Bulls bad, but Buzelis good

preseason presenting a best case scenario for this season

Preseason never means anything. I mean, there’s people who will delude themselves into thinking it might mean something, and it never does.

But it might work for us…

Indeed, Matas Buzelis looks promising, and I think special consideration should be made that he also looks:

1. Exciting and cool to watch, which is not something the Bulls have had in a while

2. Very large, so it just feels - caveats about preseason already stated - more sustainable and useful than if he was some tiny guard having a hot shooting stretch

But the Bulls team as a whole, especially the starting lineup that includes Buzelis, looks pretty bad. I had to chuckle at this note from new-to-the-beat Joel Lorenzi at The Athletic¹ after the Bulls fell behind early against the Timberwolves, a trend all preseason:

It’s preseason, and every team the Bulls have played is objectively better than them, but teams have just generated far better looks at a far better frequency this early in the game. This defensive identity thing will be a slow, slow burn.

Let’s be ‘objective’: the Bulls are definitively worse than all but, what, 6 or 7 teams in the league? They’re only in consideration for a play-in spot because they make it their implied mission statement when other teams will likely tank after injury, and they are in the JV conference.

And the ‘defensive identity thing’ is just spin from a do-nothing and know-nothing executive. Unlike the ‘offensive identity thing’ from last season that they are spiking the football over, you get less credit for a style of play versus actual effectiveness.

Preseason can’t confirm this, but we can look at the roster and reasonably project this will not be an effective defense. Without Coby White - who missed the entire preseason with a calf strain² - they will not be an effective offense either.

They may not even be an effective offense with Coby White, as even after including him there looks to be a fundamental problem where all this vaunted depth on the roster is with one-way players. Including Nikola Vucevic, who likely won’t have a repeat of a career-best shooting season in his age-35 season like he did at 34. I brought this up in my post saying the Bulls should extend Ayo Dosunmu: it’s fine that Kevin Huerter can be replaced by Tre Jones, Isaac Okoro for Dalen Terry, Patrick Williams for Julian Phillips…but it’s not that good of a sign that all these guys are replacement-level, and there are so many non-shooters among them.

None of these players are projected to matter much. Not nearly as much as Buzelis, and speculatively Noa Essengue, who also showed flashes this preseason but as one of the youngest players in the league on a team that is trying to be ‘competitive while building’, won’t be a factor on the big club this year.

I figured the same for Buzelis last preseason, and though I was wrong I still think that was only due to the injuries to the frontcourt. That could potentially happen again, and combining that with Buzelis becoming more of a featured player while not being efficient yet, it could mean for a very bad record this year.

And…that would be perhaps the best result we could hope for this season?

Bulls miss out on play-in (let alone playoff) revenue, the front office continues to embarrass the franchise spinning that they’re trying to compete but don’t do anything materially damaging because they rarely do anything at all, they get fired and the new people have a pretty clean slate outside of a couple exciting young forwards as building blocks.

An accidental tank, that not only exposes how the front office has failed their stated plan of simultaneously “competing” and “building” by not doing either³, but also will allow Buzelis and possibly Essengue to get more reps AND net them a higher-value draft pick in 2026.

If not Go Bulls…Go That?

1. via a social media app that I will not link out of spite…annoyed that it’s looking like another season where all these reporters insist to stay on it, exclusively, for their in-game analysis

2. injuries are something else we can’t really take from preseason. It’s certainly not good news that Coby isn’t ready, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if he will play opening night because he is healthy enough to play in real games just not fake ones.

3. no credit for drafting Buzelis and Essengue as they are lucky other teams passed on them, and if you’re ‘building’ you need to be doing more to get more picks and higher-value picks, anybody can make 1 selection a year mid-round.