Coby White has cooled off, and the Bulls offense cannot afford that
the improvement looks real, just not completely sustainable
Unlike a critically-beloved high-concept network sitcom in the 2000s, NBA seasons don’t get cancelled due to lack of interest. It’s been relatively overlooked due to the holidays up towards the biggest one of all, the NBA trade deadline, but the Bulls are still playing games, like all the time.
I will try to get something up regularly, even if the games are not that interesting compared to commenting on the hilarious Zach LaVine trade market.
While it’s very purposeful to break up the segments of the season as pre-Zach and post-Zach, it’s a bit more arbitrary but still accurate that the past four games the Bulls have kinda stunk. They have won 2 of them: one because they were playing the Spurs and another because they offensive rebounded their way to a clutch toss-up win against the Hawks.
And a huge focus is on Coby White, who has really cooled off from distance and it’s tanked the team’s offense:
Again, kind of arbitrary: White has been playing a ton of minutes while dealing with a sore shooting wrist, but he was doing that this entire post-Zach run.
It could be a lag in the scouting report. Teams are more up on Coby as they are more respecting him as a shooting threat. It’s great that he’s countering that by going inside, but 2 is less than 3 and he’s still not made any leap as an inside finisher.
But what will be worse for the offense is if Coby starts to get more gun-shy:
Notice the attempts are down from three with the makes. Part of the revelation of a post-Zach world is that the Bulls put the ball in someone’s hands who would launch instead of probe (or whatever Zach likes to think he’s doing).
We have to assume no matter what happens with LaVine, it won’t mean getting someone who is going to dominate the ball. It’s either going to be prospects or role players, and that relative lack of return means the team’s fortunes rest on the internal development of White.
OG to the Knicks is pretty interesting, especially since NY had to give up both Barrett and Quickley to get him.
Seems like a good trade for both sides. New York gets a good win-now piece and Toronto gets some promising young players to surround Barnes.
Could this be good for the Bulls in their pursuit of trading Zach? The common rumors regarding him and the Sixers were that the Sixers were interested in either Zach or Anunoby with OG being more desired for his defense. Now that he's off the table, does Zach look more attractive to them?
While I'm all for the Coby white "emergence" I feel only the most rose colored fans probably see him as more than just a legit starter.
And that's not a knock, the bulls needed one of their young players to really pan out and Coby not only has proven himself to be a starting caliber guard in the league but has also been the spearhead for players like ayo and pat.
There is value in Coby both on and off the court, but the bulls cannot assume Coby playing at an allstar level is a plan, because it's not fair to Coby and it's not fair to the fans.
I saw kc mention he saw AKME with lonzo and the former mentioned how lonzo is going to start running in two weeks... And I'm afraid the org is planning to do nothing again and try to sell us the idea of a lonzo and Zach return with slightly better versions of Coby and pat. Because why change something that has never worked?