CHICAGO — The turnaround for the Chicago Bulls offense can be tracked by one statistic: how many times Coby White and Josh Giddey have gotten to the free-throw line.

The Bulls are not good at getting to the line. They are dead last in the NBA in attempted free throws per game (19.3). But over the past five weeks, Giddey and White have tried to change that.

Since the All-Star break, Giddey and White have ranked in the top 30 of free throw attempts in the NBA. In that stretch, White averaged 5.4 trips to the line per game. Giddey averaged 5.3. And over the past 16 games, White is outperforming players like DeMar DeRozan in his volume of personal fouls drawn per game (4.6).

How are they doing it? It all comes down to analyzing the dirty work.

“I started realizing how much I could get to the line in terms of drawing fouls,” White told the Chicago Tribune. “I never saw that before. I wasn’t cerebral with it.”

There’s an art to selling a foul.

This is not the same thing as flopping. Or hunting fouls. The average NBA viewer — especially those who primarily watch on a screen from home — would be shocked at the sheer physicality of an average game. To translate contact into free-throw whistles, players have to perfect methods of drawing and accentuating fouls.

Many fans, players and coaches gripe about these methods of drawing whistles, but Giddey is practical about this reality: “Look — if it works, it works.”

It took time for White to embrace these methods. As a rookie in the NBA, he wanted to prove his toughness on every play. That meant that he often missed out on whistles because he was trying to absorb every hit he took.

As White grew into a more veteran — and crafty — player, he’s come to accept the necessity of not toughing out contact around the rim.

“Coach likes to call it ‘gamesmanship,’” White said with a laugh.

Both players began studying film with assistant coach Dan Craig, who provided guidance for how each guard could reposition his body and limbs on certain drives to elicit more foul calls.

White started taking an extra dribble on his way to the rim, inviting a defender to meet his body before he gathered the ball to begin his shot. Giddey learned to scoop up his layups lower to the ground, creating a wider parabola to the rim that increased the likelihood of an opponent slapping his arms in an attempt to reach the ball.

“Any time I start to feel contact, I’m figuring out how to sell it a little more,” Giddey said. “I’ve never been able to be that guy. Some guys are elite at selling contact — I don’t want to say flopping, but making the contact seem more than what it is. Even coming into this season, I wanted to be better at that and get to the line.”

And OK, yes, before you ask: the hair plays a factor.

White and Giddey rock the two most voluminous hairstyles on the entire Bulls roster. And when they use the textbook trick to sell hard contact — jerking their chin skyward to pantomime being knocked backward — a full flow of hair follows, giving the referee a vibrant visual of the potential foul.

That’s not why the pair of guards are also drawing the most fouls on the team. But White won’t deny — it sure doesn’t hurt.

“The hair definitely helps,” White said. “It’s all those little things. There’s an acting to it but, like, everybody does it. It all goes so fast, you have to make sure the referee sees what actually happens.”

All the tricks in the trade, however, can’t explain this sudden uptick in free-throw volume for the Bulls duo. The real answer is much simpler — Giddey and White are getting downhill like their lives depend on it.

Free-throw attempts are statistically intertwined with a guard’s volume of drives to the rim. It’s a logical throughline. When an elite ballhandler gets a full head of steam on the way to the basket, it’s difficult for the defense to react without creating incidental contact. For instance, Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander leads all guards in the NBA in free-throw attempts (8.9) and drives to the rim (20.6).

Giddey’s and White’s increase in repetition at the free-throw line is paired with a sudden uptick in the volume of rim drives. Since the All-Star break, Giddey is 12th in the NBA with 14.9 drives per game. White is right behind, ranking 13th with 14.7 drives per game.

This is a modest increase for White, who was averaging 11.7 drives per game. But Giddey has taken a major leap after averaging only 8.9 drives to the rim before the All-Star break. This was a conscious effort by Giddey that began with eliminating his favorite floater, a bail-out shot in the midrange that had become one of the least efficient looks for the Bulls.

“It wasn’t helping me to settle all the time,” Giddey said. “I’ve been trying to make a conscious effort of getting all the way to the rim every time and getting to the free throw line. It keeps the scoreboard moving. If you feel like you can’t get going offensively, getting to the line can generate that.”

The shift was less dramatic for White — and more of a practical necessity.

White absorbed all of Zach LaVine’s responsibilities following the former star’s trade at the February deadline. The guard hasn’t changed his actual style of play, but his workload skyrocketed after LaVine headed to Sacramento.

While Giddey adapted his approach in the half-court, White has become particularly elite at driving to the rim in transition, where he averages the second-most points (6.7) in transition. This area of White’s game highlights the development of his core strength since he entered the NBA as a 19-year-old.

Over the years, White has filled out into a stocky guard with a strong base. His three-a-day training sessions in the offseason pair traditional weight lifting with cross-training exercises that include paddle boarding and mountain biking. Now, defenders bounce off the guard as he plows to the rim.

“It’s a huge difference in terms of keeping my balance in there and being able to take those hits on the ball and still being able to handle the ball and finish the contract,” White said. “I knew I needed to get a lot stronger. Me being able to get downhill is a testament of just getting stronger in my body and really growing up.”

Free throws aren’t a cure-all for the Bulls. But this method of drawing them is an important step toward strengthening this offense.

The Bulls led the NBA in paint points over the past 10 games, a stretch that also saw their 3-point shooting drop to thirteenth in the league (13.7 per game) in makes from behind the arc. Improving their offense inside the arc is a clear solution for a post-LaVine offense that can’t thrive on long-range shooting alone, especially when players like Lonzo Ball are sidelined due to injury.

And in the meantime, White and Giddey won’t say no to a few more trips to the foul line.

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