Chicago Bulls: Coby White hits setback this offseason with surgery

Unfortunate injury news for the Chicago Bulls and second-year point guard Coby White arose this week. An official release from the NBA indicated that White did undergo a successful surgery on his shoulder that he sustained while participating in basketball injuries away from the Bulls over last weekend.

White is reportedly expected to go through a four-month recovery process, which could put him in line to return to full basketball activities with the Bulls by the start of Training Camp and the preseason. And with the NBA set to return to a normal calendar next season (with the 2021-22 regular season likely beginning in mid-October), White will be on a shortened timeline.

The successful surgery he had specifically occurred on June 10. While you can’t rely on an exact recovery timeline, that would put him around the middle of October to return to full basketball activities. But that exact timeline will likely unfold in the coming weeks and months.

Coby White out for a reported four months for Chicago Bulls after shoulder surgery

Here’s more on what the official release from the NBA had to say on the matter of White undergoing this successful shoulder surgery this week.

"Chicago Bulls guard Coby White underwent successful surgery on his left shoulder by head team physician Dr. Brian Cole of Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush on June 10 to repair damage from an injury sustained this past weekend while engaged in basketball activities away from the team. He will be re-evaluated in four months."

This is really the first set of major injury news that impacts Coby. He had a healthy run with the Bulls through the first two seasons of his NBA career. Really the only injury he had that caused him to miss time over the course of the past two seasons with the Bulls was an upper-body issue that held him out for a small stretch of games post-All-Star Break this season.

We will continue to monitor this ongoing storyline to see how the recovery timeline of White unfolds. For now, it is good to hear he underwent successful surgery after the unfortunate injury news of his shoulder issue came about this week.

White and the Bulls finished up the regular season with a record of 31-41 under the direction of first-year head coach Billy Donovan. That wound up in the Bulls missing out on the postseason for the fourth consecutive year.