Another year of maturity was key in Coby White feeling like he was no longer sitting at the kid’s table.

Then again, getting the bump to a much higher tax bracket this offseason didn’t hurt the Bulls guard either.

“You can tell he’s just more confident with what he’s doing,’’ teammate Nikola Vucevic said of White. “He did sign a new deal, so that always helps as well. But playing point guard is a very difficult position in the NBA, so at a young age it’s not always easy to figure out. Coby has taken huge steps in doing that, in figuring it out.’’

But the real test for White is still to come.

He flashed a louder voice in the preseason when talking to teammates as the on-the-court general, but how will veterans like Vucevic, Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan respond in the fire of the midseason when White points out bad spacing or help that was supposed to come?

Coach Billy Donovan wasn’t the least bit worried.

“I do think his voice started last year in the second half of the year,’’ Donovan said Wednesday. “I feel good about his voice and I feel his voice is respected inside of our team. I’ve encouraged him to continue to use that because it’s been pretty well documented that at times we can be pretty quiet.’’

And Donovan knows vocal point guards.

He had Russell Westbrook and then Chris Paul when he was sitting in the coaching chair for the Thunder, and even in coming to the Bulls he immediately saw that Lonzo Ball could be very firm in letting teammates know where they needed to be.

White has not only continued gaining confidence in that area, but it is being welcomed by the veterans.

“I always say that for each individual player there’s 30 eyeballs on every guy, looking at him, judging him,’’ Donovan said. “Coby plays the game with zero intention in terms of selfishness or about himself, so I think that when he does speak it is genuinely coming from a good place. That’s the respect. The guys have seen that he’s not a finger-pointer, he’s not a blamer, everything he tries to do is for the team.’’

Balancing act

There’s no minutes restriction on Alex Caruso to start the regular season, but the Bulls will take a similar approach with the defensive-minded guard that they took last season: Protect Caruso from himself.

What that means is it’s a minutes watch more than a restriction with the end game in making sure Caruso is up and running late in the season and hopefully into a playoff push.

“When he gets up into the high 20s, low 30s (minutes played) on a consistent nightly basis there could be some issues, so I think we’ll always monitor that,’’ Donovan said. “At the end of the year you want to have kept him in that mid-20 area just to protect him, have him available for games.’’

The other unicorn

Thunder big man Chet Holmgren, who missed all of last season with a Lisfranc injury to his right foot, made his NBA debut against the Bulls, and was an immediate presence at 7-foot-1, despite his skinny frame.

Holmgren is considered to have the second-best odds to win Rookie of the Year, of course behind Spurs phenom Victor Wembanyama, but Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault was already loving what he was seeing from Holmgren.

“Great fearlessness,’’ Daigneault said. “His willingness to put his body in plays despite his frame – and despite what just happened on the last play. He’s willing to thrust himself into competition … risk failure.’’