Coby White wants to be remembered for the work.
There were more hard times than celebrations during the former Bulls guard’s six seasons in Chicago. Only one of those seasons ended with a winning record or a playoff series. Failure was a constant. Frustration too. White knows that. He can’t change it now.
But those weren’t the memories White wanted to recall Tuesday, when he was scheduled to make his debut for the Charlotte Hornets in the arena he previously called home for his entire NBA career. When he steps onto the United Center court — both Tuesday and for every future game there — White hopes Chicago will remember him as a player who never stopped trying to be better.
“I want to just be an inspiration to guys who maybe early on didn’t pan out like everybody thought they would,” White said. “Some guys come in the league and they’re good their whole career. I had to develop and I had to really work.
“I had so many different roles and I went from averaging nine points to 20 points per game. The development part of it, the part when everybody counts you out — you’ve still got time to always change that narrative.”
For all his love for Chicago, White’s return on Tuesday wasn’t a visibly sentimental affair. The guard grinned and cracked jokes as he reunited with the few former teammates remaining on the Bulls roster. He didn’t watch most of the tribute video played during the first timeout of the game, his eyes glued to the whiteboard held by Charlotte coach Charles Lee during the break in action.
White gave a wave to fans as he received a standing ovation, checking into the game shortly thereafter with five minutes and 30 seconds left in the first quarter. From that moment on, the guard helped the Hornets thoroughly embarrass the team that drafted him into the league, dropping the Bulls 131-99 in their 10th consecutive loss.
It wasn’t the guard’s best outing. White played only 15 minutes, but he made an impact in that brief stretch with 10 points and four assists. Tuesday’s game wasn’t about revenge or proving himself. It was the first opportunity to build a rhythm with a new team for the first time in his NBA career.
But after the game, White tapped into a deep well of gratitude for the connection he built with the city of Chicago during the early years of his young career. He saw the jerseys bearing his name throughout the stands at the arena. He heard the fans calling his name, already asking him to come back. It only took one trip back to the United Center to remember what it meant for a place to become a home.
“You don’t really know the impact you have on people and the impact that people have on you,” White said after the game. “That was very humbling for me. … I just tried to be in the moment but also show ultimate gratitude in that moment. It’s very funny to find out how many people you impact through this beautiful game that we play.”
The newness manifested in strange ways. White had never stepped foot in the visiting locker room at the United Center before Tuesday morning’s shootaround. He’s still getting used to wearing the No. 3 on the back of his jersey, a pragmatic selection made to get as close to his former No. 0, which he didn’t even attempt to buy off Miles Bridges when he arrived in Charlotte.
The quickness of this return to the United Center only added to the surreal nature of the night — both for White and for those who spent the last six years watching him grow in Chicago.
“It’s certainly different,” coach Billy Donovan said. “I’m just happy he’s back healthy and playing. … When you get a chance to be with somebody early in their career at a young age, I really enjoyed just seeing his growth and his development as a player and how hard he worked and how resilient and tough he was mentally. … I think that Charlotte is getting somebody that’s a winner, a great competitor and a great team guy.”
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White knew this was coming, though not too far in advance. Even in the weeks leading up to the trade deadline, he held out hope that the Bulls could see a future with him, that he could shake his calf injuries for good and begin leading the team to wins.
But when Kevin Huerter and Nikola Vučević were dealt in quick succession two days before the deadline, White felt the shift coming. In the locker room after that night’s game in Milwaukee — a night White knew would be his last in a Bulls jersey — the reality of the future began to sink in.
“I had a feeling,” White said. “You could read between the lines. It ain’t hard in this league, in this business, to see what’s going on.”
The call came the next morning after White logged an off-day workout in Toronto. Executive vice president of basketball operations Artūras Karnišovas called him shortly before the news of the trade went public. White had enough time to fit in a handful of goodbyes in the team hotel before catching a flight to Houston to meet his new team.
It wasn’t until that flight — leaving one unfamiliar city for another — that the emotions began to hit White in rapid succession.
Playing basketball would have eased the transition, but White wasn’t afforded that luxury. Almost immediately upon his arrival in Charlotte, the Hornets raised concerns about his readiness to play.
White suffered a calf strain in his right leg in August, a preseason injury that ultimately sidelined him until mid-November. When he returned, he began to experience tightness in his left calf, which caused him to miss more games and work under a minutes restriction as the season progressed. But White said the two injuries felt different.
He never worried about a serious injury in his left calf until he was traded to Charlotte, where he underwent an MRI that identified the tightness was actually a symptom of a full sprain. The Hornets shut White down through All-Star weekend and held him out of the first three games after the break. They also successfully negotiated to retain one of the second-round draft picks initially attached in the trade.
The implication of the injury saga rankled White, who felt the Bulls medical team provided adequate care during his time in Chicago. He played 30 minutes in his final game with the Bulls and felt he could have played through the calf injury throughout the last two weeks.
“It had nothing to do with (the Bulls medical staff),” White said. “When that whole thing went down — everybody can have their opinions — but the medical staff always had my best interest here. If I had never gotten traded, I probably would have never even said anything about it just because I thought it was just tightness.
“It was nobody’s fault. The medical staff always did right by me since I was here.”
White doesn’t know what comes next. His contract expires at the end of the season. He heard chatter that the Hornets front office is interested in keeping him for the long term, but those were secondhand accounts from radio and podcast appearances.
This will be White’s first foray into unrestricted free agency. At this point in his career, he’s pragmatic enough to know anything can happen with money on the line.
And in the center of this flurry of change and uncertainty, White still is making peace with his time in Chicago.
Nearly seven years ago, the Bulls drafted White with the No. 7 pick and told him he could be somebody. The organization believed in him and trusted him and challenged him. Coach Billy Donovan guided him through every major milestone of his professional career. Teammates from DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine to Ayo Dosunmu and Patrick Williams redefined how he saw himself on and off the court.
White wanted it to work out here. Even on the morning he was traded, he still believed it could. But as he prepares for a future in a different jersey and number and time zone, White refuses to allow regret to dominate his memories of Chicago.
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“You could always live in ‘what could have been,’” he said. “I’ve kind of learned through my life that ‘what could have been’ brings you nothing but anxiousness and worry.
“Things happen for a reason. That’s just how the chips fell. A lot of it is out of your control. I don’t really try to live in the ‘what if.’”