Though the Chicago Bulls are a young, rebuilding team that's still looking to establish a new identity, there's a lot to be hopeful about. They are on now on the great side of the process, and one can argue that they are way ahead of schedule.

Zach LaVine, for one, who's among the key pieces in the off-season trade that saw the Bulls trade their superstar, Jimmy Butler, knows that this is a group that's always ready to compete. He recently caught up with Michael Lee of Yahoo Sports, and addressed the fans and the media about the team's supposed poor way of tanking:

“It’s not our decision to go out there and tank. This is our livelihood. You step between those lines, you’re not going to give in to anybody, regardless of who it is or what people are going to tell you… We go out there to win.”

The high-flying 22-year-old is still easing his way back to a natural form after healing from an ACL injury. LaVine now has seven games as a Bull, netting 13.5 points per game on limited playing time. In Friday night's 108-103 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, he logged in a season-high 26 minutes.

Head coach Fred Hoiberg, meanwhile, is happy with the variety of style on his roster, which might be very refreshing from last season's isolation-heavy system.

“Last year was a completely different team… We had guys that were more comfortable in isolation situations, so we tried to get into that… With this group, we’ve got a lot of young players. We don’t have a lot of isolation guys, so it’s really been a system based more on ball movement and player movement. After that first month and a half, we’ve had a lot of success with it.”

Among the players Hoiberg is very excited about is obviously Lauri Markkanen — another piece in the Butler deal — and he isn't ready to trade him for “anybody.”

Markkanen is averaging 15.4 points and 7.6 rebounds this season and became the fastest player to record 100 3-pointers.