Who is the better player (Wiggins vs LaVine)

[Wolvesfan21]

LaVine is avg career highs in shooting percentage, steal percentage, points 27.4, and PER 19.8). Bulls are 3-9, LaVine is their best player.

While Wiggins is still Wiggins making max money on a 4-9 team. Wiggins is an avg player on this team.

What are your thoughts?

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Two disappointing players in my opinion...so much athleticism and ability, but it just doesn't translate to wins. Despite his appalling 4 TOs per game and below average 3-point shooting percentage, Zach is still the superior offensive player. But Wig's superiority on defense to Zach is greater than Zach's superiority on offense (there's a reason Klay hit 17 3's last week), so I give the overall nod to Wig. I think that conclusion is borne out by Zach's consistently bad +/- numbers throughout his career regardless of whom he is playing with. Zach's contract is better, but I wouldn't want either player for the money they are being paid.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

I think eventually LaVine's productivity as an offensive player wins the day, despite his porous defense. He's only going to get better offensively too, which is scary. I expect the On/Off numbers to eventually start trending in a more positive direction.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

What is the best way to determine the relative value of two players? I don't know, but I would submit their on/off numbers are at least a good start, and Wig's are clearly far superior to Zach's. This year Wig's on/off is relatively flat, while Zach's is a disastrous -13.8. Q might be right that Zach's numbers may start trending better in the future, but for the moment, he hurts his team far more than Wig does.

[BizarroJerry [enjin:6592520]]

You guys and your on/off numbers. Zach is the better player. Too bad we lost him, Dunn, and Laurie for a bum like Jimmy and a cripple.

[Wolvesfan21]

You have to look who they are playing with as well. If you swapped out Zach with Wiggins, I see no improvement for the Bulls. They are close which gives me the big edge to Zach, because Zach consistently plays harder and cares. Zach makes less of course too.

Put Zach on this team and I do see a slight improvement. Better shooting, passing and ball handling. Yeah a drop in defense, but I don't think Wiggins is shut down either. I don't think Zach is as bad as some of you say nor is Wiggins as good.

[Duke13]

You have to look who they are playing with as well. If you swapped out Zach with Wiggins, I see no improvement for the Bulls. They are close which gives me the big edge to Zach, because Zach consistently plays harder and cares. Zach makes less of course too.

Put Zach on this team and I do see a slight improvement. Better shooting, passing and ball handling. Yeah a drop in defense, but I don't think Wiggins is shut down either. I don't think Zach is as bad as some of you say nor is Wiggins as good.

Bingo. The Bulls roster right now is terrible. He's playing with D-leaguers

[60WinTim]

Does personality count for anything?

[Monster]

Lavine shooting 35% from 3. I'm pretty sure it's been stated definitely by some people on this board that's bad shooting from 3. Wiggins is better. :)

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

You have to look who they are playing with as well. If you swapped out Zach with Wiggins, I see no improvement for the Bulls. They are close which gives me the big edge to Zach, because Zach consistently plays harder and cares. Zach makes less of course too.

Put Zach on this team and I do see a slight improvement. Better shooting, passing and ball handling. Yeah a drop in defense, but I don't think Wiggins is shut down either. I don't think Zach is as bad as some of you say nor is Wiggins as good.

Bingo. The Bulls roster right now is terrible. He's playing with D-leaguers

I don't disagree that their roster is terrible, but Zach starts each half and gets to play a majority of his minutes with the starters. Despite that, the Bulls are 13.8 points better when he is off the court compared to when he is on...that's an astounding number! I don't think you guys fully appreciate how terrible Zach is on defense (just ask Klay Thompson :)) because his awful defense doesn't show up on the ESPN highlight reels like his dunks do. Yes, Zach is able to put the ball in the basket, but you would expect that from a guy who is almost the only offensive option the Bulls have, as opposed to Wig being the 4th option when he is on the court with KAT, Butler and Rose. In fact, Wig outscored Zach by almost 5 PPG the last year they played together in comparable minutes...that seems to me the best indicator of how their relative scoring would be if they were still playing together.

Many here agree that Wig is improving defensively, while it appears that Zach may be getting even worse, if that's possible. I agree that Zach's offensive game is more fun to watch, but it's impossible to make a cogent argument that his overall game helps the Bulls more than Wig's helps the Wolves because of his complete ineptitude on defense. But I'm open to any empirical arguments demonstrating Zach's overall game is better.