DETROIT — To Bulls guard Zach LaVine, the endgame is obvious.
It’s Year 3 since the front office assembled the Bulls’ version of the ‘‘Big Three’’ with LaVine, center Nikola Vucevic and small forward DeMar DeRozan.
At this rate, there won’t be a Year 4. Not with what the Bulls have shown in the early part of the season.
‘‘We understand that; we’ve been around long enough,’’ LaVine said after an embarrassing loss Saturday to the Pistons dropped the Bulls to 1-2. ‘‘Shoot, Vooch has been traded, I’ve been traded, DeMar’s been traded. We understand the business. As much as we care for each other, you understand what’s on the other side of that. It’s just three games in, but we don’t want this to get past three games. We don’t want this to snowball.’’
So how will the Bulls make it stop? If the answer was easy, it would have been fixed already.
There was a time the three played with synergy — the first season they came together and made a brief playoff run, specifically. The difference between now and then? DeRozan said the answer is obvious.
‘‘First of all, you can’t really compare Year 1,’’ DeRozan said. ‘‘We had [injured point guard] Lonzo Ball, and he made a helluva big difference running the show.’’
But Ball’s well-documented knee surgeries have sidelined him since the middle of the 2021-22 season, and he hasn’t been back since.
There has been plenty of time for the Bulls to move on and figure things out, yet they remain near the bottom of the NBA in offensive efficiency, despite having three stars who should complement each other better than they do.
‘‘As a collective, we’re still looking to find that balance for us, for the team,’’ DeRozan said. ‘‘We’ve shown spurts here and there, but it hasn’t been as consistent as we want it to be.’’
That’s where coach Billy Donovan comes in. He has been trying to find the secret sauce to get the three to sync up on the court, and that included tweaking the offense again during the offseason. It looked good at times in the preseason, but there’s a reason it’s the preseason.
In their first three games, the Bulls were blown out by the Thunder in their season opener, needed DeRozan to play isolation ball in the fourth quarter to beat the Raptors and were beaten badly by the Pistons. Their offense was an issue in all three games.
‘‘One of the hardest things to do when you have three players like that, there needs to be a unified vision, a shared vision of how you’ve got to play,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘Also, there’s a little bit of sacrifice that’s given up by everybody when you do that.
‘‘I think they all understand that, and it’s not that they’re unwilling to sacrifice. Sometimes it’s just a little different for those guys, and they’re trying to figure out their way.’’
That’s all well and good, but they no longer have time on their side.
DeRozan will be a free agent next summer, and a source indicated that the talks about a contract extension that were taking place a few weeks ago are now on ice.
Meanwhile, all three will be trade candidates if the Bulls can’t get things turned around. So while the season is young, the idea of this ‘‘Big Three’’ is getting old fast.
‘‘Obviously, we’re all frustrated that it’s not clicking the way it should be,’’ LaVine said. ‘‘Lonzo was a big part of it, and it looked really good when Lonzo was here. [But] it’s not the situation we’re in.
‘‘It’s our third year here together, [and] we know how this business is. We all love each other. DeMar is one of my best friends; we talk all the time. But we have to figure out how to make this thing work.’’
