The Chicago Bulls are winning basketball games these days, which might seem like the point of a basketball team. Yet, the organization has long been in dire need of a full teardown, which makes this recent development all that more complicated.
They’re winning, in large part, due to the play of Coby White, who has channeled his inner Kevin Durant lately.
White is averaging 29.3 points over his past 13 games, and has morphed into one of the best plug-and-play guards in the NBA, due to his proficiency of playing both with the ball in his hands, and without. He's been assisted on 75% of his 3-pointers and 34% of his two-pointers, which are numbers that highly agree with the eye-test in regards to his ability to both self-create, and play off of the attention given to others.
After a bit of a sluggish start this season, the 25-year-old is sporting a true-shooting percentage of 61.1% after the turn of the calendar year and over the course of 33 games. He's also a solid secondary ball-handler who doesn't turn the ball over much, and his defense has improved over the past three years.
Big picture, White has fans wondering: "Is he good enough to build a roster around?"
Do the Bulls have a building block?
While there isn't a clear answer yet to that question, White is currently the best candidate on the Bulls to warrant such an approach.
The hot name of late, Josh Giddey, comes with a large platter of concerns in regards to spacing and off-ball implementations. Giddey would need highly specific players around him for such an experiment to even get off the ground. White is, by far, the easier player to install in a role as a featured player given that his skill-set allows for much broader roster construction ideologies.
Bulls rookie Matas Buzelis can be used as a bit of a litmus test, as he can develop in a variety of ways. The 6-foo-10 lanky forward is a solid shooter, but not an overwhelming one. That shot may improve, or it might end up being average.
Furthermore, Buzelis has solid on-ball chops, and it's reasonable to expect him to become more of a ball-handler as he matures. With his athleticism, there's a world wherein Buzelis becomes more focused on the interior, to the point where the 3-point shot is utilized more as a secondary or tertiary weapon.
Next to a roster with White as the main cog, that wouldn't be much of a problem. White's game is so bendable and would allow Buzelis — and others — the space to develop as a creator.
Basically, White may not be a franchise player, but the archetype of player that he is could certainly mimic one.
The fact that he's reached this level, though, is why the Bulls find themselves in a bind.
What to do with White?
White, who is in his sixth NBA season, is sitting on arguably the most team-friendly contract in the NBA at $12 million this year, and $12.8 million next season.
When the league agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement with the NBPA, it included a 20 percentage point bump in extension allowance, meaning a player can now sign for 140% of his latest salaried year, instead of the previous 120%.
(For players earning below league average, the league allows for players to sign for 140% of the average salary as well, to give teams and players a fighting chance if they're on almost unrealistically small deals.)
But it'd be entirely unreasonable for the Bulls to expect White to accept a new extension this summer, based off a 140% extension number. Even if the league average compensation level becomes $15 million this summer, and Chicago offers an extension off that number, that would limit White to a starting salary of $21 million. That's probably around $10-15 million less annually than what it's going to take to get a deal done, meaning the Bulls will inevitably have to make a decision:
Either they trade White this summer, or they let him enter unrestricted free agency in 2026.
There are potential downsides, and opportunities, to both scenarios.
Trading White: If the Bulls walk this path, odds are good they won't get a full return for their star guard, seeing as any receiving team would immediately adopt the same contractual limitations that Chicago faces, while getting only one "playoff year" out of him before he's a free agent.
(Chicago could have moved White before the trade deadline in February, and thus offered teams his availability for two playoff years, which in strong likelihood would have given the Bulls a bigger return than what they can get now.)
If White is traded to, say, Orlando over the course of summer, the Magic wouldn't be able to extend him to a higher number, and they too would risk losing him the following summer.
The sole exception to this is if the Bulls trade White to a team that will have active cap space on their hands, and thus have the ability to initiate a process known as renegotiate-and-extend.
In this scenario, the team with cap space that trades for White can negotiate a new deal that replaces the final year of his contract — the one where he's earning $12.8 million — with a much higher salary, and then a new extension is built off that number.
Say the Brooklyn Nets acquire White, and they wish to spend $20 million of their cap space to add on to his contract. White's deal for 2025-26 now becomes $32.8 million, and that would be the new number to base the 140% extension limit around, allowing Brooklyn to hand White an extension that starts at $45.9 million in 2026-27, after White has finished his seventh season, which triggers his new max eligibility from 25% of the cap to 30%.
Obviously, the above is only an example. We still don't know if White will be a max-level player by that time. In some ways, the Bulls should hope that he is, so they can offer him more money in 2026 and hope to retain him off the basis of finances. This would be the path of not trading White, and letting him experience unrestricted free agency next year.
Letting White enter unrestricted free agency: As Chicago would be the incumbent team, it can offer White higher annual raises (8% off the base salary), and a fifth year on his contract. If White plays at a max or even near-max level, it'd actually be easier for the Bulls to make this offer than if he's stuck between the $30-40 million area. This is where outside teams can make offers that will be financially competitive with what the Bulls can swing, while potentially offering superior situations in regards to winning, organizational structure, and perhaps even market size.
Of course, the Bulls could simply say "screw it" and offer White the max regardless of whether he's worth it or not, in which case they'd run into a hurdle of future financial limitations, particularly if they also hand Giddey a major contract this coming summer.
Essentially, the Bulls are in a tough spot with White, and his ascension only makes it more difficult.
The fact that White can play off the ball, while also taking over possessions, makes him enormously attractive for teams that have ball-dominant superstars. If the Lakers see LeBron James retire in 2026, White would make perfect sense as a backcourt partner to Luka Dončić, and could occupy a big chunk of the salary slot left by James.
There will be plenty of teams around the league that can offer White both money, and a competitive situation. The Bulls, pending their success next season, might only be able to offer one of those elements.
As such, whether they like to or not, the Bulls will have to make a decision this summer on how to proceed. Because make no mistake, the sharks are circling, and rightfully so.
