Does it make sense for Coby White to return to the Chicago Bulls?

Final mock 2026 NBA drafts are coming out. With under a week to go before Adam Silver walks up to the podium and announces the picks, most NBA people agree that the Bulls have an easy choice at No. 4.

One of AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer or Caleb Wilson will fall to them and there is not much to think about. The consensus still is that Caleb Wilson from the University of North Carolina will be a Bull.

Either way, some Bulls fans will dislike the pick, preferring Darius Acuff, an offensive juggernaut, or Aday Mara, widely viewed as the best center in the class. Before the lottery, when the Bulls appeared locked into the ninth pick, I hoped they could somehow land Mara because an intimidating defensive presence in the paint has been a pressing need for years.

After that top four pick, the Bulls will still need a center and if Wilson is the pick, they will need shooters. That also holds true if they draft Boozer. Only if Dybantsa or Peterson falls to them will they be able to focus strictly on a big at No. 15.

Mock drafts have them choosing Hannes Steinbach, Jayden Quaintance or Chris Cenac Jr. to fill the need at center. Others have them drafting Cameron Carr for his shooting, with the assumption that Wilson or Boozer will be the pick at No. 4.

One thing is clear: if the Bulls take a big at No. 15, they will need to add shooting either with the No. 38 pick, through a trade, or in free agency. Josh Giddey, Rob Dillingham, and Tre Jones are not known for stretching the floor. Without better half-court spacing, Matas Buzelis, Wilson and whichever big they select at No. 15 will have limited room to operate.

Wilson made a comment recently about Bulls players drafted from North Carolina doing well for the team, an obvious reference to Michael Jordan. But there is another former Bulls player from North Carolina who had a decent career while playing for Chicago and that is Coby White.

White, drafted with the seventh pick in the 2019 NBA draft by then general manager Gar Forman, managed to be the only player from that era to play all the years Artūras Karnišovas ran the team. A combo guard who became the all-time leading scorer in North Carolina high school basketball history, he played one year at UNC, where he broke the school record for the most three-point baskets by a freshman in school history.

When he first came to the Bulls, the thought was that he would be a point guard and that is the position that White always saw for himself. Yet for the next few years, he bounced around between point guard and shooting guard. He also had injuries that hurt his development. Only after Josh Giddey and Tre Jones arrived in Chicago did Coby primarily operate as a shooting guard.

He won player of the month in March of 2025 and finished second in sixth man of the year award for the 2024-25 season. He is second, only to Zach LaVine, for three pointers in Bulls history.

White was traded to his hometown Charlotte Hornets at the February deadline, where he averaged 15.6 points in 19.3 minutes per game (as opposed to 29.1 mpg for the Bulls). His standout moment came in a play-in game against the Miami Heat, when he posted nineteen points on 5-of-8 shooting from three, along with five rebounds, three assists and two steals. Over one two-minute stretch, he sparked an 11-4 run by himself, putting Charlotte up six and helping send the Hornets to a second play-in game.

The point is that White is a scorer by trade, who can play backup point guard as he did in Charlotte, can put up points in bunches, and he stretches the floor. He is the perfect spark plug off the bench, or starting shooting guard, for a team that can cover for his defensive lapses. The Bulls, having traded both him and Ayo Dosunmu, and then having to let go of Jaden Ivey, need what White has to offer.

Dosunmu is in the same ballpark. Chicago fans would love to see a return to Chicago for their hometown favorite, and he could be their first choice of the two, but fans at the United Center loved Coby also. They never got to see what Coby could do with an athletic front line.

Wilson, Matas Buzelis, Noa Essengue, Leonard Miller and Hannes Steinbach kicking out for open looks or running pick and roll with him would be quite different than playing him with a slow defensive center like Nikola Vucevic, who had the lowest vertical jump in the NBA, and DeMar DeRozan, whose game was as a master of the mid-range.

What is Coby worth as a free agent on the open market? One would assume that he would ask for a deal that pays around $25 million annually.

The Hornets own his bird rights, but the question is what would they be willing to pay for a backup guard? If they do not resign him, a sign and trade is possible. A recent rumor had the Detroit Pistons being interested in such a move to acquire him.

Surely, White (and Ayo) would like to land on a playoff team but the Bulls have boatloads of cash, he is still young and there is exciting new energy in the building. New executive vice president of basketball operations Bryson Graham is rebuilding the roster and new head coach Tiago Splitter is bringing a new philosophy.

After the draft, free agency will quickly jump into play. The Bulls will need a shooter, and Coby White may be deserving of another shot. The Bulls may want to remember that those Tar Heels do hold a special place in the heart of Bulls fans and “Caleb to Coby” has a nice ring to it, hopefully even a seventh ring.