Chicago Bulls guard Coby White may not win the 2024 Most Improved Player award, but it's hard to argue against the idea that nobody else around the league showed greater improvement from last season than him. On Wednesday night, White showed just how far he has come.

In a 131-116 win over the Atlanta Hawks that gives the Bulls a chance to make the playoffs as the eight seed, the fifth-year guard out of UNC scored his most-ever points in a single game in his professional career, dropping 42 points on a stellar 15-of-21 shooting from the field.

White is only 24 years old, and for him to show this kind of improvement bodes well for his and the Bulls' future together. In fact, White has gotten to the point where he's evoking Jalen Brunson comparisons — with a reporter reminding the Bulls guard of the expletive he used to describe the New York Knicks star.

“Yeah I called [Brunson] a motherf**ker. I don't know what they saying, but I hope so [that the opposing players are saying the same thing about me],” White said in a hilarious exchange during his postgame presser, per Julia Poe, Bulls reporter for the Chicago Tribune.

Indeed, no Hawks player will soon forget how unforgiving Coby White was to their defense on Wednesday; White was electric, pulling up from multiple feet from beyond the arc while getting to the rim at will. The 2023-24 season has been White's coming-out party, making the Bulls' future outlook less bleak than it looked amid their continued refusal to trade their veteran “star” trio.

Why did Coby White use an expletive to describe the Knicks star?

Jalen Brunson has played at a superstar level all throughout the 2023-24 season, but his game has exploded to the next level with the season-ending injury to Julius Randle. During the Bulls' April 9 meeting against the Knicks, Brunson put up 45 points on 54.2 percent shooting from the field, adding eight rebounds as well in a 128-117 win for New York.

In the end, all Coby White could do during his postgame presser was to tip his hat towards Brunson, calling him a very bad man using some very colorful language.

The Bulls and Knicks, more likely than not, won't be meeting again this season, unless Chicago channel their inner 2023 Miami Heat and meet New York in a rather improbable Eastern Conference Finals matchup. Thus, fans will have to wait until later this year before seeing these two guards go head-to-head yet again.

The Bulls guard to follow the Jalen Brunson breakout route?

Heading into the 2021-22 season, only the most diehard of Jalen Brunson fans thought that he'd emerge into anything more than a high-caliber starter in today's NBA. Brunson played such a small role during the Dallas Mavericks' 2021 first-round exit against the Los Angeles Clippers, and no one batted an eye when he began the 2021-22 campaign in a bench role.

Alas, following an injury to Kristaps Porzingis, Brunson began to emerge as more than just a quality starter. He then broke out as a full-fledged star during the 2022 NBA playoffs, and he has done nothing but improve since signing a huge contract with the Knicks in free agency.

For Coby White, the contract he signed this past offseason (three-year, $33 million) was indicative of his standing within the franchise. He was an improving player, and he was named as the starter to begin the year, but he was largely expected to take a backseat to the Bulls' trio of DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine, and Nikola Vucevic.

Alas, LaVine has been out for the majority of the season, opening up an opportunity for White to command a ton of usage. As a result, White's numbers improved across the board. He averaged 9.4 more points, flashed an improved all-around game and was more confident all around.

Jalen Brunson was 25 when he burst onto the scene as a star for the Mavericks. Coby White, if he continues his trajectory of improvement, could soon hear from his peers that he, indeed, is a “motherf**ker” (in a good way, of course).