Zach LaVine opting for surgery may have saved Pistons GM from himself

Chicago Bulls guard Zach LaVine is a good basketball player — there's no doubt about it.

He's a two-time All-Star and once averaged 27.4 points per game. He's a "certified bucket" as the kids say, and he would make any team better, but he wasn't a good fit for the six-win Detroit Pistons.

One would think that any infusion of talent would be beneficial for a team as bad as Detroit is, but the Pistons are frankly lucky that LaVine recently opted to have season-ending surgery on his right foot. 

There was certainly fire behind the rumors that Detroit was interested in trading for LaVine, but for a franchise that was just at the lowest of lows v having tied the NBA record for losing-streak futility — trading any assets for a 28-year-old, injury-prone volume shooter just wouldn't make any sense.

It certainly didn't make any sense when looking at LaVine's contract. He's in the second year of a five-year deal that will see him make an average annual salary of $43M.

Yes, Detroit has the cap space, but the Pistons have little to no real assets. Spending arguably the only valuable asset not named Cade Cunningham they do have on a player who has missed double-digit games in three of the past four seasons is not the smart way to build a team.

That's a problem on its own because Detroit general manager Troy Weaver has shown very little ability to build anything that closely resembles a quality NBA team, but perhaps LaVine, by making the decision to shut it down, saved Weaver from himself.