Bulls Q&A: Coby White on faith, family and figuring it out

Presented by Nationwide Insurance Agent Jeff Vukovich

MIAMI --- Coby White doesn’t love talking about himself.

He’ll do so when asked because he understands it’s part of his job of being an NBA player. But in a perfect world, White will play the game, go home to chill with friends and family, work on his game and then work on his game some more.

The less attention he gets individually is fine with him. His focus is on his team and trying to impact winning.

But his recent play is demanding attention. In arguably the best stretch of his career, White enters Saturday’s game against the Miami Heat ranked third in the NBA with 83 3-pointers and shooting a career-high 42.8 percent from that range on career-high volume of 7.5 3-point attempts per game.

Beyond his shooting, which White has displayed before, White is making winning plays at both ends, drawing charges defensively and adeptly reading defenses offensively in improved point-guard play. In his fifth season but still only 23, White is on the ascent.

Against that backdrop, White sat down with NBC Sports Chicago following Saturday’s morning shootaround for a wide-ranging conversation that covered on-court topics that matter in one realm to off-court topics that matter far greater in the grand scheme of things.

This interview has been edited slightly for length and clarity.

NBC Sports Chicago: Do you think this is the best you’ve played in the NBA?

Coby White: Yeah, probably. As in overall, both sides of the floor, this is probably the best stretch.

Where do you think this play has come from?

I think just years of learning, years of repetition. I think I just got better over time. I continue to work at it. Like I said when I first came into the league, I knew I had a lot to work on. I knew I wasn’t a polished player. I wanted to come in and be this certain type of guy, but I had so much to work on. Each year, I just tried to stay consistent with the work. Things have started to fall in place.

Are you surprising yourself at all?

Nah, not really. Because I feel like I work really hard and I put a lot of time and effort into basketball. It’s my first love. I love it so much. I worked really hard to be at this stage.

Did you have a low point during your tenure with the Bulls, a point where your confidence was rattled?

I wouldn’t ever say I had a low point. I would say I had points where I thought I was better than how I was playing. But I didn’t look at it as low points because the one thing that’s been consistent in my life is every time adversity hits, I just always tell myself I’m going to get through it by working. I’m the type of dude where if things aren’t going my way, I just go to the gym and work on it constantly. That makes me feel better and doesn’t allow me to get to any low points.

Where do you think that quality of working to respond to adversity comes from?

I think just being from the city I’m from, being from Goldsboro (North Carolina), kind of shaped me to be who I am. It’s a poor city and a lot of people don’t make it to the situation that I made it to. I don’t know anybody else from my city that went to the NBA. I’m one of one from my city. And it’s a hard-working city, a grind-it-out city. And the people around me, the people there support me to the fullest. They want to see me succeed. When I’m out there, I’m not playing for myself. I’m playing for my family, I’m playing for God and I’m playing for my city.

What’s it like when you go back there?

It’s dope. I still got best friends that live there. Whenever I go back, nobody treats me different from when I was there. Everybody treats me the same because they know me as this goofy kid. Obviously, I was good at basketball but other than that, I was always joking and laughing and playing around so that’s how they treat me when I go back. And that’s what I really appreciate.

I was gonna say, you like that, right?

Yeah, I don’t like all the extra stuff. When I go back, I just like being treated the same. I just want to chill, bro.

DeMar DeRozan said recently that you’re very humble and you ask questions and listen. Where do you think that quality comes from?

I think that comes from my parents. My Mom and Dad never allowed me to be arrogant. They never allowed me to treat people poorly. They always taught me to be humble through everything. My Mom is the sweetest, kindest, most loving woman I’ve ever met. That’s where I think I get it from. She always taught me to love others first, put others first, treat others with respect and kindness. That’s how I lead, and I think that takes care of everything. I hate talking about myself. I always try to change the subject. I don’t know how to take compliments. That’s just how I am because my parents raised me to be like that.

I’ve never gone here other than offering condolences when we first met and feel free to say you don’t want to go here. But you talk about your parents and obviously you lost your Dad to liver cancer in 2017. What is that relationship like as you’ve moved through your career?

I feel him with me everywhere I go. Whenever I pray at night or whenever I pray before the game, I always talk to him. He’s always with me. Obviously, it’s challenging because he was such a huge part in me getting here that it sucks that he can’t see me at this stage. Like, I always think about that. He never got to see me play at North Carolina. He never got to see me play in the NBA. He’ll never get to see me get married, have kids. And it sucks for me and my family. My sister has two kids and he’ll never meet them. He was always great with kids and they would love him. But I see it as just part of life. God was calling him home and he’s in a better place now. He was suffering. I saw all the dark days he had. For me, when he got called home, it was almost a sense of relief because I hated seeing him like that. I viewed him as this superhero and then to see him suffering was hard for me.

You wrote that very moving and powerful Players’ Tribune piece on him in 2019. But when you just said he helped you so much, how specifically did he help you?

My Dad was an upfront and honest guy. This incident gave me all the motivation. This is when I kind of flipped the script. In high school, I wanted to transfer schools for basketball. Now that I look back as I’m older, he didn’t mean what he said in a mean way. But the school cost a lot of money to go to, and I wasn’t good enough to where the school would put me on scholarship. We didn’t really have the money to pay for it. And he basically said your Mom and I work so hard and I don’t think you’re good enough to go. During that summer, my Mom was all on board, my brother and sister too. He was the only one holding out. He didn’t even go with me to the school to visit. My sister had a good job, so she helped us out a lot. My Mom told my Dad, ‘You’re going to take him to school every day.’ Because it was 30 minutes away. He can’t say no to my Mom. So he took me to this school and for about the first month, me and him never talked. But when he told me I wasn’t good enough, I said to myself, ‘I’m going to prove you wrong. And I’m going to make you a believer.’ When he told me I wasn’t good enough, that shifted my perspective and my approach to basketball.

That’s powerful stuff. What did your Dad do for a living again?

He worked the graveyard shift at multiple factories. He got knee replacements because he walked on concrete his whole life. That’s why I wish he was here---to give him all the fruits. I saw how hard he worked. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t happy getting up at 10 PM to go walk on concrete at a factory and come home with his knees all swollen and aching. That’s why I try to give back to my Mom so much because she did the same thing. She worked 8 AM to 8 PM, came home and still cooked us dinner, still found ways to be there for the family. That’s why I bought her a house.

That’s a nice thing to be able to do, right?

For sure. Other than playing basketball and being around my teammates, the happiest part of my life is being with my family, being with my Mom and my brother and my sister and my niece and nephew and everybody that’s back home that I call family. They keep me grounded.

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