Friendship between guards that started with a prank may now be essential to Bulls winning

Bulls guard Coby White loves asking questions about other cultures, so when he first met new Aussie teammate Josh Giddey before the start of training camp last fall, he was curious.

Giddey, who had arrived in a swap for Alex Caruso that summer, gave White a warning: If he ever gets to Australia, whatever he does, he should be careful of the drop bear — a vicious, carnivorous marsupial that dwells in trees, pouncing on unsuspecting victims.

Great to know. White carried the information with him well into the season.

Until he found out it wasn’t true. The drop bear is fiction that Australians like to tell tourists so their visits become a study in nervousness anytime they walk near trees.

“I believed him for like a month, and then somebody else told me he was lying,” White said, laughing. “That broke the shell, and he became a really good friend of mine.”

That includes on the court.

The Bulls didn’t know at first how a team-up between Giddey and White would work out, since White was getting used to point-guard duties and would have to relinquish them again to another player. Although they were clunky together at times initially, that changed when Zach LaVine was traded to the Kings in early February. White averaged 23.1 points per game after that, while Giddey averaged an eye-popping 20.2 points, 9.5 rebounds and 8.3 assists while shooting 45.7% from three-point range.

That’s All-Star-quality play the Bulls hope will resume this season. And if they want to move up in the Eastern Conference standings, it had better

The Bulls just invested $100 million in Giddey, and with White headed for free agency next offseason, could be handing out another $140 million to retain the former Tar Heel. That would be $240 million and not one All-Star appearance from either player.

That needs to change.

“The individual accolades come with team success,” Giddey said. “When you can win games, the individual stuff is a byproduct of it. For me, All-Star, all those things, those will happen in time. And I’m not saying it’s going to be this year, next year or in five years. It might never happen. But part of being a player is about continuing to grow. Whatever it looks like after 82 games, it looks like. I never sit here trying to look three, four months ahead.”

For now, the Giddey-White pairing looks to be temporarily on hold. Heading into a preseason game in Cleveland on Tuesday night, White has been slowed by a calf strain the Bulls are treating with caution.

White doesn’t know exactly when he’ll be cleared to play. What he does know is the starting backcourt can be lethal when it’s fully up and running.

“[Giddey is] super competitive, and I am, too,” White said. “It took me an adjustment to get used to playing with him because sometimes I don’t think I’m open and he passes it, and I actually was open. I can use that to my advantage, which is why I worked on moving without the ball so much this offseason. because he can see passes that no one else thinks are there.”

And, unlike drop bears, they’re real.