cruel summer for bulls’ white

The first-round pick showed he has plenty of work ahead of him. Plus, take a look at the top rookie performers.

Coby White swears his three-point shot was falling in Summer League practices.

In his four Summer League games? Not so much. White, the No. 7 overall pick in June, wasn’t just cold from long range. He was frigid, leaving Sin City with a sinful 3-for-30 showing from three-point range.

‘‘I’m shooting it the same as I was in college,’’ White said of his struggles from outside.

Form-wise, that’s probably accurate. The results, however, were very different. White finished his one-and-done season with the Tar Heels shooting 82-for-232 (35.3 percent) from behind the arc.

Are the Bulls concerned about their new guard? Not really. Getting caught up in Summer League numbers is the equivalent of dwelling on NFL preseason stats. It’s all minutia until the games start counting.

A shooting slump in July? Move on. After all, there were more glaring concerns in White’s game the Bulls should be focused on fixing in the next few months.

There’s no question White is fast. In transition and in the open floor, he’s a blur. But his ballhandling is vanilla, and he has no wiggle to his game. He was having trouble beating anyone to the hoop in half-court sets, even when bigger players switched to him, and scouts were taking note of that.

The other concern with White was his ball security. Kris Dunn has gone from ‘‘core player’’ to trade candidate in the last year, and his turnovers have been a big reason why. White needs to make sure he’s not headed down that same road, especially if the Bulls are counting on him to develop (eventually) into a point guard.

The good news for White is that he has time. Even if Dunn is traded before the regular season starts, the Bulls’ signand-trade for Tomas Satoransky and Zach LaVine’s ability to run the point give White the ability to learn the game and get his 20 to 26 minutes per night off the bench.

So while the Summer League was a great way for White to jump into the pool, he definitely didn’t make the splash some other NBA rookies made.