Chicago Bulls: Coby White was ‘surprised’ by the Boylen firing

Rookie Chicago Bulls point guard Coby White finished off his inaugural season in the NBA in style, finding his groove back in February.

There could be a very bright future in store for the Chicago Bulls if the new look front office regime makes a lot of the right moves to rejuvenate the rebuild heading into its fourth year during the 2020 offseason. The Bulls have a plethora of young talent still on the roster and a lot of trade chips to work with if the new front office personnel decide to hit the open market this offseason.

Amid the best parts of the Bulls young core heading into the 2020-21 season is the former North Carolina Tar Heels rookie point guard Coby White. If there’s any parts of the Bulls roster that are considered untouchable this offseason, the list should start with White. As long as they’re able to mesh well together in the same starting backcourt, then White and shooting guard Zach LaVine could form one of the more potent duos in the NBA before too long.

White just received his first major NBA accolade earlier this week. He was named to the NBA All-Rookie Second-Team for the 2019-20 season. That is impressive considering that this rookie guard class was pretty strong this season. White was one of the four guards named to one of the two All-Rookie Teams, along with Tyler Herro and Kendrick Nunn of the Miami Heat, and Ja Morant of the Memphis Grizzlies.

With all of this mind, this offseason ahead will be big for White. To sum all of what’s happened recently for White and the Bulls this summer up, he had a Q&A that was posted on the Twitter timeline of Eric Woodyard of ESPN on Sep. 16.  A notable nugget emerged from what White discussed earlier this week, when he gave his take on the recent firing of former Bulls head coach Jim Boylen.

What to takeaway from the White-Boylen situation with the Chicago Bulls

While it was known that Boylen was not the favorite coach ever among his players in the last two years. LaVine and big man Daniel Gafford, among others, had different takes on Boylen that could be seen in a negative light. And Boylen was just one of the least popular head coaches around the NBA in general.

White took a very professional approach with what he had to say about Boylen. He mentioned in this discussion that he was “surprised” when the Bulls parted ways with Boylen and that he was a “great coach while he was here”.

But the truth of the matter shined through more so with this quote that “we’re excited to see change, but take nothing away from him”. That did show likely how most of the players in this locker room feel about all of the changes that are happening this offseason within the organization.

No doubt the Bulls needed change this offseason, heading into the fourth year of the rebuild. This team largely took a step back during the 2019-20 regular season, finishing up with a record of 22-43 (good for 11th place in the final Eastern Conference standings).

Down the stretch in his rookie season, White showed a lot of good things. But his efficiency and per game averages for the season as a whole did leave something to be desired. Hopefully he can carry that momentum he found in the last month-and-a-half of his rookie campaign into his second year in the NBA.