the 2020-21 season when he set career highs with 27.4 points, 5.0 rebounds, 4.9 assists and 3.4 three-pointers made per game, plus he was part of the United States basketball team that won a gold medal in the 2020 Summer Olympics during the summer of 2021.

While his numbers weren't quite as good this season, LaVine still averaged 24.4 points, 4.6 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 2.8 three-pointers made per game en route to leading the Bulls to their first playoff berth since 2017.

It was widely expected that the Bulls would re-sign LaVine, and although that could still happen, the fact that he is about to hit free agency means he is in play for the entire league.

Dallas would perhaps be the perfect landing spot for LaVine, as it would allow him to be Doncic's running mate and instantly put him in position to vie for a championship.

Even without a second star this season, the Mavs made it all the way to the Western Conference Finals before falling to the Golden State Warriors in five games.

The Mavericks likely wouldn't be able to make signing LaVine in free agency work from a salary cap perspective, but a sign-and-trade would open the door for them to acquire him.

One possible consequence of a LaVine sign-and-trade would be the departure of guard Jalen Brunson, however.

Brunson broke out for the Mavs in a big way during the postseason, averaging 21.6 points, 4.6 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game as the No. 2 offensive option behind Doncic.

Brunson is set to hit free agency this offseason, and if the Mavs make a play for someone like LaVine, retaining Brunson could be highly difficult.

The Chicago Bulls reportedly remain "very confident" they can re-sign two-time All-Star Zach LaVine, who's an impending unrestricted free agent.

K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago reported the update Tuesday during an appearance on the Mully & Haugh Show, saying it's a "safe bet" LaVine will stay with the Bulls despite "serious" interest from other teams.

"I'm just reporting what I was hearing at the combine—and that is multiple people connected to other teams, agents, etc.—the chatter at that combine, the representation of that chatter is that Zach is very much in play," Johnson said.

LaVine didn't make an All-NBA team for the 2021-22 season, which means he's ineligible for a supermax extension from the Bulls.

He can instead receive either a five-year, $212.3 million offer from Chicago or a four-year, $157.4 million proposal from another team, per ESPN's Bobby Marks.

It's also possible he could sign the five-year deal with Chicago as part of a sign-and-trade agreement that would allow the Bulls to prevent losing one of their key players for nothing.

Johnson noted the 27-year-old guard is going to explore his options and will likely receive "aggressive" bids from other teams, but the Bulls are still hopeful they can keep him.

"It's going to be a fascinating free agency in July," Johnson said.

Meanwhile, Bleacher Report's Jake Fischer reported Tuesday the idea the Bulls would be able to quickly re-sign LaVine has "dissolved," but he's also hearing the team is "likely to retain" the 2014 first-round pick.

The Atlanta Hawks, Portland Trail Blazers and San Antonio Spurs are viewed as possible suitors on the open market, per Fischer.

LaVine is coming off a season in which he averaged 24.4 points, 4.6 rebounds and 4.5 assists while shooting 47.6 percent from the field. He also knocked down 2.8 threes per game while making 38.9 percent from beyond the arc.

A move to a new team would have the potential to shift the balance of power in one of the conference's playoff races, and it would leave a massive void in Chicago.

For now, he's focused on his recovery from knee surgery while waiting for his opportunity to hit the free-agent market.

The success of the Bulls' offseason likely hinges on convincing him to stay once he hears those pitches from other organizations.

Zach LaVine took an important step to returning to health ahead of free agency.

Jamal Collier of ESPN noted the Chicago Bulls announced LaVine underwent successful arthroscopic surgery on his left knee on Tuesday and is expected to fully recover. The UCLA product dealt with knee concerns throughout much of the season's second half and even received a platelet-rich plasma therapy and a cortisone shot while also having fluid drained.

"I have to go into the offseason and figure out how to get back to 100 percent. I played this year not at 100 percent. [I will] figure out the best plan, strategy to get my knee feeling back to normal," LaVine previously told reporters.

It appears that strategy involved this surgery, and the Bulls and potential suitors will be happy to hear he is expected to fully recover.

The biggest question now is whether he will be suiting up for Chicago once again after making each of the last two All-Star Games or whether he will join the third team of his career.

The Bulls can offer him the most money with a five-year contract worth up to $212 million compared to a four-year deal worth approximately $157 million others could present.

"The Bulls are still very confident in their ability to re-sign Zach LaVine," K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago said Tuesday during an appearance on the Mully & Haugh Show on 670 The Score. "Michael Reinsdorf has said it. Arturas Karnisovas has said it. They still have the power to pay him more than any other franchise."

Still, Johnson added that LaVine is "legitimately" planning to look at other teams as well.

There should be no shortage of franchises interested in him as a 27-year-old who is in the middle of his prime and can attack the rim off the bounce, finish in transition, hit from the outside and carry an offense for extended stretches.        

All-Star guard Zach LaVine figures to be one of the biggest targets on the free-agent market this offseason, but Chicago Bulls president Michael Reinsdorf and executive vice president Arturas Karnisovas still believe they will ultimately re-sign him.

"The Bulls are still very confident in their ability to re-sign Zach LaVine," K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago said Tuesday when he joined the Mully & Haugh Show on 670 The Score. "Michael Reinsdorf has said it. Arturas Karnisovas has said it. They still have the power to pay him more than any other franchise."

The money aspect certainly works in the Bulls' favor.

They can offer him a five-year contract worth up to $212 million, while the best other teams can do is extend a four-year deal worth approximately $157 million unless there is a sign-and-trade that would allow Chicago to net assets in return.

Still, that won't stop other suitors from pursuing him.

"The fact that he's going to look at other teams legitimately is serious," Johnson said. "I think the fact that other teams are going to make an aggressive bid to get him is serious. And I think the fact that the Bulls are very confident that they're going to retain him are all serious, are all simultaneously [true]. It's going to be a fascinating free agency in July."

Losing him would be quite the blow for a franchise that is just starting to turn things around.

It qualified for the playoffs for the first time since the 2016-17 season after making a splash last offseason with the additions of DeMar DeRozan, Alex Caruso and Lonzo Ball. Keeping LaVine, returning Ball (knee) to health and perhaps adding some complementary pieces through the draft or free agency this offseason would set the path for the Bulls to contend in the Eastern Conference.

Yet seeing LaVine sign elsewhere would bring much of that momentum to a screeching halt.

He is coming off the first two All-Star selections of his career and has expanded his game during his time with the Bulls. The UCLA product is still a spectacular dunker and someone who can make plays in transition, but he also hit a career-best 41.9 percent of his three-pointers in 2020-21 and followed up by hitting 38.9 percent of his triples this past season.

The 27-year-old is in the middle of his prime and should be healthier in 2022-23 after undergoing a procedure on the knee injury that limited him some down the stretch of the 2021-22 campaign.

Whether he will be healthier for Chicago or a different team remains the primary focus of the Bulls' offseason.          

Ahead of hitting free agency this offseason, Chicago Bulls guard Zach LaVine acknowledged his Los Angeles Lakers fandom.

TMZ Sports caught up with LaVine in L.A. this week, and when asked about the Lakers, he responded: "I've always been a big fan."

The comment came after K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago named the Lakers last week as one of the teams linked to LaVine in free agency.

LaVine spent the past five seasons with the Bulls, but with the two sides failing to come to terms on a new contract thus far, all signs point toward the two-time All-Star testing the open market.

While LaVine was born in Washington state and played his high school basketball there, he attended UCLA collegiately and became a huge star in the area.

After a highly successful college career with the Bruins, LaVine was selected 13th overall by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the 2014 NBA draft.

LaVine showed flashes of brilliance in Minnesota, but it wasn't until he was traded to Chicago as part of the Jimmy Butler deal in June 2017 that he reached his potential as one of the NBA's top offensive guards.

After averaging 23.7 points per game in 2018-19 and then 25.5 points per game the following year, he set new career highs across the board in 2020-21, averaging 27.4 points, 5.0 rebounds, 4.9 assists and 3.4 three-pointers made per game.

That yielded LaVine's first career All-Star nod, and he was also part of the United States men's basketball team that won gold at the 2020 Summer Olympics.

LaVine's numbers weren't quite as good this season, but he was an All-Star again with averages of 24.4 points, 4.6 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 2.8 three-pointers made per game, plus Chicago made the playoffs for the first time since 2017.

The Lakers are just two years removed from winning a championship, but they are coming off a nightmarish campaign that saw them miss the playoffs with a 33-49 record after both LeBron James and Anthony Davis missing significant time because of injuries.

While the Lakers would undoubtedly love to add a player of LaVine's quality to the core of James and Davis, doing so may be next to impossible due to their salary-cap situation.

LeBron and AD take up a great deal of cap space on their own, plus Russell Westbrook will account for over $47 million if he exercises his player option as expected.

Even if there is legitimate mutual interest between LaVine and the Lakers, it is difficult to envision a scenario in which they can make it work.

The NBA is renewing an old-school rivalry for its return to Europe next season. 

The league announced on Tuesday the Chicago Bulls and Detroit Pistons will play at Accor Arena in Paris on Jan. 19. 

This will mark the NBA's 12th time hosting a game in Paris since 1991. The first regular-season game in the city took place in January 2020, when the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Charlotte Hornets 116-103. 

The Bulls played two preseason games in Paris before the 1997-98 season. They competed in a six-team tournament, beating PSG Racing and Olympiacos to win the McDonald's Championship. 

This will mark the first regular-season game in France's capital for the Pistons. Their most recent international contest was a 122-111 loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Dec. 12, 2019, in Mexico City. 

Chicago is coming off its most successful season since 2014-15. The Bulls went 46-36 and made the playoffs as the No. 6 seed in the Eastern Conference, but the team lost to the Bucks in a five-game first-round series. 

This will be an important offseason that determines the future direction of the Bulls. Zach LaVine is going to be an unrestricted free agent and has made it clear he wants to test the market. 

LaVine has averaged at least 23.7 points per game in each of the past four seasons. The 27-year-old has made the All-Star team in each of the previous two years. 

The Pistons posted their third straight season with fewer than 30 wins (23-59). Despite this recent rough stretch for the franchise, there are positive signs on the horizon.

Cunningham, the No. 1 pick in the 2021 draft, averaged 17.4 points per game in 64 starts. The 20-year-old played better as the season went on. He shot 45.7 percent from the field and had a 53.1 true shooting percentage after the All-Star break.     

An autographed Michael Jordan card from the 1998 NBA Finals could reportedly reach $1 million at an auction.

TMZ Sports reported the 1999-00 Upper Deck "Final Floor" card features a piece of the hardwood from the Chicago Bulls vs. Utah Jazz Finals series. Bidding at Goldin Auctions has already reached $140,000.

"What makes this card unique is that it is the first 1/1 ever for autographs of Jordan, and it's the largest piece of memorabilia ever issued by any card manufacturer on a Michael Jordan pack-pulled trading card," Ken Goldin said. "The photo and the event are the pinnacles of Jordan's career."

At the time, the court was thought to be from Jordan's final NBA game. His Airness would eventually return to basketball for two seasons with the Washington Wizards in 2001.

While the unique card is not from Jordan's final game, it does include his autograph and is the only version of the card Upper Deck made. 

The Chicago Bulls made the playoffs for the first time since the 2016-17 campaign and may be well-positioned to build on that next season, but that would surely be more difficult if Zach LaVine ends up signing elsewhere.

K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports reported LaVine returning to the Windy City "no longer is considered the slam dunk it once was."

He also noted rival executives have speculated whether the front office is willing to give the UCLA product the full maximum contract of five years and approximately $212 million even though president Michael Reinsdorf and executive vice president Arturas Karnisovas have publicly said the plan is to bring him back.

LaVine came to the Bulls ahead of the 2017-18 season as part of the trade that sent Jimmy Butler to the Minnesota Timberwolves.

At the time, LaVine was known as an electrifying dunker who needed to make strides in other areas of his game. He's done that in Chicago, and he made the first two All-Star Games of his career the past two seasons.

Even with a knee injury that will require an arthroscopic procedure this offseason slowing him down some, he averaged 24.4 points, 4.6 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game while hitting 38.9 percent of his three-pointers this past season.        

He also made the playoffs for the first time in his career after the Bulls added DeMar DeRozan, Alex Caruso and Lonzo Ball this past offseason.

"It just shows that they [the Bulls front office] were ready to win," LaVine previously told reporters. "Obviously my first couple of years here it was tough to have that feeling. This year has been incredible. You've got to take everything into consideration. And obviously the team we have here is something you've got to consider, how good that we were this last year and moving forward."

That seems to suggest returning is very much on the table, but Johnson reported the Los Angeles Lakers, Portland Trail Blazers, Dallas Mavericks and Miami Heat have all been linked to him this week.

Yet only Portland can offer a max salary-cap slot for the 27-year-old from that group, and that could only be done by cutting costs elsewhere. The Lakers would need a sign-and-trade to bring LaVine aboard.

With that in mind, Johnson suggested "LaVine returning to the Bulls still is the safest bet," but it doesn't seem as if a decision will be made anytime soon.         

Zach LaVine will be a free agent this offseason, and the media darling of 2017, LaVar Ball, believes the Chicago Bulls star will be heading west to the Los Angeles Lakers. 

Ball made that prediction during an appearance on the The ReKap (27:10 mark):

He's gone. And I'm gonna tell you why. OK, it started off Zach LaVine, Zach LaVine, Zach LaVine. OK, now you get hurt, a few things happen, and guess who's doing all the big plays. All I hear is DeMar [DeRozan]. DeMar, DeMar, DeMar. He don't want to play second fiddle. And who don't want to go to L.A.? He wanna go back to the West Coast. ... If he got a chance to go there? I guarantee you he ain't no fool.

LaVine, who grew up in the Seattle suburbs and went to UCLA, might like to head back to the West Coast. Playing alongside superstars like LeBron James and Anthony Davis and chasing a title could be appealing (though if LaVine wasn't thrilled about becoming the No. 2 guy in Chicago, as Ball posited, how much would he enjoy being the third fiddle on the Lakers?). He might seek the glitz and glamor that comes with being a young, rich celebrity in a city like Los Angeles. 

The issue, of course, is that the Lakers have basically no realistic path to clear the needed cap space to sign him. 

Assuming Russell Westbrook opts in to his $47.1 million player option for the 2022-23 season—and no matter how bad this past campaign went, it wouldn't be worth leaving that much money on the table just to escape, considering he might not get half of it in free agency—the Lakers owe $139.9 million to just four players (Westbrook, James, AD and Talen Horton-Tucker). Kendrick Nunn also has a $5.3 million player option that could further bloat their cap sheet if he opts in. 

That alone will take them well over the projected $122 million soft cap, meaning their only avenue for signing free agents is minimum contracts and the taxpayer mid-level exception. LaVine, meanwhile, is going to get the max. 

One option would be a sign-and-trade deal in which Westbrook opts in, is dealt to the Bulls, and LaVine signs a max deal with Chicago (five years, $212 million) that would pay him $36.6 million next season before being traded to the Lakers. 

But that is extremely unlikely. 

For one, the Bulls would need to want Westbrook and his massive contract. With LaVar's son Lonzo Ball already in place at point guard, downgrading from LaVine to Westbrook while dipping deep into the luxury tax is nonsensical. 

There's a pretty strong argument to be made that if the Bulls can't re-sign LaVine, they would be better off losing him in free agency and utilizing their remaining cap space elsewhere than they would be acquiring Westbrook in a sign-and-trade.

And even if the Lakers somehow pulled off that heist, they'd be hard-capped with a whole slew of roster slots to fill. The supporting cast could end up being thin like it was this season. 

The other option would be for the Lakers to find a way to trade both Westbrook and Horton-Tucker to teams with ample cap space, which would give them the cap flexibility to then sign LaVine to a four-year, $157 million deal. Again, though, teams would make the Lakers hand over serious assets to take on that Westbrook contract, which L.A. simply doesn't have after giving up the farm to land Davis in 2019.  

For rebuilding teams, cap space is an asset they can use to accumulate draft capital. Nobody is going to take on Westbrook's contract out of the goodness of their heart. 

So even if LaVine actually wanted to get to Los Angeles, he would need the Bulls or some other team to help him out in a huge way. Given these particular circumstances, that feels incredibly unlikely, despite LaVar's prediction.