Bulls trade Coby White to the Hornets for package including Collin Sexton

Julia Poe, Chicago Tribune on Feb 4, 2026

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CHICAGO — After seven years with the team, Coby White no longer will wear a Chicago Bulls jersey.

The Bulls traded White to the Charlotte Hornets Wednesday along with Mike Conley Jr., getting back Collin Sexton, Ousmane Dieng and three second-round draft picks.

The No. 7 pick in the 2019 draft, White was the last remaining player acquired before vice president of basketball operations Artūras Karnišovas took the reins in the front office in April 2020. He was a rare source of consistency for the Bulls through two roster overhauls, developing from a score-first guard as a promising rookie into the anchor of the Bulls offense.

White was averaging 18.6 points and 4.7 assists in 29 games this season after missing nearly half the season with a series of calf injuries.

Despite his importance to the roster, White, 25, emerged as a leading trade asset for the Bulls because of his expiring contract. While his three-year, $36 million deal — inked in 2023 shortly before a breakout season — was considered a steal, White’s contract expectations in his upcoming unrestricted free agency didn’t fit with the Bulls’ priority of creating financial flexibility to build around younger players such as Matas Buzelis and Josh Giddey.

The Bulls sought a first-round pick in exchange for White throughout trade talks this season, a source said, but ultimately couldn’t find a trade partner willing to exchange that level of draft capital for White’s expiring deal.

White stamped a name for himself as a shooter — starting in college, where he broke North Carolina’s freshman record for 3-pointers. He is a career 36.8% shooter behind the arc and averaged a career-high 2.9 made 3s last season.

But White took a true leap when he developed his game to become a well-rounded playmaker, embracing challenges from coach Billy Donovan to expand into a combo guard who could help helm the Bulls offense. He finished second behind the Philadelphia 76ers’ Tyrese Maxey in voting for the 2023-24 Most Improved Player award after doubling his points and assists per game from the prior season.

Despite his longevity in Chicago, White played in only five playoff games with the Bulls. The team missed the postseason entirely in his first two seasons and was eliminated in the play-in tournament the last three seasons. His sole playoff experience remains a 4-1 first-round series loss to the Milwaukee Bucks in 2022.

He returns to his home state to join a rising Hornets team anchored by LaMelo Ball, Miles Bridges and Rookie of the Year candidate Kon Knueppel — and will join a campaign to potentially knock the Bulls out of play-in tournament position. The Hornets are one game behind the 10th-place Bulls in the Eastern Conference standings.

Sexton, 27, is another guard in his mid-20s on an expiring deal, an archetype the Bulls have loaded up on during a flurry of deadline trades. The No. 8 pick in the 2018 draft by the Cleveland Cavaliers, Sexton was averaging 14.2 points in 42 games this season, mostly off the bench, after the Utah Jazz traded him to the Hornets last summer.

The 22-year-old Dieng — who was traded from the Oklahoma City Thunder to the Hornets earlier in the day as part of a three-team deal that sent Jared McCain from the 76ers to the Thunder — could address the Bulls’ lack of size after they traded away center Nikola Vučević on Tuesday. The 6-foot-9 Dieng can play the four or five, fitting the versatile player type the Bulls are seeking from two-big rotations.

The No. 11 pick in 2022, Dieng struggled to find playing time on a stacked Thunder roster, logging only 27 appearances off the bench this season. His age fits the timeline the Bulls are working on with Giddey, 23, Buzelis, 21, and Ousmane’s fellow Frenchman Noa Essengue, 19.

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