The Chicago Bulls need to trade Coby White soon

If the Chicago Bulls ever want to be an elite franchise again, they have to stop making the same mistakes. 

We’ve talked about a few of them recently, including the Alex Caruso mistake of holding onto an impact player on a value deal for too long, as well as the Andre Drummond mistake of keeping a veteran on an expiring contract instead of cashing in for draft picks. 

Unless the Bulls want to keep reliving these errors, they will have to trade Coby White at some point next season. 

The Coby White Contract 

Coby White is on one of the best value contracts in the NBA right now but that isn’t going to last. He only has two years left after which time he will be an unrestricted free agent. 

The Bulls can only give him a 140 percent raise in an extension, which won’t be nearly enough to do it, meaning if he stays in Chicago, Coby White will be an unrestricted free agent in two seasons. 

At that point, the Bulls will be bidding against every team with cap space and will likely have to overpay to keep White on a contract upwards of $30 million a year. That is a scenario the Bulls should want to avoid. 

Coby White is a good, not great player 

The Bulls have a recent history of committing to players who are good, but not great. Zach LaVine would be the leader of this group given his bloated salary, but the Bulls have recently been populated by players of this type, very good, but not true stars. 

White made a big leap last season, but how much better is he realistically going to get? He may put up stats next season in a bigger role on a mediocre team but is he a guy you can build around or just a complementary part?  

If it’s the latter, then committing a max or near-max contract to him would not be an efficient use of resources and he’d be in line to be the next LaVine, a very good player, but if he’s your best guy, your team isn’t going anywhere. 

The Chicago Bulls need draft assets 

After failing to get any real draft assets from their various trades this summer, the Bulls are now a rebuilding team with no picks in the pipeline. 

They still owe a pick to the Spurs and have one coming to them from the Trail Blazers that may never convey. 

This will hamper them in potential trades, and if they are truly rebuilding, they will need incoming young talent, as the Bulls have precious little of it on the roster. 

All this adds up to the Bulls trading Coby White. It may seem counterproductive for a rebuilding team to trade a 24-year-old on the rise, but the Bulls should want no part of his free agency and need future draft assets more than they need his 20 points per game.