Noa Essengue knows how to wait for his moment.
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That’s almost all he has been allowed to do since arriving in Chicago as a lottery draft pick this summer. And when he made his NBA debut Saturday night against the Washington Wizards, that’s how he spent the majority of his 3 minutes, 53 seconds on the court.
Watching. Waiting.
For almost four minutes, Essengue was mostly a passenger to the flow of the game. He sprinted down the court and into the corner on every transition play, kept his hands near his gut, palms out in case an unexpected pass came hurling his way. His eyes tracked the ball as it swung around the arc, feet pacing into his correct spacing as if he were following a choreographed path. When a shot went up, the rookie followed dutifully toward the rim.
It didn’t last long. Essengue watched and waited for the rest of the game from his traditional seat toward the end of the bench, tucked in next to the injured players. He was stuck watching and waiting as the Bulls clawed back from a 16-point deficit. Tre Jones knocked down a pair of free throws and dived on the hardwood to force a turnover that clinched a 121-120 win.
But Essengue doesn’t mind. He’s patient. And after weeks on the sidelines, the 6-foot-9 rookie knows to cherish any minute that comes his way.
“It was nice to get on the court with my teammates since I’ve worked two or three months now,” Essengue said. “I just enjoyed it. I know I don’t get a lot of time, so I just tried to enjoy every moment.”
It’s hard to judge a rookie’s potential off less than four minutes of game time. Coach Billy Donovan acknowledged that after the win, describing Essengue’s debut as “fine” given his limited run.
Like always, Donovan had notes. Essengue missed his sole shot, a 3-pointer from the corner off the catch. He got caught up on a back screen and missed a switch as a result.
Still, Donovan knows he didn’t give Essengue enough time to do much more than wrap his mind around the pace and difficulty of an NBA game.
“I’d like to see him get his motor going a little bit more,” Donovan said. “But I was happy I could throw him in there for a few minutes.”
It took 16 games for the rookie to crack the rotation. Essengue was the last player from the 2025 lottery to make his debut. By Saturday night, 50 other rookies had played before him.
This isn’t a surprise. The Bulls never planned to plunge Essengue into heavy minutes early in his rookie season. After watching extensive film on him this summer, Donovan said the coaching staff quickly came to a consensus: “Hey, listen, this guy is going to be a long-term play. This is going to take some time.”
But Donovan also understands there’s a fine line between patience and neglect. And as Essengue’s rookie season wore on without playing time, the coach began to turn to outside options for the forward’s development.
“We can’t waste a year for him,” Donovan said. “If he’s not getting necessarily a lot of minutes this year, we’ve got to utilize the G League as best as we can where he’s playing and practicing with those guys.”
Luck hasn’t been on Essengue’s side in the early weeks of this season.
The Bulls have been blown out only twice: Nov. 12 in Detroit and Friday night at home against the Miami Heat. Both games would have offered prime opportunities for Essengue to grab a handful of minutes in garbage time — especially Friday’s loss, which saw the Bulls roster dwindle to seven available players because of injuries, fouls and an ejection. But Essengue wasn’t in the building either night.
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The Pistons game took place the day after Essengue made his G League debut in Oshkosh, Wis. And while the Bulls were flailing Friday night, Essengue was calmly dropping 22 points against the Iowa Wolves in Des Moines.
Donovan even considered mixing Essengue into Monday’s game against the Denver Nuggets as the Bulls faced a back-to-back on tired legs after a double-overtime loss in Utah. But they clearly don’t want to play Essengue in close-game scenarios in which he could cost the team valuable possessions — or hurt his confidence with a higher-profile mistake. So when the Nuggets game came down to the wire, Donovan kept the rookie on the bench.
“I was open to putting him in that game — I really was,” Donovan said. “It’s a tricky situation because in the moment the game’s going on, you’re trying to do what’s best for the team. But you’ve also got to be mindful of his development, helping him get better too.”
On Saturday, the Bulls needed backup. They were missing three forwards — Isaac Okoro, Patrick Williams and Dalen Terry — after an injury-laden loss the night before.
Even with a short-handed roster, Donovan didn’t want to throw Essengue into the deep end. Instead, he opted for smaller rotations with guards such as Jevon Carter absorbing the extra minutes missed by the trio of injured forwards. Still, the handful of minutes was an important step forward for Essengue.
For the rest of his rookie season, Essengue can expect his dance card to be cluttered. The Bulls want him to play as much as possible — but the majority of those reps likely will occur in the G League, especially in the stretch up until the All-Star break.
Essengue benefits from the larger responsibilities and longer rotations he receives with the Windy City Bulls, which give him ample time to work on a laundry list of first-year improvements. He needs to catch up to the speed of the NBA. He needs to learn how to guard multiple actions, to take a player off the dribble.
“I can always do better, be more active on the ball,” Essengue said.
Most importantly, the rookie needs to get stronger.
Essengue’s main job as a rookie takes place off the court — lifting weights and eating as much as possible. The rookie is rarely seen without a protein shake nearby. But even with these efforts, it’s a tall task to speed up the process of maturing a teenager’s body into that of a professional athlete.
“Listen — he’s 18 years old,” Donovan said. “Everybody knows physically he’s got to get stronger.”
Even after Essengue’s delayed debut, Donovan hasn’t worried about him feeling discouraged.
Donovan feels Essengue is particularly mature despite his youth. He listens carefully to his coaches, logs extra hours at night at the Advocate Center. He doesn’t flinch when his two-way duties require extensive travel, this week dragging him from Utah to Denver to Portland to Iowa and back to Chicago in seven days.
And after weeks of waiting, Essengue never pushed for a debut date, trusting that his first minutes would come when it made sense for the team.
“He knows this is going to be a process,” Donovan said.
Essengue echoed that sentiment Saturday. He kept repeating the same excited response — “It’s really cool” — when asked about his NBA debut. And when pressed on his limited minutes, the rookie turned the focus back to the team.
“We got back with a win,” Essengue said. “That’s the most important.”
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