Coby White sometimes slips into a philosophical mindset after a game.
Especially after a loss. That’s when the Chicago Bulls guard begins reaching for metaphor and verse, trying out the patient wisdom that befits the veteran leader of a locker room — even if he’s only 25..
“I don’t know how y’all’s life goes,” White said, surveying the scrum of reporters assembled at his locker after Friday’s loss to the Indiana Pacers. “Is it always like this?” — he tipped his hand up, tracing a sharp upward curve as his face crumpled quizzically with the rhetorical question — “Or sometimes do y’all have ups and downs and ebbs and flows?
“Right now, we’re like this,” White continued, dipping his hand to demonstrate the decline the Bulls have traversed over the last month. “And then we have to figure out a way to get back up.”
Photos: Golden State Warriors 123, Chicago Bulls 91
The Bulls are certainly in the dip, having lost seven straight games and 13 of 16. Their 6-1 start didn’t do much besides hike expectations to unsustainable heights, creating a greater mess when they came crashing back down to reality. They now have completed a 10-game swing, going from five games above .500 to five games below in 33 days.
Something has to change. But the Bulls haven’t shown a clear strategy — or urgency — for shaking themselves out of this drought.
It doesn’t help that injuries have hollowed the roster into a husk of the one they assembled for training camp. The injury report stretches as long as the starting lineup: Kevin Huerter out with a groin strain, Tre Jones and Jalen Smith trying to ease back from muscle strains, Isaac Okoro sidelined indefinitely with a back injury and rookie Noa Essengue done for the season to undergo shoulder surgery.
But the Bulls can’t blame all of their woes on injuries and absences. A team can’t rely on its starting small forward and backup center to provide the majority of its defensive thrust. Or on a pair of guards to provide the majority of its offensive creativity.
“We’ve had an enormous amount of injuries,” Donovan said. “Having seven guys (available) is challenging for any team. I always believe that if you’ve got nine or 10 guys that are committed to doing the things necessary, there’s enough in that locker room. I really believe that.”
Even amid his optimism, White acknowledges the offense has taken a significant step backward. The Bulls had the fourth-worst offensive rating in the NBA over the last three weeks. Some of that regression is due to adjustments by opposing defenses — switching at all positions, greeting ballhandlers with a press at half-court, sending fewer offensive rebounders to keep the Bulls out of transition.
The Bulls understand the formula for getting themselves back on track. After all, it hasn’t changed since the first game of the season.
Bludgeon the ball to the rim, use discretion with 3-point shots, whip passes at a breathtaking pace. Force opponents off the offensive glass with box-outs, improve efficiency at the rim, alleviate pressure on ballhandlers by playing through the middle. These solutions may seem simple and straightforward, but the reality is more strenuous.
“Nothing in the league is easily fixable,” White said. “We’re playing against the best competition every night, the best players in the world. We’re going to have to put in the effort. We’re going to have to fight and claw our way back to where we want to get to. But I believe we can.”
Bulls players stand for the national anthem before a game against the Warriors on Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, at the United Center. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)
Nothing is hopeless. Not yet. The Bulls were 11th in the Eastern Conference through Sunday, the first rung below postseason positioning. And the conference is still a disaster — a fact that gives the Bulls crucial leeway.
The Washington Wizards, Indiana Pacers, Brooklyn Nets and Charlotte Hornets won’t make a run for the playoffs. And as long as Giannis Antetokounmpo stays on the injury report — or potentially is moved — the Milwaukee Bucks, who were 10th entering Monday, should be contained to the lower third of the standings. That doesn’t mean the Bulls are guaranteed anything without improvement, but it leaves enough runway for them to correct course.
First, they have to stop losing.
Frustration might boil over soon. This is a young roster. That five-game opening winning streak didn’t even begin to whet their appetite for success. Players such as White and Patrick Williams have played in only one playoff series during half a decade in Chicago. Hope is dangerous for a group with low expectations that somehow still never has lived up to its potential.
But losses have yet to fracture this team. Guard Josh Giddey feels the locker room has grown more unified through this skid than it was during the winning streak at the start of the season.
“You start losing some and it’s easy for guys to splinter and go the wrong way and separate from the team,” Giddey said. “Credit to the group — coaches have kept us together, we’ve kept ourselves together. I feel really confident about this team.”
White cited this bond as a strength of the team, describing a series of “tough and honest” conversations among Bulls players over the last week as the losing streak stretched longer.
The Bulls point to their clutch numbers — seven of their 14 losses occurred with a margin of five or fewer points in the final five minutes — as evidence of their ability to rectify their current position. White feels the Bulls often lose their grip for a minute or a quarter at a time but rarely allow themselves to be bodied out of a game.
Still, long discussions can do only so much for a team five games below .500.
“You can have the conversations and you can hold each other accountable, and stuff can still go bad,” White said.
For the Bulls to salvage this season, talk must translate into action. And until this team gets back into the win column, vows of individual optimism and locker-room unity will ring hollow in Chicago.