Matas Buzelis isn’t big on setting individual goals.
It’s just not quite his style. Buzelis tries not to get bogged down by the big picture. He likes to keep things day to day. Make a simple to-do list. Focus on the granular work. Let everything else come in time.
But when the Chicago Bulls drafted him this summer, Buzelis allowed himself two goals. Nothing too extensive. Just a two-step plan for the best version of his rookie season.
Step 1: Win as many games as possible.
Step 2: Win Rookie of the Year.
If that seems like a high bar — well, you just haven’t met the kid.
Buzelis isn’t easily intimidated. He never carried himself with the deference of a rookie. Buzelis isn’t necessarily the loudest guy in the locker room, but he can’t be backed down from a challenge — an argument, a bet, a one-on-one competition.
And that irreverence extends to the court, where Buzelis refuses to show any hesitation. Kristaps Porziņģis? Joel Embiid? Giannis Antetokounmpo? Buzelis shrugs them all off. It doesn’t matter who’s under the basket. If Buzelis can see a path to the rim, he’s getting there.
It’s not a lack of respect. It’s a mantra Buzelis repeats any time he’s asked about an opponent: “I’m not afraid of anyone.”
Nobody?
“Nobody.”
It might be easy to pass this off as the overconfidence of a first-round pick who just turned 20 last month. Or even as the arrogance of an unproven rookie trying to self-talk his way into success. But that’s not Buzelis.
He doesn’t want any of this to come off the wrong way. He just knows who he is, who he wants to become. And there’s never been a doubt in his mind — not as a top NBA prospect, not before his debut and certainly not now — that he could be the best player to come out of the 2024 draft.
“I’m just a basketball player who loves the game,” Buzelis told the Tribune. “I’m not doing any of this for anything else. I just love it.”
Growing up fast
For Buzelis, the path to the NBA seemed simple.
After earning national attention at Hinsdale Central, he spent the final two years of high school playing for two of the top prep academies in the country — first Brewster Academy, then Sunrise Christian Academy. Then he joined a wave of fresh talent foregoing college to head straight to the pros, signing with the G League Ignite team with the sole goal of sidestepping to the NBA.
And then, of course, nothing went quite to plan.
Buzelis missed the start of the season with an ankle injury. He tried to shoulder that absence as a “blessing in disguise” that allowed him to learn the game from a different vantage point, but in reality it just meant a delayed debut. By the time he was cleared to play, the Ignite team was floundering.
Long before boosters pulled funding to shut the program down, the Ignite seemed doomed to fail. Buzelis and his team won only two games in the 2023-24 season. Injuries exposed the inexperience of the teenagers attempting to keep up against seasoned professionals. And although Buzelis felt players stayed close-knit as a group, their intention wasn’t always visible on the court.
“Sometimes it was like we weren’t really trying to win games all the time,” Buzelis said. “Guys were just worrying about getting to the league.”
It wasn’t anyone’s fault, Buzelis said. And he understood it. Ignite was a development program. Its primary goal was to develop players for the NBA, an objective the program accomplished by producing seven first-round draft picks in a four-year span. And Buzelis was a true success story, immediately elevating himself into a top-15 pick after impressing in only 26 games with Ignite.
Still, the way things ended with Ignite will always sting. For Buzelis, it was a lesson in losing — one that he didn’t want to repeat in Chicago.
Making a splash
Every Bulls practice ends the same way for Buzelis — find the most creative way to get the ball into the basket.
It’s an experiment in resisting gravity. Buzelis cradles the ball behind his head, tucks it under his knee, skips it behind his back before throwing it down through the rim. Sometimes, a teammate will try to meet him at the rim. Normally, they just stand to the side and watch, arms tucked across their chest, grins wide as the rookie goes flying again.
This part of the game has always come naturally to Buzelis. He loves to dunk — and he loves to dunk on someone even more, seeking a body in the air and the awkward fall that follows, taking that extra second to flex and pose and stare.
Buzelis typically doesn’t attempt tricky finishes in a live game — the best he can ever remember landing was a windmill — but he already is visualizing his first truly spectacular dunk in the NBA.
“If I’m getting out on a fast break and we’re up some points — I’m going to do something,” Buzelis promised.
He still isn’t sure what that signature finish will look like. Double-clutch? A 360 spin? Reverse?
“I’ll do anything,” Buzelis said. “Trust me. I will do anything.”
Now that the dunks are out of the way, coach Billy Donovan would like to talk about some basketball.
It’s not that Donovan doesn’t like the dunking. He loves it, actually. When Buzelis flashes to the rim with decisive brutality, Donovan sees glimpses of the long-term success he believes the rookie can build for himself.
But since the first day he met the rookie, Donovan has tried to make one thing clear — dunking can’t be the foundation of a player’s identity in the NBA.
“Everybody gets wowed by the dunks, right?” Donovan said. “And he will have some incredible, athletic highlight plays. But you’re probably at the end of the year going to count those on one or two hands out of all the possessions he plays. So yes, he’s got to attack, he’s got to use his athleticism in every way possible — but he has to have a game outside of that.”
Buzelis wasn’t a strong 3-point shooter when the Bulls drafted him. That had to change this season — and quickly — to fit into a new high-volume-shooting style.
Like every other Bulls player, Buzelis quickly became an attentive student of shooting specialist Peter Patton. The pair spent hours together in the gym, perfecting the way that his pointer finger traced the ball on the downward swipe of his follow-through, analyzing and correcting the way he held his hand aloft as he watched the ball sink through the net.
Buzelis quickly learned that no shot was ever truly perfect. There was always something to fix — the proximity of his hand to his right eye, the positioning of his feet in correlation to his hips, the weight of the breath he inhaled before releasing his shot.
“The attention to detail here — you don’t even realize how different it can be,” Buzelis said.
The payoff has been nearly immediate. Donovan maximizes the shot-making potential of his youngest players such as Buzelis and Julian Phillips by creating their 3-point opportunities in the corner, leaving above-the-break 3s to sharpshooters Zach LaVine and Coby White. And as a result, Buzelis is shooting 34.3% on 3-pointers, averaging at least one made 3 in the last 10-game stretch.
Shooting isn’t the solution for Buzelis. The Bulls drafted him for his decisiveness, his willingness to charge headfirst to the rim. But in the early weeks of the season, this part of his game mostly stalled out. Buzelis couldn’t figure out how to get around or shoot over or fight through NBA defenders, who were bigger and stronger and faster than any competition he had ever faced.
“It sounds obvious but, like, everyone in the NBA is so good,” Buzelis said.
Part of the challenge is bulking up. Buzelis is no pushover, but he weighed in at only 209 pounds (on a 6-foot-10 frame) when he entered the NBA. That’s a fairly standard challenge for a teenager — and one that only can be fixed in the kitchen. The Bulls didn’t put Buzelis on a diet, but they instructed the rookie to consume as many calories as possible, packing snacks and endless protein shakes into his daily routine.
But the issue is also tactical. For a while, Buzelis couldn’t get on the court because he couldn’t keep up mentally. He couldn’t create anything off the dribble, got lost in defensive rotations. Donovan would insert him into a rotation, then yank him when he clearly was flailing underwater.
Fans began to grow impatient after Buzelis went down to the G League to play in the season opener for Windy City. But Buzelis wasn’t worried. He knew what was coming — he just needed a little time.
“You can always grow,” Buzelis said. “You don’t have to be on the court. You can watch the whole game and learn. Of course you can learn a lot more when being on the court — but every opportunity, you can learn something.”
After the Dec. 13 win over the Charlotte Hornets, Donovan couldn’t help but crack a wry smile. Buzelis was frustrated. He had shot 1-for-11 from the floor. But to Donovan, it was the best 9.1%-shooting game he could have envisioned for the rookie.
Buzelis never stopped trying to get to the rim. He threw himself straight into the brick wall of Mark Williams’ chest, tried and failed to dodge through traffic in the lane. None of it worked. And that was OK. All that mattered to Donovan was the trying and what came of it — five rebounds, three blocks, three assists — even in the face of frustration.
“At 19 years old, he’s going to get hit — and he’s going to get hit in a way he’s never been hit before,” Donovan said. “It’s not quite finding a new identity, but it’s finding a new way to do things. And I’m not worried about him finding it.”
Making his name
There’s a third step, of course, to Buzelis’ plan: Become a star.
Buzelis doesn’t talk much about this part of the equation. It’s still early, after all. He’s still trying to figure out who he wants to be in the NBA — as a person and a public figure, not just a basketball player. But that doesn’t detract from how seriously Buzelis takes the business of being an NBA player.
Earlier this year, he connected with NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal while filming a documentary after his draft process. O’Neal immediately bought into Buzelis as a player. Within months, O’Neal had brought Buzelis on board with Reebok, a brand attempting to reenter the basketball shoe industry after years of detachment from the game.
Reebok doesn’t have much of a foothold in the NBA yet — in fact, Buzelis is the only Reebok athlete in the league. But that’s perfect for Buzelis. He doesn’t want to blend in.
“I’m trying to start a new trend,” Buzelis said. “I’m not trying to be like everyone else.”
At his core, Buzelis wants to stay the same person he always has been — which is why he doesn’t mind keeping close to home.
A small sliver of ink wraps around Buzelis’ left wrist, an intricate outline of a rosary detailed with the names of his father, mother, brother and sister — Aidas, Kristina, Vincas and Sophia. The tattoo was a new addition for Buzelis before his rookie season, a reflection of the crucial role his family played in his development on and off the court.
His father and mother — both former basketball players in Lithuania — operated as part of his management team ahead of the draft, preparing him for interviews and workouts alike. His little brother was the first to hear his decision to try for an NBA roster, a plan that started as a dream wished up on their hoop at home.
Now, Buzelis is living that dream — but he’s quick to remind that this is just the beginning.
The Bulls are in a transitional period as they consider a future without star Zach LaVine. And that future will most likely be centered around young talent like Buzelis. The rookie understands the potential underlying this moment — both for himself and for the Bulls as a franchise.
“We’re building something,” Buzelis said. “People just gotta watch.”
