The hope is that Coby White and his strained calf are fully healed by Wednesday’s regular-season tip-off against Detroit.
The reality of the situation? That’s where it gets a little cloudier.
White, who first strained the calf back in late August, was still needing to clear one final obstacle in his rehab process and that was going through a full-contact practice. According to Bulls coach Billy Donovan on Thursday, time hasn’t exactly been on White’s side.
The original timetable had White possibly ready for the preseason finale against Minnesota, but it became clear early this week that wasn’t happening. Because the Bulls had to fly to Denver on Monday, play the game Tuesday, stayed the night and had no practice on Wednesday, White’s been forced to stay in bubble wrap.
The Bulls will have an off day on Friday, and then the bubble wrap comes off.
“The only box for him to check right now is contact, and we just haven’t been able to do that,” Donovan said of his starting guard. “Saturday will be a day we’ll get back to practice or contact, so I think that would be the monitoring of him once we get back to practice, so that’s the only hurdle he hasn’t gotten over that the medical staff wants to see how he responds.”
All well and good considering how hard White has attacked his rehab, but it also comes with a warning. Calf strains can be tricky to deal with, and he is in a free-agent year in which he has bet on himself. As the Sun-Times reported over the summer, White turned down any extension talk for the 2025-26 campaign, with both sides agreeing to revisit talks once the season ends.
Plus, as Donovan pointed out, the high-octane offense the Bulls play is hard to simulate even in practice settings.
“When you have a lower leg extremity injury like he does, I don’t care how hard he’s worked – and he’s worked really hard – you are just never going to be in the shape that these guys are in,” Donovan said. “That’s going to be a challenge for him and that will be his process in getting back on the floor.”
No matter how Saturday goes for White, he will start the season on a minutes restriction, not only to make sure the calf is holding up but so he’s also building up his conditioning.
Handle required
The goal is to obviously develop rookie Noa Essengue, but not to overwhelm the 18-year-old.
That’s why when he’s been on the floor throughout the preseason, he’s been surrounded by multiple ball-handlers, at least taking that pressure of the game off of him.
“The thing we’ve tried to do with him is keeping handling on the floor with him a little bit,” Donovan said. “Make sure there’s ball-handling around him. Not to say that he can’t do it. It’s something he’s probably not accustomed to.
“His primary role when he was playing overseas was he was out in transition, he got to the free throw line quite a bit, and he was a really good defender. So we’ve wanted to put him out there with guys where there is some extra ball-handling for him.”
Bumps and bruises
Not having White and Isaac Okoro (knee) for the preseason finale wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t all bad against the Timberwolves.
The Bulls did get Tre Jones, Kevin Huerter and Julian Phillips back on Thursday, as all three were dealing with general soreness. They were kept on a minutes restriction, however.