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Josh Giddey’s and Australia’s Olympics dream ended Tuesday with a quarterfinal loss to Serbia, just one day shy of the three-year anniversary of Zach LaVine and USA Basketball sporting gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics.
A lot, obviously, can happen in three years, which is why Giddey, and not LaVine, is currently the more prominent face of the Chicago Bulls next roster iteration.
LaVine is healthy following foot surgery and having a normal offseason of training as he and the Bulls prepare for their relationship to continue---for now.
Giddey, meanwhile, represents the Bulls’ pivot to a youth movement after management traded Alex Caruso to Oklahoma City to acquire him.
Giddey, who turns 22 in October, capped his eventful Olympics with 25 points, seven turnovers, five rebounds and four assists in the loss. He also favored his ankle as he walked off the court, having rolled it on a missed layup with Australia down five points and eight seconds to play.
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Giddey played a role for Australia that he is expected to play for the Bulls, one where he had the ball in his hands plenty and served as the primary playmaker. Giddey averaged 17.5 points, 7.8 rebounds, 6 assists and 5 turnovers in Australia’s four games, shooting 50 percent, including 47.4 percent from 3-point range.
Three years ago in Tokyo, LaVine embraced a defensive-minded reserve role for Team USA, drawing praise from heavyweights like Gregg Popovich, who then served as head coach, and Steve Kerr, who then served as assistant coach and now leads USA Basketball.
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In a perfect world, LaVine projects to fit well alongside Giddey, who is at his best when surrounded by elite catch-and-shoot threats and athletes who thrive in transition and catching alley-oop passes. Before his poor start to an injury-plagued 2023-24 season in which he logged just 25 games, LaVine was on a three-season heater in which he won that Olympic gold, made two All-Star teams and landed on the short list of the NBA’s most efficient scorers.
But nothing is perfect about the Bulls’ situation with LaVine, who has been at the center of trade talks for years. Though coach Billy Donovan’s annual habit of traveling to offseason meetings with players featured a cordial and professional sitdown with LaVine in Los Angeles following summer league, there’s plenty of potential for rocky moments ahead.
LaVine long has felt unfairly blamed for the Bulls’ woes and struggled with his drop in usage last season. His role will come under even greater scrutiny now that Caruso and DeMar DeRozan have been traded, particularly with management’s emphasis on a youth movement with players like Giddey, Coby White, Ayo Dosunmu and Patrick Williams at the core of the new vision.
In some ways, the Bulls may be best served if LaVine plays a complementary role similar to the one he inhabited for Team USA in Tokyo. After all, developing and growing the games of Giddey, White, Dosunmu and Williams is the goal at the center of management’s vision for the future.
But LaVine has played his best NBA basketball when he’s the No. 1 or 2 option, displaying his three-level scoring ability with three straight seasons of a true shooting percentage over .600 from 2020-23.
The Bulls begin their exhibition schedule in just over two months. Until then, LaVine’s future will remain at the center of speculation, while Giddey and Australia will process their Olympics exit.
“I thought we had a team in the locker room to win a tournament like this. I still do believe that,” Giddey told reporters in Paris on Tuesday. “These tournaments come down to one or two possessions, and it shows how little room for error there is.
“I just love my teammates, our country, our coaches. Everyone's poured so much into this, and I think we deserved better. Our fans deserved better. It's just a tough pill to swallow, and we gotta wait for four years for the next one.”
