Noa Essengue isn’t a rookie.
He doesn’t fit the bill by the NBA’s definition. More than a year has passed since the Chicago Bulls drafted him with the No. 12 pick. He already made his league debut, playing his first regular-season minutes in a Bulls jersey last November.
Since then, Essengue has grown a couple of inches — though he’s still shy of 7 feet, despite the hopeful dreaming of many Bulls fans online. He speaks with a little more confidence. After the first session of summer league training camp Monday at the Advocate Center, Essengue caught himself referring to new draftees Caleb Wilson and Dailyn Swain as “good kids.”
“I can’t really say kids, you know,” Essengue said, stopping himself with a smile. “I’m also pretty young.”
Now 19, Essengue is growing up. But in actual on-court experience, he’s still seeking most of the milestones that define a rookie season. His first NBA points. First assist. First rebound. Maybe even a first impression on Bulls fans who never got a proper chance to know him.
Essengue’s rookie season added up to a grand total of 6 minutes, 2 seconds on the court over two games for the Bulls. He played four additional games for the Windy City Bulls in the G League while shuttling back and forth between the teams for the first two months of the season. During that time, Essengue dislocated his left shoulder twice.
After the second iteration of the injury, the Bulls medical team advised him to undergo surgery — a procedure that essentially “tightens” the shoulder by stabilizing the joint to prevent future dislocations — and forgo the rest of his rookie season. Just like that, it was all over.
Friday’s summer league opener in Las Vegas will mark Essengue’s first competitive basketball outing in seven months. He described himself as “98%” recovered from the procedure. His range of motion needs additional work, but he feels as if he’s playing with a “brand-new shoulder.”
And after watching last season from the sidelines, Essengue is more eager to get to summer league than most second-year players.
“Honestly, I just want to be back,” he said. “Not playing for the year, that was a hard time, I’m not going to lie. Just to be back out there, finding a new feeling for basketball, I have to learn how to play again. I just want to get back on the court and compete in a game, and summer league is a great time for that.”
Essengue still needs to define himself in the NBA — and so does new Bulls coach Tiago Splitter, who will use summer league as an opportunity to better understand the second-year forward.
Splitter said Essengue will shift from the three to the five in summer league. But he needs time to fully figure out his style of play and fit alongside his teammates, particularly Wilson and Swain.
If Splitter had to define Essengue by a position, he’d place him at the four. But Splitter isn’t cleaving to an old-school view of basketball positioning — an approach that fits well with the new front office’s preference for a lengthy, wing-heavy roster.
“The NBA has changed so much,” Splitter said. “You can’t even call (positions) ‘one, two, three, four, five’ and just put a number on it. You can play with five wings sometimes and no point guards.
“Last year, I played three or four months (with the Portland Trail Blazers) with no point guards. Basketball, you can play many ways. The NBA is turning to a positionless league because everybody’s got to be able to do everything.”
Although he couldn’t play, Essengue didn’t waste his rookie season. He learned from veterans such as former Bulls center Nikola Vučević about recovery and diet practices necessary for a professional. Still a teenager, Essengue welcomed the opportunity to grow into his body more during the last year, adding both height and weight to fill out into a more switchable frame.
Essengue also learned about himself. Even in a truncated rookie season, he noticed his tendency to linger on failed plays, often falling behind the frenetic pace of the NBA due to his inability to shake off mistakes. He hopes to be more mentally buoyant this season.
These lessons won’t fully make up for the season lost to injury. But Essengue believes he is better equipped to reintroduce himself to Chicago in his second year as a Bull.
“I saw a lot last year,” he said. “Even when you’re not playing, you learn a lot. So I will say this is like my rookie season, but now I’ve got the experience of last year. That’s a better opportunity for me.”
