Former North Carolina standout Coby White is set to be a restricted free agent this Summer after spending four seasons with the Chicago Bulls.
White was a lottery pick of the Bulls in the 2019 NBA draft and has had a streaky career. But late this past season, White found his groove off the bench and gave the Bulls a reason to match any offer he gets in free agency to bring him back.
However, one NBA analyst thinks White would be better off somewhere else.
Grant Hughes of Bleacher Report wrote on White as one of the NBA free agents that could blow up on new teams. Here is what he said about the guard:
Coby White’s failure to meet expectations as the No. 7 overall pick from 2019 is at least partly due to a tough situation. The restricted free agent found himself in a high-usage on-ball role as a teenaged rookie, and the growing pains were predictably pronounced.
As the Bulls acquired more experienced (and expensive) guards, his responsibilities diminished. That reduced role obscured his steady year-over-year improvement. Quietly, his true shooting percentage hit a career-high 57.2 percent in 2022-23. He and Alperen Sengün were the only players 22 or younger to log at least 70 games while averaging over 14.0 points, 4.0 assists and 4.0 rebounds per 36 minutes with that level of scoring efficiency.
That’s some admittedly thin-sliced data, but a zoomed-out perspective makes just as compelling of a case for White as a breakout candidate. He’s heading into his age-23 season with four years of experience and consistently climbing catch-all metrics. Both his Estimated Plus/Minus and Box Plus/Minus have improved every season, and he broke into positive territory in the latter for the first time in 2022-23.
White has excellent positional size at 6’5″, reps as a primary ball-handler and secondary scorer, an 85.4 percent career free-throw percentage that suggests his 36.7 percent hit rate from deep will climb and promising per-minute numbers for his age.
The only thing he needs to bust out is a chance to play someplace that doesn’t have well-compensated All-Stars and All-Defensive team members ahead of him in the pecking order.
White has made it known that he wants to be a starter somewhere and earn a nice payday. Looking at the options, there are some teams that make sense including Phoenix who could move on from Chris Paul. A team like Charlotte or Detroit also makes sense as does Brooklyn where he could reunite with Cam Johnson.
The point guard will certainly be someone to keep an eye on in free agency.
Follow us @TarHeelsWire on Twitter and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of North Carolina Tar Heels news, notes and opinions.