Coby White embraces leadership role for new-look Bulls

Coby White embraces leadership role for new-look Bulls originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago

Presented by Nationwide Insurance Agent Jeff Vukovich

Coby White began his Tuesday by watching new Chicago Bulls teammate Josh Giddey play for Australia at the Paris Olympics and continued it with an appearance at White’s youth basketball park in Bedford Park.

It’s all part of a leadership process that White most strongly began displaying last season during a breakout campaign in which he finished second in NBA’s Most Improved Player voting.

And with the new makeup of the Bulls, who traded Alex Caruso for Giddey, signed-and-traded DeMar DeRozan and drafted 19-year-old Matas Buzelis to pair with White, Ayo Dosunmu and Patrick Williams, White knows his leadership will be counted on even more.

“We got a younger team this year,” White told a media group that included NBC Sports Chicago. “So we’re trying to take steps in that (leadership) category.”

In fact, White said he and Ayo Dosunmu, who also attended the camp with his father, have talked about this very dynamic. That echoes words that Williams voiced during NBA Summer League in Las Vegas after Williams re-signed with the Bulls.

“DeMar always led by example. He wasn’t always the loudest guy in the room or most talkative guy in the room. But if we had a meeting, he was early. If we had a bus time, he was one of the first ones there. He was never late to a meeting. He was always ready to go. When the game came, it was always about business,” White said. “And the way he took me, Dos, DT (Dalen Terry), Pat under his wing, it shed light on the things that I’m looking forward to when I get older. And that can start now for me.”

Indeed, White, 24, is entering his sixth NBA season. There are high expectations for a player who averaged 19.1 points and 5.1 assists last season while averaging 36.5 minutes over 79 games in a huge jump in responsibility.

White said he’s been working on his conditioning and shooting off the dribble during an offseason that included time with DeRozan.

“I feel that’s a relationship that’s going to last a lifetime,”…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/coby-white-embraces-leadership-role-002647360.html

Author : NBC Sports Chicago

Publish date : 2024-08-07 00:26:47

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