Chicago Bulls: Be patient with the expectations for Coby White

Pressure for the Chicago Bulls this coming regular season shouldn’t fall all that much on the shoulders of rookie point guard Coby White.

Out of the gate, very few NBA players turn into stars who contribute immediately. Instead, it takes at least a year or two for most NBA lottery picks to find their groove and settle in to the point where they can steadily make an impact over the long-term. This sounds more like how the Chicago Bulls and head coach Jim Boylen should treat the development of rookie point guard Coby White.

With the seventh overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, the Bulls selected a freshman floor general out of the North Carolina Tar Heels basketball program. White was heralded as a potential top five pick in this year’s draft, but he got down to where the Bulls were picking and could help them solidify a position of need well into the future.

The Bulls tend to actually draft well under the direction of John Paxson and Gar Forman in the front office. GarPax takes a lot of heat for their sporadic mismanagement of free agency and personnel decisions (i.e. extending Boylen this offseason), but I can’t fault them for their scouting for the draft for the past decade or so.

Moreover, White’s start to the summer with the Bulls didn’t get off on the best foot. He shot around 10 percent from three-point range in his debut in the Vegas Summer League. All-around he showed that he still has a lot of work to do before he’s ready to assume the starting point guard role for the Bulls.

For now, the Bulls have a nice cushion at point guard in front of White with guys like the recently acquired Tomas Satoransky, Kris Dunn, and Ryan Arcidiacono. The Bulls have plenty of capable options to assume playing time early in the regular season while White is still progress and finding his rhythm.

The size and quickness that White brings to the table at the point guard position should make the Bulls fan base excited about what’s around the corner for him. At 6-foot-5 and with a lot of offensive range in his skill set, it should only be a matter of time before White breaks through.

There’s two point guards that are now entering their second seasons in the NBA that are good examples for White and the Bulls to learn from. Atlanta Hawks budding star Trae Young and Collin Sexton of the Cleveland Cavaliers both completely turned their games around down the stretch last season. A patient process with White this coming season could yield similar results.

Sexton wound up averaging 16.7 points per game, 3.0 assists, and 2.9 rebounds, while shooting 84 percent from the charity stripe and better than 40 percent from beyond the arc. Meanwhile, Young 19.1 points per game, 8.1 assists, and 3.7 rebounds while shooting around 83 percent from the free throw line. But Young’s three-point shooting percentage could use improvement since he shot around 32 percent last season.

There’s a lot to work with here for the Bulls and White. This could be a match made in heaven if this franchise’s young core continues to grow and White just becomes a key part of it. The expectation for White shouldn’t be for him to become a superstar early on, but a key contributor on a Bulls team that continues to climb up the Eastern Conference standings in the near future.