Rookie Matas Buzelis Seems To Have Bulls Believing In Element Of Surprise

October 14, 2024

Perhaps one of the least-mentioned lottery picks of the 2024 NBA Draft resides in Chicago. At least, Bulls forward Matas Buzelis isn’t mentioned a lot when the idea is national exposure and making an immediate impact.

But the Bulls already clearly value his upside, and with good reason. Buzelis already looks NBA-ready. He also already sounded like a seasoned pro when sharing his early experiences in a sit-down interview with Spencer Davies of RG.org.

“It was a tough training camp, but I learned a lot,” Buzelis told Davies. “I expected it was gonna be tough, a lot of competition and playing against the best players in the world. Just learning how to read the game defensively, offensively. And then, it was just a lot of running, a lot of conditioning. High-intensity stuff.”

Buzelis, 20, is 6-foot-10 and was selected with the No. 11 overall pick. He hails from Lithuania but spent last season with the since-folded G League Ignite. That experience helped quickly pave the way to the NBA — which is the exact purpose of the G League.

“They showed me the NBA schedule you’ve got to follow, they showed me how to play against NBA players, they showed me how to compete, and [I had] NBA coaching and training,” Buzelis told Davies. “But they really instilled a lot of stuff in me about the NBA, so I feel like I have a slight advantage walking into my rookie year.”

The Bulls are hoping that’s indeed the case.

“He’s active. He runs the floor. He’s aggressive. He’s physical. He’s gonna get stronger,” coach Billy Donovan said. “… Overall, I love his mentality, He’s got a really good work ethic, he wants to get better, and he’s got a toughness to him competitively the way he plays.”

Chicago is banking on all those things and more as it attempts to go from being a play-in regular to true playoff sleeper.

You can check out Davies’ full in-depth piece on RG.org right here.