{"id":68213,"date":"2024-03-14T17:32:32","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T21:32:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=68213"},"modified":"2024-03-14T17:32:32","modified_gmt":"2024-03-14T21:32:32","slug":"bulls-popular-playmaker-coby-white-keeps-nba-award-hopes-alive-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/03\/14\/bulls-popular-playmaker-coby-white-keeps-nba-award-hopes-alive-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Popular Bulls Playmaker Keeps Playoff, Award Hopes Alive"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Wednesday, Chicago Bulls guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/whiteco01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Coby White<\/a> became the latest player to take land awkwardly while trying to make a play in transition. After racing two Indiana Pacers defenders down the court for a layup attempt, White hit the ground as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/s\/siakapa01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pascal Siakam<\/a> fell on top of him. White&#8217;s leg bent unnaturally. Immediately after the play, it looked like he could miss a lengthy stretch in recovery.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">This was the play he got injured on <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/dD4Cse5eKv\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/dD4Cse5eKv<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 ChicagoBullsCentral (@BullsCentraI) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BullsCentraI\/status\/1768349150595195234?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 14, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>However, per ESPN insider Adrian Wojnarowski, White escaped from the play with a mild hip strain. The fifth-year pro could return to the court as early as Saturday, he reports.<\/p>\n<h2>Coby White Keeps Playoff, Award Hopes Alive<\/h2>\n<p>White will miss at least one game as the Bulls take on the Los Angeles Clippers on Thursday. Nonetheless, this is major news for both White and the team.<\/p>\n<p>A projected finalist for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/03\/05\/bulls-rising-star-reveals-mindset-amid-award-worthy-season\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Most Improved Player Award<\/a>, White has already passed the 65-game threshold to receive a league honor. Nonetheless, White faces steep competition for the award, even with Houston Rockets center <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/s\/sengual01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alperen Sengun<\/a> likely to miss the remainder of the regular season with a high ankle sprain.<\/p>\n<h3>Most Improved Player Award Race<\/h3>\n<p>Philadelphia 76ers guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/maxeyty01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tyrese Maxey<\/a> hit the court like wildfire to start the season, averaging 30.3 points and 6.3 assists per game in October. His numbers have cooled since, but he&#8217;s still hot, averaging 25.9 points and 6.2 assists per game. With Maxey, context is almost as important as the numbers. Replacing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/hardeja01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">James Harden<\/a> after the three-time scoring champion forced a trade to the Clippers, his play has been invaluable in their journey toward the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n<p>Brooklyn Nets guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/t\/thomaca02.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cam Thomas<\/a> has essentially doubled his scoring average from last season (10.6) to this season (21.3). Like White, Thomas has also <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/03\/12\/nets-microwave-scorer-cam-thomas-candid-playoffs-nba-award\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">overcome significant adversity<\/a> ahead of his breakout season. Once pigeonholed as a sixth man archetype, he&#8217;s putting in the work to become more well-rounded, making strides as a two-way playmaker.<\/p>\n<p>Golden State Warriors forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/k\/kuminjo01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jonathan Kuminga<\/a> could also hear his name announced as the award-winner. While playing a career-high 26.0 minutes per game, he&#8217;s averaging 16.1 points per game. In the 38 games that he&#8217;s been a starter, he&#8217;s averaged 17.4 points per game. Even more notable, the Warriors are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/k\/kuminjo01\/splits\/2024\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">22-16 since he was promoted<\/a> to the first unit but just 34-31 (10th in the West) on the season.<\/p>\n<h3>Playoff Picture<\/h3>\n<p>As for the Bulls, they sit at 32-34, ninth in the East.<\/p>\n<p>Though 6.0 games ahead of the 11th-place Nets (26-40), their roster has already been decimated by injuries. They could very well slip out of the playoff picture if White were out for an extended period. The 24-year-old averages 19.5 points and 5.2 assists per game this season while shooting 38.8 percent from 3. He&#8217;s also the league leader in minutes played with 2,425.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Wednesday, Chicago Bulls guard Coby White became the latest player to take land awkwardly while trying to make a play in transition. After racing two Indiana Pacers defenders down the court for a layup attempt, White hit the ground as Pascal Siakam fell on top of him. White&#8217;s leg bent unnaturally. Immediately after the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":68227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,1608,62,3],"tags":[4069,1782,4297,49106,4745,596,2478],"class_list":["post-68213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bulls","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","tag-cam-thomas","tag-coby-white","tag-jonathan-kuminga","tag-nba-award","tag-nba-injuries","tag-nba-playoffs","tag-tyrese-maxey"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}