This Chicago Bulls front office is well-known for making mistakes, but there's one thing it can't do with star guard Coby White at this season's trade deadline, and that's trade him.
There are certainly arguments to the contrary. White will be an unrestricted free agent at the conclusion of this season and is well-positioned to earn a new deal worth $30 million or more annually. That's a hefty sum to pay a scoring guard who's a minus defensively, especially when accounting for his backcourt mate's similar liability on that end.
White is also the Bulls' most attractive tradeable asset -- Matas Buzelis is surely off limits -- and would bring back a sizeable return that would (or should, considering this front office) include at least one first-round pick.
But he's also 25 years old, fits the franchise's current timeline, is an ideal fit in head coach Billy Donovan's offensive system and proved down the stretch of last season that he's ready to take over the role of the team's leading scorer. Unless a Godfather offer comes in, Chicago can't trade one of its most important players.
Bulls must resist overcorrecting past mistakes and trading Coby White
White averaged a career-high 20.4 points per game last season, adding 3.7 rebounds and 4.5 assists per contest. His field-goal percentage (45.3) was also a career best. He shot 584 3-pointers, 23rd most in the NBA, and hit 37.0 percent of them, which ranked 14th of any player who put up at least 500 triples -- better than Donovan Mitchell, Jayson Tatum and James Harden.
White was a top-10 scorer in March when he averaged 27.7 points with shooting splits of 50/38/88. The Bulls went 9-6 that month with two separate four-game winning streaks. The former North Carolina standout was a critical part of Chicago's late-season success and should be staying put in the Windy City.
Then there's the matter of finances. As we've outlined here before, teams aren't built during free agency, an idea corroborated by Marc Stein and Jake Fischer on The Stein Line substack. As one agent put it, per Stein, free agency is "no longer a desired status."
Title contenders are built via trade or by re-signing their own free agents.
So will another NBA team be willing to shell out that $30 million plus to pry White away from Chicago? And if they let him walk, will the Bulls be able to find a replacement on the market, even if they're projected to have the most cap space in the league? Will that replacement even be available if the front office does decide to splurge?
It may be alluring to executive VP of basketball operations, Arturas Karnisovas, to stock the shelves with more draft picks, especially given the heat he's taken for holding onto players for too long. But he has to resist that temptation, because White is too important to the franchise.