Coby White is having a rough stretch following his return to the Chicago Bulls rotation, but brighter days are definitely ahead for the high-scoring guard.
Coby White is having a rough stretch following his return to the Chicago Bulls rotation, but brighter days are definitely ahead for the high-scoring guard. To be clear, White is still playing some solid basketball since returning to the floor. Over seven games, White is averaging 22.1 points, 2.7 rebounds, and 5.4 assists per game, but he is shooting an ice-cold 30.6% from 3-point range.
The 30.6% from 3-point range is--as one would imagine--by far the worst mark of White's career, and the foundation of what I believe will be a clear "bounce back" stretch from White soon. For his career, White is a 36.8% 3-point shooter with his worst season accuracy-wise being 35.4% his rookie year. In layman's terms: White will shoot better from 3 this season than he currently is, and a hot stretch of shooting is going to bring his percentages up soon, it's just a matter of how soon.
Over his last three games, White is 2-15 from 3-point range, including 0-4 from deep over 25 minutes in a blowout loss to the Golden State Warriors.
White missed the first 11 games of the season as he recovered from a calf injury, but didn't look to have any rust as he dropped 27 points in a thrilling OT loss to the Jazz in Utah. He knocked down 3-8 from 3-point range in that game, and followed that up with 5-9 shooting from 3-point range a couple of days later against the Portland Trail Blazers.
But as of late, that rust of starting his season late has shown up a bit with the struggles from deep. The silver lining for White--which, speaking of silver linings--is that he has turned it up a notch in terms of drawing contact on drives to the rim. White averaged 7.4 free throw attempts per game in November, and he is currently sitting at a whopping 9.5 FTAs per game through a pair of December games.
The Bulls are, obviously, struggling mightily as a team, but White looks like he is close to turning the corner and going back to the player we saw over the second-half of last season. If White continues to get to the charity stripe often as his current career-high 8.0 FTAs per game through seven games would suggest, then once the 3-pointers start to fall at their usual rate, he would be very close to being the type of dynamic scorer who can be the 1B on offense for a great team. Now for the Bulls to find everything else--including a 1A scorer on offense--that makes up a great team.
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