Shams Charania, The Vertical’s excellent young reporter, just released a feature on Zach LaVine, a similarly promising young member of an up-and-coming team.
The Timberwolves have an exciting “core three” of LaVine, Andrew Wiggins, and Karl-Anthony Towns. Behind the leadership of Tom Thibodeau (who has coined the aforementioned nickname for the trio), despite some early-season struggles, the Timberwolves appear headed in the right direction.
Wiggins and Towns were expected to be superstars—they were the No. 1 picks of the 2014 and 2015 NBA Drafts—but LaVine’s future wasn’t so certain. He was taken No. 13 in 2014. Everyone knew he was a crazy-good athlete—you’ve surely seen his dunk-contest feats—but could he develop into a more well-rounded basketball player?
Despite the doubters, the somehow-still-only-21 LaVine has broken out in a big way this year, averaging 21.0 points, 3.1 assists, and 3.0 rebounds per game.
Charania’s feature includes a hilarious anecdote about LaVine’s one-on-one adventures with his father, Paul LaVine, a former NFL player.
Though the nature of their father-son relationship remains mostly the same, the head-to-head matchups have changed as LaVine has grown up.
“If I have a bad shooting day, my dad will take me to the gym,” LaVine told The Vertical. “He’ll talk [expletive] every day. He can be my worst critic. When I was younger, he would always post me up when we played one-on-one…6-5, 300 pounds, strong like an ox. I used to say, ‘Yo, this is unfair.’
“He can’t do it anymore. I just ascend to block his shots now.”
Yeah, we can’t imagine very many players could float a shot over LaVine nowadays, but it’s got to be tough for a dad who was once a professional athlete when his son starts mercilessly swatting him in the post.
It could be worse; at least dad didn't get dunked on...as far as we know.
