2024 NBA Draft - Chicago Bulls select Matas Buzelis with the 11th pick

[madvillian]

Franz is an elite on ball defender at 3 or even 4 positions and while not a great shot blocker gets a ton of contests and deflections.

There's some data that backs up Franz as very good if not elite on that side: https://cleaningtheglass.com/stats/player/4871/onoff#tab-team_efficiency


I actually think Matas has the potential to surpass Franz on offense as Franz doesn't have the lateral movement and handle that Matas has at 19, at 19 Franz was just a straight line driver and bully ball guy at Michigan.

Franz is by far the best modern comp, but it's not a perfect one. Overall, I'd say if Matas can get to Franz's year 3 impact by his year 3 we've got a borderline star and that's great.

Definitely not watching Franz every night to have a real opinion on his defense, just never heard people refer to him as a defensive guy.

I don't find on/off numbers to be compelling, so that as evidence doesn't mean much to me. That said, I'm also not saying you are wrong in your assessment of Wagner, if you've watched him a lot and think he's a good defender then I'll take your word for it.

He's an elite contest guy: https://www.nba.com/magic/news/franz-wagner-has-been-playing-the-best-defense-of-his-career-lately-20240224

Most reports have his wingspan around 7 feet so while he's not as springy as Matas he gets in the way a lot just being a big dude with long arms.

Coming out of Michigan I thought he had a high floor because of his defensive versaility and prowess and if he could hit triples the sky is the limit. So far he hasn't exactly shot it well, but otherwise imo he's been as advertised. I was certainly high on him after watching him at Michigan for two years. He transformed his body in that time and has continued to in the NBA.

All that said, Franz doesn't have the feel and handle and lateral movement Matas did at the same age. At Matas' age Franz was almost strictly a Pat like player at Michigan, where he attacked close outs on straight line drives and otherwise shot open threes. The three Franz airballed in the E8 is probably a lot of fans' lasting memory of him in college. Hopefully by the time he is 22 Matas has improved his shooting more than Franz.

[The Force.]

Based on the SL eye test he looks promising:
Nice fluid game. Doesn't rush. Crafty on offense. Generally has good instincts around the rim. Tight handle. Smooth release. Solid IQ. All the things you look for in a young player.

Again it's SL so grain of salt, of course. But as of right now I think Bulls fans should be fairly optimistic.

He looks FAR more than "promising". Like far more than that.

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Promising like SL all-stars Caleb Swanigan, Josh Selby, Jerryd Bayless, and of course our very own Denzel Valentine?

[drosestruts]

Franz is a good defender, but one of the reasons I've never really bought into the Magic is they're all simply try-hard defense guys.

Reminiscence in a lot of ways of the Thibs Bulls, they don't have another gear to go to in the playoffs. Banchero and Wagner both are putrid from an offensive efficiency standpoint.

The team just goes all out in the regular season, then loses to basically a one-man team of Donovan Mitchell in the playoffs.

[Chi town]

Buz will be warming the bench every time he passes an open 3.

Seems to be the biggest issue for him. He want to drive and dunk everytime.

[madvillian]

Wanted to give an overall assessment of him from SL. I probably watched about 90% of his minutes, maybe slightly more. Really just tuned out the 2nd half of the 4th today.

Watch on YouTube

The good: smooth offensive operator. has an advanced understanding of how to get to his spots and create space. good off ball as well. makes cuts with purpose. runs well in transition, is capable of being a secondary handler, at least against SL athletes, not just a tight handle for a guy his size but has a variety of fakes, hesis, dekes and other subtle moves he can use to get open. aggressive dunker. wants to dunk. has the athletic chops and body control to finish them. quick release on jumper for a guy his size. gets a nice rotation on the ball and when he misses usually it is from tired legs not form. willing defender. wants to block shots and also stay in front of his man. hustles in transition for the most part. has good hands which helps him on defense as well as on offense, gets a good number of moments where he can disrupt the play without fouling by using his hands and overall athleticism to break things up. showed flashes of alpha mentality, especially against Holland. big paws on a puppy.

The bad: objectively bad shooter regardless of how it looks. he's a 30/70/45 guy at absolute best right now as we leave SL. misses close a lot, but still misses. wants to play around contact rather than through it when not able to clear out for a dunk. doesn't have great touch on his 3-7 foot range for a guy with his size. initial motor is great but runs out of gas quickly. too casual at times on both ends for a guy that has played pro ball and you wonder if that is something a good college coach would have already largely fixed. sloppy travels and goal tends. this probably is at least in part due to his endurance issues and mental as well as physical fatique so hopefully can be addressed. adequate rebounder at best in the NBA. will get pushed around for a few years trying to grab them. can be over aggressive as a help side guy.

The ugly: that he fell to 11. Scouting fatique is a thing. if I had to highlight one thing for matas it's def his conditioning. he's young so he can obviously easily improve as he matures into a grown man instead of a teen but right now it's going to limit him to max 20 a game if it's not noticeabley better by preseason.

[GoBlue72391]

At the very minimum, Buzelis is going to give us some wild posters this year.

He's averaging over 2 steals and nearly 2 blocks over 4 SL games so far at 31 MPG. I wonder how much of that will carry over into the NBA as a rookie.

[GoBlue72391]

Surprised I haven’t seen this…

How long until he’s better than Patrick Williams?

Five regular season games? Two? Right now?

He isn’t Williams replacement. Ideally they play together. Unless we luck into Flagg or another star caliber F. Would be a hell of defensive frontcourt tandem at F.

He might not be Williams' replacement, but he could pretty quickly make people reconsider what star upside they ever saw in Pat.

A lot of people have faith in Pat to become a star, or at least had, maybe not so much anymore, but I don't even think Pat even believes he can become that kind of guy. I think he knows he's not built for that and never will be, but obviously he can't just come out and say that.

[GoBlue72391]

Based on the SL eye test he looks promising:
Nice fluid game. Doesn't rush. Crafty on offense. Generally has good instincts around the rim. Tight handle. Smooth release. Solid IQ. All the things you look for in a young player.

Again it's SL so grain of salt, of course. But as of right now I think Bulls fans should be fairly optimistic.

He looks FAR more than "promising". Like far more than that.

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??? I think promising is a great way to describe him. It implies optimism with just a hint of restraint at not going nuts over a handful of SL games. You're acting like it's an insult or a backhanded compliment.

What word would you use to describe him?

[GoBlue72391]

Buz will be warming the bench every time he passes an open 3.

Seems to be the biggest issue for him. He want to drive and dunk everytime.

I just had visions of Buzelis and Pat passing up 3s and hot potatoing it back to each other. I'm not actually concerned about that, just a funny passing thought

[pipfan]

I think he looks great for now. Seems like he has some fire in him, which will help a lot. Great pick-nice piece for the future. I think 15-20 min/night sounds right. We have plenty of guys who need minutes at the 3/4
PWill/Craig/Phillips/Terry/Smith/Duarte (should play with Vuc a bit) plus Matas
Let Ayo/White/Lavine eat all the guard minutes (Duarte and Carter can fight for the leftovers)

[navdeep_singh]

For all the talk on what he needs to do, for someone who apparently trains really hard and was made for this, I’m surprised at the need to increase his fitness and endurance as a pre-requisite to improve his shot and overall play. Someone who trains like that, at that age should bot be easily GASED and unable to go a full game at peak athletic level.

[sco]

For all the talk on what he needs to do, for someone who apparently trains really hard and was made for this, I’m surprised at the need to increase his fitness and endurance as a pre-requisite to improve his shot and overall play. Someone who trains like that, at that age should bot be easily GASED and unable to go a full game at peak athletic level.

Meh, the I remember Pat was gassed in SL going into his 2nd season. I think it takes more endurance for guys who are going from small roles to primary roles...especially for guys who play hard on both ends.

[WindyCityBorn]

Surprised I haven’t seen this…

How long until he’s better than Patrick Williams?

Five regular season games? Two? Right now?

He isn’t Williams replacement. Ideally they play together. Unless we luck into Flagg or another star caliber F. Would be a hell of defensive frontcourt tandem at F.

He might not be Williams' replacement, but he could pretty quickly make people reconsider what star upside they ever saw in Pat.

A lot of people have faith in Pat to become a star, or at least had, maybe not so much anymore, but I don't even think Pat even believes he can become that kind of guy. I think he knows he's not built for that and never will be, but obviously he can't just come out and say that.

He doesn’t need to be a star to be a good fit with Matas. He isn’t being paid like a star so no should even be concerned with that now.

[Infinity2152]

Lot of young athletes work out so much, it's hard for them to gain weight without a lot of extra protein. When my son was in HS football, they worked so hard doing two a days, he was actually losing weight until we boosted his protein intake a LOT. Diet's something a lot of young guys don't focus on, with a legit NBA training program and nutritionist, Matas weight and endurance should increase significantly.

[kodo]

For all the talk on what he needs to do, for someone who apparently trains really hard and was made for this, I’m surprised at the need to increase his fitness and endurance as a pre-requisite to improve his shot and overall play. Someone who trains like that, at that age should bot be easily GASED and unable to go a full game at peak athletic level.

This happens to almost everyone at that age, and right around January that's why it's called the rookie wall. Markkanen got completely hammered by it, and he's as talented as any 20 year old we've gotten lately, and Buzelis is a year younger.

TBH, I don't think Lauri's conditioning and strength really didn't peak until til he was 25.

[Jcool0]

Based on the SL eye test he looks promising:
Nice fluid game. Doesn't rush. Crafty on offense. Generally has good instincts around the rim. Tight handle. Smooth release. Solid IQ. All the things you look for in a young player.

Again it's SL so grain of salt, of course. But as of right now I think Bulls fans should be fairly optimistic.

He looks FAR more than "promising". Like far more than that.

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Promising like SL all-stars Caleb Swanigan, Josh Selby, Jerryd Bayless, and of course our very own Denzel Valentine?

Denzel averaged 11.6 ppg and 6.7 rebounds. On that same team Bobby Portis averaged 17.3 ppg and 9.4 rebounds (included 26 points and 10 rebounds in the title game. He was named to the 1st team).

[bledredwine]

Yeah, Matas is clearly a high risk, high reward guy.

He can learn to shoot, and become an absurdly strong player, or never learn to shoot and be a liability in the regard.

This is going to be very interesting.

[DuckIII]

Yeah, Matas is clearly a high risk, high reward guy.

He can learn to shoot, and become an absurdly strong player, or never learn to shoot and be a liability in the regard.

This is going to be very interesting.

Much more like basically no risk at all with a potentially high reward. He was the 11th pick in the draft and just looking at player traits alone was pretty obviously drafted well below his more valid range. If they redrafted tomorrow, even after only summer league, no way he’s on the board at 11.

The “risk” is literally only the possibility that we should have drafted someone else at 11 and passed on him. Because we were taking someone at 11 so the money, which is small, was already a sunk cost. And we gave up no extra assets to acquire him.

There is a potentially extremely high reward in Matas if he becomes a high quality shooter. But his floor even without a shot is very solid.

[bledredwine]

Yeah, Matas is clearly a high risk, high reward guy.

He can learn to shoot, and become an absurdly strong player, or never learn to shoot and be a liability in the regard.

This is going to be very interesting.

Much more like basically no risk at all with a potentially high reward. He was the 11th pick in the draft and just looking at player traits alone was pretty obviously drafted well below his more valid range. If they redrafted tomorrow, even after only summer league, no way he’s on the board at 11.

The “risk” is literally only the possibility that we should have drafted someone else at 11 and passed on him. Because we were taking someone at 11 so the money, which is small, was already a sunk cost. And we gave up no extra assets to acquire him.

There is a potentially extremely high reward in Matas if he becomes a high quality shooter. But his floor even without a shot is very solid.

True, I guess there's not much to lose with an 11th pick and he certainly looks much better than a typically 11th pick.

I hope that you're right about the floor. I really like the potential that I'm seeing. His step back and euro step are unguardable, if he can sink them.

He's quick, tall, and athletic, which as we know if a lethal combo, if he can put it all together.

[MrSparkle]

I don't see any risk/unplayable NBA floor. But I could see a disappointing rookie season if Billy keeps him on a very tight leash because of log-jams (Craig/Pat/Zach/Philips... Terry?? Javonte????), while the team also sucks.... That's always a depressing situation (throwback to Noah's rookie year).

In what world would this guy have a worse season than rookie Pat, Sochan, Jalen Green, Deni, etc.? They struggled mightily, but they played. He's got more length and skills than any of them. He'd have to shoot a god awful percentage like Terry, and be about as lost on defense as McDermott. No signs that he's that low IQ.

Right now, I don't know why AK has a way deeper forward rotation coming into a tank season than he did the last 3 years trying to "contend." We now have a forward log-jam. Terry is either due to perform better, or he should be cut/moved, as he's a waste of roster space if he can't play more than 200 minutes in his 3rd season on a team without Demar. Same with Pat and Phillips, to different degrees. Craig is a vet who could still contribute. Zach isn't spending any time at SG, with Giddey/Coby/Ayo and extra depth like Duarte, Jevon... possibly Lonzo.

I hate positional log-jams on losing teams. They make rotations more complicated. Why do they have a more stacked roster than they did last season? I mean; I kind of know why. They couldn't dump Zach. They drafted a lotto pick. Younger guys should be better. Everyone's healthier. They traded the 6th man for a starter. But I hope they still make a trade before training camp.