Coby White doesn’t know if he would have had the backbone to do that last season.
He probably would have, especially since he is a self-admitted “(bleep)head,’’ but it was definitely a gut-check for the Bulls point guard and his role as emerging leader.
With a handful of seconds left in regulation and Toronto inbounding the ball, White noticed that coach Billy Donovan had put Zach LaVine on Dennis Schroder. It wasn’t that he didn’t agree with his coach or believe in LaVine’s defense.
As he put it, “I just wanted Schroder.’’
“I had a pretty good feeling (Schroder) was going to be in the play kind of based on what they were doing and the film study I did, and I had been guarding him all game,’’ White said. “I wanted to be a part of that stop.’’
He didn’t just grab LaVine in making the switch, he all but shoved him off the Raptors guard and in the direction of his assignment.
“It worked,’’ White recalled with a laugh of the eventual overtime win over Toronto on Oct. 27.
And so far for the Bulls this season, White is working.
With a huge vacancy at point guard with Lonzo Ball (left knee) again out this entire season, the organization re-signed White as a restricted free agent over the summer, and all but handed him the keys to the car. Sure, they added Jevon Carter in free agency and went into training camp calling it an open competition, but all indications were it was White’s job to lose.
He didn’t lose it.
If anything, he’s not only shown he can be this team’s starting point guard, but an on-the-court general who is not afraid to use his voice.
“I think Coby has been good in that department,’’ coach Billy Donovan said of White. “He can say things to teammates and it’s not taken the wrong way because they know where his heart is at. It comes from a good place.’’
That doesn’t mean it always sounds that way.
White can come off prickly on the court at times, and that doesn’t matter if he’s talking to a veteran like DeMar DeRozan or “moving’’ a teammate like LaVine.
“I can probably sometimes come across as a (bleep)head,’’ White said. “And I’m fine with that because I want to win games at the end of the day. But all these guys know me personally. I take the time to get to know everyone in this locker room as well as I can. Relationships, friendships, those things mean a lot to me. They know if I say something a certain way it’s out of a place of love, wanting to win.’’
Wanting to win hasn’t necessarily translated into actual wins, however, and that’s what’s been frustrating for White. Yes, the Bulls are running some tweaks to the offense this year, and White takes the growing pains personally, despite the best plus-minus (minus-13) of the starting five.
“The new offense has been a little bit of work, but we’re committed to it,’’ White said. “Billy has been hard on us about playing the right way and doing the right things on the floor, and communication is a huge part of that.’’
And that’s where White comes in.
This is Year 5 for the former North Carolina standout. The Bulls showed they are committed to him with the contract, and he wants to show his franchise that he is committed to making this group work.
“Whenever I speak, I feel like the vets listen,’’ White said. “Sometimes it might not be what they want to hear, and I can tell by their facial expression that it’s something they might not want to hear, but they’ve never outright tell me to shut-up or (bleep)-off, nothing like that. They want to win too.
“If I see something I have no problem saying it.’’
