Coby White bet on himself for the 2025-26 season.

On Monday, the first roll of the dice for the Bulls guard came up snake eyes.

After being cleared for full-contact practice over the weekend and coming out of it with a “he looked good” by the organization, the team announced that White would in fact not be ready for the start of the season and would be re-evaluated in two weeks.

“It wasn’t a setback,” coach Billy Donovan explained of the Monday news. “He went through the majority (of the Saturday practice), but I think coming out of that practice he felt tightness again back there. Until he can get past that hurdle on a consistent basis, because I think we had talked about the minutes restriction was going to be 20-24 minutes, but we’re not even at that point right now until he can get out on the court without significant tightness in his calf.”

The close-up view is for a team that prioritized a quick start to this regular season, White will now miss games against Detroit, Orlando, Atlanta, Sacramento, and two against the Knicks at the least. Six games that were a real measuring stick to what this roster was.

And that’s best-case scenario.

He’s being re-evaluated in two weeks, not cleared.

In all likelihood, White will also be absent for the likes of Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Cleveland.

“I mean it sucks,” guard Josh Giddey said. “You never want to see a player injured, and I know for myself how hard it is to be on the sideline watching. Coby is such an important piece to what we do.”

Which was on full display post trade deadline last year, when Giddey and White finally got into a rhythm of playing with each other, evident by the gaudy numbers they put up in the team’s 15-5 regular-season finish.

“We had a really good, strong end of the season last year, and that was obviously momentum we were hoping to build off of,” Giddey said. “Injuries are part of the game, it happens. When he’s back, I think that momentum will pick up fairly quickly from where we left off.”

All involved better hope so. Not only did the Bulls stress starting the season off on solid ground, but White had walked away from talks about a contract extension prior to this season, banking on the fact that he would be better served to wait until the summer of 2026, where he would be in position to make a much bigger pay day as an unrestricted free agent.

The Bulls understood that, and the Sun-Times reported that both sides had agreed they would be willing to sit down at the table next offseason and try to make that happen before White went shopping elsewhere.

This setback doesn’t change that, but it does throw a monkey wrench into big plans White and the Bulls were hoping for out of the gate in October.

The Bulls had already learned over the weekend that they would be without key reserve center Zach Collins (wrist surgery) for at least a month, and now got the White gut punch on top of it.

“It’s definitely a bummer being without Coby and our big fella Zach,” guard Tre Jones said. “With an NBA season, it’s a long season, and everyone has to stay ready. Depth is a huge thing for this team, so we have guys that will be ready to step up.”

Considering White averaged 24.5 points per game and grabbed 4.4 rebounds in the final 26 regular-season games, they need a jump up, not just a “step up.”

Jones and Ayo Dosunmu will get the first look to slide into that starting role, and it could change game to game, according to Donovan.

“I feel bad for those guys,” Donovan said of White and Collins. “Those are two of our better workers … for us it’s two big losses, obviously.”