Chicago Bulls point guard Coby White’s path to becoming the front-runner for the NBA’s Most Improved Player Award was driven by finding himself — and honoring his late father, Donald.
Bulls guard Coby White heads to the locker room before a game against the Warriors at the United Center on Jan. 12, 2024, in Chicago.
Chicago Bulls guard Coby White before the game Monday, Nov. 18, 2019 at the United Center. The Bucks defeated the Bulls, 115-101. Chicago Bulls guard Coby White reacts after missing a 3-pointer in the second half of a game against the Sacramento Kings at the United Center in Chicago on Feb. 3, 2024.
New Chicago Bulls player Coby White throws out a ceremonial first pitch before a game between the Chicago White Sox and the Minnesota Twins at Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago on Friday, June 28, 2019. Chicago Bulls guard Coby White reacts after a big dunk in the second half of a game against the Sacramento Kings at the United Center in Chicago on Feb. 3, 2024.
Chicago Bulls guard Coby White poses for pictures Monday, Sept. 27, 2021 during media day at the United Center. Coby White of North Carolina during the NBA draft combine Thursday, May 16, 2019 at the Quest Multisport Complex. Not the 37-point game. Not the command in the huddle. Not the behind-the-back moves and the hesi step and the rim-rattling dunks. Certainly not those soaring shots behind the 3-point arc. It’s hard to be surprised by something that has been slowly building — not for months but for years.
But despite the suddenness of his rise, none of this started in the 2023-24 season. It didn’t even start last summer. It’s easy to think that. It’s comforting to believe there’s an immediacy to growth, that change will emerge the moment it is pursued. But that’s not the case for White. It took six years to build a breakout season.Seven years ago, White lost his father. Three years later, he lost himself.
It’s hard not to see Donald in the moments when Coby enters the Bulls locker room, dropping a hand on a teammate’s shoulder, dapping up another. His affection is both constant and purposeful. Before every game, he wraps his arms around DeMar DeRozan and lifts the 6-foot-6 forward off the ground. After a blowout win, he head-butted Andre Drummond in the chest in excitement, leaving the 7-foot center laughing.
“He’s exactly what we needed,” Williams said. “Whatever he sees, he’ll say it. You know it’s coming from a place of love. The main thing he wants is to win — and he wantsIt’s no surprise there’s a resemblance between father and son on the court. Donald was the first to put a basketball in Coby’s hands, packing him up at age 2 to trek around the East Coast for his older brother William’s travel games.
Sure, it was a long way off. Losses were piling up only months after his initial diagnosis — lost weight, energy, memory. And Coby wouldn’t make his freshman debut until November 2018, more than a full year later. A teacher asked if he should be in class, urged him to take time if he needed. But Coby knew the truth. Days off were a luxury his family couldn’t afford. His mom and brother and sister were all back at work. He wouldn’t be the exception.
“The ball kept bouncing, the ball kept rolling and I didn’t ever want to take the time to stop it,” White said. It’s a trait Bonita is proud to see passed from Donald to Coby — the strength at the core of their kindness. Bulls guard Coby White heads to the locker room before a game against the Warriors on Jan. 12, 2024, at the United Center.
There was always an underlying current of challenge fueling these otherwise casual shooting sessions.And Coby would scrunch up his face and line up his toes at the spot of disbelief and launch the ball up, up,“My dad had a high bar for all of us, but especially for him,” Coby’s older sister Tia told the Tribune. “He was patient and he nurtured Coby, but it was that dynamic of like saying, ‘You can’t do this,’ and then him being like, ‘Watch me, Dad, I’ll prove you wrong.
That worked through high school and AAU and college. But the NBA was a different challenge, one Coby couldn’t power through with brute determination alone. White’s stubbornness shifted in the days after the Bulls lost a first-round playoff series against the Milwaukee Bucks in 2022. He had just made his NBA playoff debut — and he played badly.Bulls guard Coby White goes up for a basket against Bucks guard Jrue Holiday during Game 1 of an NBA Eastern Conference first-round playoff series on April 17, 2022, in Milwaukee.
Bonita issued teasing complaints. After all, what mom doesn’t want her kid under her roof more often? But the family embraced Coby’s desire to improve. Within two weeks, his entire right arm was encased in ink. Each tattoo was dedicated to his family or his faith: “God’s gift” across his entire forearm, a dove spanning his elbow, “Family over everything” and a scroll emblazoned with Psalms 18:29 wrapped around the inside of his arm. The section of the sleeve most visible when White is on the court is a massive stack of block letters reading “Be You” along his triceps.
But after six months without basketball, Coby felt like he was spiraling out of control. So when he called Bonita and said he needed his mom, she dropped everything to get to Chicago. Bulls forward Derrick Jones Jr., left, and guard Coby White dance while warming up before a game against the Wizards on Feb. 26, 2023, at the United Center.
Even last summer, Coby didn’t feel fully in control — until a trip to Colorado shifted his perspective once again. “It’s the mental that takes the longest to build up,” Coby said. “You might go to the weight room for two straight weeks and see progression. I feel like with the mental, you might work at it for two straight weeks and you still won’t see progression. That’s why it takes every single day.”
This season, White has a tactic for a bad shooting night. If his shots didn’t fall or the Bulls couldn’t pull off a win, he texts one of the player development staffers with a simple request: He needs to laugh. “He’s going to look at it,” Donovan said. “He’s going to get mad at himself. He’s going to get really bothered. He’s going to go through every detail. He’s going to look at every decision. And then he’s going to be OK. And then he’s going to get better. That’s the way he is now.”When White crashed to the hardwood with barely 10 seconds left in regulation in Wednesday’s win over the Indiana Pacers, it seemed for a moment as if the Bulls were trapped in a recurring nightmare.
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