The perfect Clippers Kobe White deal for the Bulls as the season rolls around

The NBA trade deadline is less than a month away, and rumors of player moves are heating up every day. Even more trade restrictions will be lifted on the 15th, which should further accelerate trade negotiations. And one player with continued loud trading around him Chicago Bulls guard Kobe White, who is attracting a lot of interest in the final year of his contract.

White is playing worse than last season, and a lot of that is due to the injury problems he’s had to deal with, and which are still lingering. Regardless, he is a quality young player who is only 25 years old, suggesting that he is yet to enter his prime and achieve what one would think is a higher level of play on a game-by-game basis.

ClutchPoints NBA Insider Brett Siegel spotted it White attracts a lot of attention in the trade market as a young shot creator and ball handler on an affordable deal that doesn’t require a ton of commitment. According to Siegel, Los Angeles Clippers are among the teams that reportedly kicked the tires when acquiring white.

When the Clippers were struggling earlier in the season, chasing White didn’t make much sense. But now that they are on the rise, there are certainly many advantages to reaching such a deal. But do they have enough funds to make a trade with the Bulls?

Here she is The perfect trade offer from the Clippers for the Bulls for the Whites in preparation for more play-off pressure coming in the second half of the 2025-26 campaign.

The Clippers are trying to buy low on Coby White

Clippers get: Coby White

The Bulls get: Bogdan Bogdanović, four picks of the second round

The Atlanta Hawks have been rumored to be interested in trading Trae Young for so long that it wasn’t too surprising when they finally pulled the trigger a week ago. However, Young, despite being a four-time All-Star who put up 24 and 12 a night just one season ago, so little command in the trading market that teams with small guards who aren’t very skilled defensively need to be upset – including the Bulls.

The demand for ball-dominant, shot-creating small guards has dropped so much, and the problem with Young was that it became very difficult to build around a player with as many limitations as he has. When a team commits a huge percentage of its cap space to a small guard, the team around him has to be tailored to his strengths to make it pay off. Even then, the Hawks decided to pivot, ending the Trey era on a whimper.

As for the Bulls and their potential decision to replace the Whites away from home, the fact that Young has netted so little has to be very concerning. White is a good player who can get buckets, but if Young could only get the Hawks CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert, how much worse will the return the Bulls get for White be?

Salaries, of course, play a big role in a player’s trade value. Young the real one $46 million this season and $48 million next season, which is huge money for the Wizards. White, on the other hand, is earning $12.9 million this season and will be a free agent — which lowers his trade value, but in a different way.

Without future security for the team buying him, trading for White will be a risk. For a The Clippers team asks that youn as long as Kawhi Leonard, James Harden and Ivica Zubac can sustain, taking on that kind of uncertainty will never be worth overplaying for a first-round pick — if they had a reasonable first-round pick to trade.

The Clippers can trade theirs first round elections from 2030 onwards, but White is not a player to trade one of those guys for. That would be incredible mismanagement.

In this scenario, with White’s value dropping so low due to his impending free agency, injury issues and declining play (compared to last season), the Clippers should be able to put together a competitive offer for Bulls guard centered around Bogdan Bogdanovic’s salary — with four second-rounders to work with.

These four second-rounders are the only remaining second-round picks the Clippers can trade, but getting the 25-year-old guard and buying at a low price should pay off. LA has had a mixed bag of second-round picks anyway, and at this point, acquiring a proven commodity like White for such a low price can’t be considered anything but valuable.

A backcourt of White and Harden sounds like a disaster defensively, but White would be a natural coming off the bench; in head coach Tyronn Lue’s rotation, Leonard is usually the one running the bench, with Kobe Sanders functioning as the nominal point guard. White is a simple upgrade for that spot, and also allows Sanders to play his more comfortable spot-up shooting role.

The Clippers should also have enough cap space to re-sign White over the next three to four years, which will give them insurance at the guard positions as Harden ages and Bradley Beal’s future is uncertain. The loss of Bogdanovic’s spacing hurts a bit, but White makes up for it with his shot-making abilities that should make life easier for everyone on the roster.

For the Bulls, this is simply getting any value back for someone who could go for nothing in free agency. They haven’t been very proactive in the trading market in the past, but eventually they have to learn from their past mistakes. right?

Regardless, the Bulls don’t really need to make this trade. They can re-sign White until the summer and buy him out if it comes down to it. Chicago may end up deciding to keep White and gamble their chances of keeping him instead of trading him this low. But if they decide to sell it, they should never expect to get a huge return – not in this market.