NBA Awards Rankings: New No. 1 in Most Improved Player race

19.1 PPG | 4.8 RPG | 5.3 APG | .454 FG% | .387 3P% | .834 FT%

After being relegated to bench duties for a couple years, Coby White has started all 61 games for the Chicago Bulls this season. What began as a response to injuries has evolved into a beacon of light in the unquenchable storm. It's impossible to tell which direction the Bulls franchise will take, but we can safely assume White will be at the heart of it. He has developed into Chicago's best player and, at 24 years old, he is the perfect incentive for the front office to rebuild. They already have a foundation.

White has long been a dynamic 3-point shooter, but his ascent happens to coincide with career-best efficiency and volume (7.3 attempts per game). He's stretching defenses thin, then tearing right through the middle. White's growth as a slasher has been mesmerizing to watch. He shifts gears effortlessly, blending speeds and changing direction on a dime. His shifty handles, combined with improvement as a finisher inside and a bankable pull-up jumper, renders White extremely difficult to contain.

Now, in addition to the self-creation and shot-making, White is setting the table for teammates. He's leveraging his downhill speed and increasing gravity to set up open shooters and promote ball movement. White is impactful away from the ball as well, frequently curling off screens and running into spot-up 3s. The versatility of his skill set, in addition to excellent positional size at 6-foot-5, makes White the poster child for modern point guards.

He has never been much of a defender, but White's offensive repertoire has expanded and calcified in wholly unexpected ways. Last season, it felt like White was trending toward career-long bench purgatory. Now he is Chicago's leader — a bundle of live-wire energy keeping the Bulls' corpse from passing to the other side.