The Bulls are continuing to take their time with guard Coby White’s recovery from a calf strain he suffered in August before training camp.
Coach Billy Donovan said Tuesday that White is now doing start-and-stop movements that had initially caused him discomfort, as well as running, sprinting, cutting and jumping. But after a flare-up of the injury in October, when the Bulls tried to ramp him up before the season, the training staff wants to see him doing these movements for an extended period of time without any setbacks.
Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton and Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard are among the players who notably returned from calf injuries only to experience more severe injuries shortly thereafter. The Bulls want to make sure White’s calf is healed entirely before he returns to game action — which they hope is within a couple of weeks.
“The hope would be that by next week he’s practicing with us,” Donovan said.
Without White, the Bulls (6-1) have been off to their best start since the Michael Jordan era with a relentless up-and-down style. Donovan isn’t concerned that White might disrupt what’s working because he isn’t a ball-dominant guard. However, his return will force several of the other guards to adjust their roles, and Donovan to reimagine his rotation.
“I spoke to Coby last week about this very briefly,” Donovan said. “I think the mistake that he can make is, one, to come back tiptoeing in. That’d be the first issue. And then the second thing, he’s going to have to give himself some grace. Quite honestly, I don’t think you can go a good portion of August and then all of September, October [and] training camp [without playing and] not have that. It’s going to take him some time. And I think he needs to be patient with himself. He really holds himself to a very high standard.”
Dosunmu update
Guard Ayo Dosunmu, who’s progressing but still day-to-day with a bruised left quadriceps, missed his second straight game Tuesday night against the 76ers. In their first loss of the season Sunday against the Knicks, the Bulls missed his ability to attack the rim and his propensity for creating turnovers. He’s averaging 16.2 points, three rebounds and 3.2 assists.
“I think the biggest concern is just him just being able to fire that quad in a way that’s necessary,” Donovan said. “We thought there’d be an opportunity for him to go [Tuesday], but he’s just not quite there.”
Looking back on that loss
Donovan wasn’t pleased with the Bulls’ ball movement against the Knicks, saying he didn’t think they did a good enough job of getting back in transition or boxing out.
Despite their early success this season, they don’t have the margin for error to ignore the little details.
“It wasn’t like we didn’t have bodies back [in transition] — I just thought that they drove through us,” Donovan said.
