{"id":454512,"date":"2025-12-18T01:28:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T01:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/454512\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T01:28:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T01:28:14","slug":"as-chicago-bulls-struggle-continues-matas-buzelis-learning-to-cope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/454512\/","title":{"rendered":"As Chicago Bulls’ struggle continues, Matas Buzelis learning to cope"},"content":{"rendered":"

It started out with a bang when the Chicago Bulls won their first five games for the first time since 1996-97.<\/p>\n

Matas Buzelis was on a roll, Nikola Vu\u010devi\u0107 looked like he\u2019d found the fountain of youth, and with a productive bench and the imminent return of injured star Coby White, the future looked much brighter than anyone had anticipated.<\/p>\n

But the season has since turned into a bust, and now the question of who will still be around after February\u2019s trade deadline is being debated ad nauseam.<\/p>\n

White and Vu\u010devi\u0107 look like the two most likely departees, and the only one seemingly safe from the trade talk is Buzelis, who is still growing into his role as a starter<\/a> but lacking the consistency he needs to be a prime-time player.<\/p>\n

In last Sunday\u2019s loss to the New Orleans Pelicans, Buzelis took only five shots in 23 1\/2 minutes, finishing with 9 points as the Bulls fell for the eighth time in nine games. The Bulls need him to grow up quickly, but they understand that it\u2019s all part of the growth process.<\/p>\n

Coach Billy Donovan said he\u2019s seen a lot of growth and development from Buzelis, though he believes some of it doesn\u2019t register on the stat sheet.<\/p>\n

\"ChicagoChicago Bulls forward Matas Buzelis warms up for a game against the Cleveland Cavaliers at the United Center in Chicago on Dec. 17, 2025. (Chris Sweda\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of times you look at the performance or shooting percentage or how many points he scores, but I don\u2019t really look at it that way,\u201d Donovan said before Wednesday\u2019s game at the United Center against the Cleveland Cavaliers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s doing a lot more this year with the ball in his hands than he did a year ago, and is having to guard a totally different player, going against much, much better players guarding him than a year ago. Those are growth opportunities for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buzelis just turned 21 in October and only began getting minutes about halfway into his rookie season, following the trade of Zach LaVine. This is his first full season as a starter<\/a>, and it\u2019s not fair to judge him on the first 25 games.<\/p>\n

But if the Bulls want fans to look at Buzelis as a core player who will lead the rebuild, he\u2019ll need to become a more productive scorer and improve on his 3-point shooting, along with getting better on defense.<\/p>\n

Entering Wednesday, he was averaging 13.6 points per game and shooting 32.4% from beyond the arc, despite taking the second-most 3 attempts (36-of-111) on the team behind Vu\u010devi\u0107 (44-of-116). The Bulls are tied with the Cavs for 20th in 3-pointing shooting and 26th in points per game, so he\u2019s obviously not the only one who needs to step up.<\/p>\n

And perhaps Bulls fans may have gotten too excited over his 27-point night against the Sacramento Kings in the fourth game of the season, when the team was still riding its early-season wave. LaVine basically passed him the torch, saying: \u201cMatas, this is just the trajectory he\u2019s going to be on. The athleticism and the mindset were already there.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he\u2019s been up and down since, and over his last 11 games entering Wednesday, Buzelis was shooting 22.4% from 3-point range and averaging 12.2 points.<\/p>\n

Donovan isn\u2019t concerned about Buzelis\u2019s confidence, which has never waned.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s handled things very, very well because of what\u2019s been thrown at him, and there\u2019s been a lot thrown at him,\u201d Donovan said.<\/p>\n

The ability to fight through the struggles is nothing new for a young NBA player, even for first-round draft picks like Buzelis<\/a>, who came in with the label \u201cproject,\u201d like so many of executive vice president of basketball operations Art\u016bras Karni\u0161ovas\u2019s first-rounders.<\/p>\n

Donovan compared Buzelis\u2019s up-and-down start to the beginning of Joakim Noah\u2019s college career at Florida, when Donovan was Noah\u2019s coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw Joakim Noah go through an amazing and incredible struggle his freshman year \u2014 really, really rough,\u201d Donovan said. \u201cAnd I\u2019ve never seen a player go through that and then come back the next year and go from where he was as a freshman to maybe being the No. 1 player in the draft (before) electing to come back.<\/p>\n

\u201dIt\u2019s definitely about these (learning) experiences. I\u2019ve said this for him before the season started \u2014 it\u2019s going to be this (way) for him. It\u2019s just him. To me, it\u2019s all how he internalizes it and comes out of it. If he doesn\u2019t come out of this better, then (the struggles) were for nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donovan said Buzelis is a smart player and looks at things the right way, which is what matters most. Last year, Buzelis was averaging 5.3 points per game over his first 25 games and playing only 13 minutes off the bench as Donovan treated him with kid gloves.<\/p>\n

One year later, the Bulls need Buzelis to grow up in a hurry or else face the likelihood of a long and grueling rebuild.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always say there\u2019s a bull\u2019s-eye on the problem, and you have to really address it,\u201d Donovan said. \u201cIf you can address the problem correctly, you can really grow from that, and I do feel from my conversations he\u2019s really internalizing a lot of stuff \u2026 It\u2019s a lot for him, and I give him a lot of credit for what he\u2019s had to handle these first 25 games, and he probably realizes how hard it is from where he was a year ago to where he is now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It started out with a bang when the Chicago Bulls won their first five games for the first…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":454513,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[23604,960,3127,3128,42766,5386,1818,20512,40045,6326],"class_list":{"0":"post-454512","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-billy-donovan","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-bulls","11":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","12":"tag-coby-white","13":"tag-il","14":"tag-illinois","15":"tag-lonzo-ball","16":"tag-matas-buzelis","17":"tag-nba-basketball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115737979312915349","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}